My Addiction: Second Chances Series (22 page)

Nora walked past me with her bag. She turned to me and smiled softly. “So I’ll see you downstairs?”

My brother and his bosses decided not to charge Nora with tampering with their investigation. It was more hassle booking her over this shit than they wanted to spend. What he did warn her about was that the FBI might not be so forgiving.

“Yes, I’ll be there shortly.”

I looked around the room making sure I didn’t forget anything, and that the room was somewhat left the same way I entered.

Yeah, okay, who am I kidding? I’m walking around here trying to stall from leaving. Leaving this hotel room felt like a chapter in my life was ending. I didn’t know if the new one would be better than the old one, but we’ll see.

There was a knock at the door, and I moved to it quickly.

“Did you forget something?” I called out and when I opened it, I felt as if the wind was knocked out of me.

I quickly recovered and said as flat as I could, “You’re a day late.” I turned and walked back into my room to grab my bags. When I turned, Ayana entered my room.

She looked around, and then looked at me. I could still see the bruise on her face, but I refused to let that falter me.

“Are you checking out?” she asked.

“Looks that way,” I replied being the asshole that I felt.

She grew quiet and I let her, but not for long. I said, while moving to the door, “Look, I have a plane to catch and Nora’s waiting for me.”

“Bradley, please. I just need a few minutes of your time. I just want to explain.”

All the emotions I felt for the last twenty-four hours came flooding back, and I dropped my bags at the door, turned and moved on her. “It’s too late for that shit, Ayana. When I wanted you to tell me what was going on, you didn’t. You promised me you would be here to explain and you weren’t. Instead, I found you lying in your own vomit
again
, something that I don’t want to ever fucking see again.”

“That wasn’t my fault,” she cried.

“Shit, Ana, it’s never your fucking fault. God, do you have any idea how it feels to see someone you love self-destruct like that? I mean, do you give a shit about what this is doing to me?”

“I do. I just needed to do this one thing. I wouldn’t have left the bar if my brother didn’t call me to say goodbye. I had to see him before he left. I didn’t think-”

My eyes rolled up to the sky and I swear I felt my blood vessels about to explode in my body. “I don’t want to hear that shit anymore. You never seem to think, and it’s always someone else’s fault and never yours. You can’t see how you put yourself in ridiculous situations, thinking you’re invincible when you’re not.”

Ayana moved closer to me and placed her hands on her hips, her voice rising with frustration. “What did you expect me to do, Brad? I couldn’t turn my back on my brother, not see him before he left. Considering the circumstances, I would probably never see him again, and I couldn’t turn my back on Noelle.”

“No one was asking you to, but you didn’t have to do it alone. Risking your life shouldn’t be a requirement.”

“You’re overreacting a little. I mean, Bradley, I never-”

Her words at that moment caused me to explode. I grabbed the lamp close to me and flung it across the room, hearing it shatter made Ayana jump slightly, but it only fueled me. “You almost fucking died three times, Ayana! I almost lost you, and all three times I happened to get to you
just in time
. You think I enjoyed seeing you like that?!”

“Bradley-”

She moved to me but I kept going. “You know what? Fuck it! I can’t do this anymore. It’s clear to me that I’m the only one that wants this. I’m done. I’ve had it up to here with your bullshit. You want to go half-cocked, thinking you can save the goddamn world by yourself, then go right ahead. I will not watch you destroy yourself and you will not destroy me.” I stared at her for a moment longer, and then turned to leave.

But, as it seemed, she has only begun to destroy me.

“I found out I was pregnant,” I heard her blurt out behind me.

I stopped dead in my tracks, but didn’t turn around. I couldn’t turn around.

“The last few nights we were together, after I came home from the hospital from being shot, is when I think it happened. I didn’t find out though, until well after you left, and God, I thought this was my chance to make things right with you. You know, I thought this was my second chance.” Finally, I turned around and she moved closer to me. She continued. “I was close to three months pregnant and that’s when I decided I needed to get my shit together. I needed to prove to you that you mattered, that we mattered. I wanted to be that strong woman for you and the baby I was carrying.” She took a deep breath and said softly, “But about three weeks after I found out about the baby, I was in a car accident.” I swallowed hard and closed my eyes as she spoke. “It was a… um… drunk driver that hit me and he totaled my brother’s car. I was trapped until some people that witnessed the crash and the cop on the scene got me out. The car was leaking gas and they didn’t want to wait… neither did I.” I opened my eyes and she watched me closely, looking for a sign from me, but I didn’t give her one. I was stuck on the fact that she was pregnant and I knew nothing about it.

“The guy that hit me was apologizing to me and the officer and anyone that would listen. You could smell the alcohol all over his breath and the cop arrested him at the scene, but later I found out he was released on bail, even before he got to the precinct. When I got to the hospital, they um… they told me that I had lost…” She shifted from one leg to the next and closed her eyes. Her body shook with emotions, but as she opened her eyes, they were clear. It took a lot for Ayana to cry. Her eyes would get teary, and she may whimper, but she never breaks. That shield she keeps up prevents any form of vulnerability, which if you haven’t guessed it, is my problem.

“God, Brad, I was distraught, devastated. It felt like I lost a piece of me and you for a second time all in one. That’s when I got into kickboxing. I wanted to numb the pain and I didn’t want to medicate it. It felt okay knowing that this guy was going to pay for what he did, but that didn’t happen.” I frowned and she nodded her head. “Yeah, he was let go without even a slap on the wrist. The part about him being drunk was never on the police report. The many witnesses that told me at the scene they would help me get this drunk son of a bitch put away, caught amnesia when they found out who the guy that hit me was. He was a Santos.”

