Moment of Weakness (Embracing Moments Book 1) (27 page)

Roman returned a few minutes later with an empty box, cleaner, and paper towels. He knelt down in front of me and sighed. “I got this. I’ll clean it up, just go relax, okay?”

I shook my head, but avoided eye contact. My hands trembled and another sob I tried to swallow left my throat. Roman’s hands covered mine, and he pulled me to my feet. His fingers massaged the back of my hands as he said in a low voice, “I don’t want you cutting yourself, so please, just sit on the bed and let me do this.”

I pulled my hands from his and crawled to the center of the king-sized bed. Keeping my focus on the patio doors, I swept my thumbs under my eyes and took slow deep breaths, willing the tears to stop. “I’m sorry, Roman.”

“No, Julia . . . I’m sorry.” He let out a heavy sigh. “I over reacted. I just—”

My fingers traced the threading on the comforter and I kept quiet. I didn’t need to turn around to know that he was still trying to clean the floor, because I could hear the glass shattering against the other pieces as he dumped it in the box.

“Her name was Kayla. She was three in that picture, and even then she was such a little firecracker.” Roman spoke, his voice low. “She drove me crazy, always wanting to play with my toys. She’d somehow manage to pull all the wheels off my favorite cars, or color all over my limited edition magazines.” He laughed at the memory, but it was weak. “She would always follow me around and I
hated
it. I mean, its normal when you’re young to find your siblings annoying. You don’t really learn to appreciate them until you get older, or in my case, until you lose them.”

The room fell silent, and the muscles in my chest tightened. “How did it happen?”

Roman didn’t say anything, and I wasn’t about to push him. Stuff like that could only be shared when someone was ready to share it.

“I was ten. Kayla was five. I still have no idea how my father always fit all of our camping stuff into the car. We would go every year. Same place. Same exact campsite. We were driving for about ten minutes, Kayla and I bickering in the backseat, when I realized I forgot my new sleeping bag. My father told me not to worry about it this trip because he always packed spares. But I threw a fit. We went camping once a year, and I remember really wanting to use it. I whined and cried. Kayla screamed that she needed to use the bathroom, and my mother finally convinced my father to turn around.” Roman stopped talking, and I think it had more to do with being lost in the memory than not wanting to continue. “When we got back to the house, my parents told me to stay in the car, they’d only be a few minutes. At ten years old, a few minutes can feel like an eternity. I didn’t listen. I pushed open the car door and went into the house. The house was a mess. All of our belongings scattered across the floor. I heard my father’s voice upstairs, followed by my mother’s scream. Kayla was crying. I ran up the stairs as fast as my legs would carry me, and as I was walking in the bedroom, they pulled the trigger on my father. My mother was shielding Kayla, and when they turned to shoot her, the bullet went right through both of them. I learned later that my parent’s gunshot wounds were instantly fatal.”

“And Kayla’s?”

Roman’s voice cracked. “The bullet missed any major organs, but she bled out.”

Silent tears rolled down my cheeks, and I clutched the pillow to my chest. My heart filled with sadness. He continued speaking, and his voice was hard to recognize behind the torment.

“Instead of trying to stop them, I just stood there, watching complete strangers kill my family in cold-blooded murder. I ran down the steps and back out the door before they even saw me. I should have never asked them to go back. It was my—”

“Don’t even say it, Roman.” I cut him off before he could even finish his sentence. “What happened was awful—tragic—but it wasn’t your fault.”

“I could have tried to save her. If I didn’t run, I could have—” He paused, lost in his thoughts, and then let out a strangled sigh. “She would have been twenty-one this year.”

I closed my eyes and let the heaviness of the moment consume me. He blamed himself. Guilt, regret, shame. It was no wonder he kept people out. Forcing myself to sit up, I turned around, wanting to go to him, wanting to wrap my arms around him, but when I twisted my hips, I was greeted by nothing more than an empty room. Not a speck of glass lay on the floor, and the box in which he used to clean it up was pushed aside.

