She has on her work attire—black dress pants and a white blouse. She works as an accountant and says the worst part of her job is having to dress up and wear heels. But, today, I notice she has on flats, such a rebel.
Her arms open as she rushes to me, and I wrap my arms around her tiny frame.
“Missed you,” she says softly.
“You just saw me a few days ago.”
“So,” she says, pulling away on a smile. “Look!” She holds out her left hand and sure enough, a gorgeous solitaire round diamond sits on her hand. “He did it!”
I take her hand and inspect her ring as any great friend would do. “It’s absolutely beautiful, Elizabeth. I’m so happy for you.”
She squeals excitedly. “Come, I need to tell you all about it!”
For the next hour, she does and I couldn’t be happier for my best friend, even if a small bit of longing niggles in the back of my head wishing I could have what she does. Even just a sliver of it.
I spend the afternoon doing some retail therapy. Really, I just love the home goods store. You find so much shit you never knew you needed there. Who would have thought I needed a rack to hang my bananas from? And, of course, I needed to have the new placemats for my table along with all the other shit I threw in the cart for good measure. Not to mention I had a coupon for twenty-five percent off, so I call that a win.
After lugging everything into my house, and putting everything where I want it, my stomach starts growling, so I feed it. Nothing too exciting, just leftover chicken and rice from the other night. By the time I crawl into my freshly washed sheets, I’m exhausted and disappointed because the smell of Whitton is totally gone.
But this is a good thing, I tell myself. All I’ll ever have with that man is memories.
Turning out the night lamp, sleep takes me over.
A noise wakes me with a start. I listen and hear a few more. Shit, someone’s in my house! Just as I’m about to slink from my bed quietly, my door opens and a figure stands here. Holy shit. This isn’t happening.
“I have a gun, go away,” I order in my most teacher authoritative voice I can muster with the shit being scared out of me.
The light flips on and Whitton stands in my doorway. Anger pumps through me, and I grab my half empty water bottle from my nightstand and throw it at him, hitting him in the leg. He doesn’t move or flinch.
“What are you doing here?” I screech, getting up from the bed, noting too late that I went to sleep in very small sleep shorts and a tank, again.
“Did you just throw a water bottle at me?”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Yes, and if you don’t tell me why the hell you’re here right now, you’ll get the lamp next.”
He bursts out laughing, a sound that I always loved pulling from him, but I don’t find this funny one bit.
“Stop laughing and answer me!”
“Babe, our business isn’t over and until it is, we’re crashing here.” He walks into the room and begins to take off his clothes. No, this isn’t happening again. Once—I was a fool. Twice, no, not happening.
“No, you need to leave,” I order, pointing my finger to the door.
“Not happenin’.” He sits on the bed and takes off his boots one at a time and tosses them to the floor.
“You’re not hearing me. You are not staying here, Whitton. Last night was it. Get out.”
He pays no attention to me and pulls off his shirt. The bottom half of my body responds, and it pisses me off more. You hate him, remember!
“Told ya we were stayin’ here. May be a few days.”
“No, you said last night. No more. Go get a hotel or something. You can’t stay here.”
Whitton watches me as he unbuttons his jeans and lets them fall to the ground. I suck in a breath because the man has no underwear on. Holy shit. His hard cock bounces, and my belly quivers. Damn him.
“Told you. While I’m here, I’m with you. I’m with you, Waylon’s on the couch.”
“No, Whitton. I’m not playing around. I need you to go.” He can’t stay here. I can’t do the morning after, bed swipe, and leave thing over and over. No. Each time, he’ll take more of me with him, and I can’t do it.
He doesn’t listen. Instead, he charges me as I step back several steps and hit a wall. Whitton plasters himself against me, then his lips are on mine. I try to resist, but who am I kidding, it’s a weak attempt. My lips move with his, and I wrap my arms around his neck as he picks me up with ease.
Our lips devour one another as he presses my back against the wall and his hardness is nestled between the two of us. Thoughts drift away as want and need take over, and I’m lost in Whitton … again.
Chapter 14
Burn baby burn!
Fuck, she tastes so damn good. I could kiss her for hours and be the happiest man alive. Sure, my cock inside of her while kissing would be better.
She pulses and throbs for me, telling me she’s full of shit. Roe doesn’t want me to leave any more than I want to. I didn’t think we’d be here another night, but we didn’t get enough at the pawn shop and fuck me. Where I am right now, I couldn’t be happier. Waylon hates this fucking place, but he didn’t balk at staying another day or two. Part of me thinks it’s because he sees me after I’m with Roe. The brother he is wanting to put his nose in shit he doesn’t need to, but for this, I’ll take it.
To have her wrapped around my body, clinging to my shoulders, and devouring my mouth like she can’t get enough of me—I’ll take it.
Her head has my dick jerking. I toss her to the bed, tear off her shorts and underwear then rip her tank above her breasts. She moans when I latch on to her nipple, squeeze the other hard and plow myself into her, tight, wet heat in one thrust.
Her screams are music to my ears, along with her breathless moans and then gasps for air. She does these, then comes right back to my lips. One of my hands wraps around her hip to her ass, lifting her just a bit as I thrust harder and harder, her pussy starting to quiver from the deep penetration.
