Chapter 19 Ronan
RONAN
To say I was angry would be putting it lightly.
I spent an hour kissing the Doc’s ass while I tried to explain the situation with Cecilia without explaining the situation with Cecilia.
The entire time I was an anxious mess, waiting for her to shut her trap so I could rush back upstairs and claim what was mine again.
I told mostly the truth to the Doc, that Cecilia and I had history, and I was keeping her safe from a big bad that she wouldn’t let me in on.
That, of course just led to an entirely different lecture from the Doc, about what an idiot I was and that I was endangering the entirety of the Black Crows by “leading with my dick” as she called it.
I just wanted to get back to the penthouse and lay next to her again, even if just for one night.
I couldn't get her off my mind, not with her this close to me and certainly not since she let me have her, it was all I could think about, every moment, all of the time. She had burrowed under my skin, crawling inside of me like an itch I couldn’t scratch.
A need I would never be able to fulfill no matter how many more times I’d have her.
It wouldn't be enough.
Worst of all was that I couldn’t deny that we had a moment back there in my room when it was just the two of us. I felt it and I knew she felt it too. Even if she was too stubborn to admit it, I could still see the truth swirling around in those obsidian mirrors of her eyes.
Emory made me pay for her food and a coffee at a diner down the block from our high-rise to explain what was going on.
She wasn’t even halfway through her food when I got the text from Kane with the photo of her cuddled into him.
I just threw a wad of cash at the table and told her I had an emergency.
I knew she would probably chew me out for that one too.
Emory was a good friend to the Black Crows, and we treated her right because a good doctor who kept their mouth shut was hard to come by.
Emory came from the trials. She was from our first batch almost seven years ago now.
Emory O’Connor was twenty-three when we rescued her from the Irish trafficking ring.
Her father sold her to pay off some debts after her mother died of cancer, racking up tons of medical bills and leaving them penniless.
Emory was the only girl we ever rescued that did something meaningful with her life.
Not that it mattered what they did after, because it was their freedom to choose how they lived, not ours, and that was the point of the whole damn thing.
She wanted more, and I appreciated her hunger.
We paid the Doc’s way through medical school and in exchange she was contracted to work for the Black Crows for ten years.
We paid her well, and I was pretty sure that when her contract would come to an end in a few years that she would be asking to renew it.
She was welcome to work wherever she wanted, and we would fund the hospital well, but she had to make herself available to us for personal calls at all times.
It was a tough job, but she was a damn good doctor and a professional at all times, so I knew I would be getting an earful for that move I just pulled on her, the next time she saw me.
I sprinted back to the high-rise so fast that when I burst through the doors our doorman, Nate, almost pulled his gun on me before he recognized me. I took a few heaving breaths with my hands on my knees, and I pulled my phone out as I walked towards the elevators.
Kane: Don’t be an ass. She’s asleep.
The asshole was baiting me, and it was working.
When I got up to the penthouse, I headed towards our bedrooms, but Santos was already standing in front of Mateo’s door with his arms crossed. I raised an eyebrow at him, but he wasn’t fazed.
“Move along brother. It’s late.” He eyed me until I made my way to my room, leaving them unbothered.
I looked at the spot in my bed that had just been occupied by her presence not too long ago. I kicked my shoes off before sinking into it, letting her smell be the only thing I had to simmer the flames building inside of me.
Now here I was in my brother’s room again, the morning after my woman spent the night in his bed again. To top it all off, there she was, the creature from Hell I summoned to punish me for all of my wrongs, standing there with nothing but a towel on.
She wasn’t at all phased by the fact she was standing in between the three most dangerous men in the city. In fact, she stood there in testament to how little fear she felt for any of us, and my dick throbbed at the sight of the kind of woman she had become.
“It’s Saturday,” Santos told her and aside from the slight drop of her shoulders, there wasn’t really a visible reaction.
Like time meant absolutely nothing to her anymore.
And I was the one who robbed her of that.
