Breaking the Rules

chapter 10





Susana was in the back room counting the day’s earnings when she heard someone enter the shop. The bell over the door tinkled, and she groaned. She’d wrapped up all her appointments and wanted to get home to a hot bath. Or a cool bath. Anything to try and soothe the ache racking her muscles, to quell the prickle of her skin, to ease the uncomfortable thudding of her heart that assaulted her whenever she thought of Joe.

Joe.

He occupied her thoughts from dawn to dusk and all the hours in between. He haunted her in dreams, the scent of him, the feel of his arms around her, mocked her as she lay alone in bed, tossing and turning in the summer heat.

There was no doubt that her powers as a seer were diminished. She’d given them up willingly, like so many women before her, choosing a life in the present over peering into the mists of the future. Choosing to know the transient yet intoxicating pleasures of the flesh. She understood now why her mother had gone astray. Had created her.

It had been four agonizing days since she’d seen him. So many times she’d been tempted to pick up the phone and call. Or her feet began to lead her restlessly westward, in the direction of his apartment.

And then each time she remembered all the reasons why they shouldn’t be together. It would break the family apart. Joe and her brothers would hate each other. She’d lose the people who cared about her, and if it didn’t work out with Joe—a distinct possibility—she’d be truly alone in the world.

The third card was a card of warning.

The hollow empty spaces inside her seemed to swell as she counted on her fingers all the many reasons why fooling around with Joe was stupid, senseless and could lead to nothing but heartbreak and disaster for both of them.

She heard the scrape of the chair on the old wood floor as the visitor outside in the storefront sat at the table. Ugh. She didn’t have the energy to hear any more troubles today. She had enough of her own. Maybe if she just sat back here, kept silent, they’d go away. She missed the little cat that used to brush around her ankles. It had run away two years ago, and for a while she’d envied it. But for all she knew it was probably dead. Curiosity killed the…

The door to the back room flung open.

Joe.

Her skin stung as she rasped in a breath. She dropped the money she was holding and wrinkled notes fluttered to the floor.

His eyes fixed on her, shining black in the dim light. The door closed behind him, sealing them together in the dusty, cluttered storeroom behind the ofisa. Neither of them spoke.

He radiated energy, which rippled toward her, raising the tiny hairs on her skin, jingling her nerves. White-hot intensity that swirled amid the dust and incense. Not anger, as she might have expected, but something far more complicated, mixed up and messy like this whole crazy affair.

Passion.

The dim light from the single bulb shone across his harsh, masculine features, highlighting his scar and the thin shadow of stubble that dusted his jaw. She could hear him breathing—or was it her own arrhythmic inhalations and exhalations that disturbed the eerie silence?

Passion could be a dangerous force when unleashed into the world. It wasn’t tied to love. It could just as well be driven by hate. It conquered hearts and minds, knew no limits but its own.

Susana swallowed. She sat on a high tabletop, the only unbroken piece of furniture, and it raised her almost to eye level with Joe. She held his gaze, even as it almost cost her the ability to breathe.

“You didn’t come to me.” His low voice shimmered through the thick air.

“I couldn’t.”

“So I came to you.” He didn’t move.

He wore a suit, gray, with a white shirt and a dark tie loosened at the neck. The uniform of respectability. But she could see his feelings for her were anything but respectable.

The heat smoking from his gaze steamed up her body until pricks of perspiration trickled down her spine.

His eyes drifted over her face, grazing her lips and cheeks, where she felt the two familiar spots of color spring to life.

“I need you, Susana.”

She could feel his need lapping toward her, splashing up against the depthless lake of her own. Every part of her ached for him.

But it wasn’t simple sexual yearning any more. Something deeper. She cared about him. She wanted him to be happy.

He took a step forward, and she heard herself gasp. Her fingers flew to the edge of the table and gripped it like the edge of a precipice.

“Don’t worry, I won’t touch you.”

Please touch me! her body cried, as fear and desire crackled through her like wildfire.

