Vicious Rebel (82 Street Vandals #2) - Heather Long Page 0,43

the guys on tour used the combo bottles. What did I know?

Just because he’d been a dick to me didn’t mean he was a dick all the time. And he was related to Rome, so there had to be something nice about him.

There was a stack of thick fluffy towels waiting for me and clean clothes on the vanity. I hadn’t even heard Rome come in. I dried off and mostly toweled my hair until it wasn’t soaking. Finger combing would have to do.

The clothes turned out to be an oversized, much faded T-shirt and an old pair of sweatpants. They had a tie I could pull tight to cinch them to my waist. There were no panties, and that was fine. I really didn’t want to borrow some other woman’s panties anyway. The shirt was a pale, pale gray, and there was no mistaking my nipples beneath the fabric, but whatever.

The door opened to the bedroom, and the air was cooler, less humid than in the bathroom, but the scent of Liam’s shampoo followed me as I padded back out to the living room. Rome stood by the windows and turned at my arrival. His hair was damp and slick, his face freshly shaven.

Like me, he’d changed into clean clothes, though his fit him far better than mind did me. “I made hot cocoa,” he told me, “if you’re still cold, and there’s food. It’s not much. Mostly microwave meals.”

“I could eat.”

His eyes lit at my response.

“Thank you for the towels and the clothes. I feel much better.” Not a lie. I did.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Rome told me as he led the way to the kitchen. If I wanted to know what he was talking about, I’d have to follow, or I could look out the windows at the view. The ocean was visible in the distance. Kind of gray and stormy-looking with the leaden clouds above it, but also stretching out to the horizon.

I bet it was really pretty when the sun shone.

The sound of a milk steamer in the kitchen pulled me around, and I tracked after him. There was a huge, fancy cappuccino maker set up on the counter. I tried not to gape, but the coffeemaker at…I hesitated to say home, but where the Vandals lived, had to be thirty years old, and I swore the one at the garage was older still.

Not that it had a carafe anymore, but I shook that off. Not what I wanted to focus on.

It took no time before Rome filled the mugs with frothy milk and stirred the chocolate up. My stomach growled at the rich scent now filling the air, and Rome flashed me a real smile.

“What do you mean it’s not my fault?”

“The guy at the garage,” he said as he added a dollop of whip cream to the cup before holding it out to me. “He shouldn’t have been there. He was trying to hurt you.”

“He was trying to take me,” I admitted. “He knew who I was. I guess…maybe he recognized me.”

Rome nodded once. “He had a partner. Don’t worry, Liam and Kellan already scooped him up.”

I shook my head slowly and stared down at the hot cocoa. The first sip coated my lip in whip cream, but the hot chocolate itself was divine. It warmed me all the way to my toes. “I should feel bad about that,” I half mumbled.

“Why?”

Nothing disingenuous lived in the question. “They tried to hurt you. To take you. They don’t deserve your compassion, Starling.”

“It’s not compassion,” I argued, though without a lot of heat to it. I took another sip as I tried to cobble my thoughts together. When I raised my head, I met Rome’s curious gaze head-on. “There’s a reward for finding me. I saw it on the news. They probably just thought they were rescuing me for an easy fee. Or maybe they didn’t care if they were rescuing me and just wanted to kidnap me for their gain.”

I gave a little shrug.

“I don’t know that it’s a crime that deserves death.”

“We don’t know what they would have done or why they chose to act as they did. They could have called your location in if they just wanted a reward.”

Pure fear jolted through my system at the suggestion, and if Rome hadn’t closed his hands over mine on the mug, I’d have dropped it. My heart thundered, slamming against my ribs like it wanted to escape. Oh fuck. What if they called