Rome: A Marked Men Novel (43 page)

“I thought you said you were single?” The accusation in her tone lifted the hair on the back of my neck.

Any chick who was willing to come home with a stranger for a night of no-strings-attached sex didn’t get

the right to pass judgment, especially while she was still naked and rumpled in my bed.

“Give me twenty,” I said, my eyes shifting to the blonde in the doorway as I ran a hand through my

messy hair.

She lifted an eyebrow. “You have ten.”

I would have lifted an eyebrow back at her tone and attitude but my head was killing me, and the

gesture would have been wasted on her anyway; she was way past immune to my shit.

“I’ll make coffee. I already invited Nash but he said he has to go to the shop for an appointment. I’ll be

in the car.” She spun on her heel, and, just like that, the doorway was empty. I was struggling to my feet,

searching the floor for the pair of pants I might have tossed down there last night.

“What’s going on?”

I had temporarily forgotten about the girl in my bed. I swore softly under my breath and tugged a black

T-shirt that looked reasonably clean over my head. “I have to go.”

“What?”

I frowned at her as she lifted herself up in the bed and clutched the sheet to her chest. She was pretty

and had a nice body from what I could see. I wondered what kind of game I had thrown at her in order to

get her to come home with me. She was one I didn’t mind waking up to this morning.

“I have somewhere I need to be, so that means you need to get up and get going. Normally my

roommate would be around, so you could hang out for a minute, but he had to go to work, so that means

you need to get that fine ass in gear and get out.”

She sputtered a little at me. “Are you kidding me?”

I looked over my shoulder as I dug my boots out from under a pile of laundry and shoved my feet into

them. “No.”

“What kind of asshole does that? Not even a ‘thanks for last night, you were great, how about lunch?’

Just ‘get the fuck out’?” She threw the sheet aside and I noticed she had a nice tattoo scrawled along her

ribs that curled across her shoulder and along her collarbone. That was probably what had attracted me to

her in my drunken stupor in the first place. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

I was a whole lot more than just a piece of work, but this chick, who was just one of oh so many, didn’t

need to know that. I silently cursed my roommate, Nash, who was the real shit here. We had been best

friends since elementary school, and I could normally rely on him to run interference for me on Sunday

mornings when I had to bail, but I had forgotten about the piece he was supposed to be finishing up today.

That meant I was on my own when it came to hustling last night’s tail out the door and getting a move on

before the brat left without me, which was a bigger headache than I needed in my current state.

“Hey, what’s your name anyway?”

If she wasn’t pissed before, she was downright infuriated now. She climbed back into a supershort

black skirt and a barely there tank top. She fluffed up her mound of dyed blond hair and glared at me out

of eyes now smudged with old mascara. “Lucy. You don’t remember?”

I slimed some crap in my hair to make it stand up in a bunch of different directions and sprayed on

cologne to help mask the scent of sex and booze that I was sure still clung to my skin. I shrugged a shoulder

at her and waited as she hopped by me on one foot putting on heels that just screamed
dirty sex
.

“I’m Rule.” I would have offered to shake her hand but that seemed silly so I just pointed to the front

door of the apartment and stepped in the bathroom to brush the stale taste of whiskey out of my mouth.

“There’s coffee in the kitchen. Maybe you should write your number down and I can give you a call

another time. Sundays aren’t good days for me.” She would never know how true that statement was.

She glared at me and tapped the toe of one of those awesome shoes. “You really have no idea who I

am, do you?”

This time, even against my throbbing brain’s wishes, my eyebrow went up and I looked at her with a

mouthful of toothpaste foam. I just stared at her until she screeched at me and pointed at her side. “You

have to at least remember this!”

No wonder I liked her ink so much; it was one of mine. I spit the toothpaste in the sink and gave myself

a once-over in the mirror. I looked like hell. My eyes were watery and rimmed in red, my skin looked gray,

and there was a hickey the size of Rhode Island on the side of my neck—Mom was going to love that. Just

like she was going to fall all over herself about the current state of my hair. It was normally thick and dark,

but I had shaved the sides and dyed the front a nice, bright purple, so now it stuck up straight like a

Weedwacker had been used to cut it. Both my folks already had an issue with the scrolling ink that wound

around both my arms and up the side of my neck, so the hair was just going to be icing on the cake. Since

there was nothing I could do to fix the current shit show looking back at me in the mirror I prowled out of

the bathroom and unceremoniously grabbed the girl by the elbow and towed her to the front door. I needed

to remember to go home with them instead of letting them come home with me; it was so much easier that

way.

“Look, I have somewhere I have to be, and I don’t particularly love that I have to go, but you freaking

out and making a scene is not going to do anything other than piss me off. I hope you had a good time last

night and you can leave your number, but we both know the chances of me calling you are slim to none. If

you don’t want to be treated like crap, maybe you should stop going home with drunken dudes you don’t

know. Trust me, we’re really after only one thing and the next morning all we really want is for you to go

quietly away. I have a headache and I feel like I’m going to hurl, plus I have to spend the next hour in a car

with someone who will be silently loathing me and joyously plotting my death, so really, can we just save

the histrionics and get a move on it?”

By now I had maneuvered Lucy to the entryway of the building, and I saw my blond tormentor in the

BMW idling in the spot next to my truck. She was impatient and would take off if I wasted any more time. I

gave Lucy a half grin and shrugged a shoulder—after all it wasn’t her fault I was an asshole, and even I

knew she deserved better than such a callous brush-off.

