“Look at you,” he murmurs, breath hot against my ear. “Trying to be quiet.”
He curls his fingers just right, and my whole body jerks. “Rowan?—”
“That’s it. Say my name like that again.” He kisses me again, deeper this time, one hand cradling the back of my head while the other traces down, mapping me in touch instead of words. Every brushstroke he made earlier feels echoed in his fingers now—messy, expressive, deliberate. His fingers stroke inside me, lighting a fire in me as he holds me against the door.
He finds my rhythm faster than I do, coaxing it out of me with his hand and a low growl that vibrates against my throat. My knees go weak, and he catches me before I slide down the door, holding me there with his hips.
He presses closer, his erection hard against my ass through his pants, and the slow grind of it makes me whimper again. His hand moves faster. Filthy. Perfect. I grab at the door for balance, at him for sanity. “Please,” I gasp, not even sure what I’m asking for.
“Please what?” he asks roughly, breath uneven. His voice is a dark laugh. “You think I don’t know what you need?”
He pulls his hand away before I can answer. I almost sob from the loss until I hear the sound of his pants unzipping. He holds my chin. “I want to see your eyes widen when you feel me enter you, Willow,” he tells me. “I like when you say please.”
When he pushes his length into me, it’s sudden—hard, deep, unrelenting. My body arches into it, shock melting into heat. He swears under his breath, one hand braced on the door beside my head, the other gripping my hip to keep me exactly where he wants me.
The rhythm starts fast and gets faster. Controlled chaos. Every thrust lands with the sound of skin and breath and everything we’re trying not to let the house hear. His mouth finds the back of my neck, teeth scraping, and I cry out before I can stop it. His hand snaps up instantly, covering my mouth again. “Quiet, Willow,” he warns, voice gone raw. “Or do you want her to hear? Do you want everyone to know how much you like it?”
I shake my head against his hand, eyes squeezed shut, and he murmurs into my ear, his breath gentle against my skin but his words piercing, “Are you sure? Why don’t you go ahead and call Sean and Declan now? You can let them hear just how much you like my cock. It might be the only time they hear you make sounds like this.”
“No, I only want you,” I tell his palm, and he releases my mouth and rewards me by fucking me harder. My breath shudders against his palm, every noise trapped and turned into heat. The world narrows to the drag of him inside me, the sound of his low curses, the rhythm that borders on punishment but never crosses it.
“Ah, sure, grand,” he replies raggedly, his lips tracing the words against the back of my neck, “because I don’t know if they’d still look at you the same if they saw you like this. Do you think Declan and Sean would still want you if they knew what I do to you?”
I lose it, my pussy clenching wildly, my pulse pounding in my ears, sputtering against his hand as he holds my cries in. He keeps going until he follows, breath hitching, forehead pressed to the back of my shoulder. For a second, he stays there, still inside me, chest rising and falling against my back.
He kisses the corner of my jaw and growls, “You’re going to be the death of me, Miss Abel.” He’s thrusting slowly, letting my orgasm taper off, breathing hard. I turn just enough to see the look on his face—sweat, stubble, a half smile that’s equal parts pride and possession.
When he finally moves, it’s not to pull away but to turn me in his arms toward him, chest to chest.
23
ROWAN
Her skin is slick,her heartbeat wild. “Hey,” I murmur, voice low, wrecked. “You okay?”
She nods, her eyes distant and dizzy. I can’t stop myself—I kiss her again, softer this time, a full-mouth kiss that feels like apology and claim all at once. She tastes like sweat and salt and something that feels too much like home.
“Christ. You undo me, so you do.” I scoop her up before I can think better of it. Her legs hook around my waist on instinct, and we make it to the bed in a stumble of knees and whispered curses. The mattress groans under us, the world narrowing to the rustle of sheets and the sound of our breathing trying to find a rhythm again.
I collapse beside her, propped on one elbow, and just look. Her face is flushed, mouth swollen, eyes half-lidded and soft in the light. I can’t remember the last time something this beautiful looked back at me without fear or pity. My hand finds her nose, traces down to her mouth. “It feels weird to share you with anyone, Willow,” I admit before I can stop myself. My voicesounds too bare even to myself, maybe especially to myself. “Hard to believe they see you like this too.”
She reaches up and touches the scar near my ribs, the one I forget I have until someone else’s hand finds it, a belt buckle slashed across my argumentative side. “You think that makes you less?”
Less. The word tries to strangle me, so I try to make light of it. I give a laugh that’s supposed to sound careless, but it just comes out tired. I give in and tell her, “I meant it.” My voice is rough in the quiet. “About being in. About family being made, not granted. I just—” I tilt my face toward the faint light bleeding in through the blinds. The porch bulb outside paints everything blue and strange. “I don’t know how to do this right. I have instincts for leaving, not staying.”
She lies back, eyes on the ceiling. “You came back.”
Her words land in my chest like a heartbeat. I did. God help me, I did.
The house is silent again, just the hum of the AC and the distant city noise. I shift onto my side, press my mouth to her shoulder, and let the truth slip out in a whisper. “I did.”
Her fingers thread into my hair. For a second, I just breathe her in—soap, sweat, skin—all the small human things I’ve spent years pretending I didn’t want.
“Can I stay?” The words come out quieter than I mean them to, small and boyish, like I’m afraid the answer could still be no.
She turns into me, hand resting over the scar again. “I want you to stay ’cause you wanna. Not ’cause you think you gotta stake a claim.”
I meet her eyes. For once, the noise in my head shuts up. “I want to.”
