“You know what would make me feel better? If you stopped calling me at all hours of the night to come and clean up your mess like Iyanla Fix My Life. I ain’t Iyanla, and I’m damn sure ain’t Troy, which means I’m not in the business of wiping your ass and coddling you like a child all hours of the day. You’re a grown ass woman, and there’s no excuse for this shit. None.”
“Stop cussing around her.”
Rocco looked down at Blue, then appeared genuinely regretful when he found her big blue eyes looking right back up at him, hanging intently on his every word. He held Blue’s eyes for a long moment and then cuddled her closer, her tiny body nearly disappearing under his massive forearms.
Blue smiled at up him, eyes alight.
Rocco didn’t smile back, but Stella still saw the hitch to his chest. The distinct shift in his eyes. A movement. One that could only sway his green orbs when it had come from the deepest depths of his inky, starless soul.
When Blue’s smile grew even bigger, showing her gleaming pink gums, his jaw tightened, appearing seconds from shattering under his skin.
“Like I said, I ain’t him.” He reclaimed Stella’s eyes. “I ain’t working myself into an early grave just so you don’t have to.”
Stella flinched, lips tightening. She tried to hold his shadowed gaze, but her eyes fell under their darkness, chin trembling. Her heartbeat tripled, and she shook her head slowly, swallowing back the saliva that had suddenly filled her mouth.
“Fuck you, Rocco—” her voice broke as she turned away, eyes still lowered.
“This is the last time,” his deep voice reached for her.
She snatched the door open, not even looking back before she slammed it shut behind her.
She held her breath as she stomped down the driveway toward the Range Rover and climbed into the driver’s seat, pressing her lips together when the lack of oxygen started making her dizzy. Until the dizziness ebbed to pain. Until she could no longer tell if her blurred vision was due to her body being on the verge of death or simply the agony in her heart. She bared the pain still as she started the car and tore out of the driveway, waiting until she could no longer see the house in the rearview mirror before she drew in a haggard, burning breath, dug her fingers into fists around the steering wheel, and broke into gut-wrenching sobs.
4
He’d promised Stella it’d be the last time. The last time he’d abandon a beautiful naked woman in his bed. The last time he’d endure the painful metamorphosis into a Prince Charming clone he had zero interest in being. The last time he put his life on hold to rescue her, dropping everything simply because she was the most incompetent human being alive.
But the “last time” always found a way to become the next time. Always re-inventing itself so that whatever new problem she’d managed to cook up always seemed brand new and impossible to fix without his intervention, often leaving him with only two options: play Prince Charming or watch Blue perish. He wondered how a man like him—who’d sworn his whole life that a wife and kids were the last things he’d ever want—had somehow gotten saddled with both, without even the benefit of free sex to soften the blow. It was an uncharted level of male castration that hadn’t even hit the mainstream. He wondered if he’d qualify for some fucked up world record with the vise Stella Armstrong had locked around his balls.
However, freedom would soon be his. Soon, an entire state would separate them forever—hundreds of miles—making it impossible for her to make him her bitch for another day. Forcing her to navigate her life, and her problems like a real adult—something she’d never learned how to do. The only time he’d see her was when he was visiting Blue, which he planned to do as often as possible.
Rocco took a deep, healing breath that calmed his nerves as he made his way into the police precinct that afternoon, fighting hard to hide his smile when he got a look at all of his colleagues through the bulletproof glass that separated the expansive precinct from the hallway. Most of them gave him beaming smiles in return that caused him to shake his head in an attempt to hide the heat he could feel reddening his cheeks.
He swiped his keycard at the entry door and waited for the red light to click green before he stepped in, throwing his arms up, the moment he cleared the doorway. “Alright, alright—”
“For he’s a jolly good fellow! For he’s a jolly good fellow! For he’s a jolly good fellowwwwwww!”
His head fell as he approached his desk—one of dozens all over the massive precinct—and covered his smiling mouth as he took in the small cake sitting in the middle of his desk with a candle that read ‘FBI’ flickering in the middle.
