Chapter 7 Rock
ROCK
“Fucking hell,” I said with a groan.
My head ached and my body felt as if it had been run over by a fucking truck.
I opened my eyes and watched my vision shake with the pounding in my head.
I stared up at a smooth white ceiling as my body sank into something soft.
Comfortable. Warm. I heard a dog barking off in the distance as I sat up, ignoring the searing pain in my head so I could look around.
Where the hell was I?
“Don’t move too much.”
I froze at the sound of her voice.
“I don’t think you have a concussion, but you’re still pretty banged up.”
Piper.
I’d know that voice anywhere.
I panned my gaze over to the wall and a chair sitting not six feet away from me.
And in that chair sat the most beautiful woman I’d never been able to rid from my dreams. With her curves splayed out along the chair and her thick thighs clad in nothing but a damn nightgown, she was a vision I’d hung onto for years in my mind.
Her long blonde hair poured down her shoulders in curls that made me want to fist them and bring her lips to mine.
They fell directly over her nipples as her nightgown dipped low into her decadent, voluptuous cleavage.
Her dark green eyes held mine as my eyes danced along her body.
Taking in all the new tattoos she had.
“Piper,” I said.
“Hello, Rock.”
“Am I dreaming? Oh shit, am I dead?”
“No on both accounts,” she said.
I sat up on the couch and slung my aching legs around. I blinked a few times to get my vision to stop shaking before I leaned back into the cushions of the couch. My body felt heavy. Bruised. Battered.
“I never thought I’d see you again,” I said as I closed my eyes.
“That makes two of us,” Piper said.
“What happened?”
“You crashed your bike across the road from my house,” she said plainly. “You were face down in a ditch.”
“Then how the hell did you get me into this house?”
“You became coherent enough to stumble once I hoisted you to your feet. But the second we got to the edge of the road you passed out again on my back.”
“I don’t remember any of that shit.”
“I don’t expect you to for a little while. If it doesn’t come back, though, I’d feel better if you went to the hospital to get your head checked out,” she said.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Very much.”
My eyes panned over to hers and I made no effort to hide the way my eyes danced along her body.
She had so many other tattoos I’d never seen before.
She had a barbed wire tattoo around her right bicep with some sort of flowers or colorful leaves wrapped around it.
And on her left upper arm she had an artistic rendition of a picturesque sunset dipping down beneath the surface of the ocean.
I saw a small heart with the initials ‘G.J.’ tattooed onto her right breast that wiggled for her while she breathed.
I started wondering if she hid more underneath that silken nightgown of hers.
“Well, thanks for your help,” I said as I tried to get up.
I heard her sigh as I stood to my feet before the room began to spin.
“Always the stubborn one,” Piper said. “Sit down, Rock.”
“I’m good. Gotta get back to the guys.”
“So, you’re still rolling with that club of yours.”
“‘Til death do us part,” I said.
I tried to take a step forward, but instead my body fell back.
I flopped back down to the couch as the room spun, making me sick to my stomach.
I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath, trying to steady my stomach.
My entire body hurt in ways I’d never experienced before, but slowly the events of the night before started to come back.
The conversation with Brewer.
The need for a drive.
Holy shit. The car that ran me off the road.
“My bike,” I said. “Where is it?”
“So, you’re starting to remember,” Piper said.
I opened one eye and glare at her as a small grin trickled across her cheeks.
“I hauled it into my garage. It’s pretty banged up, but it looks like the damage is mostly superficial. I worked out some of the kinks last night. But the handlebars are still pretty fucked up.”
“So, you still work on bikes,” I said.
“In between my shifts at the hospital. Though, in my defense, I work on more than just bikes now.”
“The hospital?”
“I work at the hospital in town. Took a job there as one of their main E.R. doctors a couple of week ago.”
“So, you’re back in town for a while.”
“So, it would seem,” she said.
“You don’t sound too thrilled about that.”
“I’ve had better moments in Redding, let’s just put it that way.”
The disdain in her voice was evident.
“I’m shocked you’re not still in jail or something,” Piper said.
“Nope. Only did a few months, then I got out,” I said.
“Good lawyer?”
“A bit of good behavior, too,” I said with a grin.
“Are you capable of something like that?”
I furrowed my brow as I took the chance and opened my eyes.
“Last I recalled, I didn’t hear you complaining about the way I lived my life,” I said.
“The last time I recalled, I was also trying to fuck you while you rode down the highway on your bike.”
“Not the adventurous spirit any longer?” I asked.
“Things took priority, yes.”
The look in her eye was foreign. Something I’d never seen before.
I relaxed into the couch and stretched my legs, listening as they popped and groaned with the movements.
I laid my head back into the cushions and sighed deeply.
I wanted to get out of her house. To get out of the thick, disgusting tension brewing between us.
But I also didn’t want to leave her. I didn’t want this to be the last time we saw one another.
And if it was going to be the last time, I sure as fuck didn’t want to leave it on that kind of note.
