Besides Paul he didn’t have anyone in his life who cared for him. Everyone wanted his money or fame. No one just wanted Rocco.
The realization hit him hard, sucking the air out from his lungs like a punch right to the gut. There, on a quiet little neighborhood in suburbia, staring at a chipped garden gnome, he realized what a lonely existence he had. No family and no real friends, except Paul.
“Hey, hey. You okay?” She moved quickly in front of him. For a moment she seemed hesitant, bringing her hand up and then back down. But eventually she placed it right where he needed it, cupping his face and looking him straight in the eyes, concern and uncertainty etched on her face. “What’s going on? Talk to me.”
He swallowed, unable to voice anything.
And even if he had the ability, how could he voice it? What kind of pussy would he be?
Oh . . . badass ninja woman, don’t mind me, I’ve just realized that my constant state of unhappiness stems from loneliness. Please, hold me.
So instead he looked into her eyes, searching for some sort of understanding. Empathy. Something. Her eyes were just as intense as his, and then once again . . . proving that she was a mind reader . . . she did what he needed her to do. She leaned forward and kissed the corner of his lips. He wasn’t sure if it was intentional or whether she had bad aim and meant to catch his cheek, but it didn’t matter. She stood, extended her hand to his, and helped him to his feet. Once he was up, she again surprised him by wrapping her arms around his waist, resting her head in his chest, and hugging him.
When was the last time someone hugged him?
Never?
He searched his memory files and nope . . . never. He had never had a single hug in his life. And the thought made his throat close up. She grabbed one of his arms that were still limply by his side and wrapped it around her body. Directing him. Teaching him how to hug.
What the hell was happening? They were laughing and being silly not five minutes ago. Now he was having a full-blown panic attack.
She tightened her grip and then he did the same, resting his chin on her head, as she moved her hand up and down his back, soothingly.
After a while of just standing there, she finally looked up.
“Better?”
Was he better?
He looked back down at the gnome, then at the woman in his arms. He kissed her temple and then blew out a big breath. “Yes.”
“Sometimes a hug is all you need.”
“I wouldn’t know,” he mumbled underneath his breath, just as the front door swung open. “Can we forget this just happened?”
She shook her head and gave him a wink. “Probably not.”
“There’s no fucking paparazzi around. So if you tell me this is you pretending to be his girlfriend, I’m calling fucking bullshit on that!” Joey yelled from the front door.
“First of all, don’t yell at me!” she said, hopping up the steps, her hands on her waist. “And second of all, stop cursing at me, fuckhead.”
Joey rolled his eyes, kissed his sister’s cheek, and then moved out of the way for her to step inside. “You may be a client, but she’s my baby sister. I will rip out your balls and feed them to you if you so much as touch her again.”
Well, that lightened the mood. “I guess the professionalism is over once I signed on the dotted line.”
“You didn’t sign dick. It was your studio that signed. And as long as you keep shit professional with Annie, I’ll keep shit professional with you.”
“She doesn’t need you to look out for her, you know? She’s strong and smart. She’s got her life together.”
“You’ve known her for five minutes. I’ve known her all her life.” Even though Joey had his arms crossed over his chest in a display of male bravado, he also had a bit of a smirk. He was just being an overprotective brother giving her date a hard time.
Rocco hoped that was all it was.
He wanted to tell him how he was falling in love with her and would never do anything to hurt her. In fact he wanted to put her in a protective bubble and make sure she was never harmed or worried about anything. He just wanted to take care of her. But, alas, that wasn’t something he wanted to share with her brother or share with anyone for that matter. Not until he told her how he felt. And not when he wasn’t sure whether Joey wanted to strangle him or invite him in for a beer.
Joey moved forward and closed the door behind him. “I like you, Rock. You seem to be one of the good guys.”
“You’ve known me for five minutes.” He repeated the words. “And you tell me you’re going to kick my ass every time I see you.”
