Rome's Chance (Reapers MC #6.6)(46)

The video ended abruptly. We sat in silence for a few minutes, and I thought about how young he’d been. Finally, Rome spoke.

“He was dead two weeks later. When I downloaded this after the jump, I nearly deleted it. I thought it wasn’t good enough—I figured we could make a better one next time.”

His arms tightened around my body, and I blinked back tears. Damon should’ve gotten more jumps and more videos.

“I’d give anything to skydive with him one more time,” Rome told me. “It’s better than anything you’ve ever felt in your life. Except for sex with me, of course.”

“Of course,” I agreed, realizing that he’d painted me into a corner. Sneaky bastard. “But your dick is magic. I don’t need to jump out of an airplane when I have you in my bed.”

Rome raised a brow, waiting.

“This is emotional manipulation, you know.”

“I fight to win,” he said without a hint of guilt. “So you gonna give it a chance, or what?”

“Do I have a choice?”

He gave me a smile, then nodded.

“Randi, you always have a choice,” he told me. “We can jump this week. We can jump in a year. Ten years from now. I’m here as long as you want me, but I’ll never force you to do anything.”

He was telling the truth, I knew that. He’d already given me a year. I thought about Damon, waving at his brother as they floated through the air.

“Was this really just two weeks before he died?”

“Thirteen days, fifteen hours and about forty-five minutes,” he replied. “Give or take.”

He’d looked so healthy in the video. So alive.

And he’d died playing Uno.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” I said. “But if I crash into the ground, you have to take care of Lexi and Kayden.”

Rome gave me a deep kiss, and I felt myself relaxing into his body. “We’ll be strapped together. If you crash, I’ll crash with you.”

“Way to commit,” I said, feeling slightly better about the whole thing. I wasn’t sure I could handle a parachute—I still lost my car keys at least twice a day.

Rome shrugged. “Beats getting stuck with Lexi. I’d miss Kayden, though.”

I looked at his face, seeing happiness there, but also grief. It would never go away entirely, I realized.

“I’m sorry you lost him,” I whispered.

“Yeah, baby. Me too.”




Now it was three o’clock in the morning, and soon I’d be jumping out of an airplane. I’d tried to reschedule when Aiden and Isaac announced out of nowhere that they were coming for the weekend. But Rome insisted that it had to be today.

Considering how much he’d given me over the past year, I decided to roll with it.

I opened the bedroom door, tiptoeing past Lexi’s bedroom (which Isaac and his girlfriend had taken over) and then Kayden’s (full of Aiden and his family). I passed through the living room to the kitchen. My littlest brother was sound asleep on the couch, but there was no sign of Lexi on the air mattress.

Little shit had probably snuck out to see that boy again.

I thought he was an asshole, but my sister was stubborn as hell. She insisted that he was one of the good ones. They hadn’t even slept together yet, or so she claimed. Hard to know.

At least we were on the home stretch—just one more year of high school, and then she’d be free to destroy her life any way she wanted.

“Hey,” Rome said quietly as I reached the kitchen. He stepped over to me, tipping my chin up for a kiss. I melted into him, then slid my hand toward the front of his pants. Maybe if I lured him into sex, he’d let me go back to sleep instead of doing this crazy thing.

He caught my hand, stopping it as he nipped my lip in punishment.

“Nice try, nympho. You can’t get out that easy.”

I pretended to pout, and he gave my ass a little smack.

“You ready for this?” he asked.

“No. Skydiving is against the laws of God and nature.”

“You don’t have to do it,” he reminded me. “But your brothers are here. If you chicken out, you’ll have to face them.”

He made a good point. Aiden and Isaac could be ruthless, and they got along with Rome way too well.

“Okay,” I told him. “Let’s go and get it over with.”

“You always make me feel so loved.”

“Asshole.”

He smacked my butt again, and we headed out the door.




The sun had just come up when our little plane took off.

It belonged to a friend of Rome’s dad, and somehow Rome had convinced him to get up at oh-dark-thirty so we could do this. One of his smoke jumping friends came along, too. They probably needed someone to deal with the doors and stuff… I’d decided I didn’t want to know all the details—thinking about details could lead to thinking about what I was about to do.

That wouldn’t end well.

I looked down at my harness one last time. Everything was strapped on tight, checked, and double checked, and now I was stuck sitting on his lap. I reminded myself that Rome had been jumping out of planes half his life, and that he’d qualified as an instructor years ago. He’d jumped into the back country to fight fires, and he’d jumped tandem with his mother on her sixtieth birthday. She’d survived the experience just fine—we’d had dinner with her last week. I didn’t have anything to worry about.