“Fuck my back.” He lifted my left leg, resting my foot on his shoulder, opening me up to him.
I clawed at the head of the bed, desperate to find a pillow to put over my face because things were about to get loud.
The next morning, I woke up before Ronin and made him an English muffin with peanut butter and filled his thermal canteen with hot coffee, feeling extra generous after his night of being so generous to me. After I had his breakfast lined up at the end of the counter for him to grab on his way out the door, I retrieved a pen and notepad from the junk drawer and wrote him a note.
Roe,
You’re my favorite everything too. Xo
~E
I heard the creak of the bathroom door, so I quickly folded the note and shoved it into the pocket of his jacket so he’d find it when he reached for his keys. Feeling a bottle next to his keys, I pulled it out of the pocket. It was a prescription bottle, but I couldn’t read the label in the dim light, so I took it over to the single light that was on above the sink.
“What did I do to deserve this?”
I jumped at Ronin’s voice, hugging the bottle to me as he pressed his chest to my back and wrapped his arms around me.
I cleared my throat, smiling past my surprise and confusion. “I think you know exactly what you did.”
He nipped at my neck. “In that case, I might have to do it more often.” His right hand slid under my short nightshirt, splaying out over my stomach. I felt so small molded against his tall frame with his possessive hand warm against my skin. “Think I can make a case for you making homemade pizza tonight?” His sexy, gravely morning voice seduced me as that possessive hand breached the waistband of my pink panties.
I swallowed as he teased my clit. “Probably …” My response came out as a labored breath.
“Do you remember what this used to lead to before Franz could walk?” He slid two fingers into me.
I closed my eyes and dropped my head back against his shoulder, widening my legs.
Yes. I remembered how good it felt to have Ronin fuck me against the kitchen counter from behind, our hands interlaced on the edge of the counter. I remembered how we couldn’t keep our hands off each other, how every touch, every fleeting glance led to clothes being ripped off and him impaling himself inside of me on a guttural “fuuuck … Evie …”
Those days were over, but the tradeoff was so much better. It made the stolen moments that much more intense and quick, maybe embarrassingly quick.
“Harder …” I whispered.
He chuckled, kissing my neck. “Only you, baby, would ask me to finger you harder.”
I didn’t respond. I didn’t have to.
Ronin obliged me while his left hand slid up my shirt to my breast, pinching my nipple.
“Roe …” my knees started to buckle.
He moved his left hand across my chest to my other breast, but it bumped my hand clutching the pill bottle. With a soft rattle and a clunk, it landed in the sink. We stopped, frozen in place with me a little breathless and him … well, Ronin didn’t move an inch for several seconds.
I blinked at the bottle, internally scolding myself for letting him distract me, but it wasn’t a big deal. At least I tricked myself into believing it wasn’t a big deal because the pill bottle for oxycodone didn’t have his name on it.
His fingers slid out of me, and his hand on my chest released me. I picked up the bottle and stepped to the side, re-inspecting the label, wanting so desperately to give him the benefit of the doubt. At that point in our lives, trust felt like everything.
Forrest Johnson, it said on the bottle.
Ronin didn’t acknowledge the bottle or me as he hit the pump on the soap and washed his hands while staring straight out the window. He shut off the water, grabbed the towel, and turned toward me. After a few seconds of his head bowed toward the towel, he swung his gaze up to meet mine. That look said it all.
The pills weren’t in his name, but they were his pills.
Good doctors didn’t give opioid prescriptions without a legitimate source of pain, I assumed. Ronin’s pain wasn’t his own, but it was real.
My pain was real too, the pain I felt when he looked at me with so much guilt and anguish. I returned my attention to the bottle in my hand. “These are some strong pills. Forrest Johnson must be in a lot of pain. I …” I shook my head. “I just hope he doesn’t get addicted to them. Lila had a friend, a boyfriend toward the end of college, who had a football injury. He got addicted to pain meds, and he eventually overdosed. That’s why she’s so opposed to taking them if she absolutely doesn’t have to take them.”
Biting my lips together, I narrowed my eyes, feeling an ache in my chest. There wasn’t a right answer. An easy solution. Those little pills allowed Ronin to go back to work. It made sense, even if it broke my heart. Lila would be utterly crushed if she found out—if she could wrap her head around the fact that Ronin felt her pain and was taking opioids to deal with it.
With one hand, I took Ronin’s hand, and with my other hand I put the bottle of pills in it. “I trust you.”
He closed his fingers around it, making a tight fist. “Evelyn …”
I shook my head a half dozen times. “It’s fine. It will be fine. She’s getting better. You won’t need them very long. Everything will be fine.” Glancing up at Ronin, my lips attempted a smile. “Right?”
I didn’t ask where he got the pills.
I didn’t ask about Forrest Johnson.
I didn’t ask the things I didn’t want to know, the things that would chip away at my trust in him. Those answers weren’t going to change our situation. They were just going to drive a wedge between us.
“Right,” he murmured halfheartedly. “I have to get to work. Thanks for breakfast.” He slipped on his jacket and boots by the door and leaned over to grab his canteen and the English muffin wrapped in a paper towel sitting on top of it. With his other hand, he reached into his pocket for his keys, first pulling out the note I left.
After he read it, he glanced up at me.
I shrugged.
He knew how I came across his pills. I could see it in the tension that gathered along his brow. More guilt.
Shuffling my bare feet to him, I took the canteen and muffin from his hand, setting it back on the counter. Then I lifted onto my toes and wrapped my arms around his neck, hugging him to me tightly. He hugged me back, burying his face into my neck.
I was so close … so damn close to saying it, and I think he was too.
I love you.
We didn’t. We weren’t there. Not yet. There were still too many ways to say it without actually saying it.
Before I released him, I batted away a few stray tears on my cheeks. He didn’t need any more guilt.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Ronin
I felt like a failure. As a husband. As a man.
The pain and fear in Evelyn’s eyes when she glanced up at me after telling me about Lila’s boyfriend, who died from his opioid addiction, was almost too much to bear. Before I asked a friend to get me the pills, I tried high doses of over-the-counter medications. I tried all the things I suggested Lila try like acupuncture, but it wasn’t cutting it—not enough to get back to my physically demanding job.