“You’re right. Like is too strong of a word. But the point is, I Googled you.” He added, just loud enough for him to hear, “and maybe hacked all your electronic devices.”
“What?”
He waved it off. “Because I don’t exactly hate you, I’m going to tell you something. You’re about to walk into a house with four men. Four armed military men who hate you already. She’s our baby sister and she’s been through a lot, so there’s nothing you can do to make them like you . . . except make her happy. Annie ran away from home when she was fourteen for two days just to see if she could survive in the everglades on her own, mostly because my dad was in Iraq and she’d seen a picture of him in a tent. At seventeen she paid three hundred bucks to get a fake ID so she could enlist. Luckily they saw right through it, and she had to wait another year. She has seen war and death. Shit you can’t even imagine.”
“I do know. She’s told me.”
“Wow. Okay, that surprises me.” Joey took a step back as if seeing him for the first time. He didn’t tell her brother that he knew more than even he did. It wasn’t his business, but he wanted to rub it in since he was being a jerk. But even as a jerk, he was looking out for his little sister, so he couldn’t blame him for that.
“She’s tough. I get it.”
“No, you’re not listening. She’s been through a lot. Too much. She may seem tough, but she’s sensitive. She’s breakable. You—you can break her.” Then he leaned in. “And if you do, I’ll break your face. Then I’ll let my brothers loose on you. Got it?”
“Got it,” Rocco said, thinking it though. The woman he’d gotten to know in the last week was not fragile. She had some soft spots, but her brother was underestimating how strong she really was.
She had a shell around her harder than cement. No, it wasn’t even a shell. It was a fortress, with a moat and fucking alligators in the water keeping anyone and everyone out. But he was going to scale that wall if it was the last thing he did.
* * *
Annie ran away from the window just as Rocco and Joey were about to walk inside.
What the hell had they been talking about?
And what the hell had happened to Rocco? It was as if he was falling apart right before her eyes. And it weirded her out, but it made her heart hurt for him.
She rushed over to the kitchen as soon as they walked in.
“Annie, honey. How are you?” Her mother smiled from the kitchen table, her hands full of dye.
“Aunt Annie!” Her two little nieces, Eric’s daughters, yelped at once when they turned their heads and saw her walking in.
“No!” Ruby, Eric’s wife, yelled. “Be careful, Annie. That icing won’t get off your clothes.” She stood between Annie and the kids, who were dripping blue icing down the linoleum floor.
“Are they baking cookies?” she heard Rocco ask from behind. Another look of complete fascination on his face.
God, had he never seen this before, either?
“Yeah, it’s tradition to make sugar cookies with icing when they’re here.”
“Oh my!” her mother gushed, as she wiped her hands, now stained blue, clean. “You must be Mr. Monroe. I’m a huge fan.”
“Please, call me Rocco,” he said, extending his hand. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
“Rocco Monroe is in our house,” her mother squealed.
“Ma,” Joey warned from behind. “Relax. He’s a client.”
“It’s nice to meet you too.”
The next few hours were chaos. The guys all sat around the television watching baseball while Ruby and Annie helped in the kitchen. Rocco seemed to be getting along with everyone, and every now and then she’d catch him watching her. Her brothers took about an hour to warm up to him. Eric and Leo kept drilling him about his relationship with Annie, and Will, always the more reasonable one, asked him all about the latest movie project.
“He’s smitten,” her mother whispered as they finished cleaning the dishes.
“You’re crazy.”
“You can’t fake the way he looks at you, honey.”
“Yep. I totally agree,” Ruby added. “Look at how he keeps tabs on where you are in the room. He pulled the chair out for you.”
“And did you notice when we ran out of cornbread, he gave her his. Even though he loved it. My cornbread’s the best.”
“That’s because he doesn’t think I eat enough solid food.”
“He’s right. But he’s also thoughtful. I like him.”