“I know you only wanted one night of pleasure,” he continued, eyes narrowed. “That’s all I wanted, too. We made no promises to each other.” He swallowed and his Adam’s apple moved above the starched white collar of his shirt. “But something happened between us. Something…magic.”

The oddly incongruous word slid off his tongue and hung in the air between them.

Magic. It was magic all right. But there was good magic and bad magic. What they made was black magic—dark, intense, a dangerous force that crept out at night and drove strangers into each other’s arms. The kind of enchantment that made you give up everything you’d ever known and all the people you held dear.

That wasn’t the Romani way. Arranged marriage for the good of the families. Family first. Girls were married off very young, before they had a chance to make their own mistakes. She’d escaped that fate, but it didn’t mean she had to go tearing off in the other direction.

Did it?

Joe took another step toward her.

“You said you’d never lie to me. Is that still true?”

She nodded dumbly.

“Can you honestly tell me you feel nothing for me?”

She shook her head. She felt far too much. Feelings she didn’t understand and couldn’t name.

Fire flashed in Joe’s eyes, and she heard her breathing quicken. She struggled to shove down the chaotic mix of emotions swelling inside her.

Are you going to betray me, Susana?

I don’t know.

Remembered wisps of conversation danced in her head as she gripped the table, willing her body not to respond to his nearness.

It was time for betrayal. To save his life. To save her own.

“Do you think I still owe you?” she said coolly, her heart seizing as she forced out the cruel words. The flicker of confusion that crossed Joe’s face cut her.

“No,” he spoke low. “You don’t owe me anything.” His features tightened. “I’ve taken my payment. In full.”

His eyes dropped crudely to her chest, as they had when he’d first entered her ofisa. Her breasts stirred beneath the dark blouse, craving his touch. She felt a flush of heat rising up over her face.

“You don’t owe me anything at all,” he whispered. He lifted his hand almost to her breast. Her skin quivered, expecting his touch, but he just held it there.

“See, I won’t touch you. No matter how much I want to.” He withdrew his hand, and Susana felt it like a slap.

Touch me, her body called.

What kind of magic made a grown woman want a man’s hand on her breast?

Nothing good can come of it.

“It hurt me, you know, when you told your cousins you didn’t want to marry me.” Joe let out a bitter laugh. “Can you imagine? At that moment I hoped you’d say yes. You feed a stray dog once, and then you can’t get rid of him.”

He’d come to her like a stray dog, looking for scraps of salvation. She’d fed him, too.

He cocked his head slightly. “I guess the only way to get rid of a stray is boot him out into the street. Let him know he’s not wanted. Are you going to kick me out Susana?”

Yes.

The word formed in her brain, but her lips wouldn’t speak it. They formed a mute O as she stared at Joe. He wanted to marry her? Well, he hadn’t said exactly that.

When Roman had asked if she wanted to marry Joe, she’d said no to let Joe off the hook. Reassure him she expected nothing. But in fact he’d wanted her to say yes?

The idea of marrying Joe suddenly took root in her brain and blossomed into a strange and beautiful flower. Man and wife, living together, helping each other, loving and making love…

Are you nuts, Susana?

Like a daylily at dusk the flower shriveled. He didn’t want to marry her. He wanted her to want to marry him. A right of first refusal. Men just want to know they have the power. That’s what Granna always said.

Marriage is slavery, she’d said that too. She’d worked like a slave to support her idle husband and in turn he’d bossed and bullied her because it was his right. She’d shed only crocodile tears on his grave and was glad to get her freedom and her psychic powers back. Don’t marry, don’t ever marry. Those were Granna’s only words of advice on the subject. No doubt why her own daughter had no marriage arranged and ended up living in sin with a gadjo and bearing his nameless bastard—her.

Tears pricked her eyelids. She’d tried hard to live a life apart, but her mother couldn’t do it and now she was failing, too. A lifetime of warnings weren’t enough to quiet the angry desires of the flesh.

