Going around the back, Rooster saw Cash trying desperately to get the substance out of his shirt and jeans. He didn’t want to sneak up on the teenager, so he called out. “Cash.”
“Oh hey, boss,” Cash grinned, calling him the nickname that most kids who’d been in juvie used when addressing authority members.
“Stop. You’re not in juvie and I’m not wearing a badge.”
It was hard for some people to differentiate between lives, and Rooster had unfortunately known Cash for a while. It seemed though, since he’d hooked up with Heaven Hill, he was more on the straight and narrow as he’d ever been. Funny, considering the things the club did.
“Sorry,” he apologized as he used the garden hose on his shirt. “What can I help you with?”
“I know you aren’t in high school anymore, but I have a couple of questions about what’s going on over there.”
Cash was a college freshman, but he still had many friends in high school. Rooster figured if anyone could give him the scoop, it would be a newly graduated student.
“Yeah, I still talk to people over there. I have friends there, Drew and Mandy and other people.”
“Have you heard anything about steroid use?” Rooster didn’t want to beat around the bush, and he knew from previous experience with Cash it was better to be blunt. The kid could talk his way out of a paper bag if you gave him the chance.
Cash looked away, a sure sign that he didn’t want to talk about this, but he owed it to the people that had helped him out to be honest. “I have, and it’s been going on for at least a year. It’s mostly done on the football team. Word has it that the dealer, and nobody’s sure who that is, is pushing harder. He’s got some of the members of the football team selling for him or her.”
“Shit,” Rooster mumbled. “Thanks. Until I have something I can use, we’re gonna keep this between us.”
“You think Drew’s mixed up in it?” Cash asked.
The way he asked told Rooster that Cash knew. “You and I both know he’s up to his eyeballs in this. You sure he hasn’t told you anything?”
“He hasn’t and I don’t want to ask. I’ve seen the way he’s been going off on people lately. I don’t wanna be on the receiving end of that.”
Neither one of them wanted to be, and truthfully, it was Liam that scared Rooster the most. “Thanks for talkin’ to me. We’ll figure it out,” he told the younger man.
Cash nodded quietly and then went back to work on his shirt, his mood somber. Hopefully them figuring it out wouldn’t cause huge problems for the Walker family.
Chapter Thirteen
Rooster pulled his bike into the parking lot of Roni’s apartment building and cut it off. He sat there for what seemed like forever. Since talking to Cash, he had gone back and forth with whether he should tell Roni what was going on with Drew. He still hadn’t been able to make a gut decision. For once, he wanted to be completely selfish, he wanted them to have a real shot at a forever. If he told her what he had found out, that could potentially put a stop to the relationship they had begun to build. He knew it was misguided, but he felt responsible for not only Drew but the other kids at the school. He had been an officer for the county; he was supposed to have kept them all safe, keep all the bad shit away. It was still hard, at times, for him to turn off what his former life had been. What if she blamed him for this too? It was something else in a long line of ways he’d failed her. What would he do if that happened? He wasn’t sure he could stomach it again. For a few more days, he wanted to enjoy what they were embarking on. He wanted to live the life he should have lived seventeen years ago.
Getting off the bike, he made his way to her front door, smiling when she opened it before he knocked. “Were you watching for me?”
She rolled her eyes. “That bike is so damn loud I could hear it coming from the road.” In reality, she had been watching for him. Making a complaint was easier than telling him she’d sat at her window almost having a panic attack when he hadn’t come straight inside. She’d worried that he decided they weren’t worth it and he wasn’t willing to do this anymore.
He grinned softly. “It’s okay, you don’t have to admit it. I know you were watching for me. Did you grab a change of clothes?”
Picking up her backpack, she thrust it into his hand. “Yup. Now are you going to tell me what we’re doing and where we’re going?”
“Nope.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her through the door. “This is my secret and your surprise.”
In a whirlwind, he had her on the back of his bike and they were racing down the road. Her arms tightened around his waist, and she got as close as she could when they took a turn. The motion of the bike made them scoot closer together and her chest rubbed against his back. It surprised her how quickly she reacted to him; her body was traitorous as she felt her breasts swell and an answering heat between her thighs. This was definitely a sign that she’d been alone way too long. The rest of the ride was torture as she tried valiantly not to touch him more than she needed to. It dawned on her when they were almost there where they were going.
“You recognize it?” he asked as he parked the bike and turned it off.
It was their swimming hole. “I can’t believe you still know how to get here,” she told him as they got off the bike.
“I’ve come here a lot.”
That surprised the hell out of her. She hadn’t been able to come here after everything that had happened. While it held good memories, she hadn’t been able to reconcile those good memories because she’d been too busy basking in the bad ones. She’d told herself many times that she needed to get over it, but it wasn’t easy. “I’ve never been able to come back. It reminded me of everything I lost.” Truer words had never been spoken, she was positive that their child had been conceived here.
