Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Ronan
The next few days, I tried to busy myself with mundane bullshit chores for my mom. Step dick hadn’t come back from his casino bender since he broke her wrist, and I stayed around to fix up her piece of shit car, the trailer that was falling apart, and keep her from hurting herself further.
I felt like the parent more and more.
“Ma. I’m heading out to get groceries. Stay off your damn pipe while I’m gone.”
Miranda hollered a dopey response, the sound of that bubbling weed prevalent before I even exited the door.
“Weeds not bad. God gave us herbs in the dirt. This here is medicine.”
I rolled my eyes but left it alone. At least she had stopped the hard stuff while I had been here.
As I made my way to my truck, I could hear those fucking church bells in the distance. One bad thing about Monticello being so small was that everything, including the love of your life’s church, wasn’t far at all.
In Vegas, you could drive for miles and never be able to fixate on one particular noise, but not here. I could hear Marty and Bertha arguing about bread a few houses across the way.
I tried to blur the noise from my mind, cranking my radio dial-up and letting the low bass fill my ears.
“What have I fucking got myself into?” I said aloud, shaking my head as to why I was sitting in my truck driving to a damn grocery store in the first place.
All for the shithead mother who barely achieved keeping me alive in the shit hole town.
Elias Cross.
His name flickered in my mind like a strobe light, temporarily making me feel blinded.
“Fucking hell,” I cursed, my hands tightening against the steering wheel.
Elias was invading my mind. For some reason, all I could do was think about his lips. I only kissed the man once in my entire life, yet right now, my lips burned to do it again.
Would he taste the same?
No, he wouldn’t.
Elias had tasted like salty tears and fucking rage that day. My stupid actions in my attempt to protect both of us had broken him in two. I knew how he had felt because as I’d watched him crumble in front of me…I’d felt the same pain. I’d severed my own heart that day, and clearly, Elias had chosen to keep it that way.
My hand burned where I had held his. Even for that brief second, it was worth everything to touch him again.
God, I needed him. I needed to break this fucking tension that reached all the way from our darkened past. I needed his body. Would he let me explore his newly defined muscles? Would he fight me when he succumbed to his desire?
I almost wanted a fight. I wanted to feel him break beneath me, claim the prize of his cock, and damn him to the hell that meant loving me.
His words echoed in my head. The finality of his rejection stung so badly that it physically made me itch. Elias wasn’t that pure little boy. I had to remind myself over and over that my best friend had changed.
I wasn’t the same kid either.
Would Elias even want me if he knew the shit that I had done since I’d walked away from him? No. He would pray for my soul and lock himself deeper into those hardened walls of his heart.
My dick had the absolute worst timing. It was pressed against the zipper of my jeans, and the ache made me groan. It felt like a fucking chastity belt.
Maybe that’s what I needed.
I smacked my stupid appendage, annoyed at my ability to drive being altered from the never-dulling lust when I thought of Elias.
I could feel precome dripping from the tip, and it made me look like I pissed my pants.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake! C’mon.”
Growling, I pulled over my truck into the store parking lot and parked in the back lot. This place used to be a mall, but now it was just a big empty building of nothing but broken memories for the town. It wouldn’t be long before some rich ass medical company scooped up the plans and made yet another healthcare facility that did anything but true healing.
“Is this what you want, Elias?” I whispered, ripping my dick out of my zipper and squeezing the length in my hand. “To feel this maddening pain of not being able to feel you?”
I was screaming at my cock in a truck at the edge of a supermarket. How the mighty have fallen.
“Fuck you,” I said, fucking hot tears streaming down my face.
I let the anger and pain out onto my flesh, enjoying the burn on my skin because I knew I deserved this.
What did you actually expect when you waltzed into his church? For him to jump into your arms, forgive you for being a cheating bastard, and sing Kumba-fucking-Ya?
A hysterical laugh bubbled from my mouth, and I jerked my dick harder until it became painful.
I didn’t deserve to feel pleasure with Elias in my thoughts. I deserved pain.
His beautiful face was a beacon in my mind, guiding me through my blurring tears and to a pleasure that was so forbidden I could never truly reach it.
“I am sorry, Elias. I-I…Fuck! I love you.”
I was about to come, my voice coming out in ragged pants, but then a knock sounded on my tinted window, and I jolted upright, dropping my dick and trying to compose myself.
My windows were fogged to hell, and a blonde woman stood outside the door. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her face. It had been so long since I was here, and everyone from my past was beginning to blur together.
I collected my thoughts, shoving my dick back into my jeans and taking a deep breath.
“Uh, Hi there,” I said, rolling down my window and staring at her bright blue eyes.
“Sorry, I was uh…taking a nap.”
The woman looked caught off guard. My truck probably smelled like a combination of sweat and spit with the lingering odor of my fucking mother’s dirty ass.
“Oh. I-Wait. Do I know you?”
I plastered on my lazy smile and ran a hand through my hair.
“Probably. I used to live here when I was a kid.”
The blonde’s eyes lit up. “Wait. Ronan Saint Clare? Is that actually you?”
Hearing my name on her lips brought the memory to the forefront. This was Maria.
Maria fucking Cross.
Elias’s little sister.
I forced a laugh, trying to choke back my exasperation. Of course, his fucking sister would be the one to find me out here.
“Maria. Hey. Yeah. It’s me. Same old-same old.”
Maria laughed, her musical tone lingering around me.
“I wouldn’t say the same, Ronan. You are jacked! I mean, respectfully, wow. You look amazing.”
I swallowed an uncomfortable knot in my throat. “Oh…uh. Thanks.”
She waited outside my window, and the awkward silence stretched.
“So…How is everything? Do you, uh, work here?”
Maria laughed again and shook her head. “No. I was buying groceries. I am headed to my parents’ house for dinner. Dad’s always been demanding these stupid weekend dinners since we were teenagers. You’ve been to a few. I am sure you remember.”
Ah. The last dinner I attended at the Crosses’ was being balls deep inside Maria, and then Elias walked in on us and promptly ended any semblance of a life I had that wasn’t pure hell from the second I woke up.
“Yeah. Yeah, I remember. That’s nice. How are Dawn and Jerry?”
Maria perked up. A mischievous edge to her sweet tone caught me off guard. Those blue eyes resembled her brothers so much it hurt. I thought of him when I was inside of her. Pulled her face close and focused on those eyes, imagining they belonged to him.
“Why don’t you come?” She blurted, making me jump at the increased volume. “It will be so nice to catch up again. I know Mom and Dad will love to see you. It’s been too long, Saint Clare.”
I started to say no, but she cut me off. “Nope. I will not accept no for an answer. You remember the address, don’t you? Just follow me. If I recall, you enjoyed my ass in the past.”
I was actually blushing. I turned away from my mirror and shook my head. “The prodigal children of Monticello have certainly changed since I’ve been gone.”
Maria laughed and winked at me before returning to her bright pink car.
I sighed for the second time, wondering how in the hell I got to this point in my life.
Maybe Elias won’t be there.
Or maybe, he would, and yet again, I would be thrown out of that damn house.