Rock the City: A Midnight Fate Novel (30 page)

“These are my favorite underwear,” I remind him, hoping he’ll show some mercy.

He hooks his thumbs under the lace and pulls them down my legs. “Mine, too. I plan on seeing them again.”

My smile doesn’t stay on my face long. Not when he takes my left hand and kisses the ring he gave me. Even though I’ve yet to officially accept his proposal, it’s clear I’m his. I always have been.

“Do I need a condom?” he asks, hesitantly, as he undresses himself, no doubt wondering why I made him wear them in the first place.

“No, you don’t have to. Once we became exclusive, I only used them because I was too afraid to tell you there wasn’t any chance of me getting pregnant.”

“And you’re one hundred percent sure?”

“That I can’t get pregnant? Or that I don’t want you to use one?”

“Both.”

“Yes, Lane. Our secrets are gone. I don’t want anything else to keep me from getting lost in you.”

He leans forward like he’s been set free, kissing my neck so lightly I almost beg him for more. He shuts me up when he says, “I want to feel you, Noelle. I want to feel the way you grip me and hold on to me like you never want to let go. I want to fuck my fiancée for the first time.”

“But I never said yes.”

He stands back up only to remove his boxer briefs. As soon as they fall to the floor, my heart races as the tip of his dick bobs up and down with each move he makes. “You became my fiancée the second I put the ring on your finger. It didn’t matter what you said after that.”

“I thought it would be a deal-breaker for you.”

“If you want kids, Noelle, I’ll go to the ends of the earth to find you the perfect heart to love.”

“You mean adoption?”

“Yes, a child doesn’t need our genes to be ours. Just like you don’t have to give birth in order to be a mother.”

I never realized how much I wanted a baby of my own until I was told I couldn’t have it. Up until today, I thought I’d lost that privilege, and now Lane’s given it back to me.

The sound of metal crunching, glass shattering and the never-ending hum of a broken horn happens so fast I can barely remember what they sound like separately, especially when the shrillness of my cousin screaming overshadows all those terrifying sounds.

The warmth covering my hands is enough to keep me content and relaxed. When I do lift my eyelids, the blanket covering me isn’t made of soft cotton. The material’s red, just like the one I remember having tea parties on top of when I spent more time with dolls than humans, but it’s just clothing soaked in my own blood as it seeps from my body.

“Noelle! Don’t move,” my cousin Becca tells me over and over. Even though we’re the same age, I trust her to keep me safe because I couldn’t move even if she told me to.

Our babysitter is still silent from the driver’s seat, and with the way she’s slumped over the steering wheel, her hands still holding tightly to the wheel, I wonder if she’s dead.

A man with dreadlocks all the way down his back tries to open my door, but it won’t budge. He sticks his head through the window, and I realize the glass is all broken.

His face falls when he looks at me, and I want to tell him to get me out of the car, but he’s gone before I have a chance. My heart beats a little faster and I worry he’s not coming back to get me.

Sirens wake me, even though I don’t remember closing my eyes. This time, when I look at the back of the seat in front of me, the pain in my stomach is enough to make me throw up. I turn my head so it doesn’t get all over me, and Becca’s not there. The driver’s seat is empty, too.

I’m the only one left.

The smoke circling around the outside of the car is so ethereal I wonder if this is what Heaven looks like. But Heaven doesn’t have pain, and my stomach hurts so bad there’s only one place I could possibly be—in Hell. The place where bad people go.

All the voices around me blend together until one stands out above the rest. It’s the one that scares me the most, the man saying, “If you pull the glass out, she’ll bleed to death right here. It’s the only thing keeping her alive.”

I’m going to die and I’ve never even been in love. I haven’t graduated high school or gone to college. I’ve never seen my favorite band in concert or watched an R-rated movie.

I’m only eleven.

I get so tired I close my eyes again. I try to push the mask away from my mouth, but I can’t get my arms to move.

Someone who looks just like me, only older, stares back at me. I realize the braces on my teeth won’t be there forever. I won’t always have crooked glasses and hand-me-down jeans with worn knees. I won’t always be a tomboy who would rather play kickball at recess than sit with the girls and talk about boys.

But I’m only eleven.

“Open your eyes, sweetheart.”

It sounds like my mom, and as hard as I fight to get to her voice, I can’t. I’m still trapped.

“Mom,” I beg, but she can’t hear me. My lips aren’t even moving.

More sobs follow, and I can tell whatever they’re talking about is bad.

I don’t want to die. I’m only eleven.

“Jesus, baby,” Lane whispers when I finish telling him the bits and pieces I remember about the accident. The accident that changed my life forever before I even figured out what I wanted to do with it.

I’m grateful I’m alive. I’m grateful I’m safe in Lane’s arms. And I’m grateful I have a future to plan. What Lane doesn’t realize is that he’s healing the rest of my broken pieces. The ones I was so sure would screw up my happiness forever.