Annie leaned on the kitchen counter and looked out to the family room where the men were yelling and arguing with the television. As if he sensed her eyes on him, he turned his head and their eyes met and he gave her one of his genuine and sincere dimpled smiles that made her completely gooey. She had been so hesitant for so long to get too close to anyone, but the way she was feeling toward him, it wasn’t scary. It was new and exciting and she welcomed it.
He didn’t look away. His smile, his eyes, all of him was zoned in on her and her entire body tingled. She couldn’t wait to get home and be alone with him.
People called him charismatic. He said what was on his mind without filter or regret. It could be said that she was the same way. Quick to flip someone the finger or tell them off. But really, she wasn’t open. Not really. The things that ate away at her, no one knew about them. As far as everyone was concerned, she’d survived an attack, and that had left her rough around the edges. No one knew the sorrow she felt sometimes or the loneliness that often choked her. Made her unable to catch her breath. But that was her secret.
Rocco’s life was lived in a fishbowl, everyone watching, analyzing, and judging. A week ago, she’d have said he lived for it. He loved it, hammed it up for the camera. And since meeting her, he’d been an open book. Or so she thought. Now, she wasn’t so sure.
He volunteered privately, he lived a rather subdued lifestyle considering the amount of money he made. He had a beautiful house and an awesome car but it didn’t add up with his wealth. But the biggest red flag that maybe he wasn’t all he seemed to be, was the breakdown he’d had at her parent’s house. Something had happened. Something big and real. And she wasn’t sure how to approach it.
“Did you have fun? They’re a loud bunch,” she asked while he drove back to his house, one hand on the steering wheel and the other changing the radio station.
“It was great. But God, I’m stuffed.” He rubbed his stomach, then extended his arm to the back of her seat.
“Yeah, my mom overdoes it sometimes.”
“It was nice to see you eat.”
She laughed and elbowed him and he turned slightly with a sexy grin and winked at her. The damn dimple and the wink set the butterflies in her stomach on overdrive.
“You’ve seen me eat, you liar. Maybe not that much, but you’ve seen it.” She looked out the window. “I really liked going to the Boys and Girls Club this morning. The kids love you.”
“I love going there.”
“What did my brother say to you?”
“You mean brothers? When you weren’t looking they all said, in no uncertain terms, that if I hurt you they knew ways to have me killed where I’d suffer unimaginable pain.”
“Oh, they don’t have to worry. If you hurt me, I have creative ways to deal with it.” She picked up her foot, placed the heel of her sneaker on the leather seat, and pulled her jeans a little higher to reveal a scary-looking knife.
“Jesus, you’re lethal.”
The silence stretched for far too long and the question hung in the air. “You’re dying to ask me, aren’t you? Go ahead, ask.” He was facing forward and he wasn’t smiling any longer.
She turned her body toward him. “What happened to you earlier? Are you okay? I feel like I somehow broke you.”
He upshifted the car, and it bounced slightly as he went a little faster. “It’s really not a big dramatic story. I grew up in the foster care system, going from one house to another. I’m sure there’re many great foster parents, but I didn’t know any. I met Paul when we were twelve. Twelve-year-olds didn’t place easily, you know, not as cute and sweet as babies. So we were in a group home.”
“Like an orphanage?”
“Something like that.” He downshifted, slowing as he turned into a curve. “Got into trouble a lot. Nothing big, petty shit like stealing, smoking, things like that.”
“What happened to your parents?”
“Don’t know. I was left at a fire station when I was a baby.”
Her mouth fell open and she saw a twitch of his jaw so she cleared her throat and tried to pretend it didn’t hurt her heart to hear this. He didn’t want her pity, it seemed. “So, you and Paul were handsome little hooligans, huh?”
“Pretty much. Did terribly at school, mostly because we didn’t go. And that was mostly because we were tired. Fucking exhausted. We fought for cots, had to keep an eye out so our things didn’t get stolen. It’s hard to go to school when your belly hurts from hunger and you’re eyes can’t stay open long enough to hear about Shakespeare.”