I waited for a while, waiting to see if he would return, but after an hour passed and still no Roman, I stood and walked over to the door, slipping on the pair of white flip-flops he had left me. I had no idea where he was, but I needed to find him. I needed to make sure he was okay. I knew what it was like to feel trapped in your mind, trapped in your emotions, trapped in your own guilt. It was a scary place to be.

Walking through his house felt like I was walking through a model home. Everything was simple, from the bare white walls, down to the basic futon in his living room. Overall, the space was small, and as I moved from room to room with no sign of Roman, I began to worry. A door sat adjacent to the living room and kitchen, and when I turned the knob, it didn’t budge.

“Roman?” I called through the door, hoping if he was on the other side of it, he’d hear me—hoping he’d let me in. There was no answer. I pressed my ear to the door, trying to listen for any sign of life on the other side. His breathing, shuffling of his feet, just something that would let me know he was fine. Nothing. And then I heard it. The loud cracking sound of ignited gun powder. My heart dropped to my stomach, and I darted for the front door, following the sound out of the house.

“Roman!” I yelled, but there was nothing. The cool morning breeze should have felt inviting, but instead it nipped at my skin like a blanket of needles. The corner of my eyes burned, and my fingers trembled as I rested them against my head. My heart picked up its pace, and my flip-flops slapped down the wooden steps of the front porch. The entire house was secluded, nestled deep in the woods, hidden between endless trees and a sprawling lake. To the right sat a garage, the door open, my car parked in the center. To the left, another building with no windows. I ran to the door, twisted the handle, and pushed through.

The door swung open with ease, and the weight of my body pushing against it had me stumbling. Roman turned toward me. “Julia?”

I placed a hand over my heart, willing it to slow its erratic beating. “Roman!” I ran toward him, wrapping my arms around his mid-section and burying my face into his chest.

“What’s going on?” Are you okay? His voice filled with panic. “Julia, look at me. If you’re hurt—”

“I’m okay,” I said quickly, my voice shaky. I pulled back to meet his gaze. “I heard the gunshot, and I thought—”

Roman’s eyes softened as he processed what it was I was saying. “Oh, Julia, no. God, no . . . I wouldn’t.” Tears pooled in the corner of my eyes, and he pulled me back into his chest, his chin resting on the top of my head. “I just needed to escape for a little while, and this helps me do that. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have left without saying anything, but I had to.”

I sniffed back tears. “You had to?”

“I don’t speak about my family, Julia.
Ever.
But when I saw you looking at the pictures, I knew I needed to tell you. I
wanted
to tell you.” He moved his hand up and down my back, caressing away what remained of my concern. “There is so much you can’t and don’t know about me, but that part, it’s the reason I am who I am—fuels every decision I make—and it’s why I needed to share it with you. I just didn’t know how to handle the feelings and emotions that came along with telling you.”

I could have stayed buried in his arms all day, just listening to his heartbeat, but I pulled back, dropped my hands from his waist, and looked around. The building looked even larger from the inside. Smooth concrete floors covered the ground, meeting cinderblock walls. Large steel beams ran along the ceiling, and several targets hung in the distance.

Roman walked back over between two diamond-plated steel walls and pressed a button on the shelf in front of him. One of the targets in the distance sprung forward, and then stopped at the twenty-foot indicator on the wall.

“Will you show me?” I pushed my hair behind my ears and teetered back and forth on my feet. “I mean, teach me how to shoot?”

Roman’s eyes flew to mine, the corner of his lips kicking up into a smile. “Really?”

Unsure, I looked away and then back at him. I wasn’t crazy about guns, they made me downright nervous. But if I trusted anyone to teach me, if I wanted anyone to teach me, it was Roman.

I offered a quick nod, saying, “Yeah,” and then walked toward him. His green eyes stood out against the brightness of the room, and I wondered how I was ever going to focus on anything but them. As I moved up next to him, Roman picked up one of the smaller handguns from the four that rested in front of him. Ejecting the clip, he set the loaded magazine on the shelf and held the gun in the palm of his hand. “Go ahead.” He gestured toward the gun, waiting for me to reach out and take it.

