Not just any person. Him. Rocco.
Before I’ve realized he’s moved, he extracts my coffee from my grasp, placing it on the coffee table he was seconds ago sitting atop of.
Sitting in front of me, he offers me the power of position. I’m above him, looking down on him in expectation.
“I see the way you look at me, Cami,” he tells me quietly. “The lazy want in your pretty blue eyes. The color that hits the top of your cheekbones when you’re thinking about all the things you want me to do to you. You want me to fuck you,” he states, arms stretching out behind him, palms pressing into the soft carpet of his living room.
I don’t dispute his words. As much as I know I should. I will myself to laugh in his face, to tell him he’s delusional. But the truth is, he’s right. Denying his statement would only make me look like a fool. I know I should feel shame. That I should be disgraced and disgusted at myself for letting myself want him. But I can’t. Because rejecting what I truly feel seems hopeless at this point.
I seek him out more than any other person in my life. I feel stronger around him than I ever have before. Rocco Shay has sparked something inside of me, something I long thought dead. Attempting to deny that would be like extinguishing my own flame. And I’m selfish enough to admit I don’t want to do that.
“Thing is, Cami,” he sighs. “I’m not interested.”
Embarrassment fists itself around my heart. I attempt to swallow it down, but find myself choking on it instead. I clear my throat, unsure of what to say or how to act. I shift in my seat, wanting nothing more than to flee his space. Would he let me leave with my dignity? Would he let me walk from his home and pretend he didn’t just cut me with a heavily serrated knife of disregard?
He watches my humiliation in an unaffected silence.
“I need more,” he finally adds. The words are barely audible, so quietly spoken I could scarcely hear them over the heavy drum of my heart.
“More?” I ask stupidly.
“More,” he concurs.
I blink, the fist around my heart easing its grip, letting it run away with the thundering rhythm of uncertainty.
“Never imagined I’d want someone to call my own,” he confesses. “Have someone that fed my obsession and was borderline psychotic in their need to possess my heart in the same way. Truth be told, I questioned the existence of an actual heart inside my body. Shocks me to admit it’s there, and it’s just as crazy as the rest of me.”
Silence settles between us.
“For you,” he murmurs. “It’s fucking head over ass crazy for you.”
“Me?” I ask, dumbfounded.
That makes him smirk. “Yeah, beauty.” He shifts closer. “Do I want to fuck you? More than anything. I want to possess every inch of your beautiful body, burying my cock so deep inside, there isn’t a single part of your body I haven’t claimed. I want to own you the way you unknowingly own me.”
I stare, eyes wide without blinking. He shifts closer once again until he’s kneeling between my legs.
“Question is, what do you want? Because if it’s just a quick hard fuck when you feel in the mood, my answer is no.”
He reaches up, swiping his thumb against the collection of freckles that decorate the bridge of my nose and cheeks.
“I can’t seem to read you, Rein. Do me a solid and tell me what you feel?” he asks, the palm of his hand wrapped tightly around my forearm, keeping me close.
“About what?”
His eyes bore into mine; pools of gray that never seem to end. Eyes that I forever want to become lost in.
“About me,” he murmurs.
My throat tightens, the intensity in his gaze cutting off my ability to breathe.
“My heart and my brain are at war,” I whisper. “I’m broken.”
“You’re perfect,” he combats quietly, the words nothing less than vehement.
“And you’re broken,” I continue.
“We’re both broken, but together all our broken pieces, they make a beautiful fucking whole, Cami.”
I bite my lip to stop the wobble in my chin, my eyes squeezing shut as I nod quickly.
“My heart is screaming for you,” I confess. “But my mind won’t let me forget all the things you’ve done. The damage you tried to inflict. Every time I think I’ve quelled the power in its voice, it rears its ugly head, making me believe I should hate you still.”
He watches me in understanding.
“Tell me you regret it. Tell me it was all a mistake, Rocco. Make me believe you,” I beg, pulling my arm free of his grasp to cup his face.
His nostrils flare, panic painted openly across his features. “I can’t,” he insists. “I can’t do that.”
The wet line of my lashes brush my sockets as my tears fall in heartache.
“I can tell you I’m sorry that I had so much hate inside me, I welcomed it spreadin’ like a cancer. I can tell you I’m sorry that so many people were hurt by my stupidity. I can tell you that losing Mira sliced away a piece of my heart that I ain’t ever getting back. I can tell you I’m sorry,” he declares. “But regret it… no. I can’t do that.”
My eyebrows, pulled together in confusion ease with the touch of his thumb brushing down my forehead.
My hands fall away from his face and I see the hurt that causes him.
“I don’t regret Marcus dying,” he argues, more to himself than to me. “I don’t regret Codi and Parker findin’ love in the hopelessness of the situation I created.”
He watches me quietly for a beat, shifting closer so that when he breathes in, his chest touches mine. “I don’t regret finding the best friend I’ve ever had,” he admits, his words a quiet promise. “I don’t regret loving her harder than I’ve ever loved anything or anyone in my whole entire life.”
He pauses, choosing his next words carefully. “Which is saying a lot considering I was ready to kill for my mom. There’s no limit to what I’d do to protect you, beauty. No fucking limit. It scares the shit outta me.”
My nose stings and my eyes ache as I attempt to hold back my tears.
“How can I regret the reasoning behind finding myself in someone else? Something I never thought would happen to me. Tell me, beauty, how the fuck do I regret that?”
I lean forward, wanting to feel his lips against mine. Wanting my lips to determine if I’ve forgiven him because I no longer trust how I feel.
He grabs my jaw though, stopping me just before our lips connect. “Are we doin’ this? Because I ain’t interested in just a taste.”
I hesitate. “You love me?” I test, both shocked and elated and confused that someone with a heart as dark as Rocco’s could find itself able beat for another. More, that my cold, splintered heart could do the same.
He laughs. “Baby, love ain’t a strong enough word for what I feel for you. I love Parker. I fucking bleed for you. My heart only started beatin’ again when you saved it from givin’ out.”
Warm, fresh tears fall from my eyes, dropping along my cheeks in a river of emotions I don’t know how to articulate.
Barely a breath from my eager lips and he whispers, “And I think you feel the same for me, too. I just need to know if your love for me is loud enough to drown out those doubts that are keeping you just outta my reach.”