Page 83 of Beneath His Robes

But now, it was all gone.

We reached the SUV, and I stopped, staring at my reflection in the dark matte material of the door. Elias opened the door for me, seeing that I couldn’t do it myself. His eyes were searching my face, looking for something—anything—to tell him how I was holding up.

I didn’t have an answer.

Truth was, I was so numb. I couldn’t process anything about the last month—the pain, the violations, the lies, the nightmares…the endings.

Once I was inside and the heater blasted stale air into my face, Elias got in beside me, and we drove away from the cemetery in silence.

The town we passed by was nothing more than a blur. The home I grew up in is a distant memory as foreign as the faces I saw today.

Everything was a blur.

I wasn’t sure where we were going, but it didn’t matter. The world felt too big, too empty now. And all I could do was breathe as I was barely holding myself together.

Elias’s voice broke the quiet again, his words soft but firm, letting me know he wanted me to hear him. “You don’t have to go through this alone, Ronan. Any of it. I am here for you. I haven’t left you, and I won’t.”

The sincerity in his voice made something inside me crack, and the lump in my throat grew bigger. I knew he meant it. He always did.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I said, my voice hoarse. “I don’t know how to keep going. She’s gone, Elias. And I’m still fucking here, and I don’t know what to do with myself. At the prison. They fucking took my body over and over again. I can’t accept this. I can’t accept being so damn weak! Too weak to protect my own mother from Jack and too weak to protect my fucking self from…”

Elias’s grip on the wheel tightened for a second, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t try to fix it or tell me everything would be okay because he knew it wasn’t. He just let the silence hang between us for a few moments, allowing me to feel its depth and rawness.

Finally, he spoke again, quieter this time. “You don’t have to figure it all out today, Ronan. Or tomorrow. We’ll take it one step at a time. We will get them for what they did. The detective will find Jack, and then he will get the bastards who…”

He couldn’t even say it.

“Raped me,” I said, my breath heavy and catching in my throat. Tears streamed down my cheeks, blurring his beautiful image in front of me. I needed to say it—to accept it. “Those men raped me.”

I looked at him then, really looked at him through my tear-drenched face. His eyes were tired, but there was a steadiness to them that grounded me, something in the way he carried himself that told me he wasn’t going anywhere. The pain he was holding onto spilled free at that moment.

He wasn’t going to leave me to face this on my own, no matter how much I tried to push him away. He felt my pain as if it was his own. We always held empathy for one another—the inability to separate what was truly our own feelings.

“I don’t know what to say right now. I don’t know how to make this better. I don’t know if I even can, but the one thing I know as sure as my own soul, Ronan, is that I love you. And you are not fuckingweak. I will never let you say that about yourself.”

“Thanks,” I murmured, my voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t know what I’d do without you…I would be lost.”

He smiled softly, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. The sadness was still there, a reflection of my own pain, but there was something else in him, too, a promise. A quiet strength that made me believe, even if just for a moment, that I could survive this. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday.

And for the first time in what felt like forever, I allowed myself to hope.

The car veered off to a shoulder, and he put the vehicle in park. I studied his face, not understanding what was happening, but then he reached his hands forward and grabbed my face in his hands, forcing me to look at him.

“You are the strongest person I have ever known. If anyone can overcome what was done to them, it’s you. You can. I have admired your strength for so long. As a kid, I was envious, but now I am proud. You are so beautiful in everything you fight for, so breathtaking in your resilience.”

The tears fell harder, and my chest tightened into a sob. His thumb swiped over my cheek, washing away the tears that fell. So much longing and love in his bright blue jean eyes. So much faith. I started to pull away, and he pulled me closer, his lips tracing the marks left by the tear droplets. His tongue darted out to lightly taste the salt.

I sighed in peace for the first time in so long. His kisses on my face grew in number, the distance increasing to every inch of my jaw, chin, nose, and forehead. He left no place untouched by his warmth and his acceptance.

When the tears stopped, and I couldn’t help but smile, he brought those lips to my own. A passionate kiss that took my soul with it. He left me breathless. The knowledge that he had held back so many other times was confounding. I’d never felt this before. The need, the want. The lust…the love.

Elias was breathing as roughly as I was when he finally pulled away to catch his breath. His eyes held a question that he wouldn’t speak, and I kissed him softly, giving him the permission he couldn’t ask.

“Ronan…I have many sins,” he said, and my stomach sank, fearing he would reject me at that moment. “But my greatest sin is denying myself what God implores we all seek. Love. I have denied your love for too long. Denied my feelings for longer. I love you, and there is no one on this earth that will ever truly own my heart as you have. I am yours. If you aren’t ready, I understand, but I am offering. Please…”

I couldn’t speak. His omission made me feel weak—dizzy with the haze of my mind and his words.

Is he asking me to…

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