Eliza was so shocked by the abrupt gesture that she stumbled along behind him, before instinct kicked in and she dug in her heels, leaving him to practically drag her the last few feet.
Eliza was out of breath and furious when Romano finally released her hand.
They were in the master bedroom, facing each other, and Eliza glared at him...refusing to be intimidated by his scowl.
"When did you become the Neanderthal Man, Romano? I never thought you would resort to uncivilized caveman tactics." Romano didn't like being called a barbarian, not her suave, sophisticated, and rigid husband.
Eliza could see it in the way his mouth thinned and his eyes blazed, the said caveman grabbed her wrist and dragged her up against him.
"You haven't seen the Neanderthal in me yet, cara. I advise you not to push me on this, not unless you want things to get really ugly between us." Romano used his whole body to intimidate Eliza, leaning over and into her, nose to nose.
"I don't see how things can get any uglier," she whispered.
"You really don't want to find out how much worse it can get, trust me on that." Romano's eyes bored into her, and his breath came in small, shallow gasps.
Eliza was suddenly aware of how closely he was pressed against her and felt a betraying flash of heat uncoiling in the pit of her stomach and radiating outward.
Even though Romano never really let himself go in bed, he was still an incredible lover, and despite, or maybe because of, the clinical precision with which he conducted the act, he always made sure she climaxed.
But Eliza would have traded any number of those orgasms for a kiss, or even a show of affection afterwards, but she couldn't help her reaction to him.
Romano could always make her melt. Chemistry was a terrible thing; sometimes it simply sparked between the wrong people.
Romano's eyes were still locked with hers, and she felt the sudden change in Romano's breathing, his scent and his heart rate. He leaned even closer, his mouth nearly touching hers; their breath mingled and came in jagged gasps.
If she moved her head, just a fraction of an inch, their lips would touch, she couldn't resist and she tensed herself to do just that, when Romano swore under his breath and stepped away from Her. Eliza blinked and felt like someone coming out of a trance.
"Just go to bed." Romano put his hand in the small of her back and gave her a gentle push toward the bed.
"I'm not going to have..." Eliza began to protest.
"I know. I'm not exactly in the right frame of mind for it either." He prodded her again.
"You won't touch me?"
"Not unless you want me to." He shrugged as if he didn't care either way.
"I don't want you to," Eliza asserted firmly.
"Then you have nothing to worry about." Romano turned away from her and stripped out his casual shirt, leaving him abruptly naked from the chest up.
As always, the alpha stole Her breath away, and she had to force herself to turn away from the seductive sight of her half-naked husband and head to bed.
Eliza crept beneath the covers and kept her back to him, but she was achingly aware of every sound he made as he headed toward the ensuite, discarding even more clothes along the way.
For such a precise and controlled man in every other aspect of his life, Romano tended to be a bit messy in his own space: he would casually drop a shirt here, a sock there...obviously expecting the magical cleaning fairies to pick up after him.
That 'magical cleaning fairy' was usually Eliza; she was a bit of a neat freak and would quite compulsively pick up and fold everything he dropped.
Well, not anymore; he could damned well pick up his own shirts, or tumble down on them for all she cared.
Eliza wryly acknowledged to herself that this resolution would last only as long as it took for the maid to come in and clean it up.
The one thing about being fabulously wealthy was that you didn't have to think about mundane things like picking up after yourself.
Romano had been spoiled since birth into believing the universe revolves around him.
While Eliza's family had been wealthy too, she had never taken anything for granted, not when she had an emotionally detached father, who relentlessly pointed out her every flaw, and a depressed mother, who had exited her life through a bottle of sleeping pills.
Eliza had been a scared and confused eleven-year-old at the time.
She sighed softly and turned over to watch the door of the en suite. Romano hadn't shut it completely, and a narrow sliver of light streamed into the darkened bedroom.
Steam was creeping out along the edges of the door and she could smell the spicy scent of Romano's soap. The shower stopped abruptly and she heard the rustling sounds of his towel drying.
Eliza sighed softly to herself as she heard the towel drop to the floor after he finished, he was achingly familiar with every detail of her husband's nightly ablutions; he usually brushed his teeth and shaved while showering.
Five minutes later, the light in the ensuite went out and Romano stepped out into the dark bedroom.
Eliza could just make out his silhouette enough to see that her husband was naked, and Eliza panicked slightly when she recognized that her husband had absolutely every intention of getting into bed that way.
Romano usually slept naked but Eliza had honestly believed that he would drag on shorts or something after the events of that evening.
No such luck.
She felt him lifting the covers and sliding beneath them.he didn't say a word and made no move toward her, staying on his side of the bed.
No surprise there.
He usually stayed on his side of the bed anyway unless he felt the need to work on his long-term project to sire an alpha son.
