The storm worsened as the relentless sound of rain hammered the roof. Lightning flashed, and thunder rolled. But all he couldfocus on was how Enya’s fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt. He reached for his whiskey again, took a slow sip. “You know, I used to hate storms,” he told her. “When I was a kid, I thought the world was ending every time.”
Enya let out a shaky laugh. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He swirled the liquid in his glass before sipping from it again. “Momma used to tell me and Gael it was just God moving his furniture around. Said if we listened close enough, we could hear the legs scraping the floor.”
Enya snorted a laugh, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Back then, we believed it, though.” He watched her drain her glass, “You okay while I grab the bottle?”
“Sure.”
He topped off the glasses, finishing the bottle on his desk, then went to the filing cabinet for the second of his hidden stash and brought it back with him to the couch.
Sometime between finishing the dregs from the first bottle and opening the second, instead of using glasses, they started drinking from the bottle. First Enya, then him, then her again.
The storm outside had turned vicious, the wind howling through the gaps in the barn’s wooden planks like a living thing, rattling the loose hinges of the door. But the whiskey was warm. Warmer than the air, warmer than the memories that lurked in the shadows of their minds, waiting to drag them under.
Rowan watched the way her throat bobbed with the effort of swallowing, the way her fingers clenched around the bottlebefore she handed it back. He drank deeper each time, savoring the amber liquid as it burned its way down, spreading heat through his chest, unravelling the tight knots in his shoulders. There was something electric in the air, something unspoken humming between them, and it was driving him crazy.
Enya shifted back against the couch, and the hem of her hoodie rode up just enough to expose a sliver of pale skin above the waistband of her jeans. She didn’t tug the fabric down. Didn’t seem to care. Instead, she let her head fall back against the cushion, her gaze fixed on the ceiling beams above, the old wood darkened by decades of dust and smoke, the grain rough and uneven. The lamplight caught the sharp angle of her jaw, the hollow beneath her cheekbone, and the way her fingers drummed restlessly against her thigh.
“You ever think about just… not remembering?” she asked suddenly, her voice rough. The words hung there, raw and unguarded, because both of them knew that kind of question didn’t have an easy answer.
Rowan took another swig and swallowed as he tried to figure out how to make his jumbled thoughts in response to that coherent enough to make sense when they came out of his mouth. But eventually he settled for a simple, “Every damn day.”
Enya let out a laugh, but it wasn’t funny. It was sharp, bitter, the sound swallowed almost immediately by the next crack of thunder, the vibration rattling the windowpanes in their frames. The bottle passed between them again. They no longer kept track of time as the whiskey did its work, loosening their tongues, their limbs, and the careful, deliberate distance they’d kept between them so far.
She shifted slightly, her knee brushing his, the contact accidental but not unwelcome, and he loved that she didn’t pull away. The heat of her skin seeped through the fabric of his jeans, a small, insistent point of contact in the storm’s chaos. The bottle was nearly half-empty when her fingers found his wrist, her touch light but deliberate, her thumb pressing against the pulse point beneath his skin. The contact sent a jolt through him, sharp and unexpected.
“You’re a terrible liar, Salieri,” she murmured, her voice barely audible over the rain.
He swallowed hard as her fingers traced slow, deliberate circles against his skin. His grip on the bottle tightened as he fought to win the battle of keeping his hands to himself. “Never said I wasn’t,” he replied, his voice rough because his words were caught somewhere between a confession and a challenge.
Her lips parted, just enough that he could catch the scent of whiskey on her breath and the faintest hint of something sweeter beneath it—vanilla, maybe, or a mint she’d chewed earlier.
The air between them had been thick with something unspoken, a tension that hummed like a live wire, crackling with the same restless energy as the storm outside. Rowan could feel it in the way his pulse thrummed beneath her fingers, in the way her breath came just a little faster, shallow and uneven. Then something changed, catching him off guard.
Her hand shot up, and her fingers twisted into the damp strands of his hair, gripping hard enough to pull, and then her mouth was on his. There was no hesitation or softness. Heat and hunger ruled over the taste of bourbon sharp on her tongue, mingling with something else, something sweeter and darker, that coiled tight in his chest like a drawn bowstring.
The bottle slipped from his fingers, forgotten, crashing to the floor with a heavy thud, the last of the amber liquid bleeding across the warped wood planks, but neither of them spared it a glance.
Rowan’s hands moved on instinct, finding the dip of her waist, his fingers curling into the worn fabric of the hoodie she wore. He bunched it between his knuckles as he yanked her against him. The impact stole her breath in a sharp, startled gasp that turned into something rougher, needier, when his teeth caught her lower lip, tugging just enough to sting.
The couch groaned beneath them. The springs whined in protest, the leather cracked as their weight shifted when she pressed closer, as if she meant to climb into his skin. The frame shuddered, but neither of them cared. The whole damn barn could’ve collapsed around them, the roof could have peeled back like a tin can with the wind screaming through the rafters, and neither of them would have noticed.
Her nails raked against his scalp, sharp and insistent, sending a jolt down his spine that settled low in his gut. His name tore from her lips, “Rowan—” It was a plea, a curse, a prayer all at once. Her voice was rough with whiskey and something far more dangerous. The storm still raged outside. The rain lashed the windows like a thousand daggers, and the thunder shook the glass in its panes. But here, in this sliver of stolen time, it was all white noise, a distant rumble drowned out by the roar of his own blood, the scorching press of her body, the way she arched into him as if she wanted to fuse them together.
Damn, I could so easily get lost in this… in her.
The storm broke as suddenly as it had begun. One moment, the wind howled, rattling the barn’s old bones, and the next therewas quietness as the rain slowed to a dull, uneven patter on the roof. Rowan groaned as Enya pulled back.
Her fingers were still tangled in his hair, but her grip had loosened. She didn’t meet his eyes.
His hands still spanned her waist, his thumbs pressing into the softness of her hoodie. He could feel the rapid, erratic thump of her pulse beneath his fingers and see the way her chest rose and fell, as she caught her breath. The whiskey may have burned away the edges of his restraint, but the storm’s end hit him upside the head with sobering clarity.
Fuck, what the hell have we done?
The silence after the storm was a thick, suffocating stillness that pressed in on Rowan from all sides. The only sounds were the irregular drip-drip of rainwater leaking through the barn roof somewhere nearby and the frantic drumming of his own heartbeat against his ribs.