“Go on then.” Joe lifted his chin. “You have to be cruel to get rid of a stray. We don’t give up easy.” He stared at her, daring her to throw him out. The twinkle of amusement in his eye told her he didn’t think she would. Didn’t think she could.

Oh yeah?

She jumped off the table onto the floor and shoved him with her hand. He caught her wrist and held it tight, never taking his eyes off hers. Her breath caught in her throat as his grip tightened over the pulse point on her wrist.

“You’re hurting me.” She tried to pull her wrist away, but her thin arms were no match for his strength.

“You’re hurting me.” The muted growl of his voice stirred something down below the folds of her skirt. Something hot and dangerous. Something ugly and beautiful at the same time. Again she tried to tug her wrist back.

“Not so easy, huh? Your wrist feels the way my heart does. Someone’s got it in a vise grip.”

Her own heart squeezed at his words and she quickly shoved down the rising surge of emotion threatening to choke her. Don’t feel bad. You warned him. “I told you the meaning of the third card. I told you I’d let you down.”

“You’ve done that already, by not coming to me. But that’s in the past. Where do we go from here?”

Nowhere. Everywhere. Possibilities jumped in Susana’s mind, exploding like firecrackers as they bumped up against the cool core of her reason.

He softened his grip on her wrist but didn’t let go. His broad thumb chafed her pulse point as he turned her wrist over and lifted her upturned palm to his face. She didn’t resist.

He lowered his eyes as he pressed his lips into the soft flesh. She gasped at the warmth of his mouth, the slick wetness of his tongue in the tender hollow of her cupped palm.

Joe dropped to his knees on the floor, his lips still pressed to her palm.

“Your good suit—the floor is filthy!” The last traces of commonsense pushed the words to her lips.

“Never you mind my suit,” he muttered, as he lifted the hem of her skirt with the concentration of an archeologist discovering a lost civilization.

He let the skirt fall over his shoulders as his head slipped between her legs. She couldn’t see him but, oh, could she feel him. She shuddered involuntarily as his lips and tongue began a slow ascent up her thighs, lapping at her skin, teasing and tickling first one thigh, then the other. She moaned, leaning back against the table and gripping its edge to keep herself upright.

His hands slid over her feet, tracing the openings of her sensible shoes, then skimming up the inside of her calves, lighting fires under the skin. He shifted, burying his head deeper between her thighs, until the pressure of his face parted them slightly. She heard his low groan as her knees buckled and his mouth made contact with her sex.

She was aware of damp heat spreading, but she couldn’t tell if it came from within her or from the pressure of his wet tongue on her panties. He licked and nibbled at her through the thin fabric, stirring her flesh until it pulsed with arousal.

She heard herself panting, a soft animal sound that scared her a little. She wanted to touch Joe, to hold him, but he was still hidden beneath her skirt. She reached behind her back and unfastened the hook at the waist, then pushed it down. As the top of his head emerged her fingers dove into his thick hair, clutching at it as he continued to suck her to new heights of fearsome pleasure.

“I think I love you, Joe.” The words slipped right out. They’d sprung to her mind, and she’d said them because she had to. Because she didn’t feel like holding anything back right now. All of her was soft, fluid, open and giving, as Joe sucked and kneaded the last of her inhibitions away.

He didn’t stop the relentless lapping and licking, just gripped her a little tighter with his strong fingers, holding her steady as her muscles spasmed and her body shook with the force of her climax.

“I think I love you, too, Susana,” he murmured, deep in the folds of her skirt, his face still buried between her thighs. “I don’t know what it means but I think it all the same.”

When she finally dared to open her eyes he was standing in front of her. His eyes gleamed and his lips were moist with passion and sex. She reached up and pushed back the hair she’d disarranged with her wild groping and stroked his cheek.

I think I love you.

She unbuttoned his pants and pushed them down, feeling beneath his shirttails for the thickness of his arousal.

“I lust for you,” she said, smiling, then bit her lip as her fingers tingled with excitement at touching him. She wanted to laugh but no sound came out.

