Chapter 38 Ronan
RONAN
Ispread her legs open as I stepped in between them.
Giving her all of my attention, I tried forgetting about the friend I’d called brother standing to my side who’d been entangling himself deeper and deeper into my girl’s web.
She looked up at me through hooded eyes, her lashes long and dark as she waited for me to make a move.
She was unbreakable, and now I knew exactly why.
But at this moment I was the predator, and she knew damn well to play the part of prey.
I didn’t understand what was going on between her and Mateo, and as much as it made me jealous enough to want to put a bullet in my brother’s pretty face, it was also relieving in some ways. It was reassuring to have someone who could feel her pull and her influence in the same way I did.
It was comforting to know I wasn’t the only one being driven completely mad by just a look this sorceress could bestow on us. But that didn’t mean I was okay with the way he touched her like she belonged to him.
I thought about the way she reacted to me in her drugged-out state when we rescued her from Sokolov. Insecurity flooded through me as I remembered her body recoiling in a mixture of fear and anger around me. She was neither of those things now, her pupils shot, and her desire nearly palpable.
Her eyes darted to Kane, and I closed whatever distance was left between us, pressing hard against her body, and forcing a whimper from her lips. I was tired of how much space constantly separated us, it was painful to be so close and yet so far away from her.
“And what point is that?” She thought she was egging me on, but her voice was coated in lust and there was no hiding the electricity between us.
“That you’ll be mine till the end,” I pressed my forehead into hers, breathing her in, thankful just to touch her once more. Not wanting to risk the pain of losing her again, I could temper my jealousy.
For now.
“Tell me I’m wrong. Tell him I’m wrong,” I said through clenched teeth, and her eyes darted to him before she shook her head in refusal.
“Good girl,” I muttered the praise in her ear, pulling a shudder from her body.
The way she could still physically react to me let me know I was right, I still owned a piece of her heart and I couldn’t throw that chance away.
If I had a granule of her affection, I would tend to it until it became a field again.
Because if the last three days taught me anything, it was that I couldn’t exist without Cecilia again.
She was worse than any drug, any injury, any curse that could ever plague me on this Earth.
She was my undoing, and I would unravel in her presence until there was nothing left but the fibers of my being.
How I failed to see all the darkness in her before was beyond me.
She wasn’t the cause of the splinters in my heart, she was the pitch-black shards themselves that were lodged inside me.
The kind of woman Satan himself would fear.
After all, if you’re going to dance with the devil, you might as well lead.
And my girl knew how to tango.
I pulled her by the back of her hair, exposing her throat to me and forcing a gasp from her lips. I sunk my teeth into her neck as she cried out in pain, her hands clawing at my shoulders, giving me back equal parts of what I dished out.
As I ran my tongue up her bronze neck, her feet instantly wrapped around my waist, pulling me against her. I grazed my lips along her jaw, a half-smirk I couldn’t hide if I tried to, as our lips found each other, and I pushed my way into her mouth with a groan.
My cock was straining against my pants at the sight of her.
Even with bruises decorating her body she was the most sinful temptation, a product of hell itself.
No, she was its queen, and I would just be the hound at her feet to do her bidding.
Content with whatever scrap of herself that she could toss my way.
I didn’t want to believe that Kane was right, that if I stopped trying to control everything, she would stop pushing me away.
Was I just supposed to put up with the fact that my brother got to touch her in the same way I did?
If I could trust him with my life, then could I trust him with hers?
“You saved my life?” She whispered into my mouth, and I nodded a response.
I didn’t think she remembered the night we rescued her, I thought she was too far under the drug’s hold.
The memory of almost losing her caused my emotions to course through me wildly, and I never wanted to feel the way I did during the days she was gone, ever again.
“Every single time, Flower,” I promised. “I’d go to hell to bring you back.”
“That doesn’t sound like someone who hates me.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I confirmed, and she pressed harder into my ass with the heels of her feet as I reached in between us, until my hand found her center, slick and waiting for me.
“Was this for him?” I asked, running my fingers over her clit as I teased her, trying to sound more curious than envious but it wasn’t working.
“If I’m yours, can’t he be mine?” she asked, kissing me again, but this wasn’t the time to figure that out.
I shoved my fingers in and curled them, pulling a moan from deep within her throat as she arched into me, and locked her wrists around my neck.
I responded by taking my free hand and grasping the back of her neck as I leaned her over the edge, causing her eyes to widen as I bent over her body.
She was so close to free-falling from that ledge, but it wasn’t fear dancing through those dark eyes, it was exhilaration.