“It always reminded me of the good times, the fun nights we had when we hoped no one was watching. When things got horrible and I didn’t know what else to do, where else to turn, I would come here and think about how crazy we were. This place got me through some of the hardest times of my life. If it’s too sad for you, we can leave.” He noticed the look on her face. Maybe their memories of their time here wasn’t the same. He would hate it if they weren’t. This had always been his place of hope in his times of sadness.
“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to leave. Things happened with William that put a negative spin on our time spent here. Let’s make some new memories.” She winked as she reached for the hem of her T-shirt and pulled it over her head. She was determined that life would be different. Liam had made an amazing life for himself, there was no reason she couldn’t make one of her own.
He couldn’t look away as she threw the shirt on the ground and then stepped out of her jeans. All the reasons they shouldn’t be doing this, all the things he needed to tell her about Drew disappeared as his mouth became as dry as the Sahara. He wanted this, more than he had wanted anything in years. Rooster was sick of making sure that everyone else was taken care of. For once, he wanted to take care of himself. He wanted to put himself first and not worry about a million other people.
“It feels really good,” she told him as she dipped under the water and then came back up, treading water.
It had gotten deeper over the years, so he knew it was okay for him to dive in. After he kicked his jeans to the side, he did just that, coming up right beside Roni. He pushed the water out of his eyes and faced her. “You’re right, it feels good. Not too cold, just warm enough.”
She was, for some reason, shy. Here in this place where they had spent so much time, she was shy with him. Grabbing his shoulders, she looped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. It was easier not to see his eyes. His eyes could kill her. They asked questions that he didn’t put into word form.
“You okay?” he asked, pulling her chin up with one hand as he maneuvered them to where he could stand.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “It feels weird, be
ing here with you after so much time has passed.”
“It does,” he agreed. “But I’m thankful we got another chance.”
He would regret those words; she knew it, as soon as she told him about what William had made her do. Her inner voice screamed to tell him today, tell him now and get it over with. That voice told her not to make too many memories with him. Too many memories wouldn’t get her through the lonely nights. Another voice told her to experience this one last time—she wanted one night of happiness to make up for the last seventeen years of loneliness. She made a pact with herself, she would tell him in the morning. “I’m thankful too.” She almost choked on the words, but she pushed them past the lump in her throat.
Framing his face with her hands, she leaned in, brushing her lips against his. They were soft and warm, and it was like everything and nothing had changed, all at the same time. She wanted control for a little while before she handed it over. Running her hands down his neck, she moved them down his chest and stomach to the edge of where his boxers rested on his hips. “Are you sure there’s no fish in here or anything?” she mumbled against his lips.
He laughed, his warm breath tickling her face. “I sure as fuck hope not. If there is, I think we’re both screwed and at least we’ll find out together.”
She laughed along with him, allowing him to move her so that her back rested against a wall of rock that made up the edge of the pool of water. Her fingers played with the material of his boxers, wondering if she should go ahead and do this, or if they should wait. In the end, she could no longer wait, and she pushed, sliding them off his hips. With his help, he pushed them down his legs and then picked them up in one of his hands, throwing them onto the shore. When she glanced up at him, she saw that as quickly as she thought she had control, she’d lost it. There was a predatory glint in his gaze that made her think she was about to get schooled on who was the hunter.
Rooster had waited for this for too long. He was on edge and he didn’t know how much longer he could handle being this close to her and not making good on every fantasy he’d ever had. Pressing her against the rock, his mouth claimed hers, his thigh pressed between hers, and his hand went to the wet material of her bra, pushing up the strap.
Roni wanted him to take it off, but to do that, he would have to loosen his hold on her and she didn’t want him to. He held her tightly against his body, his thigh holding her up, almost to the point that her feet weren’t touching the bottom of this shallow end of the pool. Her upper torso was out of the water, and a slight wind blew, causing goosebumps on her skin. Letting go of his neck, she made her own decision. Reaching behind her, she unclasped the hooks of the material and pulled it off her chest before throwing it towards the shoreline and putting her arms back around him, this time at his waist.
Pulling his lips from hers was one of the hardest things he’d ever done, but she’d made it easier on him, removing the bra. Now the only thing that kept them from being completely intimate was the cotton material of her underwear.
“Are you sure about this?” he breathed heavily against her the skin of her chest. “You have to be sure. I don’t want to wake up with regrets tomorrow.”
She nodded. “I’m sure.”
It was the green light he needed, and he swore to himself that he would never look back.
Chapter Fourteen
Roni dug her fingers into his hair when she felt his big hands cup her ass and lift, bringing her legs around his waist. In the water, in this position, she was weightless. It pushed her further up the rock so that his mouth was even with her chest. It seemed like forever that he stared at her before he glanced up, gave her a grin, and dove headfirst into his mission of blowing her mind.
