Chapter 6
Chapter Six
RONIN
I know she’s gone. I think I knew it when I was still tangled in sleep and dreaming of her.
As I roll up to sitting, sunlight is beaming in through the windows to the marina. It’s a solid view. We paid extra for it, though this morning, Keegan’s bulk blocks out most of what I should be able to see.
“You right, Kee?” I ask, grabbing a bottle of water and guzzling it down.
My mouth is a desert, the reminder of her peach-laden scent embedded in every grain of sand there so she’s all I can taste.
He doesn’t turn around at my question. His hands are buried in the pockets of his green sweats, making them hang low off his hips. The set of his shoulders has me climbing out of bed. Clearly, he’s pissed. The question is why, since it could be for a hundred different reasons.
“What’s the story, then?” I ask again, making it impossible for him to ignore me by moving in front of the glass where his gaze is.
“She fucking left.”
“She said one night. We both heard her say it, along with giving us permission to enjoy those hours doing what we did.”
“But them was just words.” He refuses to look at me, so I take a step into his glare. The vibrant green of his eyes has shifted to a different variation because of his biting anger. “Our wife, Ronin, isn’t here. She disappeared in the night like a hoor. You ain’t angry at that?”
“I’ll be showering while you rethink your effing words. Calling our wife a hoor will be your undoing, if I hear you giving like that again.”
I leave him to get a handle on his hangover and his shit mood. I’d much prefer not to be washing her scent from my body, but we’ve got a flight back home soon enough, and I refuse to be locked in a small plane when all I can smell is her.
My head is full of vivid images of her, and us doing her, and until I find my wife again, they’re going to have to do. Those endless visuals have me beating my cock under icy cold fucking water. I need the relief, or my knot will be driving me daft all fucking day.
Kee walks in and barely glances at me knocking one out. His face is a mask of conflict—he’s pissed, and he might have all right to be, but I don’t need to listen to him whining, and he knows it.
I turn to face him, my balls drawing up tight. I’m skating the edge, right fucking there already.
“She looked good, didn’t she, Ronin?”
Closing my eyes at his words, at the tone of near fucking reverence in his voice, I see her.
The first glimpse I got of her. I mean, the visuals of her riding my knot all night are there, too, but the one where she first walked back into our lives, her black dress fluttering high on her thighs, her rack sitting sweet for the world to see, her eyes full of confidence—it’s those that bring me to lose my load on the glass of the shower screen.
Stepping under the spray again, I answer.
“Aye, she did. How long’s it been, Kee?”
“A week later, we lost Noinin.”
There’s no time that goes past where saying my sister’s name doesn’t tear my heart apart. I might have gotten my revenge on the people who took her, and the man who abused, then strangled my baby sister, but their pleas, terror, and pain ain’t ever done anything to soothe the torture in my soul.
“Eleven years. She didn’t recognize us, did she?”
“In some ways, she didn’t, but others, I reckon she did. You know what I mean, right?” Now I’m the one asking questions that make it sound like I’m doubting her, and myself.
“I knew it was her the second she walked in that room.”
I take the towel he’s offering, nodding my head. “Aye, I figured.”
“How’s that?”
“You shoved your tongue down her throat instead of making sure I was well protected.”
“Ack, you don’t need protecting.”
“I’ll remind you of that when I ask you to be giving me space instead of crowding me night and day.”
“It’s me fucking job.”
“Right?! And yet your worry for me flew right out the feckin’ window when you got your eyes on her. And that’s knowing the lengths people go to in our world.”
I seriously think it’s the first time he’s figured out that he dropped his role as my protector completely when she appeared like a mirage.
Fucking Santiago somehow finding her only means I owe him that much more now.
Little fucker will hold that over our heads for probably the rest of our days too.
Not that I was worried about my safety, because like him, I knew who she was the moment my eyes locked on hers.
Despite it being years and years since we entertained Noinin out back one afternoon, letting her marry me and my pack off.
It was a bit of a laugh. We did it so she wouldn’t rat us out to Ma—I can’t even remember what she’d caught us doing.
We were making mischief most days back then.
Not much has changed, except we got a direction to aim it all toward now, a vision, if you want to call it that.
Keegan’s got a weird-as-fuck look in his eyes when he eventually gets them to stop staring in shock and avoiding me.