Over and over, I bring us there—my lips attached to hers, feeling that connection, feeling all that is my Roe.
When she explodes around me, she breaks away letting out a harsh cry, her back arching along with her neck. Her pussy clenches so hard, I explode inside of her, feeling my come coating her from the inside. Fucking love that shit. Love marking her, even if I can’t keep her. At least she knows she’s mine. All mine.
We sleep tangled in each other, and the alarm goes off all too soon. She slides out from under my arm as she turns off the clock.
“It’s Sunday, why the fuck do you have an alarm set?” I grumble, wanting her tight against me again. For a moment, I feel the acid rising as my mind comes to consciousness. I push it down. I don’t want to move. There isn’t a damn thing that will have me willing to give up this moment with Roelyn Duprey in my arms again, not even my own fucking body.
I relax.
Roe sighs contentedly beside me.
The acid goes down, and we have this split second where I swear to fuck the world stops. There is no pain, no scars, no past, no future, just this moment—Roe and me. Fucking heaven. All the reasons to believe in a higher power are in this very second because only something stronger than life itself would give me this moment of good once again.
With a kiss to my chest, she pushes off me and I release her, knowing we can’t hide away in bed forever.
“Thought about going to church,” she says, walking to the bathroom.
I may have made it into the building for the Browns’ memorial service, but that doesn’t mean I would make it inside a church again. That shit is liable to burn down the second I pull into the parking lot.
Roelyn Duprey wants to go to church.
I need to talk her out of this, except my phone pings with an alert. Quickly looking, I see the text is from Shamus needing an update.
Well, she can go make shit right with Jesus, and Waylon and I can get to work.
/> Twenty minutes later, I’ve joined her in the shower, gotten us both off once more, and I’m ready to get to work. I give her a kiss goodbye as Waylon waits in the truck, and we head to the shop.
Surveillance sucks. Anyone who actually does this shit for a living should get a raise.
We put in cameras on both the outside and went and planted a few inside, but the pawn shop and LaRoche haven’t made a single move to make us suspicious.
In fact, I don’t see how he could afford the order or need the guns.
Bored, I check the app I have tracking Roelyn’s phone and see she didn’t go to church after all, but to another address. The Browns’ house, more specifically.
I feel the fire in my chest.
The burn.
She’s gone back to where it all began. I don’t want to go back. I want to move forward.
Sending the text, I breathe deep.
Dinner, you and me, six. Be ready.
“You gonna make a real go of this shit, Whitton?” my brother asks from the seat beside me in the truck.
“I don’t know what real go of anything is, but I can’t leave her like before.”
My phone pings, and I smirk at her reply.
Who is this?
Waylon studies me. “Shoulda never called you that morning. I shoulda took off and let you have your life with her.”
Whitton. Took your phone and got the number the first night. I send back before looking at Waylon.
“Everything happens for a reason. Good, bad, none of it matters. You needed me, and I’m always there.”
I can sense his tension before he finally speaks.
“Took it all from you, Whitt. All my life, I’ve always been the cause of your pain. Yet, you stand beside me.”
I reach over and smack him behind the head. “You haven’t caused me an ounce of pain. Our cunt mother was fucking nuts. That’s not on you or me.”
“Don’t want to see you in pain, brother.” My mind goes back.
The burn. For an hour, I have bit back the groans.
“Sinner, sinner, you monster!” our mother whispers before the ammonia hits my face.
I learned over the years, that the more I cry out the more she dumps on me.
My eyes burn. I didn’t close them tight enough. Fire inside me feels like I’m burning alive.
Liquid hits my cheek.
I inhale.
Bleach.
I blink and more hits my eyes. I can’t contain the scream.
Waylon bangs on the door, “Momma, no. Whitton didn’t mean to do my homework.”
That was my mistake, trying to learn. Waylon went to school, while I stayed home. First grade, he goes everyday. I never leave the house. Mom caught us. I am the demon child, the one she can’t let the world see. This is my pain, not his. He needs to leave the door, leave us alone.
My phone pings and takes me out of one of my earliest childhood memories. I don’t know if this is a good idea.
The fire inside me, from my past, burns bright as I type my reply. I didn’t puke this morning. I didn’t get it out. I let the peace of Roe soothe me. Now it all threatens to spill out.
Nothing about me is good but you, so everything about this is a good idea.
And it’s the damn truth.
The day passes with Waylon and I both quietly watching the shop. I know he feels my scars as deep as I do. Twins, or maybe just the shit hand life has dealt us together. Either way, we’re connected and always have been.
Past, present, and everything in between, Waylon feels everything I have. Maybe more. We were helpless when we were young. It’s a feeling neither of us will survive feeling again.
Only, I find myself helpless when it comes to the way I feel for Roe. She’s everything good, and I’m everything tainted.
He drops me off at Roe’s place and heads back to the pawn shop. He’s going to go in and buy a gun to see if LaRoche is on the up and up with paperwork.
