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We’re rolling through a stretch of land that’s something between field and desert, the tall grasses petering out. The radio plays softly. New pop hits. The music doesn’t matter, and I’m not picky. Hearing new music is a pleasure I obviously took for granted before. Driving a car? I definitely took that for granted. Driving with Rome? I never knew. I never knew how good it could be.
He stretches in the passenger seat, his back cracking. Even the slightest glimpse of him beside me gives me a burst of pure pleasure. He looks fucking phenomenal. We’ve been kidnapped, we’ve been tortured, he’s been in jail...and he still looks good to me. It’s the life in him, I think. The fire. Rome is fierce. A serial killer couldn’t beat that out of him or shoot it out of him or surgically remove it. They tried, didn’t they? There’s a horror in surviving what we did, but there’s a smug satisfaction in it, too. We’re still here, still standing. And we’re getting the fuck away from our toxic lives back in that godforsaken place, even if it’ll all catch up with us eventually.
Rome leans forward. “Pull over. There’s a road coming up.”
“Road is an overstatement.” It is—this thing is more of a gravel track. The sun bleeds out over the horizon, going from orange to a deep red. We haven’t seen another vehicle for miles–taking back streets and roads less travelled has been an unspoken understanding since we left the freeway– but I use my turn signal anyway and trundle over the rough edge of the road. “Why, what do you need? There aren’t any trees.”
“Who cares about trees?” Rome raises his eyebrows. “What the hell do you need trees for?”
“I thought you might have to pee.”
“I’m fine. But you’re not. You’re about to fall asleep. It’s time for us to switch it up.”
“I am very fine, thanks. What makes you think I’m not fine?”
Rome reaches over and pushes my hair away from my face, and at that moment it occurs to me that I’m practically melted into the leather seat. Me and the seat, we’re one. My arms are both locked in place and strangely loose on the wheel. Also, I can’t remember the last several miles.Oops.
“C’mon, Aves. It’s my turn.”
We both get out and my lungs are happy for the dry, hot evening air. It’s soothing compared to the blasting A/C. The sky is wide open, out here away from the city. It’s just us and the rising moon and the fading sun. I breathe deeply, taking a moment to soak this in as the sun sinks lower. Eventually it disappears and the stars pop into being, one by one.
I stretch and bend, touching my toes. Take a few steps around to the front of the car. Bend again. Rome’s right. I should get out and stretch more. But who has time to get out and stretch when you’re fleeing from the SFPD, an uptight family, and a serial killer?
Rome appears in front of the SUV. “What are you doing?”
“Stretching.”
I turn toward the open desert and bend again.
Rome lets out a groan, his hands coming down on my hips. I chose a sundress because they’re comfortable. It also gives him easy access. He puts his hand right underneath the fabric, and my breath hitches in my throat. A soft breeze swirls the fabric over my skin. My skin, his hands.
“Does this turn you on?” It’s meant as a joke, but my voice comes out huskier than I intended. I straighten up.
Rome doesn’t let go.
He pulls me in closer, pinning me to his chest. His heart thuds. It reminds me of the drums back in high school. I didn’t give a shit about high school in the way that only a Capulet can, but some things stuck with me. One of those things was the drumline at the football games. That’s what Rome’s heart feels like now. There’s nothing else to compete with it here except my own heart.
“Everything about you turns me on. But it doesn’t just turn me on, Avery. It sets me on fire.”
The only thing that could make this moment more otherworldly would be a shooting star appearing at exactly this moment, but it doesn’t.
What happens instead is that Rome turns me around in his arms and crushes his mouth to mine. It’s a perfect, desperate kiss, like he’s been waiting all his life to do this. Like every moment from the hotel to now has been his entire existence. My body leans into his, trying to find purchase on hard muscle and bone. I find it. I find it in his hair, on his shoulders, at his waist. I let my hands go free. He bites, he sucks, he pushes his tongue into my mouth. I feel this kiss everywhere. I feel it between my legs and in the tips of my toes. It explodes inside my chest, fireworks that light up my entire being. Rome Montague is the match, I am the flint, and together fire consumes us.
Rome takes a half step back and rips his shirt over his head, then tosses it onto the hood of the car. It’s still hot, the engine still idling, but he makes it safe for me and lifts me into his arms, shoving me back onto the hood. He yanks down my panties and they’re lost to the desert sands—I don’t care. He shoves my legs apart and pushes my dress up to my hips, bending to kiss my clit. It’s a glancing, tender kiss and it turns me into a column of burning flame.
The sun loses more and more heat by the minute, but the car is warm underneath me and Rome’s body is hot between my legs. He drags me to the edge of the car hood with a low groan and pushes inside me and yes, yes, this is what I’ve always needed, this is what I’ve always been searching for. My nipples pull tight at the intimate knowledge that someone could drive up any second, catching us in the headlights. Rome pulls at the front of my dress, letting my breasts bounce free of the thin material, and my nipples, exposed to the night air, stiffen to diamond-hard peaks.
No one sees us, but I feel like we’re in the spotlight anyway, on display for the whole world to see. The real world. Not the fake world of jail cells and dungeons and Capulets and Montagues. The real world is here, in the desert, in the wild. It’s a full-circle moment from the horror we lived through in that dungeon, from the moment Rome was shot and bleeding out, as I was held down and raped like a lioness in the wild while he was forced to watch. I thought that moment would kill us both, but we’re still here, still alive, and we escaped. We’re far away from that hellhole, and we’re together, and goddamn it,we survived.
Rome fucks me with abandon, hand tracing my throat, palming my breasts, bracing my hip. I crane my neck up so I can kiss the healed bullet wound marring his shoulder, a physical testament to our captivity. It’s beautiful, the way we both carry marks only we have endured, only we have witnessed, only we have survived. I gasp as I get closer to breaking apart, each breath coming harder and closer. Rome spreads my legs wider and looks down, slowing. Slow, deliberate thrusts. He’s memorizing this and I’m trying, I’m fucking trying, but all I can do is stare at him, his face framed by the rising moon and a sky full of stars. All I can do is hang on for the steady roll of him inside me. Pulling away. Pushing back in.We were made to fit together,I think.We were made to be one.
The moment expands and becomes infinite, and then it contracts again in a haze of pleasure. An orgasm sneaks up and tackles me from behind, dragging me under. I come hard around Rome’s cock, screaming into the still night. He fucks me through it, his pace unrelenting, and it’s only at the bitter end that he pulls out and spills himself on my shaking thigh.
He takes a moment to catch his breath, taking the t-shirt from underneath me and wiping my leg clean. Then he pulls me down and takes me in his arms again. My legs are jelly, my knees rubber. They’re nothing. So I lean against Rome like he is the last structure standing in a plundered world. I drag my nails lightly over his chest, pressing my ear to it, his steady heartbeat anchoring me back to the earth. After a few minutes, I let him rearrange my dress, pressing my breasts safely back into the thin material, smoothing down the skirt to cover my bare pussy and thighs. We never do find the panties, but that’s okay. I have more in my suitcase. I help him back into his shirt. When he leans down to kiss me again, I let him. I let him take as long as he wants. For this moment, at least, we’re finally free.
“You taste good,” I murmur into his mouth. “Have you been hiding mints from me?”
“You taste like you should get fucked on the roof of this car again,” Rome answers.
