Second Chance Love (Heaven Hill Book 6) (18 page)

“Some of them can’t be saved,” he told her. It was the truth; he’d seen it happen a million times. “But there are some that can, and I think that Drew has enough people surrounding him that he’ll be fine. It’s not going to be easy. Withdrawal is a bitch, and I don’t think Liam’s gonna take it easy on him, neither will Tyler for that matter, but I think he’s overall got a good head on his shoulders.”

Roni hoped so. God, she hoped so. She didn’t have anything else to say as they pulled into her parking spot at her apartment complex. It was still raining, coming down in sheets, flashes of lightening illuminating the sky. “I don’t wanna sit here all night.” She turned to face him. “You wanna make a run for it?”

His mood lifted as he saw the grin on her face. It reminded him of the nights they would go to the swimming hole. “You sure? We’re gonna get soaked.”

“Maybe that’s what I need.” She bit her lip as she opened the door. She never acted with any careless abandon anymore. Since the night she’d lost control as a teenager, everything was calculated. She needed to find that girl who would strip down to her skivvies and go for a swim with a boy. The woman needed to find the girl if she was going to make a life for herself.

Stepping out into the rain, she lifted her head up instead of running through it, letting the rain pour over her face. It was warm, and as it washed over her, it was almost as if it were cleansing her of all her sins. It washed away all the bad feelings, giving her peace for a moment.

“Roni, what are you doing?” Rooster questioned, grabbing her by the waist. He pulled her close, holding her to him.

“Enjoying myself for the first time in a long time,” she yelled over the sound of the water hitting the cars beside them. “I feel free and I need this,” she told him, digging her fingers into his arms.

He took a minute to look at her and he could see it. She breathed heavily, almost like she was hyperventilating, but then he wondered if it was because he held her close. If it was because their bodies touched one another. That same spark that had been there when they were younger was still there for him. He didn’t know how to get over it, how to forget it. Every woman he’d been with since her had never lived up to her memory. He knew that wasn’t fair, but it was the truth. He’d lost his heart at seventeen and had never been able to get it back.

Roni smiled up at him, the drops from the downpour caught on his eyelashes, making them seem impossibly long. The stress he had seemed to carry with him while he was on the force was gone, she’d noticed that, too, in the last few months. The afternoon had taken a lot out of both of them, but there were no more secrets. They could be themselves with each other. He seemed like he was rejuvenated, different than he’d been in a long time. She wanted that feeling for herself; she wanted to be able to live her life. She’d waited so long, years, to be the carefree one, and she wasn’t doing it. She was still worried about things she couldn’t control. Sick of it, she slipped out of his grasp and ran back towards the truck, pulling the tailgate down and pushing herself up to have a seat on it.

“What are you doing?” he asked, advancing towards her.

It was late, and her apartment building closed up at night. There wasn’t much foot traffic, and especially not on a night like tonight. She looked young sitting on the tailgate of his truck, her feet dangling. The flip flops she’d worn had slipped off, the T-shirt she wore was plastered to her body, and her shorts had ridden up, exposing tan thighs.

“Nothing.” She grinned back at him. She needed what she was about to do. She’d held him at arm’s length because he hadn’t known about the baby, it felt wrong to move forward when he hadn’t known about the secret, but now that he did, she wanted to move forward in a bad way. Locking eyes with him, she reached down and pulled her T-shirt over her head, throwing it behind her into the bed of the pickup.

“Do you know what you’re doin’?” he asked her. Rooster had stopped walking towards her, wanting to make sure she was okay with this, that this is what she wanted. Once he got a taste of her again, he knew that he wasn’t ever going to let go. It wasn’t in him to lose something twice.

“I do.” She glanced around the parking lot. The lights in most of the apartments were out, they were closed up for the night, and she wanted this, more than she’d wanted anything in a very long time. Reaching behind her, she unhooked her bra, catching it with her arms before it fell completely free.

He was to her in three long strides, his hands in her hair, tipping her mouth for him. Before she could inhale, he’d captured her lips with his, coaxing them apart and slipping his tongue inside. He plundered, shivering when he tasted her.

Grabbing him around the waist with her legs, she locked him to her, never wanting to let go. She’d let go of so much in her life, this was something she’d come to realize she didn’t want to let go. This was a new lease on life, a new start for them, and if she felt like starting her new lease in the rain, in the middle of the night, on the bed of his pickup truck, then so be it.

Rooster tilted her head back, taking her exposed neck, nibbling on her throat as his other hand swept away the bra, throwing it back to where her shirt had landed. “You sure about this?” he asked, his voice loud to be heard over the rain. He didn’t want her to regret this in a few hours after all was said and done. He wouldn’t be able to handle that. He’d waited too long.

She nodded. “I’m sure.” To prove that she was, she reached down, unbuckling his belt and the button that fastened his pants together.

“Roni,” he breathed harshly in warning against her throat when her hand slid against his stomach, pushing the elastic of his underwear down and snaking her hand underneath to grip him.

“I want this,” she told him again, running her hand up and down the hard length of him.

“Wait a second,” he cautioned, cupping her cheeks and forcing her to look at him. Letting her cheek go, he reached into the pants that drooped off his hips and pulled out a plastic packet. After the things they’d gone through today, he didn’t want there to be any kind of question as to whether they could make a baby here or not. Neither one of them were ready for it and neither one of them were in the right mind for it.