There was one thing he hadn’t been as a teenager, and that was smooth. He’d learned over the years what women liked and what they didn’t. He hoped that Roni was similar to most women he’d encountered since their split. Using the flat of his tongue, he licked a path to where her nipples jutted at him, capturing one in his mouth, worrying the nub with his teeth. He felt the pull of her fingers against his scalp, and then he felt her press harder.
“Don’t stop, Rooster,” she moaned.
Those words affected him like no others could. He hadn’t heard them from her in years, and to know she was with him in this feeling did it for him. He couldn’t keep his hands off her as he ran them up to her ribcage, spanning her waist there. She was little, had always been smaller than him, but now it felt like he could span her waist with both hands. For a while, they’d gone to the same gym, but when he’d started showing up at the same time as her, she stopped coming. He wondered how she managed to stay in shape. Running his right hand up further, he cupped the underside of the breast he didn’t have in his mouth, swiping a thumb over her nipple. The way it tightened against his touch made him want to yell out to the world that he’d done this to her. All their other experiences had been quick and forbidden. That had been part of the allure of it back when they’d been teenagers, but now they were adults and he could enjoy her, no matter how long that took.
Roni threw her head back, tilting it against the rock so that she could arch her back, thrust her body towards Rooster. There was a part of her that told her they needed to stop, because she wasn’t on anything and she was pretty damn sure that he had no place to hide a condom in the water. The other, louder, part of her didn’t want him to stop, consequences be damned. She’d already been there once though, and she wasn’t sure that she could handle it again. Her conscience told her to enjoy this for as long as she could before she had to put a stop to it. She felt his left hand leave her body and then felt him positioning himself at her core.
“Wait, wait, Rooster,” she heaved, breath coming as fast as if she’d run a marathon. “I’m not protected.”
He struggled to know what the hell that meant. His brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders, and it took him a moment before realization dawned on him. He hadn’t even thought about it. “Fuck,” he breathed out, resting his head against her chest. “Fuck,” he growled again. “I didn’t even think about it,” he admitted.
“We don’t need any surprises.” She ran her hands along his shoulders. “We’re too old to be letting ourselves get carried away.”
She was right and he knew it, but damn if it didn’t suck. “Doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun.” He grinned up at her before his mouth went back to her breast.
When she felt him at her core again, rubbing back and forth against her, she grasped his shoulders. “We didn’t even make out like this as teenagers,” she forced the words between gritted teeth. This felt better than sex ever had, maybe it was the buildup of tension between the two of them, and maybe it was the fact that she’d loved him for half her life. She wasn’t sure, but everything he did to her felt better than it ever had. Roni caught his rhythm, thrusting against him. Her fingers bit into the skin of his back, holding on tightly as he hit every nerve that would set her off like the fourth of July.
“Why does this feel so good?” she breathed out, rolling her head back, and bringing his lips to her neck.
“Because it’s been so long,” he answered, giving his length a few strokes. He could tell by the way she was tightening against him that she was almost there, and he didn’t want to make her go alone.
It had, Roni realized. It had been about a year for her, but it had been so much longer since she actually felt something for the person she was having the physical intimacy with. Knowing that she felt something for him made this even better. Without warning, he nipped the side of neck before pulling her earlobe in his mouth, sucking hard on the skin there. It went straight to where her body was already tightening, and she felt herself let go, let her body fall into the abyss of feeling that apparently only Rooster could bring out of her. In a haze, she heard him groan, felt him tense, and then he collapsed against her body.
She realized with startling clarity that before this went any further she was going to have to t
ell her secret.
Four days later, she still had yet to tell Rooster anything. That night at their swimming hole, they’d cleaned up, put on fresh clothes, grabbed drive-through food, and went back to her apartment. He’d stayed until the next morning, and she’d tried to tell him a million times, but it hadn’t ever come out. The words couldn’t be formed by her mouth, pressed out by her throat. She couldn’t make herself do it. She sat in the office at Walker’s Wheels, contemplating what she was going to do. Their relationship couldn’t move forward, she didn’t trust it to move forward, unless she was honest with him.
On this particular day, Meredith sat in the office with her, waiting for Tyler to finish his shift. If anyone could help in figuring out who to talk to about things, Roni knew it was Meredith.
“I have a question that I think you can answer,” Roni started, not looking up from the invoices she was working on.
“Yes, Tyler is always as hot as he appears. He never has a bad hair day, and he wakes up looking like sex on a stick,” she joked. It was the running joke amongst the ladies about how hot Tyler Blackfoot was, and Meredith took it in the vein it was meant to be in.
“You are a very, very lucky woman, but that was not my question,” Roni laughed. This made her uncomfortable, but there were a million things in Meredith’s life that had made her uncomfortable and she’d managed to pull through all of them. If Meredith could do that, Roni could ask her opinion on this. “If I wanted to talk to someone or have someone with me when I told another person about a hard emotional issue…who would you recommend?”
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