Page 26

26

Ronan

R omance. Unfortunately, I never had the chance to experience it, or practice giving it.

Calista deserves that, but the moment her hands dipped in that paint and onto me, she threw that shit out the window. The only thing I’m good at taking care of is myself.

As I began to leave her on the couch to shower, she literally coughed at me to bring my attention back to her.

After promising she’d keep her hands between her legs, she told me to carry her to the bathroom. I’ll be very honest, the last woman I slept with before going back to prison, I put her clothes into her hands and pushed her out the front door for asking to stay with me.

Sex has always been what it is. It means nothing but a release of tension. Both men and women equal the same thing to me, with the same outcome, and same amount of feelings attached: none.

That is, of course, not the case with this blonde baby girl now drying her hair with a towel in front of me.

I’m closed off, and normally I would be telling her to go into the second bathroom to do her beauty routine. However, there is a larger part that’s intrigued to see how she keeps her skin so nice. She fascinates me, but not like a student-teacher sort of thing. It’s more like she’s my rat and I’ve got her in my lab, ready to poke and prod to learn what I need to do to satisfy her.

“Do you mind if I ask you a question?” She stares at me through the mirror, those citrus green eyes settled behind siren lids. Ken wasn’t wrong. She isn’t my type and if I had seen her in a crowd I wouldn’t have looked twice. As beautiful as she is, it’s her stubbornness and self-control that draws me so damn strongly to her.

I should preface that he was right. Past tense. Now, she’s my only type.

“Depends,” I respond, stepping out of the shower after turning the water off.

“On?”

“If you answer mine as well.” I grab hold of the towel folded beside her, gazing down at her ass before starting to dry myself off.

“Easy ones first.”

I hum. “I don’t think any question either of us have for one another will be classified as easy, baby girl.”

That innocent, gentle laugh of hers pops between her lips and I roll my eyes. Fuck she’s so adorable.

“We can try. First, why do you call me baby girl?”

Alright, that’s pretty easy. “You have a baby face, and you’re a girl.” Through the mirror, her mouth drops open, and I shrug my shoulders. “What?” She just keeps staring at me. “I was going to call you doll, but I don’t want to think of you as a soft object, and that’s what I associate a doll with.”

“Barbies are hard…” she mumbles.

“The boys can call you Barbie, you’re my baby girl. Were you hoping for something sweeter and more loving?”

She tears her eyes away from me and leans in toward the mirror, using the bristles on some stick to brush through her eyelashes. It isn’t mascara, because it didn’t come from a tube.

“It’s fine…” I don’t think it is, but I’m not going to coddle her on this. It’s a nickname, what else is it meant to be? I sure as shit am not going to call her a fucking color. “Go ahead and ask me a question.”

“Where’d you get the scar on your calf?” Easy enough question… or so I thought.

“That’s a complicated answer, another one.”

“Okay… I will come back to that.” My words are delivered as a promise, not playful. It’s an old wound. I wouldn’t have likely noticed it if I weren’t checking out her bare backside like the masterpiece it is. As though I’m standing in the Louvre, looking at the Mona Lisa up close, I’m in awe. “What is your middle name?”

A big smile pulls up her cheeks, her white teeth parting as she sucks a breath in. “Winter.”

“Calista Winter Byrne.”

“Sanderson. Calista Winter Sanderson. I never took the Byrne name…” She licks her lips, not looking at me, but I can see the struggle to not do it. “I was eighteen when Eamon and my mom got together, they married when I was twenty. He never asked to adopt me, and even if he had, I’d likely have declined.”

I wonder if it was for selfish reasons my brother didn’t, but maybe it will be the first thing I thank him for. Technically, she’s not family, but like I told Ken, I’d still have fucked her whether my brother adopted her or not.

“Why would you have declined?”

“I want to keep my dad’s name.”

I think asking about her father will be a difficult question, so I’ll return to it another time.

Coming to stand beside her, I grab my toothbrush and say, “Your question.”

I enjoy her smiling. I hadn’t made many smile in my childhood, and even less in my adult life. So being able to bring that to someone like Cal, it hits me in a way nothing else does. A woman like her finding any joy with someone as shadowed as I am... it gives me hope.

“Last sexual partner.”