She waited as he opened the condom and placed it over his hard length, her fingers digging into the muscles of his forearms. Finally, in a flurry of movement, the two of them worked to get her wet clothes down her legs. Once they were far enough down, she lay back against the metal of the pickup. It was still warm from the heat of the day, and it felt good against her back. The rain caused her to keep her eyes closed and it heightened her other senses. Goosebumps rose along her thighs when Rooster ran his hands there, separating them to make room for his body. “Hurry,” she told him. “We can take our time later.”

Groaning, he moved one knee up onto the truck and planted one foot on the asphalt to help his balance. Seating himself inside of her transported him to another time, another place; it took him to a feeling that he hadn’t ever had since, and for the first time in a long time, he felt at peace, at ease. No matter what this life threw at them, they were going to make it. In this second chance, failure was not an option.

Chapter Twenty-Two

R
oni was afraid to move. Sunlight was shining in her eyes between the curtain and the blind, but she didn’t want to ruin the romantic haze she’d been in since she’d convinced Rooster to take her on the bed of his truck. She lay in the arms of the one man who’d had her heart her whole life. She didn’t want to wake him up and then have him regret everything they’d done the night before. That was her biggest fear, that they had both been blinded by the need to forget the crazy stuff that was going on in their lives. That she had been a warm body, any warm body. She was almost afraid to breathe.

“You don’t have to worry about waking me up.”

The male voice was rough and full of sleep. It was what she had imagined for years it would be like. Was this how their lives would have gone? Would they have woken up like this each and every morning? Their arms and legs entwined with one another, both naked, her sore from what they had done the night before? It was almost enough to make her cry, thinking about what they had given up because of circumstance.

“I just didn’t want to ruin this,” she admitted, running her hand along his chest.

“There’s no way we could ruin this.” He ran his fingers through her hair, cupping the back of her scalp. Pulling her mouth up to his, he brushed a chaste kiss against her lips. “I want to be awake and present for all the time we have together.”

There was a part of her that wondered if he really meant it. “Are you sure? I know I dropped a huge bombshell on you yesterday. One you probably never even thought of where I’m concerned.”

Rooster rolled over onto his back, blew out a deep breath, and put his hands to his forehead. “It was a shock, I’m not going to lie, and I
am
pissed. But I stand by what I said. I’m not pissed at you. I’m pissed at William. He’s lived his whole life playing with other people’s lives. None of that’s right, and I’m glad he’s finally behind bars where he hopefully can’t hurt the people that I care about any longer. If he tries to mess with you again, then I’m ready.” He reached for her hand and closed their fingers together. “I don’t want this to ever be broken again. Last night, I got back a piece of myself that I’m still not sure I knew was missing. I don’t want to let that go, babe. I know it seems easy, but I’ve lived a long time without you. I think we’ve been punished enough.”

He hadn’t called her that in a very long time, and hearing the endearment was enough to make her heart skip a beat. Could things finally be falling into place? Could she finally believe that they really would be alright? It was scary to even consider, but she knew that she had to try. “Do you have any questions? I can try to answer them for you,” she offered, wanting to make this as easy as possible for the two of them.

Rooster sighed, wondering if he should ask what was on his mind. There was a part of him that was cautionary, then there was a part of him that wanted to know everything he could to make their lives together easier. “I do have two. They kept me up last night after you’d gone to sleep, and I wanted to wake you up and find out the answers to them, but you looked peaceful, so I didn’t dare.”

“Then ask me,” she begged him. She didn’t want there to be any doubt in his mind where she was concerned. It was time to move past all the nonsense. “I want to be as honest with you as I can be.”

“Did it hurt, and can you still have kids? I know that some women, once they have an abortion, they can’t have children anymore. It won’t make or break our relationship either way; it’s just something I have to know.”

She was quiet for a long time—she struggled with what to say. She’d build this moment up so big in her mind that the easy question he asked floored her. To say she was shocked was an understatement.

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” Rooster finally told her, pissed at himself for even asking the questions—even though she’d told him it was okay. Any man in his right mind should have known they weren’t. Shit, this was hard.

“No, I want to,” she argued, shaking her head. How did she tell him the things she wanted and needed to? This had always been a slippery slope for her, but now it wasn’t and that left her dangling. “I’m trying to find the right words to explain it to you, so that you understand.”

“Say them, whatever they are. I gotta know, Roni. It’s killing me. There’s this clenching in my gut, and I know enough about myself to realize that if I don’t find out, I’m going to ruin everything we’re building just because I can be a fuck face.”

The words sounded as if they were forced from her throat. “It did physically hurt. The abortion itself. I bled for three weeks afterwards and thought I was going to die. I was convinced that God was punishing me, and just when I was getting over the achiness in my bones, the emotional hurt sat in. I think a lot of that manifested itself in physical pain because I would think I was okay and then out of nowhere, I’d be in bed for a few days. It was awful—easily the most painful experience of my life, and I went through it alone. Liam wasn’t around, my mom wasn’t around, you weren’t there, and I didn’t really have any girlfriends that I could call up and ask questions to.” She saw the despair on his face and she wanted to make it easier on him, but it was hard considering that had been the most difficult time in her life.