Page 14 of Star Crossed
Jules nodded, still feeling dazed by the entire evening. “Oh yeah.”
“What’re we gonna do about that, Juliet?” Romeo sat back in his chair and ran a hand over the fine hairs on the back of his neck as he studied her. “You don’t strike me as a rule breaker.”
“I’m not,” she assured him. “I always play by the rules.”
“But not tonight?”
“Nope, not tonight. I told my brother I was out on a date with a cop.”
Romeo had been taking a sip of his water but coughed into his glass. Then looked at Jules with wide eyes and laughed. “Are you friggin’ kidding me?”
“No.” Jules laughed with him. “Wyatt hates you. I couldn’t tell him I was buying you dinner.”
“I’m personally insulted by that.” Romeo did a very good job of feigning insult. “I don’t think I like being your dirty secret.”
“I’m sorry.” Jules frowned before an incredulous laugh burst out of her. “Were we pretending to be allies? You’ve been bad-mouthing my best friend and my brother to the media for the past four months.”
“That’s part of the game. It’s what the promoters want. It’s what the fans want, and I like to give the fans what they want seeing as they’re the ones who make sure I get a paycheck. And I thought we already decided we weren’t enemies.”
“True,” Jules had to reluctantly agree. She took another bite of her forgotten dessert, letting the sweetness rest on her tongue for a long moment before she sighed. “I’m not real sure what we are.”
“What would you like us to be?” Romeo countered tauntingly, his tone daring her to be honest.
Jules sat there quietly as she considered her answer. She really didn’t want to be enemies with him, not after tonight, not after what he’d done this morning. She genuinely liked him, but it was more than that. She was drawn to him like a moth to a flame. Everything in her was humming for something she was finding hard to name. Friendship, sure, but there was something much more carnal between them. The wordloversseemed all wrong; it implied something soft and sweet and romantic, which was the very last thing she wanted from a man like Romeo.
“Sweaty and naked,” Jules finally settled on. “Wild, sweaty, and naked. That’s what I want us to be.”
Romeo sucked in a sharp breath. His eyes widened. His entire body tightened as if something electric had struck him, but Jules had to give him credit. He recovered quickly and leaned forward as his voice dropped to a low hum of arousal. “You wanna take off?”
Jules nodded, feeling breathless with excitement. “But I got a brother sprawled out over the bed in my room.”
Romeo sighed, his body taut with obvious anticipation. “I got the same problem times two, but I have a black American Express that says I can rent any room this hotel has to offer.”
“I pay for the dinner. You get the room,” Jules said with a swift, lawyerlike efficiency.
“I’ll text you the number.” Romeo straightened his suit jacket as if looking for some way to cover up things that had risen. “Going up separate is a good idea. This place is crawling with tabloid photographers after the drama today. A dinner is one thing; leaving together is another. You could end up explaining more than you want to your brother when our picture ends up on TMZ.”
That was very true. Wyatt and Romeo had been a little too vocal about hating each other. Jules getting caught on this date, especially after the national news making drama of this morning’s shoot out that Romeo was smack-dab in the middle of, was a little too newsworthy, and Jules should’ve considered it.
“I’ll meet you there,” Jules agreed when Romeo tossed his napkin on the table and stood. He walked past her, and Jules couldn’t help but reach out and grab his wrist. She looked up at him imploringly. “You’re not a dirty secret. You know that, right?”
He gave her an amused smirk. “Yes, I am.”
Jules let go of his wrist and winced, hating to admit he was right. “Shit.”
“Hey.” Romeo reached out and cupped Jules’s chin. “I get it. Don’t worry about it.”
Jules took a shuddering breath because his touch felt so good. He shocked her by rubbing his thumb over the curve of her bottom lip. Her eyes fluttered closed, and she moaned just from the simple caress. Unable to help the indulgence, she licked at the rough pad of his thumb, savoring just that hint of a taste of him.
“Jesus,” Romeo groaned.
Jules opened her eyes, giving him a look that must have conveyed exactly how she felt—pent up and pulsing with a raw sexuality that left her aching for something wild and raw and hard in a way few would understand.
Romeo slammed his other hand against the table, heedless of the bandage and fresh stitches beneath it as he leaned heavily into her. It’d be so easy to run her hands over his beautiful body. To push aside his suit jacket and pull open the buttons to his expensive silk shirt.
Jules wasn’t the only one fighting for sanity. If anything, Romeo was worse off, and she shoved at his stomach before they caused a scene. She brushed her fingers against the ridges of hard, abdominal muscles hidden beneath his shirt as she rasped, “Go.”
Romeo’s hand slid to the back of her neck, his thumb caressing the curve of her throat. “I’m gonna make it good for you, Juliet.”
