RONIN
Iknow 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 blackdress 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.