Only then would he move toward her to touch her, caress her, and do everything but love her.
Eliza never instigated their intimate encounters, she had learned early on that any move toward such intimacy was usually rebutted, and her self-esteem didn't deal well with rejection, so she had stopped trying.
Ironically enough, tonight, after her decree that Romano not touch her, was the first time in a long time that she was actually tempted to move toward him.
Eliza clenched her fists and curled into a ball, trying not to think of all that tantalizing naked male flesh lying next to her. She knew Romano was awake, she could tell from the rhythm of his breathing, and obviously he knew she was awake, because the omega was way too tense to be asleep.
"Just go to sleep for God's sake." Romano's impatient voice suddenly rang out in the darkness.
"I said I wouldn't touch you and I won't...so you can relax!"
She tensed even more at the sound of his voice, and Romano swore softly.
"If you can't sleep, I have the perfect solution for your insomnia," Romano murmured suggestively, leaving Eliza in no doubt as to his 'solution' was.
"You're not helping matters," Eliza gritted through clenched teeth.
"Well, if neither of us can sleep..."
"We haven't been in bed long enough to fall asleep...just hush!" Eliza hissed.
"You know you're being ridiculous, right?" Romano murmured in his most patronizingly logical voice, which he knew would drive her absolutely crazy.
"Just shut up because right now I don't care how ridiculous you think I'm being."
Eliza flipped over to face him and could barely make out his profile in the dark. He was lying on his back, with one arm tucked beneath his head.
When he felt her turn over, he turned his head to look at her. Eliza could see only the whites of his eyes in the dark.
"This is what I want, Romano."
"I don't believe that for a second," Romano maintained, reaching out to touch her face with one gentle hand.
"The sex has always been good between us, Eliza. That's one thing that's never been in doubt. It's the one damned thing that's working in this marriage."
"It wasn't working for me," she muttered defiantly. That bruised the masculine ego of an alpha; Eliza sensed it in the way he tensed, but that moment she couldn't care less.
"You weren't faking those responses," Romano said stiffly.
"No, I wasn't." She said, realizing too late that she didn't sound very convincing at all.
"It just isn't enough for me anymore."
"I'm not enough for you anymore?" Romano asked flatly, and Eliza knew she had to tread carefully here.
"That's not quite what I meant..."
"Oh?"
"Romano, you're being deliberately obtuse." Okay that wasn't quite the right thing to say either.
She could practically feel him bristling next to her.
"It'll probably be best if you didn't say anything else, Eliza."
"Look, you're intentionally misunderstanding me here..." she began.
"Not another word," Romano warned.
"But..." Suddenly she was flat on her back with her husband straddling her hips.
Eliza gasped and writhed as she tried to dislodge him. "I warned you," Romano growled.
"Get off me," Eliza hissed angrily, pushing futilely at his naked chest.
"No." Romano settled himself more firmly against her, moving his hips until her thighs reluctantly parted and he was lodged between them.
Eliza's T-shirt had ridden up to her waist, leaving only her tiny bikini panties as a barrier between them, she was achingly aware of Romano's bare flesh rubbing against the tender skin of her inner thighs and felt herself responding.
Eliza helplessly moved with him, wanting more contact. Romano groaned and buried his face in her neck, his lips nuzzling her soft neck, moving up over her jaw line, then her chin, skirting past her mouth before brushing over her cheek and capturing one sensitive earlobe between his teeth.
oh.
It was the blatant avoidance of her mouth that quite effectively doused the flame that had started a slow burn in Eliza's gut, if felt like a bucket of cold water on her libido, and now she was furious, and she'll be damned if she let this alpha have anymore power over her than he already had.
"This is not what I want," Eliza said firmly, using all her strength to try and push away, but he wouldn't budge.
"Yes it is," Romano whispered into her ear.
"If you do this, it'll be against my will," Eliza asserted, looking right through him.
"And you know what that's called, don't you Alpha!"
Romano froze abruptly before moving off her and back to his side of the bed.
"You would accuse me of something so despicable?" He sounded mortally offended, but Eliza wasn't about to allow herself to be swayed, she needed to stay away from this man.
"If the shoe fits..." Eliza shrugged.
"What does that mean?" Romano growled."Some damned ambiguous idiom that doesn't apply to this situation at all! There was no force involved in what just happened."
"You pinned me down and refused to get off me when I asked you to. That's a pretty clear example of force."
Romano didn't respond and lay there seething in outraged silence.
Eliza had once again succeeded in bruising his masculine ego and Romano is yet to discover that this won't end here, and Eliza was human and petty enough to give herself a mental high five.
They didn't speak at all after that, and Eliza eventually fell into a restless sleep.
