Ignited (Roman Holiday 5)

This upset him. Had scarred him.

“Whenever that happens—which it does, every five years or so, my whole life—reporters start looking up other bad shit Mariel immigrants have done, and they’d start calling the house and Patrick’s office at the diocese. That time, one of them knocked on the door. Samantha and I were home. I guess Patrick … he must have thought it was time for us to know, because he gave an interview right in front of us, and that was how we found out my dad was the reason neither one of us had a mommy. That’s when I understood why Patrick had never adopted me like the nice lady from the Department of Children and Families sometimes hinted he might, and why he never would.”

He paused. Exhaled.

“Samantha and I were never quite the same after that,” he said. “She couldn’t forgive me, I think.”

“That’s terrible.”

“It wasn’t her fault. We were just little kids. And even if that hadn’t happened the way it did, it would have happened somehow, sooner or later. Patrick knew that. In my town, most people never forgot what my dad did, or got over it. They took these refugees into their homes—a lot of them, into a lot of homes—and they felt violated by the murders. They hate Castro in that town. Some of

them, some of their kids—they weren’t too fond of me, either. I look like my father, a little bit. I mean, I do look like him, but even if I didn’t, I’m black. They’re not. There was just me, with this skin, in that town.”

“They should have sent you to live somewhere else. Somewhere where you could have a fresh start.”

“No, I think … I think some people just don’t have a place.”

“That’s not true.”

She said it automatically, and he kind of smiled at her. She was half draped over his lap, her hand between his, her face against his shoulder, and he gave her this uncertain smile that hooked into her heart and tore when it tightened.

She thought, If I could, I would give you back everything you never got to have.

All she could say was “It’s so unfair.”

“It is what it is.”

For the first time since they’d met, his eyes were naked, and he looked so young, so yearning, that without thinking she reached up with her free hand and touched his face.

He closed his eyes.

“My grandma told me once that I had a spark of starlight in me.” Ashley paused, then plunged ahead. “That probably sounds stupid to you, but it helped me.” She grazed her fingers over his temple, her palm over his hair. It felt softer than she’d expected.

She thought, touching it, of how it would look if it were longer, curling against his head. Of how it would be if people could see this soft part of him on the outside.

More than he could bear.

She traced the outline of his ear. Found the strength in his neck, his hard shoulder. She turned her hand and rested the backs of her fingers against his throat, where his pulse beat.

“You do, too, you know.”

Roman put his hands at her waist, pulling her closer and leaning back until she had to straddle his lap. She felt the exhalation of his breath on her lips, and there was no room left for her to doubt this.

They were lost, both of them. Cast out. But his palms came up to cover her ears, and she heard the quiet whoosh of blood moving through his body, her heart beating between his hands, all the life in them and around them, and she didn’t mind being lost, so long as she could have him with her.

He kissed her. His dry lips, a warm, soft press that was comfort and amity, empathy, understanding.

He kissed her. The yield of his mouth, the discovery of the tip of his tongue, wet and alive, parting her lips. Her heavy lids, eyelashes sinking, meeting, her jaw moving and his hands settling on her shoulders, cupping her ribs, lifting her up. She made a sound, or he did, both of them giving in to the heat flaring deep inside them. Always there. Burning. Waiting.

He kissed her and said, “It’s not stupid.” She didn’t know what he meant until he said, “Hope.”

They quit talking and kept kissing, their tongues dipping, parleying, mating, exploring, their breath mingling in this empty space, this empty town that wasn’t empty. Her skin woke, warmed, a tightening in her breasts, an angry reawakening between her legs. Her breath came short, because she wanted him. She didn’t know if there had been even one moment since she first saw him that she hadn’t wanted him and been plagued by doubt about whether and why and how—questions that didn’t matter now.

None of it mattered.

Roman was kissing her, and it was all that mattered.

CHAPTER FIVE