“Okay!” he begged when the ‘fellow’ portion of the song went on longer than necessary. “That’s enough—”
“Which nobody can deny!”
He breathed a sigh of relief when the song was over and leaned down to blow out the candle as quickly as possible. Uproarious applause rose all around the room and he nodded his head as pats on the shoulder and words of congrats came at him from every angle until he was surrounded by black-and-white SWAT vests, so many at once that within seconds the entire room had become a blur.
“Congrats, brother—”
“Fuck you for leaving, but happy for you, I guess.”
Rocco frowned softly as he muscled his way through every word of congratulations, and also every word of thinly veiled jealousy and condemnation from his longtime co-workers.
Only when the crowd began to disperse, and most of his co-workers had returned to their desks did a 6’0”, chocolate-skinned African-American man emerge wearing a navy blue suit and perhaps the most genuine smile Rocco had seen all day. He held out his hand.
Rocco took it with a sigh. “Lieutenant.”
Lieutenant Michael Grimes gave a tight smile while clapping Rocco’s arm with his free hand. “Gonna miss you around here.”
“Not leaving for another week.”
“Why don’t you take the rest of the night off? We’ve got enough guys to cover the sting tonight, and after everything you’ve done for this precinct, you’ve earned it, son. Gonna need all the rest you can get. Got a rough 20 weeks coming up.”
Rocco’s heart skipped a beat at the thought of the FBI Academy’s brutal 20-week training session. “When it’s your biggest dream, resting is the last thing on your mind. Actually doubt I’ll sleep a wink for the next two weeks, honestly.”
“Something tells me you’ll live to regret it, but alright.” Lieutenant Grimes chuckled.
“Besides,” Rocco said, releasing his hand. “Been working on this op for too long. Watching that whorehouse finally go down in flames? No fucking way I’m missing that.”
Lieutenant Grimes gave a hearty laugh while clapping Rocco on the arm once more. “Don’t forget about us, alright?”
“Not possible, sir.”
Rocco watching him walk away with a sigh; his eyes running the precinct where his co-workers were now back to normal. Bustling like ants and prepping for the big massage parlor sting they had planned that night.
One of those co-workers plopped onto the desk beside him unexpectedly, and he grinned at the sight of Justin Armstrong, Troy’s distinctly Irish brother—all the way down to his blue eyes and strawberry blond hair. Just like Justin had walked beside Rocco throughout their childhood, throughout their one tour of duty in the army, and even throughout the long ride home after they’d taken advantage of the GI Bill, gotten their degrees in criminal justice, and hightailed it out of there on the first train moving, Justin walked beside Rocco right into that small police precinct in Jersey. For their whole lives, he’d always stayed beside him, even when it meant leaving his brother—who stayed in the army for two more tours after them—behind. Rocco had always been baffled as to why he was the one Justin had always stuck to like glue, seeing as Troy had always been the braver, stronger, smarter, and more successful one. When they’d all joined the military straight out of high school, people had always assumed Rocco was Justin’s old
er brother, not the other way around, even though they looked nothing alike. Perhaps there had always been something about Troy that made him stand apart. Perhaps it had to be that way for him to eventually leave the army, accept an internship at NBC and eventually become one of the most celebrated war correspondents in American history.
Perhaps Troy had always been bigger than them. At the end of the day, they were just two cops after all, whose desks had sat right across from each other since the day they’d started at that small precinct, years earlier. Growing up a foster kid with “parents” that might as well have been ghosts, Rocco had always secretly relished it whenever someone mistook Justin for his brother because that was what Justin and Troy had always been to him in the deepest corners of his heart, since the moment they’d first played tag football in the middle of their tattered neighborhood street in Newark.
“You know what?” Rocco asked. “I just realized I’m sick of you.”
Justin glared at him. “You know you ain’t shit, right?” His thin pink lips pulled tighter than they already were by nature, blue eyes squinted. “I mean, you know I can’t stand you, right?”
“How do I make it up to you, bro?”