“I was so enraged with vengeance that I couldn’t see straight. I wanted justice. I wanted that fucking family to pay for what they took from me. That’s why I left here and moved to Ohio. I thought that if I left, I would leave all the feelings here, but I was losing my mind being there. Every day, I kept thinking about what happened and how he got away with murder. So I decided to come back, hoping that I could figure out a way for atonement. Finally, I got my chance. When I helped Noelle and found out who was behind her getting beaten, and the killing of that young girl, I thought I was finally going to make this right.”

She then told me everything she had been doing to help bring Santos down: the fighting, the underground betting, the young girls being sold. She told me about going to the Feds and getting help and told me what went down with that piece of shit that was in my hotel.

I moved closer to her. “Why couldn’t you have told me all of this when I asked you to?”

“I didn’t want to put you in the middle of it Bradley. I wanted to protect you.”

“Shit, Ayana, I’m not a damn kid.”

“I know you’re not.”

I took a few deep breaths to try and calm down. Resolve finally hit me. I knew this would never be more than what it was, and I didn’t feel as though I deserved this at all.

“You don’t trust me, do you?” I said to her.

She frowned, confusion covering her face. “What do you mean? Of course, I trust you.”

I shook my head. “No, you don’t. Ayana, if you trusted me, you would have told me all of this by now. When I told you I felt something was off with you, you downplayed it. You made it seem like I was seeing things or that I didn’t know you. I could tell you were hurting. I could tell something was wrong, but when I asked you, you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth. That’s the problem. I trust you with my life. I tell you everything and I know for a fact, without a doubt, that you have my back. But unfortunately, you don’t feel the same way about me.”

“God, Bradley, that’s not true.” Ayana moved quickly to touch me, but I wouldn’t let her. “I finally get it now. No matter how hard I try, you won’t let me in there.” I pointed to her chest, and then looked in her eyes. “That’s where I want to be, Ayana. It’s where I need to be, but you won’t open yourself to me completely. You only give me half of you, the fun side, the sensual side and you give me the aftermath that I have to help clean up, but you won’t give me the damaged side of you, the vulnerable side.”

“No, Bradley, you are there. I love you so much.” She moved to me and this time, I let her touch me. I couldn’t stop myself from letting her after seeing the whites of her eyes turn blood shot red and moisten with every step she took toward me. I didn’t let it waver what I needed to say though. This had to be said, so when I left, I could say I laid it all out on the table.

“I have no doubt that you do, that’s one thing I can say that I know. I know you love me but, Ana, it’s just not enough. I won’t settle for half of you. I can’t. And I don’t know if you’re just not capable of letting me in or you don’t want to, but that’s what I want. I feel it’s only right because you are everything to me. I let you feel that every second of every day, but I can’t say you make me feel that at all. Just when I think I do, I find you lying in your own pool of blood bleeding to death, or I find you dying in a dirty ass bathroom and I’m fucking oblivious to what’s going on. I don’t want that in my life anymore. I just can’t.”

I pulled her into me and hugged her close. I closed my eyes to the feeling that I would never have again. When I parted from her, the tears that pooled in her eyes suddenly fell. I wiped her cheeks and bent to kiss her softly on her lips.

“I’m so sorry, Ayana,” my voice just a whisper on her lips.

I turned quickly, grabbed my bags, and left the room. My chest was growing tight with each step I took from the door, but I needed to do this. I needed…

I stopped.

Shit, suddenly I heard this earth-shattering cry that bellowed from my room. It broke my soul and caused my heart to stop beating. My breath caught, and I instinctively turned around. Never in my life had I witnessed, much less heard, her break. And, shit, from the sounds that were coming from that room she was… shit she was…

I closed my eyes and leaned my back against the wall next to me. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t…

Suddenly, I heard the door open, and I watched her come barging out of the room. She looked left then right and froze when she saw me.

Her eyes bore into me, stripping me to nothing. I couldn’t move. The raw emotions that poured out of her body, her eyes, hypnotized me. She trembled trying to hold on to the doorframe, trying to keep herself upright.

Her chest moved up and down with such ferocity that I thought she was going to hyperventilate at any second. I moved from the wall and faced her. So many emotions were running through me, but one started to take over. One made me move my legs to her and the other managed to catch her airborne body as it collided with mine.

I lost my footing and I fell flat on my back with her still in my arms. She quickly started kissing me saying in between caressing me with her lips, “I love you, Bradley. I won’t let go of you. I can’t” She looked in my eyes, allowing tears to freely fall from them. “I’ll do whatever it takes to prove to you what you mean to me. You want all of me; you have it. I won’t hold back from you. I’ll give you every damaged part of me. Just please give me that chance. Please! I love you. Please!”

I flipped her on her back, and I moved in between her legs. I caressed her face and wiped the tears that continued to fall. My chest swelled with deep emotions that threatened to tear out of me. My soul belongs to this woman. I’ll admit that. Call me whatever you want, but there’s no way I can live without her.

I whispered to her, “What are you doing to me?”

She said just as softly, “The same thing you are doing to me.”

I smiled.

For the first time in hours, I smiled, leaned in and kissed the very lips that had driven me crazy for years. The arms of the woman that I could never live without went around me and locked in place, letting me know that she had no plans to ever let me go.

Our kiss I will say was getting a little too deep for the hallway as my hands started moving under her shirt, and I started moving my hips atop her. I didn’t give a shit that we were in the middle of the hallway though. If someone wanted to watch me take my woman, then so be it, because nothing is stopping me from…

She pulled back. “Is that your phone vibrating?”

Shit!

I reluctantly reached between us and pulled out my phone. I answered it, not paying any attention to who was on the line as I leaned into Ayana’s neck and started nibbling.

“Uh, Braddock the cab is here, and I’ve been calling the room and your phone. What’s going on? Are you coming or what?”