Ravaged (Roman Holiday 4)

The words sounded harsh, but it was unbearable not knowing anything of what she had planned or how she intended to accomplish it. She doled information out to him one drip at a time—torture.

Her thumbs dug into the muscles on either side of his spine. “I guess I’m telling you. But I’d rather … look, Roman, I know I’m kind of making you do this, but—”

“There’s no ‘kind of’ about it. You’re blackmailing me into doing this.”

Her punishing fingers dug harder into his shirt, into his skin and muscle, forcing the tension from him even as her proximity made it worse.

She smelled like the ocean. How was that possible? He knew her shampoo now, her soap, her face wash. None of them smelled like the sea. It was Ashley.

“I know I’m blackmailing you, but do you think we could try to

make it more pleasant? I mean, here you are. Here I am. Just because we’re stuck together doesn’t mean we have to fight all the time.”

Her fingers were lighter now. Gentling him. “I could tell you more about the plans,” she suggested. “That way, you could contribute. I’m not really cut out to be the planner anyway. I’m more of the good-time girl, you know? I’ll make sure we have drinks for happy hour, you make sure we have enough gas in the car and a chance of getting to our destination on time.”

“You’re going to give me a say.”

“I guess I’d like to. If you can accept that ultimately I’m … you know. That ultimately it’s my trip.”

“That you’re in charge.”

“Yeah.”

He let go of the shelf and turned around. She didn’t give him any room. The aisle was wide enough, and he thought about pushing her away. Flattening his hand over her collarbone and exerting just enough pressure to get the distance he needed from her bewildered blue eyes and her ocean smell.

But to move her, he’d have to touch her.

“There’s no question you’re in charge, Ashley. If I were in charge, I’d be in Miami.”

“I know, but—”

“But you’re right. It would be a hell of a lot easier for me if you told me what was happening and gave me a role to play besides chauffeur.”

“It would?”

“So why don’t you tell me what’s on our list?”

“Our list?”

She kept repeating his statements as questions.

She kept smoothing her palms over the caps of his shoulders, as though she had some reason to be touching him, some authorization he hadn’t given her.

Her pupils were huge. The lighting was dim.

That didn’t explain why her nipples were hard.

She wanted him. He’d thought it was a joke before—that kiss just before she fainted, all her sly remarks—but it didn’t feel like a joke. It felt dangerous, this tight pull in his balls and her permissive hands.

He pushed them off. “The list of what we’re here to buy.”

She looked at the floor and shoved her fists in the pockets of her minuscule shorts. Then she took them out and crossed her arms.

“Hang on.” She walked rapidly toward the front of the store. He watched her borrow a notepad and a pen from the storekeeper and begin writing.

He measured the height of the countertop, the crease at her hip, and the angle he would have to bend her at. The tightness of her shorts over her ass.

She turned around and saw him doing it, and something in her face—something in the way she leaned into the countertop a fraction when she turned back around—told him she knew what he’d been thinking.