“Tell the FBI to go fuck themselves.”
“How about a slice of cake instead? You know I don’t eat this shit.”
“Yeah, we should’ve dumped a jar of protein powder into the batter instead of sugar…” Justin’s eyes fell to the cake when Rocco tilted it toward him invitingly and puckered his lips, his cheeks reddening as he appeared to have an intense battle of wills to his deepest core. Then, Justin’s lips bloomed into a smile, revealing two rows of crooked teeth. “Damn it, you do know your audience.”
“That I do,” Rocco laughed, grabbing a paper plate and the knife that’d been laid out next to the cake. “Let’s go, everybody dig in!”
With that, Rocco was surrounded by SWAT vests once more, and he blinked rapidly as his vision began to blur in the sea of black and white.
“Damn, calm down!” He laughed as he sliced and plated the cake as fast as he could, a brand new hand flying into his desk to seize a new plate every second. “You animals act like you’ve never seen a slice of cake before. Don’t your wives feed you at home—?”
A loud banging boomed through the precinct from the bulletproof glass before he could finish, making it rattle in its casing as the heavy thumps reverberated through the room. Silence dominated as every angry eye in the room flew up to the Plexiglas, cake forgotten, wondering who was going to spend the night in jail for causing such an unnecessary disturbance in their house.
Rocco nearly screamed when he locked eyes with Stella—her face pinched in fury—just as she slammed her palm into the glass a few more times, making it rattle even harder, before pointing a perfectly manicured nail the door and stomping toward it.
“Uh-oh,” Justin sang around the cake in his mouth, his amused blue eyes following Stella as she charged toward the door.
“Don’t open that shit.” Rocco pointed at the Asian rookie making his way to the door. “Don’t fucking open that—”
But the rookie had already twisted the knob and opened the door, allowing Stella to charge in, her heels clicking on the tile.
“You fucking serious?” Rocco spat to the rookie.
The rookie shrugged at Rocco, unable to keep his eyes from moving back to Stella as she passed him. His gaze fell shamelessly down her body, drinking in the tight white button-up shirt that she’d tucked into an even tighter beige pencil skirt. His eyes lingered on the curve of her ass, staying long enough to confirm that Rocco’s indignation at him was all but forgotten.
“Apparently, all it takes is a fat ass and a tight skirt to stand between life and death around here. Might as well take down this Plexiglas altogether since clearly there’s nothing but a bunch of horny apes working here.” No arguments came to refute Rocco’s words, but he knew his loud-mouth co-workers well enough to know that their silence wasn’t due to the fact that he was right, but the fact that Stella’s shapely hips were swaying so hard as she stomped towards his desk that they almost poked holes in the walls on both ends of the room. Coupled with her calves, muscular and feminine thanks to four straight years of varsity high school soccer, and he’d be surprised if any of those morons could still recite their full names.
“Oh hey, Stella,” a random voice called out.
Rocco glared toward the voice, but couldn’t tell which of his co-workers in the sea of gawking faces had just kissed her ass so shamelessly.
As the click of her heels grew nearer, he closed his eyes and collapsed back on his desk, clinging to the edge of the wood as Stella zeroed in, the music of her stilettos finally coming to a stop somewhere between his splayed legs. He listened as she and Justin shared a hasty greeting.
“Damn, Stella, lookin’ sharp.”
“Thanks, Justin.”
“How’s the new job treating you?”
“Pays the bills.”
“I remember when we were kids, you swore you’d never pay a bill in your life.”
“Yeah, life’s funny that way.”
Justin’s voice softened. “I’m real proud of you, kid. You’re doing good…”
Rocco clenched his teeth as Justin and Stella spoke, praying she’d forget he was in the room and leave without speaking to him altogether.
No such luck.
That sweet perfume she’d worn for as long as he’d known her came billowing in all around him a moment later—like a black cloud from a nuclear fallout—reminding him of all the different ways that the scent had ruined his life over the years. He could never quite decide whether she smelled like a flower or a fruit. He just knew, either way, that the flower was definitely wilted or that fruit, covered in black mold.
