Ravaged (Roman Holiday 4)

Her tan arms and white breasts. Her nipples. Her navel. Her pubic hair.

All her skin, pale at night, as though she were vulnerable.

Even naked, she was invulnerable.

“You’re going to get arrested.”

“No, I’m going to get in the water.”

The bottom made muddy squelching noises as she walked in. When she’d gone deep enough, she bent her knees, put her back to the water, and let it envelop her. She dipped back her head and wet her hair, and she looked radiant.

She would always do this. She would always get herself hurt, and she would always turn it into movement and transgressive grace, and he would always want to watch her do it, even though he couldn’t do it himself.

“Come in the water, Roman.”

“I’m going back to the house.”

But he stood by the edge of the pond, and she swam closer and swept her palm flat across the surface, splashing him.

He wiped the water off his face.

“Come in the water.”

“No.”

She splashed him again. “You’re no better than I am.”

Water dripped down his stomach, soaking his waistband. His jeans clung to his thighs. She splashed him a third time. “You feel it, too,” she said.

“What do I feel?”

“Everything.”

This time, she aimed for his crotch, and the water was surprisingly cold, which told him how hot he was. How hard.

“You’re being stupid,” he said.

She made a sound, too torn apart to be a laugh. “I’m always stupid.”

She wasn’t. He wanted to say it aloud, but he didn’t like this urge to make her feel better. An urge so strong, it was like a sickness, and he was supposed to be able to find all his sicknesses, pin them down and label them and store them away. He’d given himself over to the project, and if he couldn’t do that—if he couldn’t just not care about Ashley Bowman—then he was well and truly fucked.

Ashley used her whole forearm as a paddle and heaved a wave of water up onto his feet and calves. “Too distracted to do well in school,” she said. “Too lazy to go to college.”

She splashed him again and lowered her voice, imitating a male register. “Too lacking in ambition to keep the same job for more than a season. Lacking in moral principles. Lacking in sense.”

Her father, he

would guess. Roman had met her father once.

She sounded positively senatorial when she said, “When are you going to grow up, Ashley? When are you going to take on some adult responsibilities?”

This time, she pushed the water out from her body, her palm at just the right angle, and it hit him in the chest.

He felt foolish. She was always making a fool of him.

Making him feel things—all the wrong things. Because he didn’t even feel sorry for her. He had no pity for Ashley Bowman. What he felt when she used that voice, ran herself down in that tone that was so obviously her father’s tone, these patronizing observations about her behavior that were so similar to what he’d thought about her, that were so obviously her father’s observations—

What Roman felt was angry.