Read Online Roman Holiday: The Adventure Continues by Ruthie Knox - Free Book Online

want and need. How to risk.
    She must have had this potential inside her, all that time when she’d thought she was ice. Because otherwise, how to explain what had happened when she first saw him?
    How to explain that she’d recognized him and claimed him, her first risk in eleven yearsof blank, suitable safety?
    Noah stroked her breast. Pressed her nipple. Too sensitive, she shied from his touch. He moved his hand away and she grabbed it back, hypocritical, mistaken, silently asking for another chance. He gave it to her, firm pressure, a tweak, a twist that made her grip the headboard tighter, and
oh!
    Another chance. He’d done it again, distracted her from the building rush of pleasure between her thighs just long enough for it to crest and break, hot wet intense tightening affirmation in her abs and her thighs and her breasts, heat climbing her neck and that spot beneath his tongue clenching pulsing
yes, yes, yes
.
    Noah made her come.
    Coming made her cry.
    He rolled her over and pulled her on top of him so her hair curtained down, falling around their faces, ruffling in the breeze, and she rested her wet cheek against his wiry beard. He kissed her and wiped her face dry, saying, “Baby, it’s all right.”
    It was, with him. For a little while.
    She tried to leave, but he pulled her back. He made her cry, and then he made it all right.

CHAPTER TWO
    Ashley rang the doorbell.
    Yesterday, she’d been in and out of Nana’s house half a dozen times, but this morning she didn’t want to presume.
    Roman stood behind her. When they heard the hollow thumps of approaching footfalls, he grazed his hand down her back and left it resting just above the rise of her butt.
    The door opened on Nana, blinking in the direct light, smiling broadly. “I was starting to wonder when you two would turn up,” she said. “Come on in to the kitchen. We’re just having breakfast.”
    Ashley toed off her shoes, because Nana wasn’t wearing hers. Roman did the same. They followed the older woman through the living room and into a spacious kitchen that must have been all the rage in the 1970s. It had harvest orange countertops, dark woodwork, and the trippiest wallpaper—yellow, brown, and avocado, with peace doves, mushrooms, giant feminine eyes, and the word
love
rendered in cartoonish letters.
    Ashley adored Nana’s wallpaper.
    Stanley sat at the round breakfast table in a fresh plaid shirt, coffee in hand. The plate in front of him showed evidence of recent occupation. He took a swallow from his oversize ceramic mug and said, “G’morning.”
    “Would you like breakfast?” Nana asked. “I’ve got eggs and toast, and I could do hash browns from the freezer. Or if you don’t want anything hot, I have some muffins and cereal.” She opened and closed a cupboard door for no apparent reason. “Coffee? Tea? I think I might have some orange juice. Let me check.”
    “We ate already, thanks.”
    Room service. Toast and jam and strawberry waffles, and afterward, sex sitting up on Roman’s lap, his hands sliding over my back, down and down some more until he got to the cleavage of my ass, where he figured out a new place to put his fingers and learned how very little pressure it takes to make me lose my mind
.
    “But I’d love some coffee,” she added, even though coffee would do nothing to cool offthe lust-avalanche she’d just triggered.
    “Roman?” Nana asked.
    “I’ll take coffee, too, thanks.”
    “Cream?”
    “Just black.”
    “Cream and sugar for me,” Ashley said.
    While Nana fixed the coffee, Ashley pulled out a chair. Roman sat down next to her.
    Ashley caught Stanley’s eye and said, “About last night.” She wanted to apologize, because she should have called, probably. She ought to have explained where she and Roman were going instead of sneaking up the driveway to take the Escalade, leaving Stanley and Nana to wonder where she’d gone off to.
    Stanley looked down at his coffee.
    Maybe there was no need