“Look, don’t feel bad. I can be a charming bastard when I put my mind to it. You are far from the first

and won’t be the last to see this little show. I’m glad your tat turned out badass, and I’d prefer you

remember me for that rather than last night.”

I jogged down the front steps without looking back and yanked open the door to the fancy black BMW.

I hated this car and hated that it suited the driver as well as it did.
Classy
,
sleek,
and
expensive
were

definitely words that could be used to describe my traveling companion. As we pulled out of the parking

lot, Lucy yelled at me and flipped me off. My driver rolled her eyes and muttered, “Classy” under her

breath. She was used to the little scenes chicks liked to throw when I bailed on them the morning after. I

even had to replace her windshield once when one of them had chucked a rock at me and missed while I

was walking away.

I adjusted the seat to accommodate my long legs and settled in to rest my head against the window. It

was always a long and achingly silent drive. Sometimes, like today, I was grateful for it; other times it

grated on my very last nerve. We had been a fixture in each other’s lives since middle school, and she knew

every strength and fault I had. My parents loved her like their own daughter and made no bones about the

fact that they more often than not preferred her company over mine. One would think with all the history,

both good and bad, between us, that we could make simple small talk for a few hours without it being

difficult.

“You’re going to get all that junk that’s in your hair all over my window.” Her voice—all cigarettes and

whiskey—didn’t match the rest of her, which was all champagne and silk. I had always liked her voice;

when we got along I could listen to her talk for hours.

“I’ll get it detailed.”

She snorted. I closed my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest. I was all set for a silent ride, but

apparently she had things to say today, because as soon as she pulled the car onto the highway she turned

the radio down and said my name. “Rule.”

I turned my head slightly to the side and cracked open an eye. “Shaw.” Her name was just as fancy as

the rest of her. She was pale, had snowy white-blond hair, and big green eyes that looked like Granny

Smith apples. She was tiny, an easy foot shorter than my own six three, but had curves that went on for

days. She was the kind of girl that guys looked at, because they just couldn’t help themselves, but as soon

as she turned those frosty green eyes in their direction they knew they wouldn’t stand a chance. She exuded

unattainability the way some other girls oozed “come and get me.”

She blew out a breath and I watched a strand of hair twirl around her forehead. She looked at me out of

the corner of her eye and I stiffened when I saw how tight her hands were on the steering wheel.

“What is it, Shaw?”

She bit her bottom lip, a sure sign she was nervous. “I don’t suppose you answered any of your mom’s

calls this week?”

I wasn’t exactly tight with my folks. In fact, our relationship hovered somewhere around the mutually

tolerable area, which is why my mom sent Shaw to drag me home each weekend. We were both from a

small town called Brookside, in an affluent part of Colorado. I’d moved to Denver as soon as I had my

diploma in hand, and Shaw had moved there a few years later. She was a few years younger than me, and

she had wanted nothing more than to get into the University of Denver. Not only did the girl look like a

fairy-tale princess, but she was also on track to be a freaking doctor. My mom knew there was no way I

would make the two-hour drive there and back to see them on the weekends, but if Shaw came to get me, I

would have to go, not only because I would feel guilty that she’d taken time out of her busy schedule, but

also because she paid for the gas, waited for me to stumble out of bed, and dragged my sorry ass home

every single Sunday and not once in going on two years had she complained about it.

“No, I was busy all week.” I
was
busy, but I also just didn’t like talking to my mom, so I had ignored

her all three times she had called me this week.

Shaw sighed and her hands twisted even tighter on the steering wheel. “She was calling to tell you that

Rome got hurt and the army is sending him home for six weeks of R and R. Your dad went down to the

base in the Springs yesterday to pick him up.”

I bolted up in the seat so fast that I smacked my head on the roof of the car. I swore and rubbed the

spot, which made my head throb even more. “What? What do you mean he got hurt?” Rome was my older

brother. He had three years on me and had been overseas for a good portion of the last six. We were still

tight and, even though he didn’t like all the distance I’d put between me and my parents over the years, I

was sure that if he was injured I would have heard it from him.

“I’m not sure. Margot said something happened to the convoy he was in when they were out on patrol.

He was in a pretty bad accident I guess. She said his arm was broken and he had a few cracked ribs. She

was pretty upset so I had a hard time understanding her when she called.”

“Rome would have called me.”

“Rome was doped up and spent the last two days being debriefed. He asked your mom to call because

you Archer boys are nothing if not persistent. Margot told him that you wouldn’t answer, but he told her to

keep trying.”

My brother was hurt and was home, but I hadn’t known about it. I closed my eyes again and let my

head drop back against the headrest. “Well, hell, that’s good news I guess. Are you going to go by and see

your mom?” I asked her. I didn’t have to look at her to know that she had stiffened even more. I could

practically feel the tension rolling off her in icy waves.

“No.” She didn’t say more and I didn’t expect her to. The Archers may not be the closest, warmest

bunch, but we didn’t have anything on the Landons. Shaw’s family crapped gold and breathed money.

They also cheated and lied, had been divorced and remarried. From what I had seen over the years, they

had little need or interest in their biological daughter, who, it seemed, was conceived in order to get a tax

deduction rather than time spent in a bedroom. I knew Shaw loved my house and loved my parents,