Eliza was so shocked by the abrupt gesture that she stumbled along behind him, before instinct kicked in and she dug in her heels, leaving him to practically drag her the last few feet.
Eliza was out of breath and furious when Romano finally released her hand.
They were in the master bedroom, facing each other, and Eliza glared at him...refusing to be intimidated by his scowl.
"When did you become the Neanderthal Man, Romano? I never thought you would resort to uncivilized caveman tactics." Romano didn't like being called a barbarian, not her suave, sophisticated, and rigid husband.
Eliza could see it in the way his mouth thinned and his eyes blazed, the said caveman grabbed her wrist and dragged her up against him.
"You haven't seen the Neanderthal in me yet, cara. I advise you not to push me on this, not unless you want things to get really ugly between us." Romano used his whole body to intimidate Eliza, leaning over and into her, nose to nose.
"I don't see how things can get any uglier," she whispered.
"You really don't want to find out how much worse it can get, trust me on that." Romano's eyes bored into her, and his breath came in small, shallow gasps.
Eliza was suddenly aware of how closely he was pressed against her and felt a betraying flash of heat uncoiling in the pit of her stomach and radiating outward.
Even though Romano never really let himself go in bed, he was still an incredible lover, and despite, or maybe because of, the clinical precision with which he conducted the act, he always made sure she climaxed.
But Eliza would have traded any number of those orgasms for a kiss, or even a show of affection afterwards, but she couldn't help her reaction to him.
Romano could always make her melt. Chemistry was a terrible thing; sometimes it simply sparked between the wrong people.
Romano's eyes were still locked with hers, and she felt the sudden change in Romano's breathing, his scent and his heart rate. He leaned even closer, his mouth nearly touching hers; their breath mingled and came in jagged gasps.
If she moved her head, just a fraction of an inch, their lips would touch, she couldn't resist and she tensed herself to do just that, when Romano swore under his breath and stepped away from Her. Eliza blinked and felt like someone coming out of a trance.
"Just go to bed." Romano put his hand in the small of her back and gave her a gentle push toward the bed.
"I'm not going to have..." Eliza began to protest.
"I know. I'm not exactly in the right frame of mind for it either." He prodded her again.
"You won't touch me?"
"Not unless you want me to." He shrugged as if he didn't care either way.
"I don't want you to," Eliza asserted firmly.
"Then you have nothing to worry about." Romano turned away from her and stripped out his casual shirt, leaving him abruptly naked from the chest up.
As always, the alpha stole Her breath away, and she had to force herself to turn away from the seductive sight of her half-naked husband and head to bed.
Eliza crept beneath the covers and kept her back to him, but she was achingly aware of every sound he made as he headed toward the ensuite, discarding even more clothes along the way.
For such a precise and controlled man in every other aspect of his life, Romano tended to be a bit messy in his own space: he would casually drop a shirt here, a sock there...obviously expecting the magical cleaning fairies to pick up after him.
That 'magical cleaning fairy' was usually Eliza; she was a bit of a neat freak and would quite compulsively pick up and fold everything he dropped.
Well, not anymore; he could damned well pick up his own shirts, or tumble down on them for all she cared.
Eliza wryly acknowledged to herself that this resolution would last only as long as it took for the maid to come in and clean it up.
The one thing about being fabulously wealthy was that you didn't have to think about mundane things like picking up after yourself.
Romano had been spoiled since birth into believing the universe revolves around him.
While Eliza's family had been wealthy too, she had never taken anything for granted, not when she had an emotionally detached father, who relentlessly pointed out her every flaw, and a depressed mother, who had exited her life through a bottle of sleeping pills.
Eliza had been a scared and confused eleven-year-old at the time.
She sighed softly and turned over to watch the door of the en suite. Romano hadn't shut it completely, and a narrow sliver of light streamed into the darkened bedroom.
Steam was creeping out along the edges of the door and she could smell the spicy scent of Romano's soap. The shower stopped abruptly and she heard the rustling sounds of his towel drying.
Eliza sighed softly to herself as she heard the towel drop to the floor after he finished, he was achingly familiar with every detail of her husband's nightly ablutions; he usually brushed his teeth and shaved while showering.
Five minutes later, the light in the ensuite went out and Romano stepped out into the dark bedroom.
Eliza could just make out his silhouette enough to see that her husband was naked, and Eliza panicked slightly when she recognized that her husband had absolutely every intention of getting into bed that way.
Romano usually slept naked but Eliza had honestly believed that he would drag on shorts or something after the events of that evening.
No such luck.
She felt him lifting the covers and sliding beneath them.he didn't say a word and made no move toward her, staying on his side of the bed.
No surprise there.
He usually stayed on his side of the bed anyway unless he felt the need to work on his long-term project to sire an alpha son.