Walking in, Roe is on her couch. She stands and her brown hair comes down in loose curls. Her makeup is done to accentuate her eyes in a way I’ve never seen on her before. Roelyn Duprey is a knockout without a single bit of makeup, but, with the makeup, I have to fight my cock from getting hard. The royal blue wrap dress has a bow tied under her ample tits making me want to untie it and fuck her right now.
But we need to talk.
So I need to get us out of this house and to a public place.
Sort our shit, talk, and assure her I’m not leaving like before. The time will come I have to go back to my world, my life in Alabama, but I won’t simply disappear. She needs to understand the man I am today.
Chapter 15
Then versus now …
He texted me to go to dinner. This was after I didn’t go to church.
Waking up in his arms, smelling him, having him there with me—it was all too much. I needed an escape. I knew he wouldn’t go to church with me.
I did plan on going, but passing the Browns’ house, I found myself stuck.
Pulling in the driveway, I spent hours sitting there staring at the craftsman style split level home. I was ten when I laid in the grass on their front yard with Whitton beside me.
“The stars twinkle like they are dancing in the night,” I whisper to Whitton.
“Do you really think they’re dancing? Maybe they’re hiding?”
I think for a moment about his statement. “As gorgeous as the night is, why would they want to hide, Whitton?”
He gives a huff. “Roelyn, not everything beautiful is safe and secure. Sometimes the way something looks only hides something dangerous.”
“Do you hide behind your scars?” I ask him honestly.
“No, I can’t hide them. I just know what it is to wish you couldn’t be seen. So, I imagine, if I was a star, I would dim my light to go unnoticed.”
Unnoticed. That’s how Whitton Thorne lived his life. Over time, I came to learn he didn’t hide, but rather didn’t stand out. Waylon, well, the more I got close the Whitton, the more I watched as his twin withdrew from the world.
Waylon wanted to hide from everything. He didn’t walk the stage during graduation. He played sports, but never attended a single banquet. Waylon Thorne was golden with everything he ever touched or did—only he never wanted anyone to take note.
Even being in my home, he has kept himself practically invisible.
Twins, the two boys are now men and still just the same and so different all together. My mind just reels that they are back here at all.
My heart pounds even thinking of Whitton Thorne. My body still aches for him even after multiple orgasms. How will I survive when he leaves again?
Whitton wants to go to dinner. I don’t know what to think, how to react. Every time he gets close to me, my body comes alive. My head screams to get space between us while my body says he is a perfect release.
“Gonna have to take your car. Waylon and I are sharing the truck, and he needs it for work.”
I nod my head and pull the keys from my purse. My heart thumps rapidly in my chest. “What exactly do you do?” I ask, feeling like there is so much I don’t know about the man in front of me.
“I’m part of a motorcycle club. Ruthless Rebels,” he explains as we step out of the house and he locks up. “Keys, Roe?”
I lift them up. “I can drive.”
“Roe, I got a cock?”
I nod, trying to follow his macho behavior.
“I drive.”
“I don’t remember you being so pushy before,” I joke with him.
“Man’s man, I like to be in control.” He smirks, opening the passenger side door for me.
I slide in and he goes to get in the driver’s seat. He slides the seat back to accommodate his height. With his right side exposed to me, I study him and can see where he looks so much like Waylon. Strong cheek bones, a fierce jawline, and a perfect edge on his nose.
“Like what you see?” he asks, turning to me and then I am face to fac
e with the other half of Whitton Thorne.
The scarred man with a beautiful soul.
“You are an amazing man, Whitton Thorne.”
I give him the truth. To overcome everything he has shows his strength.
He reaches over and squeezes my hand before pulling out of my driveway and down the road.
“I’m far from amazing.”
I let out a sigh. Some things never change. He won’t accept the way I see him. We pull up to the nicest restaurant in town. It’s a small Italian place with soft lighting and great food.
Whitton opens every door for me and keeps his hand at the small of my back, guiding me, protecting me with each step. We are seated in a back corner table. The way the lighting is set up and the dark reds of the carpet and chairs along with the dark of the tables make it seem almost as if we are alone in the space even as we’re surrounded by other patrons. The spacing is perfect to have an intimate date with a lover.
It makes me look up from my menu to Whitton. “What are we doing, Whitt?”
“Having dinner,” he replies, looking back down to his menu. The waitress comes over before I can peruse the topic further.
I order manicotti and Whitton eggplant parmesan. The waitress leaves, and Whitton looks to me.
“I know you want more. I can’t give you more than I am here, Roe. I don’t know how to give more. My life,” he leans back in the chair as if it pains him. “It’s complicated.”
“It’s dangerous,” I correct.
I’m shocked when he leans forward resting his elbows on the table and lacing his hands together to rest his chin on them. “It can be.”
“Tell me, Whitton. Tell me why I should have this meal with you, go home, allow you to make love to me again, when we both know you’re gonna leave here once again and not look back. How am I supposed to keep doing this to myself?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. The hesitation is killing me.
“I don’t know, Roe. For once in my life, I don’t know. I don’t know how to fucking have it all. What I do know, Roelyn Duprey, is you’ve had me since we were kids. No matter how far away I’ve always been, physically, mentally, I was with you. I’m always with you.”
Scarred: The Ruthless Rebels MC Series Book 3 Page 8