“Lust and love.” Joe leaned forward and kissed her neck, his tongue flicking over her jugular. “Maybe we’ve got them confused. Who knows where one ends and the other begins?”

“Who cares,” she murmured as she shoved her hips forward to rub against him, succumbing to the force of whatever crazy uncontrolled thing it was that drew them together and aroused them both to the point of madness.

He silenced her with a kiss so deep it stole her breath. Then he tugged down her panties and lifted her up onto the table before she had a chance to protest.

He sheathed himself with a condom from his pocket and entered her slowly, pushing in as she opened to receive him, each deepening of the penetration driving her to new heights of agonizing bliss. No pain, just pleasure that flooded her body and banished all doubt and fear.

They moved together, Joe thrusting as his hands clutched her backside and pulled her into a primal rhythm that echoed through her. He kissed her face all over as he filled her, then groaned in her ear, fingers digging into her as he started to lose control. His own abandon drove her over the edge again, a second climax sweeping through her as she clutched him, not sure whether she was trying to support him or save herself.

When she finally opened her eyes everything was blurry and she could feel tears on her cheeks. She was still seated on the table, and Joe leaned over her, panting, his arms wrapped around her shoulders.

“This is crazy,” she murmured, lifting a hand to wipe the tears away. Tears? She never cried in front of anyone in her life. Granna would have smacked her for showing such weakness.

“Crazy in a good way,” he whispered. “I’ve been crazy in a bad way, and this feels different.”

“I don’t know, Joe, crazy is crazy.” She bit her lip again, hard, trying to invoke some sensation other than the waves of pleasure washing through her from head to toe.

He wiped a hot tear away with his big thumb. “You think too much, Susana. Sometimes you’ve just got to feel.”

So this is how it happens. She’d seen them trooping in and out of the ofisa. Men and women, young and old, broken-hearted and miserable because “love” didn’t go the way they hoped. And she could count Joe among their number. Did “love” ever turn out right? If it did, then those people didn’t come into the shop.

Love seemed like a pretty raw deal to Susana. At least with arranged marriage there was a business deal to be upheld and a bunch of brawny male relatives to make sure everyone kept their end of the bargain. Sometimes the married pair was happy, sometimes not, but this “love” business seemed to leave everyone dripping tears on the storefront’s faded baize tablecloth.

And now she was getting all tangled up in it herself.

“Even if we do love each other, whatever that means.” She paused. “There’s no guarantee it isn’t a flash in the pan.”

“Life doesn’t come with a money-back guarantee. You’ve got to take chances.”

“I’m no risk taker, Joe.”

“So how come you’re sitting on that table with no skirt on?” He grinned.

She smacked his face lightly. “Be serious.”

“Yeah? If you’re so serious why are you smiling?”

“Shut up, you.” She covered his mouth with her hand, but she could feel his grin broadening under it, along with her own.

He pulled her hand away from his mouth. “We’re good together. We make each other feel good, and I don’t mean just the sex. I like being with you. I swear to God I’m a different man since I’ve met you. A couple of weeks ago I wouldn’t have cared if a bus hit me, but now I’m all fired up about the future because it has you in it. Simple and stupid but there it is.”

She stroked his cheek. “You’re a good man, Joe.”

“Like you told your cousins.”

“Yes.”

“I think they liked me.” He winked now. “I think I’d grow on them, anyway. We’d be one big happy family.”

If only that were true. The claws of apprehension sprang out again and dug themselves in around her throat.

“It’s not that simple.”

“Nothing ever is.” He shrugged.

“The family…” She paused, not sure where to start.

“The way you say that sounds like they’re some big Mafia clan.”

“It’s not like that exactly…”

“Exactly?” Joe raised an eyebrow.

She frowned, wondering how she could make him understand. Joe tugged his pants up and fastened them. Then he crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his head, waiting.

Susana stroked her naked thighs. “It’s hard to explain. My people, the Rom,” she glanced up at him. “We value family above everything.”

“That’s good.”