Only then would he move toward her to touch her, caress her, and do everything but love her.
Eliza never instigated their intimate encounters, she had learned early on that any move toward such intimacy was usually rebutted, and her self-esteem didn't deal well with rejection, so she had stopped trying.
Ironically enough, tonight, after her decree that Romano not touch her, was the first time in a long time that she was actually tempted to move toward him.
Eliza clenched her fists and curled into a ball, trying not to think of all that tantalizing naked male flesh lying next to her. She knew Romano was awake, she could tell from the rhythm of his breathing, and obviously he knew she was awake, because the omega was way too tense to be asleep.
"Just go to sleep for God's sake." Romano's impatient voice suddenly rang out in the darkness.
"I said I wouldn't touch you and I won't...so you can relax!"
She tensed even more at the sound of his voice, and Romano swore softly.
"If you can't sleep, I have the perfect solution for your insomnia," Romano murmured suggestively, leaving Eliza in no doubt as to his 'solution' was.
"You're not helping matters," Eliza gritted through clenched teeth.
"Well, if neither of us can sleep..."
"We haven't been in bed long enough to fall asleep...just hush!" Eliza hissed.
"You know you're being ridiculous, right?" Romano murmured in his most patronizingly logical voice, which he knew would drive her absolutely crazy.
"Just shut up because right now I don't care how ridiculous you think I'm being."
Eliza flipped over to face him and could barely make out his profile in the dark. He was lying on his back, with one arm tucked beneath his head.
When he felt her turn over, he turned his head to look at her. Eliza could see only the whites of his eyes in the dark.
"This is what I want, Romano."
"I don't believe that for a second," Romano maintained, reaching out to touch her face with one gentle hand.
"The sex has always been good between us, Eliza. That's one thing that's never been in doubt. It's the one damned thing that's working in this marriage."
"It wasn't working for me," she muttered defiantly. That bruised the masculine ego of an alpha; Eliza sensed it in the way he tensed, but that moment she couldn't care less.
"You weren't faking those responses," Romano said stiffly.
"No, I wasn't." She said, realizing too late that she didn't sound very convincing at all.
"It just isn't enough for me anymore."
"I'm not enough for you anymore?" Romano asked flatly, and Eliza knew she had to tread carefully here.
"That's not quite what I meant..."
"Oh?"
"Romano, you're being deliberately obtuse." Okay that wasn't quite the right thing to say either.
She could practically feel him bristling next to her.
"It'll probably be best if you didn't say anything else, Eliza."
"Look, you're intentionally misunderstanding me here..." she began.
"Not another word," Romano warned.
"But..." Suddenly she was flat on her back with her husband straddling her hips.
Eliza gasped and writhed as she tried to dislodge him. "I warned you," Romano growled.
"Get off me," Eliza hissed angrily, pushing futilely at his naked chest.
"No." Romano settled himself more firmly against her, moving his hips until her thighs reluctantly parted and he was lodged between them.
Eliza's T-shirt had ridden up to her waist, leaving only her tiny bikini panties as a barrier between them, she was achingly aware of Romano's bare flesh rubbing against the tender skin of her inner thighs and felt herself responding.
Eliza helplessly moved with him, wanting more contact. Romano groaned and buried his face in her neck, his lips nuzzling her soft neck, moving up over her jaw line, then her chin, skirting past her mouth before brushing over her cheek and capturing one sensitive earlobe between his teeth.
oh.
It was the blatant avoidance of her mouth that quite effectively doused the flame that had started a slow burn in Eliza's gut, if felt like a bucket of cold water on her libido, and now she was furious, and she'll be damned if she let this alpha have anymore power over her than he already had.
"This is not what I want," Eliza said firmly, using all her strength to try and push away, but he wouldn't budge.
"Yes it is," Romano whispered into her ear.
"If you do this, it'll be against my will," Eliza asserted, looking right through him.
"And you know what that's called, don't you Alpha!"
Romano froze abruptly before moving off her and back to his side of the bed.
"You would accuse me of something so despicable?" He sounded mortally offended, but Eliza wasn't about to allow herself to be swayed, she needed to stay away from this man.
"If the shoe fits..." Eliza shrugged.
"What does that mean?" Romano growled."Some damned ambiguous idiom that doesn't apply to this situation at all! There was no force involved in what just happened."
"You pinned me down and refused to get off me when I asked you to. That's a pretty clear example of force."
Romano didn't respond and lay there seething in outraged silence.
Eliza had once again succeeded in bruising his masculine ego and Romano is yet to discover that this won't end here, and Eliza was human and petty enough to give herself a mental high five.
They didn't speak at all after that, and Eliza eventually fell into a restless sleep.