“Disarming, ain’t she?” I say. “Noinin knew she was the woman for us, don’t ask me how. We’ll go thank her when we get home.”
“Ronin…”
I cut him off, not needing him to start doubting himself. It was a blunder on his part, but we were enjoying a night off. We were safe, and not so pissed that we wouldn’t have been able to shaft some prick if they took a jump on us.
“I know we got it going on back home, with all the bullshit happening now I’m getting close to taking over from Paddy, but we’re gonna have to find time to go see my sister and tell her our thanks, plus our plan for tracking down Mrs. O’Connor.”
He still looks part ashamed, part haunted. It’s an interesting look, that’s for sure. Keegan’s got more confidence than anyone I know. Always has too. Cocky bastard.
“The first time we saw our wife, Kee, she was sixteen. Eleven years. We’re not waiting that long to get her between us again. We’ll be finding her and reminding her of her vows.” I start the faucet, the hot water filling the sink, and foam my face up.
He waits until I’m done before he speaks. “And then what?”
I let the razor glide over half my face as I figure out the way to answer.
It isn’t a difficult decision, but wording it is.
“Then I guess Ma will be planning a proper wedding. Every fucker who’s been saying we’re too young to take over from my father will be looking the fool. We’ll have to find a bigger house too.”
In the reflection of the mirror, I see Kee’s shoulders get tense, all the duty of being my Enforcer falling back on them. Weighing him down. “Or dead. The people that don’t be supporting us fully, is what I’m referring to.”
“There is that. You call the others yet?”
“Aye. All’s fine. But our Omega’s got needs, heat coming up.”
I smile at the thought, for obvious reasons. Days in a nest, with a desperate, whining Omega until you’re wrung out and unable to move? No complaints from me. “You got some gifts while you were out the other day, right?”
“I’m aware of our Omega’s needs, Ronin.”
I stop rinsing my face. He’s pissed off again. Looking at him, he’s got his face twisted with petulance, which would be part hangover, the rest due to his thickening cock.
“You suddenly doubting you can ask me anything?” I scoff, effectively throwing sand in his face.
He looks affronted I’m calling him out on his shit. “Feck you.”
I take a step towards him, getting all in his face, making him walk backwards without touching him or saying a word. My presence alone, the look in my eye, has his feet moving.
He goes to sidestep the bed, but I get the jump on him, my hand snapping out to grab the waistband of his sweats. “You was always a nasty bastard after getting wasted, and we did some Jameson last night. But usually, you’re surer than this.”
I tug down his sweats before forcing him to his knees.
“You want your Alpha’s knot, Kee? Is that what you need?
To blow your load, let the demons out cause you’re still caught in the feel of her body between ours?
The way her pussy fit so good around your knot, or the way her eyes rolled back when she did that deep moan as she came. ”
The man doesn’t answer, though his knot keeps swelling.
“Santiago’s gonna be here soon, then we’ve got a plane to get home, but see, I think there’s a problem with your attitude. Got me worried about my safety.” I talk softly, standing above him before I crowd closer, forcing him into action.
He’s trapped between me and the bed. Happy to be, though, as his cock juts out in front of him and his lips part as his breathing quickens. The small opening is all I need, and I direct my cock into his mouth and wrap my hand around his face, making him take it all.
“Suck me till I’m hard then you can spread your legs wide. You gonna do that, aren’t ya?” I ask, not giving him much of a chance to answer as his mouth is otherwise occupied.
I keep my thrusts shallow, letting his tongue do its magic, and it doesn’t take long for me to be ready, even after coming in my hand just before.
It’s the lingering effect of her scent, Omega pheromones floating around us like snowflakes, but it’s him too.
I’ve always had a hard-on for Keegan. Lucky he reciprocated the feelings, or it would have made it awkward as fuck.
Taking a step back to free myself from him, I flick my chin to the bed while I walk round to our bags. Like a good Boy Scout, the early riser has us packed already.
Pulling out my toiletries bag, I search out the bottle of lube and turn so he can watch me coat myself in it before I upend a generous squirt over my fingers.
He’s already got his hands under the backs of his knees, holding himself open. I crawl on my knees, admiring the view, before my fingers coat him. Falling forward on one hand, I rub my tip over him, earning a few ugly words from his lush mouth.