I pulled my fingers out from inside of her and brought them up to my own lips to taste her sweet nectar. I finally turned my attention to my brother, knowing damn well he already crossed that line anyways.
“Nothing tastes quite like her, right?” I shot him a half-smirk, narrowing my eyes at him, daring him to answer, but he just folded his arms over his chest and leaned back to watch the show. A smile of contentment fought to let loose over his face, but he was playing the long game.
And he played it smart.
I freed myself from my pants and in one swift motion the hard length of my cock was pressed to her entrance, and she urged me on, digging her nails into my forearms. I pushed myself to the hilt, groaning in satisfaction at feeling the molten hotness of her pussy surrounding me, closing in on me so tightly all I could do was revel in it while we both adjusted to each other.
She impatiently ground her hips against me, trying to take pleasure in any way she could.
“Patience little flower, I’m going to make you scream.
” I whispered the promise into her ear while I brought my hand to her hip, still keeping her dangling over the ledge as I pulled out and slammed my way in hard enough to pull a cry from her lips.
I kept up the pace, grinding her clit against me every time we made contact to give her the friction she so craved.
“Oh Fuck!” she cried out as her orgasm took her by surprise with the last thrust and the shockwaves of pleasure that crashed through her were enough to send me over the edge as well.
We came together with ragged breaths, and I lifted her back up to a seat on the ledge before pulling out from inside of her, not bothering to deal with the mess as I stuffed myself back into my pants.
I began to turn away and she grabbed my face with both of her hands, and a scowl appeared on her face.
“This means nothing,” she said, her words, a dagger lodged deep inside of me, and pulling it out would only leave me worse off.
“Whatever lies you want to keep telling yourself. We have quite a lot to discuss, Celia. Clean up, I’ll have breakfast waiting in the penthouse,” I said bitterly, marching towards the door and leaving both of them up there, unable to look back—a chaotic inferno blazing through my mind, burning away at my soul.
You don’t have to lose her. So don’t lose her.
Easier said than done.
How do you keep a forest from burning when you’re the one holding the pyre?
How do you explain to the forest that it’s just the fire’s nature to burn?
I made my way back to the penthouse, placing an order on an app at a nearby breakfast place for the works.
She looked so tiny, frail and beaten—nothing like my fierce girl.
Despite how furious I was at the weight of the secrets Cecilia had been keeping from me, I was struggling to feel anything but relief at having her back here with us again and I knew I had to keep her safe.
Knowing she came from this world only made it so that it would be significantly harder to protect her than I previously thought.
If the Cártel found out she was with us, they would come to collect.
I needed to hear it from her.
I just needed the truth now, it was too late for anything but that.
I walked past Santos’ room, the door was open, and he was sitting on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees and his hands running through his hair.
“You were just gonna keep all of that shit from me man?” he said, his voice coated in a darkness that made the hairs on my arms stand.
“I hadn’t decided yet. You’ve been acting… off. I thought maybe you needed time,” I confessed, not at all bothered by the decision I made to protect him.
“Hmm,” he huffed out and followed it with a laugh that chilled me down to my bones and made my gut churn. “Funny how that works, huh?”
“What’s going on with you? Talk to me,” I stepped into his bedroom but didn’t go any further than the door.
“I deserved better from you. You know she’s screwing Kane, right? You can’t be that stupid,” he looked at me with a sneer etched into his face as he waited for my answer.
“I’m…working through it,” I said through my teeth, earning another look from him.
He raised an eyebrow at me, and I exhaled through my nostrils in annoyance. When I didn’t say anything more, he began to put a jacket on, and I blocked the doorway with my arm before he could get past.
“You’re not even going to see her?” I needed to figure out what was going on with him, and maybe if anyone could get through to him, it was her.
“Yeah, I saw her already. Naked in Kane’s bed this morning,” he pushed my arm out of the way and walked past me towards the elevators.
And I was supposedly the one with anger issues.
But for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t feeling that burning rage inside me anymore, the one I saw so clearly in Santos now.
The kind of anger that rooted so deeply inside of you, and it would consume you from within like a hunger, until that dark craving went satisfied.
I needed to know what was killing my brother.
Because what was ruining me was the ghost of Cecilia.
Kane was right, she wasn’t the girl I once loved, and I owed it to her to find out who she really was.
The thought that she was here right now because she wanted to be, kept circling my head over and over.
Maybe she was here more out of necessity than desire, but she did want this.
But she also wanted him. And that was too many levels of screwed up to consider.
I quickly made my way to my room, putting on “Devil’s Dance” by Metallica to play through my sound system while I hopped into the shower, letting the cold water hit me, jarring all my nerves awake as I used the shock of it to clear my head of all this noise.