“I love you so much,” I tell him, meaning the words more than I ever have before.

“Noelle, just let me hold you. We don’t have to do anything else.”

I’m so desperate to feel something other than the memories that I reach for him, guiding him between my thighs. Although he’s hesitant, he slides inside me.

Without a barrier between us, his hips move back and forth, his muscles clenching as he closes his eyes and gets lost in every new sensation we’re sharing with each other for the first time. “You feel so good, baby. So. Fucking. Good.”

“Lane,” I gasp when he grabs my hips, lifting them the slightest bit before pushing deeper than he’s ever been before. “Is this the hungry sex we were talking about?”

“This is me thanking you, Noelle. For being strong all those years ago and for waiting for me. Do you even know how many times I wished someone would save me and Lemon? Every damn day, I prayed someone would come along and take the weight off my shoulders. That I could just be regular like all the other kids at school instead of worrying about bills, a house, and whether my uncle was going to come home before the social worker showed up. Some days, I felt like a magician, trying to keep as much as I could from my sister and the rest of the universe so they wouldn’t separate us. Other days, I felt like the biggest failure in the world for not doing more to make it better. But no matter how shitty I felt about myself, I still believed there was a reason for me to keep going. I knew if found it, I’d have the answer to all my prayers.”

“Did you find it?”

He pushes my hair away from my face as he stays buried deep inside me. “
You’re
the reason, Noelle. I may not have known it at the time, but I didn’t give up like I wanted to because I had to find
you
.”

“And you think someone could be waiting for
us
?”

“Yes, baby. Somewhere in this world, there’s a little kid whose world is falling apart and they’re having a hard time believing it’s ever going to get better. That’s the child who needs us.”

“You’re serious? You want to adopt?”

“You’ve spent years mourning the loss of children, and I’d never take that away from you. It’s okay to be sad, but I don’t want you to ever feel like you’re letting me down. When you asked if I saw myself with kids, I did. I just wasn’t sure how to tell you they weren’t biologically mine.”

“It all makes sense now,” I tell him, just as he starts to move his hips again. “
This
is what forever is made of.”

“
This
, Noelle, is everything.”

The rest of the week and most of the one that followed were full of so much sex I’m still walking like I just rode a horse from one side of Texas to the other. Lane’s been so horned up, he hasn’t let me out of bed long enough to check on my salon.

Considering I’m newly engaged, I figured a third week with him was something we needed as a couple. We transitioned from dating to engaged fairly easily—the only thing really changing is our title, after all—but that doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to enjoy it. Especially when recording on Midnight Fate’s new album is about to begin, officially popping our happy little bubble.

“You’re really going?” Lark asks from the doorway to the bedroom, where she’s leaning against the frame with tears in her eyes.

“I have to. My salon could be in shambles by now.”

“You know it’s not. Plus, rumor has it you’re selling it.”

Yes, I’ve discussed the fate of the salon with Lane, but I haven’t said a word about it to anyone else. That means Lane’s been picking Easton’s ear, trying to figure out the best move for the two of us. The business may be in my name, but he wants me to succeed no matter if I decide to keep it or sell it. That’s why I tell her, “There are no rumors because I haven’t even decided what I’m doing yet. And why aren’t you at your doctor’s appointment?”

She rolls her eyes like it’s obvious. “Because my neurotic husband wouldn’t let me walk there by myself. Instead of meeting me there, he’s coming all the way back here to get me.”

“He loves you. You can’t fault him for that.”

“I’m not. But last night, I went to the bathroom and . . . well, being pregnant comes with some unpleasant situations that take a little longer. Apparently too long for him.”

“You’re constipated.”

“Ohmigod, how do you even know that?”

“Easton. Your darling husband texted me last night to see if it was normal. He couldn’t find the laptop to look it up himself.”

“Because I hid the damn thing so he would stop analyzing every move I make.” Lark covers her face with her hands, groaning into them. “You can’t leave me, Noelle. I can’t do this without you. You’re my sanity.”

“You can always come with me.”

“Pfft, I can barely sneak away to go to the bathroom. Watch this.”

She fires off a text to Easton, and even though they’ve been in the studio all morning working on some new material with their producer, he still responds in a matter of seconds.

She shows me the phone and I laugh at his response.

Easton: No fucking way. The kid stays here.

“What about you?” I ask her. “He said nothing about you.”

“Unless I give birth right now, we’re a package deal, Noelle.”

“I’m just sayin’, he wasn’t specific about you not going. There’s a little gray area.”

She sits down on the edge of the bed, peering inside my suitcase. “How in the world do you still have all those condoms left? I’ve barely seen you since you’ve been here.”

I just keep packing, ignoring her. Even though the realization takes a little longer than normal to reach her forgetful pregnant brain, it finally clicks. “Holy shit, you told him?”