“You.”

She huffs. “Ronan.”

“That’s my name.” I shove the toothbrush into my mouth and begin brushing. She tilts her head to look at me directly this time, her mouth open incredulously, one eyebrow popped while the other has her eye squinting.

I just brush and brush.

“Come on! That’s so rude.”

The way she moves her hand up, I can tell she wants to put it onto me. Swat me, push me, just touch . However, she diverts, and instead just rests it against her waist.

Leaning over the sink, I spit and rinse it down. “It was while I was in prison.”

“Oh…” I look up at her in the mirror and her face is beginning to turn red. “I didn’t know you could see visitors like that.” Her tone is sheepish, and I can’t help but find it strange for someone that has her clit pierced that the thought of me with a guy makes her flustered.

“We can’t. I fucked my dentist, and Ken.”

I’m surprised her eyes didn’t pop straight from the socket. “Is that a problem?” I square my shoulders to face her, leaning my thigh against the counter.

“No, I’m just surprised I guess… that’s ignorant of me to assume you… are straight…”

I'm not sure where the urge comes from, but I gently run the back of my knuckles across her cheek. She exhales sharply, her gaze lifting to meet mine.

“All good. Sex isn’t something I glamorize. Dentist was a hole, as was Ken.”

Her face begins to turn an even darker shade of red. “But you guys are friends?”

“He’s like family at this point. He was the only one that came to see me, of course, after being released himself. That, and he took in the boys and introduced me to Mia. Which meant a lot.”

My hand moves down to her neck, my thumb brushing across her pulse.

“Hurry and ask your question,” she says in that dreamy state between wanting and pouting. “I have another.”

“Go ahead, I think mine will be difficult and I’m slightly distracted.” I sure am, because my fingers move to the curve of her breast, slowly exploring down toward her pierced nipple.

“The boys. Are they your kids?”

“Uh, no.” I huff out a laugh. “They’re all siblings. Met them in a homeless shelter after being released from prison the first time.”

“They can’t be any older than thirty…”

I pinch her hard nipple, and she gasps.

“Twenty-seven, twenty-nine, and thirty.” I place my hand under her breast and flick her hardened bud with my thumb. “Fourteen, sixteen, and seventeen when I met them.”

“Homeless…” she breathes, and I know she’s fighting getting turned on while having this conversation. “ Ronan .”

I groan. “Listen, baby girl, you say my name like that I’ll pinch your clit instead.”

“I still want… more answers,” she pants, and I close my eyes while taking a deep, longing breath. Then I lean in, lift her tit, and suck her nipple into my mouth before pulling on the bar. Her gasp accompanies her leg lifting and hooking up at my hip, desperate for more.

Releasing her, I stand back up to my full height. “Go ahead and ask, I’m not stopping you.” I grab under her thigh and pick her up. It’s still midday, but fuck doing anything but her today, we can stay in bed.

I’m slightly eager to get cum in her freshly brushed lashes.

Putting my hand to the small of her back so she doesn’t fall backward, I walk us into the bedroom. “Ask,” I say again, before placing my lips between her breasts that are sandwiching my face.

Her soft moan is followed by: “How’d Ken get them?”

“I asked for him to make sure they were taken care of.” I drop her onto her back, grabbing both of her legs and hooking them around my waist. “I protected him in prison, and he owed me for keeping his ass alive, and happily fucked.”

She lets out a half-moan, half-gasp at my blunt statement.

Leaning down I bite down onto her neck, causing her soft coos to morph into a shriek. I suck and lick with need, and although I was already hard as fuck, my cock is now leaking feeling her own wet cunt dragging against my abs.

She grinds her hips against my torso, and I know that little piercing is rubbing against her clit.

I smirk. “So fucking desperate, I quite enjoy it. I do actually have an easy question for you.” I take her hips and pull her away from me ever so slightly, enough I can see her pretty pink pussy bare for me.

I push the piercing down and roll it around on her clit. She grabs hold of the headboard and releases the sexiest noises. She’s like my own personal porn star, using her sounds like someone is listening and trying to get off with her.

“Did you get this because boys weren’t satisfying you?”

“Y-Yes,” she breathes. “They sucked… Oh fuck, right there.”