“Yes.” She looked down. “Sometimes it’s good. It’s kept us together through centuries of persecution; it’s kept our culture alive. But it comes at a price.” She looked up again and met his eyes. “And the price is sticking to our own.”

“Keeping clear of the gadjo.” He raised his eyebrows.

“Gadje is the plural, but yes.” She almost smiled, even though it wasn’t funny. “That’s how we’ve kept our identity.”

“Cultural identity doesn’t have to define your life. This is America in the twenty-first century. I’m Cuban and Italian and proud of both. You don’t have to give up your Rom culture to marry someone else.”

“But I would. Being Rom is an all or nothing proposition.”

“Why?”

“Tradition.”

“Maybe it’s time for traditions to change a little.”

“Tradition and change are two words that don’t really go together. Janus and Roman might agree with you. They’re not as old-fashioned as they’d have you believe, but the elders in my family?–no way. In Rom culture we have an expression: marime. It’s hard to explain to a…”

“Gadjo.”

“Yes.” Now she did smile, then it withered on her lips. “Marime means… unclean, contaminated. If it became known that I was with you, or if we lived together, then I’d become marime and no Rom would be able to associate with me.” She looked hard at him, her face composed. “And I mean that literally, they wouldn’t be able to look at me or talk to me or even acknowledge my presence.”

“Jesus.”

She shrugged. “So there it is. All or nothing.”

“I don’t think I’d want to be part of a culture like that.”

“You can’t be. You’re not invited.” She lifted an eyebrow.

“No kidding. But why do you want to be part of it?”

She swallowed. “Again, it’s hard to explain. It’s something I feel…” She put her hand over her heart. “Here. Deep inside me. It’s who I am. I’m proud of my people and of our journey.”

Joe nodded. She could see from his face that he understood the full implication of what she said. The light had dimmed in his eyes.

“I hear what you’re saying.” He swallowed. “To come with me you’d have to give up…”

“Who I am.”

He grimaced.

She felt her heart shrinking and shriveling inside her. A miserable organ not worthy of the man who’d touched it.

Would “her people” keep her warm at night over the next few decades? Nope. But sleeping alone was a gadjo tradition she’d gotten used to, and she could carry on that way if she had to.

“I won’t ask you to give it all up for me. I know only too well that love can turn out to be an illusion. A delusion.” He glanced away and picked up a broken part of something—an old lamp maybe? “Nothing lasts forever.”

She could see he wanted to say more but held back. Maybe he’d have liked to ask her to think about it or say that if she ever changed her mind…

“I shouldn’t have come.” He dropped the object and stared at her. “You were trying to let me down easy, and I stormed in here and started something I had no business doing.” His eyes dropped to her bare thighs, and his hand followed, stroking her skin. Sorrow pinched her heart at the tenderness of his touch. “I’m sorry, Susana.”

She felt a sob rising inside her, or a howl or a shout or something else desperate and embarrassing. She jumped off the table and groped on the floor for her skirt, tugging it on and fussing around looking for her underwear as a distraction.

“I won’t come to you again, so you don’t have to worry about me messing up your life.”

Cold shards of realization pierced her at his words. The thought of a lifetime without Joe resonated in her skull. What a long lifetime it would be.

She straightened up, brushing dust off her skirt, groping for words. “I won’t ever forget you. You’ve changed me.”

“I made you a woman.” He tried to force a smile, but it died on his lips. “No. You were a woman already. A strong and proud one. I’m grateful for the time we shared.”

“Me too.” More hot tears accompanied her harsh whisper.

“Some things just aren’t meant to be.” He took a deep breath, his face tight. She could tell he still fought words that wanted to come to his lips.

Did he want to beg her to come with him? To give up everything and follow him wherever he went? Would she?

No. They both knew it.

“Goodbye, Susana.”

“Goodbye, Joe.” Her rasped words were barely audible. She couldn’t even see him through the blur of tears that thickened and hung in her lashes.

He didn’t touch her again before he turned and left. She heard the door to the storefront close softly, then the bell as he opened the front door of the ofisa and exited out onto the street. For good.