She huffed out a big exhale that gave me the impression of relief at the thought that he wouldn’t be gone so long.
The two of them were always close, and I was glad my brother was someone I could trust with her all those years ago, whether it was to keep her company or to keep her safe.
Nowadays, I wasn’t so sure anymore, I could see the same hungry look in álvarez’s eyes that I saw in Mateo’s.
All I'd done was open up the way for them to get to her.
“You were supposed to be in my room when I came back,” I said through closed teeth.
She clucked her tongue at me in her arrogant way, shrugging her shoulders. “I didn’t think there was a difference as long as I was with one of you,” she narrowed her eyes at me. “I thought I was your little club’s property,” she said, demeaning the entire integrity of our operation.
It didn’t matter if it was life and death or over minuscule choices; Cecilia Gomes and I were destined to fight about anything and everything for the rest of our days.
I knew that was part of the intrigue when it came to her.
I used to think we had been broken because we couldn’t stop fighting, but then I realized she didn’t want to stop fighting.
She didn’t know how to do normal. She was fucking insane and in the best way possible.
I knew that if everything was always perfect, she would have been bored.
Happily-ever-after wasn’t her style.
“You are mine,” I reminded her, grabbing her arm, and pulling her closer to me.
álvarez took a fraction of a step towards us but he stopped himself. She tried to shake me off of her, but I didn’t let go, she looked between Santos and Mateo before she spoke.
“Is that true?” As if rehearsed they both responded “No” in unison and then looked at each other in a silent agreement.
Fucking assholes.
She was almost glowing from the win, but I didn’t let her bask in it for long.
She tried to shake me off again, but I squeezed her arm, this time hard enough to bruise, forcing her to cry out from the pain.
Kane clenched his fists at me, but I didn’t care.
I dragged her out of his room behind me so abruptly that her towel fell off before we were through the door.
My quick pace forced her to move her feet through the hall while she shouted her futile protests.
“What the hell are you doing?” she screamed at me as we made our way back into my bedroom.
I closed the door behind us, locking it so my brothers couldn’t get in.
“You think you can fuck with me by getting to my brothers?” I asked her as I threw her onto the bed, her tits bouncing from the force of her hitting the mattress.
“I’m just surviving in the circumstances I was provided, It’s what I’m good at. Not everything is about you,” she said dryly, not bothering to attempt to cover herself up as she rested her elbows on the mattress.
I couldn’t help but take the moment to appreciate the landscape of her body as I engraved the new geography of her changed curves into my memory once again.
She didn’t miss how long it took for my gaze to return to her face and she bit her bottom lip seductively.
It was probably not even intentional but everything about her exuded a sensuality that couldn’t be captured or contained.
Her eyes shifted to the outline of my already hard cock through my pants.
I undid my belt buckle and her eyes darted directly to my hands as I pulled it off of my pants in one quick motion.
She narrowed her eyes at me then turned her chin away.
I caged her in between my arms on the bed, but before I could lower myself to taste her, I found myself spitting the metal flavor of blood that coated my tongue from the force of her head against my face.
The pain came after.
It took me a moment to realize what happened, but it was the cackling of her laugh that brought me back to the moment in a heat of pure rage.
I wiped my bleeding nose with my hand and smeared it against her face, dragging it down to her chest. I squeezed the most perfect tits I’d ever had the pleasure of holding, forcing a moan from her in response to my touch.
When I leaned down to put my mouth on her skin, she kicked out at me straight in the chest, sending me back into the wall.
She laughed like a maniac once again. I growled as I advanced towards the bed, annoyed and fucking hard as a rock at the show she was putting on.
“What the fuck are you playing at?” I asked her, pinning her legs down beneath me.
She squirmed but couldn’t do much under my massive weight. She tried to hit me again, so I grabbed her hands and pinned them above her head.
“You’re going to have to try a lot harder than that,” she laughed it out like she wasn’t afraid of what I could do to her.