“Are you done asking your questions?” I look down at my fingers which are already coated in her arousal.

“No…”

“What do you want to know, baby girl?”

“What’s the ‘SIT’ tattoo over your eyebrow for?”

I chuckle before moving her legs up and over my shoulders. “A silent command.” Rolling us over, I grip her thighs with my hands and drop her down onto my face.

I’m nearly forty years old, but when I say I do not know how to handle this situation, I really mean that. I’ve known sharp edges and hard stops. Get in, get out. I’ve spent only three years of my adult life outside of a six by eight room, and none of that time attempting to find a meaningful relationship. Most of it was sex, drugs, and more drugs. I was a mess, and that’s putting it lightly.

So now that Calista has literally passed out with my cock inside of her, I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to do. I was going to give her a few minutes until we went again, but when her breathing slowed, low and behold, she fell asleep.

She was a good girl and didn’t put her hands on me, and now that she’s asleep, they’re tucked under her, sandwiched between my stomach and her chest. Her hair is sprawled out everywhere, and I know I’m going to need to start putting it up before we get our fun started again. I’m certain I have it in between my crack and toes.

Shifting, I move her up my torso, allowing me to slide out of her and get her off to my side.

I could leave her here and go sleep in the guest room. That’s what my head is telling my body it wants. However, my skin tingles, a sensation of absence washing over me with the thought.

Resting her onto her side, facing me, I comb through her hair and put it behind her back. Her hands are resting in front of her, lips slightly parted as she breathes peacefully.

I wonder what her hard answers are… no, not hard. I don’t want to use that term. Heavy. Those questions and answers that weigh down on us, and that we shoulder alone. I want to know her, and I think we both can agree it’s a mutual feeling. I’m not so concerned about telling her the things that happened to me, if she wants to run after she finds everything out, she better be fast.

She’s mine until I say so, which may be unfortunate for her. I’ve not obsessed over anything or anyone before, and I can feel it consuming me. It may be unhealthy but, in the grand scheme of things, what exactly is healthy? My life sure as shit isn’t, and something tells me my girls isn’t either.

I roll out of bed, but I do plan to return.

As I’d wanted to, we stayed in bed until the sun was down. We didn’t even eat dinner, which probably isn’t the smartest idea. She came a lot, and while I kept her hydrated, we need to get actual food in us when we wake in the morning.

Tomorrow we can go for breakfast. Maybe the Waffle House. I haven’t seen one since getting out and I wonder if they are still around.

After grabbing some water and the bucket of paint, I return to her. She may as well have taken sleeping pills because as I attempt to move her, she’s completely dead weight.

Fucking Christ, I knocked her out.

As funny as that sounds, I’m happy that I did. Not for the purpose of boosting my ego, but because now I can play with her hands.

Resting beside her, I take her wrist and guide her hand over the paint. After dipping her fingers in, I get some on the bed. Oh well, we’ve got both our cum and sweat everywhere, I’m not concerned about paint.

After setting the can to the side, I take a deep breath and rest her hand over my chest. It’s in the same place she has been touching, the one I’ve allowed for her to. I keep it there, before lifting and putting her hand to my stomach.

I can’t take my eyes off her, because every time I blink, it’s not her hand I feel. Even if hers is soft, lax, and nonaggressive.

I’m coming to a slow realization that my rage comes from not the touch itself, but the fact I can’t get over it. That even after so many years, my mind can’t separate the gentle girl wanting to just do a normal thing, from my abusers.

How fucked is that?

Bringing her fingers up to my neck, I rest them there, then my cheek. Keeping my eyes on her does help, and I think it’s all because I’m in control of it that it’s manageable.

I’m unsure of how long I do this for, but as my yawns get closer together, I know I’m also ready to join her in sleep.

I need to adjust her if I’m staying here.

Resting my head onto the pillow, I shift her, which gets a grumble of displeasure, and put her back to my chest. I wrap my arms around her torso, kiss the back of her head, and hold her tightly to me.

“Night, baby girl.”

I close my eyes, breathing in the scent of her cucumber body wash, mixed with a subtle, clean fragrance that reminds me of green tea in her shampoo. It's calming—a sensation so unfamiliar to me. Yet something I wouldn't mind becoming accustomed to in my life.