“You said I don’t have a concussion?” I asked.
“I don’t think you do, no. But I did have to sew up some pretty deep gashes with the medical supplies I keep on hand,” I said.
“The best thing you can do for yourself right now is rest. And if you don’t want to listen, I’ll call an ambulance and have you transported to a place where they’ll make you listen. ”
“Do they have drugs there?” I asked. “Drugs would be nice.”
“I need to check your mental state before I give you anything for the pain. Are you remembering anything from last night?”
“I crashed into a ditch after a car ran me off the fucking road.”
“Well, we don’t always get lucky every day,” she said.
“I’ll pretend like I didn’t hear that.”
“I don’t care if you do or not.”
“You’re really pissed right now, aren’t you?” I asked.
“What tipped you off?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it was the fact that you just alluded to my being preferably dead.”
“Wasn’t sure if you caught that,” she said with a grin.
“See, now I know that grin. That isn’t the grin of someone who’s angry.”
“It’s the grin of someone who has the upper hand,” she said.
“So, you want me to rest, but you don’t want me here.”
“I’m first and foremost your doctor. And as your doctor, I know what’s best for you right now.”
“Does being my doctor come with playing doctor?” I asked with a smirk.
“You were never into roleplay.”
“Things change.”
Her eyes narrowed at me as she crossed one thick leg over the other.
She looked different. The same, but also different.
A little thicker around the thighs. Her tits were gloriously bigger as well.
Her cheeks were a little rounder and her legs a little stronger.
Fuck me, Piper was gorgeous. Juicier than I’d ever seen her in my dreams. I raked my eyes down her one last time before drawing in a deep breath, trying to keep my cock at bay.
Because even it throbbing hurt.
“Is there a part of me that isn’t going to hurt?” I asked.
“I’d say being tossed face first into a ditch warrants an all-around bodily ache,” Piper said.
“Is that your professional or personal opinion?”
“Both,” she said.
“So, do you own this home? Or are you renting it?”
I watched her face fall before something akin to sadness raked over her features.
“I own it,” Piper said.
“How much did you buy it for?”
“I didn’t. This is my childhood home.”
“So, you’re living with your parents.”
“No,” she said.
My eyes connected with hers and I saw a pain flooding them I was all too familiar with.
Shit. Of course, I’d touch on the one damn subject that would bring tears to her eyes.
I fucking hated it when Piper cried. She did enough of that shit over the summer we spent together.
A little girl terrified of what her future brought while not knowing what move to make or what to do with her fucking life.
I’d spent that entire summer wrapped up in her.
Trying to expose her to things that could make her smile despite the world she thought was tumbling down around her.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s fine. I didn’t have the heart to sell it, and now I’m glad I didn’t. Once I took the job with the hospital, I didn’t have to find a place to live.”
“And even in a small town like Redding, finding a place to stay is a shit show,” I said.
“Beau! Stop!”
My eyes widened at the small voice. I watched Piper bolt upright in her chair before she quickly stood to her feet.
She ran across the room and around the couch as I stood to my feet, ignoring the swirling of my brain and the tilting of the room.
That was a child’s voice. There was a child in this fucking house.
Holy hell. Was Piper a mother?
“Beau! No!”
“Gavin, honey. You have to be quiet. What’s going on?” Piper asked.
“Beau’s eating my shoe,” the boy said.
“Beau, come on. You’re going outside now.”
I heard the dog whimper his disapproval as Piper came walking back down the hallway.
She had a massive pit-bull mix in her arms as she walked towards the back door, then she put the dog down onto its feet and opened it.
She scooted him out the door with her foot before he flopped down onto the cement, staring back in through the glass and looking at all of us.
Then, a boy came running into the room with a toy in his hand.
“He can have it,” the boy said. “It’s too small anyway.”
My eyes whipped over to Piper before I looked back down at the small boy next to her.
He wrapped his arms around her and smiled up at me with a smile that looked a little too familiar.
His hair was dirty blonde and thick. And his eyes were a thunderstorm gray.
He was tall. His head rested easily in the crook of Piper’s waist. My eyes dropped down the boy’s body and took him in as my mind began to whirl.
“Rock,” Piper said.
“How old are you?” I asked the little boy.
“Don’t answer that. Just go back up to your room,” Piper said.
“I’m five,” the boy said with a massive smile. “My name’s Gavin. Are you feeling better?”
‘G.J.’
Gavin Jackson.
He was five?
I heard the back door open before the dog started barking.
The door slammed as footfalls shuffled across the floor, but I wasn’t paying attention.
Voices emanated from upstairs before some music struck up as my mind slid back into its own world.
Into its own fucking calculations. Five years old.
Nine months of pregnant. That put him being conceived in--
Oh shit.
My vision focused as Piper came walking back down the hallway. And the look on her face told me everything I needed to know. She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the hallway wall as I stood there, staring her down.
Did I have a fucking kid?