“How’s this not on Wikipedia?”
“You searched me, huh?”
“Of course, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t know everything about you. I didn’t just do Wikipedia, I checked the deep dark webs too.”
“You hacked into my shit, didn’t you?”
“A lady never hacks and tells.”
He chuckled and with the hand that was by her chair he playfully tugged her hair. “It’s no secret I was in the foster system. The details of it, that’s not something I talk about, and neither does Paul, so that’s the shit you won’t find.” They’d arrived at the house and he pressed the button for the gate. “So, one day at seventeen, a talent scout who happened to be at the mall where Paul and I were loitering, smoking a cigarette and acting foolish, saw me. Within a week he signed me. Within a month I landed a big campaign making more money from a few photographs than I’d ever seen in my life.”
“And Paul.”
“Paul’s my brother in every way that counts. He was with me when we were at our worst. If he scored food, he shared it. If he got into a good foster home, he made sure I snuck in through the window to sleep on the floor. When I was able to make rent on a small studio, he came to live with me. When I made something of a name for myself, I pulled strings to get him an internship at a big agency. It took some years, but once I was sure he knew what the hell he was doing, I dumped my agent, who was sucking me dry with shitty jobs and high commissions, and became his first big client.”
“That’s amazing, Rock. Seriously. I knew you guys were close, but . . .”
“That fucker makes as much as I do.” He laughed and shook his head, as if thinking back warmly on his friend. “Sometimes I can’t get him to lift a finger for me, he’s so busy. But there’s no one I trust more.”
“I’m glad you have that in your life,” she said. They were still sitting in his car.
“So, I freaked out today. It was overwhelming. I’ve never had a family dinner. Not ever. I’ve never . . . Shit . . .” He cleared his throat and stopped speaking. “We’re here.” The change of subject was jarring, as he stepped out of the car and she followed.
She practically jogged around the front of the car and stopped him before he disappeared inside the house. “Wait. Tell me. What were you going to say?”
&nb
sp; “It’s nothing.”
“Then it should be easy to tell me.”
“It’s stupid and dumb and I’m a thirty-seven-year-old man, it’s . . . stupid.”
“I’m a twenty-seven-year-old virgin. I’ve never told anyone that and for some weird reason, I told you. You can tell me whatever it is, I won’t judge you.”
He looked up and then ran his palm down his face. “I’ve . . . I’ve never been hugged. I mean until today. That was, it was my first time.”
Of all the things he could have said, that was the last thing she had expected. She could see the sad little boy inside of him. The one who had never had affection or love. Her family was loud, overbearing, and annoying but she felt loved every single day of her life. And this poor man, who seemed to have everything, was missing the basic fundamental things that made a person who they were. It was staggering how good he’d turned out. It really could have gone a completely different way for him.
Without thinking she wrapped her arms around him. He was standing straight, his hands by his side, so it was awkward but she didn’t care. She moved in even closer and laid her cheek on his chest. “Now you’ve had two hugs. You’re a pro.”
“Fuck, Annie.” He released his arms from his sides and wrapped them around her. “What the hell is happening here? You’re supposed to be the cold bitchy bodyguard who I want to fuck for four months.”
“You don’t want to fuck me anymore?” She looked up at him.
“Hell, no,” he said without hesitation, and she jolted and tried to step back but he pressed closer to her. “Now I want to make sweet, slow love to you. I’ve never done that, I don’t think. And then to make it worse, I don’t think I’m worth it. You’ve held on to your virginity for so long, it should be with someone special. But fuck, baby, I want it to be me. And honestly, I don’t want to put a time limit on what we could have. I just . . . I just want to be with you, even if we’re not having sex. You’re screwing with my head.”
It was late and dark out and they were still in the garage. She needed to think. It had been an intense day. Too intense. “I have to do a sweep and lock up.”
Last First Kiss Page 16