I hesitated a moment and then curled my fingers around the cool black mass of metal. It felt lighter than I imagined it would in my hands, and as my fingers moved around the hand grip, my stomach clenched with anxiousness. Glancing over at the targets, I blew out a short sigh and then turned to Roman. “You make it look so easy.”

He pulled me in front of him, positioning me in front of the shelf so I faced the targets. “Precision shooting requires balance, technique, and practice, Julia.” His chest was against my back, and his fingers ran up and down the length of my arms. “How does it feel in your hands?”

I thought about it for a moment. Cold, light, comfortable. “It feels good. Not too big. Like it was designed to fit my hands.” I knew it wasn’t, and I was positive it was just a standard model, but it felt perfect in my hands.

He smirked. “Good. That’s good, because if you’re not comfortable holding it, you won’t be comfortable shooting it.” Roman knelt behind me, and his fingers moved between my thighs. “Your stance is just as important,” he said, gliding his fingers down my legs.

I’m sorry, what?

The only thing my mind could focus on was the way that his fingers moved across my skin and the gathering of tension that was taking place between my legs. Who knew learning how to shoot a gun could be so freaking hot. Roman parted my legs, moving my feet, so they were shoulder-length apart, one a step farther than the other. A fiery path of heat trailed back up the outside of my legs as his hands rose up against them. Was he trying to teach me to shoot or turn me on? Because I was pretty sure he was doing both. He pulled my hair back over my shoulders, and his body brushed against mine as he reached for the white and black set of earmuffs. He placed them on my head, followed by a pair of safety glasses and then stepped closer so our bodies were flush once again. His breath tickled my skin as he leaned over me to pick up the loaded clip. “Relax, Julia. Your body’s too tense.”

Yeah, no kidding. Of course, my body was tense. It wanted him. I wanted him. I wanted to drop the gun, rip the ridiculous-looking headphones and glasses from my head, and beg him to take me—wrap my legs around him, and allow him to bury himself so deep within me, he’d have trouble getting out. But I didn’t say or do any of those things. Instead I drew in long steady breaths and tried to relax my shoulders. He rambled something else in my ear that I didn’t quite understand and then snapped the clip back into the gun.

“Roman, I’m nervous,” I admitted. “I don’t think I can do this.”

His hands clasped around my trembling ones, steadying them and the gun. “You can do this, Julia. You have nothing to be afraid of. The gun doesn’t fire on its own. The safety is on. You are in complete control. Do you understand?”

Closing my eyes, I nodded and bit my lip. Roman’s stubble grazed my cheek, his warm breath teasing my ear. I could hear the hint of a smile in his voice. “How are you supposed to shoot the target if you can’t see it? Open your eyes, Julia.”

My eyes shot open, and my heart pitter-pattered in my chest. He continued speaking about different parts of the gun, adjusting my fingers and arms. The proper grip, and how to use the sights, the location of the safety, and what to expect from the recoil. Roman released the slide, and the top half of the gun snapped forward, pushing a bullet into the chamber. A few minutes later, after making sure I understood and had no questions, he flipped the safety switch on the side of the gun and stepped back. “Whenever you’re ready, Julia.”

Repeating Roman’s instructions in my head, I sucked in a deep breath and exhaled. My finger curled around the trigger, and before I convinced myself otherwise, I pulled it back. The gun rattled against the tight grip of my hand, and the loud cracking sound echoed throughout the building. My hands throbbed from excitement, and I spun around to see a staring Roman. Squealing, I did a little happy dance.

Roman pulled his hands up in front of him. “Whoa. Careful there, killer.”

“Sorry,” I said, twisting back around and enabling the safety switch. I placed the gun back down on the shelf in front of me and then pulled the headphones from my ears and glasses from my face. Placing them back in their dedicated spots, I waited a second, and then turned on my heels, my body still humming with excitement.