He has a point.
One I don’t like to admit.
He’s right.
If I were alone, I could hide away easier and figure out how to keep myself safe.
But Adaline adds a new level of complication.
I can’t check us in to a seedy hotel where hookers and johns pay by the hour to “rent” a room.
It won’t do, but neither will staying at Rocco’s, having him “keep an eye” on me.
I know myself well enough to know we’ll fall right back to where we left off.
Our limbs tangled.
Him inside me.
My toes curling.
Tons of orgasms.
Is that so bad? No, but my heart can’t take much more hurt, and Rocco has the ability to obliterate whatever little sliver I still have left.
I can resist him for Adaline. I can stop myself from rolling up on my toes, wrapping my arms around his neck, and planting my lips on his.
I can do that, right?
I have to for her. She deserves a clean room, a safe place, and anything else I am being offered.
“Yes,” I blurt out, angry with myself and him for using my kid against me. He knew I couldn’t disagree with him. It was a low blow and completely effective. “Of course I do.”
“I have a nice house with a spare bedroom, a pool, and a fenced-in yard for the kid to play in.” He tips his head toward the hotel, and it is indeed shitty, but he could’ve had his privacy without the extra baggage of a chick he slept with years ago and her kid. “Sounds a hell of a lot better than that shady-ass hotel, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I mutter. “I guess, but it’s pretty damn close.”
“We’re only a few miles away from my house, and then you can settle in for however long you want or need to stay.”
“But what about your girlfriend?” I ask, immediately regretting the question because it sounds like I am fishing for information.
Am I fishing? A small part of me wants to know…needs to know.
He’s still as handsome as he used to be. Time has been really freaking good to him, just like his brother. His body has filled out, becoming more of a man since the last time I laid both eyes and hands on him.
He is hot, and that pisses me off.
“No girlfriend.”
My gaze moves up his arm, paying close attention to the ridges of the muscles as they bulge under his skin and trying to tamp down the lust curling inside me. “No?”
“No,” he grunts.
“Why?”
Ugh.
I am fishing for information.
I couldn’t be any more transparent, but he doesn’t flinch at the question. Thank God.
“Relationships lead to feelings, and feelings lead to heartbreak.”
I gape at him, knowing he isn’t the same guy I was with before. “That’s a pessimistic way to look at love, Rocco.”
I’ve had bad luck in the relationship department, but I’m not closing off my heart to possibilities in the future.
There is someone out there for me. There has to be happiness at the end of all this, or what’s the point.
Life has to be more than pain.
He adjusts himself in the driver’s seat, his lips pulling down at the edges. “Never been in love, and never plan to be either. Easier that way. Safer.”
“I don’t have the best track record, but I can’t stop believing there’s someone out there for me. Though, maybe you’re right. Maybe I am meant to be alone and miserable. I have Adaline, and she gives me enough joy to fill my life.”
“You’ve just had shit luck with men, Rebel.”
That is putting my love life mildly. I can’t remember one who was worth a damn. Even Collin, God rest his soul, was marginal at best. Beau sucked. And then all the guys I’d been with before, no one had any redeeming qualities other than a stiff dick. Except for one, and he is sitting next to me.
Don’t go there, Rebel.
He already made it pretty damn clear he isn’t going to fall in love with anyone, and that includes me. He isn’t about to change his ways because I’ve fallen into his lap when he wasn’t looking for me and didn’t really want me around.
He is honorable. A decent human being and that’s why my ass is planted next to him. Not out of some allegiance, loyalty, or love.
“And in the same respect, you have no way of knowing if you’ll have your heart broken. I hate that Beau was in my life, even if for only the briefest time. Then there’s Collin, but…” My voice drifts as I stare into the side mirror at Carmello’s red car. “I wouldn’t have Adaline if it weren’t for him. So sometimes, the most beautiful things come from the worst mistakes.”
There’s nothing but silence after my last statement, only the rumble of the engine as we head down a treelined street to a cute white house flanked by the most beautiful birds-of-paradise and hibiscus bushes.
I lean forward, getting a better look as he pulls into the driveway and stops the SUV. “This is your place?”
“Yep.”
“It’s so…” I smile, glancing over at the grumpy big guy, wondering how he has such a pretty yard. “…colorful.”
“My mother designed the landscaping.”
That makes total sense. He doesn’t look like the type to work for hours pruning bushes and planting new flowers in every shade of the rainbow.
“Mama’s boy,” I whisper with a smile on my lips.
But I knew this about him too. It was clear at the hospital when she came running in, ready to swoop in to protect and care for her fully grown son.
He shrugs. “You can’t tell her no. I tried. Trust me. The woman doesn’t know what it means.”
“Well, she did a beautiful job.”
His place is much nicer than the shitty hotel down the street. And if the rest of the house looks anything like the outside, staying with Rocco isn’t going to be the worst thing in the world for my little girl and our safety, but I wonder how it will be for my heart.
Carmello pulls in behind us as I hop out and my feet hit the pristine gray cement. His eyes are wide, and I can see Adaline talking her head off behind him.
He’s probably near his breaking point because I’ve had that look on my face plenty of times, especially after hours in the car with her.
Carmello’s door swings open, and one long, thick, denim-covered leg pokes out before the rest of his tall body follows. “Jesus,” he mutters, shutting the door and leaving Adaline inside. “The kid can talk.”
I giggle as I walk toward him, ready to fish my girl out of his car. “Told you.”
He grabs his head, shaking it. “You did, but you didn’t explain the length and depth of her ability to speak for hours and hours without so much as taking a breath.”
I stop in front of him, tipping my head back, trying not to laugh in his face. “No. No. I told you she would talk the entire way.”
“She should come with a warning label,” he says, but there’s a small smirk on his face.
He can say what he wants, but I know Carmello well enough to know he was probably just like Adaline as a child. He’s a chatterbox, unlike his more aloof and grumpy-as-hell twin brother.
“Mommy!” Adaline yells from inside the car. “Mommy!”
“I better get her,” I tell him before moving around his wide body to the door.