He eyes fluttered open just in time to see her pointing a finger in his face. “You’re supposed to be watching my daughter.”
His eyes did something between a blink and an eye roll. “Something came up with the undercover unit. Got a big lead. So I gave her to DJ. Calm down.”
“Undercover? Doing what?”
Justin motioned to her with his fork. “If we told you, we’d have to kill you.”
“So don’t tempt us,” Rocco grumbled.
“And you didn’t think it was necessary to call me and tell me you left my daughter with someone else? Do you have any idea the fear that went through my heart when I drove back home on my break, walked into the house, and found neither of you there?”
“What am I gonna do? Kidnap her? Put her up for sale on the black market? Harvest her organs? She’s more my kid than yours anyway. I should be the one with the fear of God in my heart whenever I have to leave her alone with your crazy ass.” His eyes shifted over her shoulder, forcing himself to stop talking when he found half the precinct grinning at them, whispering softly to one another. Only a few of his co-workers had the grace to avert their eyes and pretend not to be eavesdropping.
Stella huffed. “The reason I turned around and went back home was because I noticed she’d left Mr. Wiggles in her car seat. She’s gonna be a complete wreck the entire time she’s at DJ’s now.”
Rocco cursed under his breath. How the hell had he forgotten about Mr. Wiggles? Blue loved the hell out of that stupid pink elephant. It soothed her so much that she often fell right to sleep the moment she got that tiny stuffed toy wrapped up in her little arms. She’d throw a complete fit the moment she learned that DJ wasn’t in the position to hand it over once bedtime rolled around.
“Why can’t you take Mr. Wiggles to her yourself?” He lowered his voice in the hopes that his colleagues wouldn’t hear him actually saying the words ‘Mr. Wiggles.’ The chuckles that immediately followed, however, proved he hadn’t lowered it nearly enough.
“It’s too late,” Stella’s shoulders sank, her eyes glistening. “I have five minutes to get back to work, or my boss is going to fire me.”
“Same old story. Different day.” The next two wee
ks couldn’t go by fast enough. He reminded himself that two weeks was nothing. Only fourteen more days. Then he’d be gone forever. Gone from the blinding flash that always passed through him and lit him up whenever her eyes filled like they were right then. Gone from the obligation he’d never asked for.
Gone from her.
“Look…” His eyes ran her face. Her small, delicate nose and the dark brown freckles that dusted it like a connect-the-dots. Her big, brown, upturned almond eyes, perfectly lined in that cat-eye shape she always did at the corners. Those full, juicy lips that were usually a natural peach color—but that she’d painted bright red that day. So vivid against her dark brown skin it was nearly impossible to tear his eyes away. “There’s nothing we can do about it now. If she cries, she cries. DJ can handle it. And you’re welcome for watching her at the last minute by the way.”
“But you’re not watching her.”
“She’s not my kid!”
Stella straightened and crossed her arms tight, forcing Mr. Wiggles—which he hadn’t even noticed had been in her hands—into the concave between her breast and armpit.
“No. She isn’t.” She drew in a breath. “I’d just like to know when the plans change in regards to my daughter, Rocco. That’s all. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”
“Fine. Is that all?” He massaged his beard with one hand, searching for patience, reminding himself that he was at work with a bunch of idiots pretending not to be staring at her ass right then.
Stella went to answer, but her eyes moved past him and zeroed in on the half-eaten cake sitting behind him. He could see the exact moment her gaze landed on the ‘FBI’ candle still melting in the middle of the cake.
Something shifted in her eyes, and she cocked her leg out, nibbling her bottom lip. “Biggest dream’s finally coming true. Guess some congrats are in order…” She said the words like they were razor blades slicing her throat to pieces, narrowing her eyes away. “Especially since you’ve already violated every short skirt in Jersey, best to head on over to Quantico where your reputation hasn’t yet preceded you.”
Forbidden (War Book 1) Page 4
