He reaches out.
I don’t say a word, just reach for his shirt, my fingers frantic as I tug him back down into me.
His palm is flat against my stomach before his fingers slide beneath the damp lace of my underclothes. I let out a jagged breath, my back arching into his touch.
“You’re so sensitive,” he murmurs, his voice a low growl. He doesn’t go deep at first, his thumb circling me in a slow, agonising pressure. I reach for him on instinct, wanting more, but he catches my wrist, pinning it down to the bench.
“Eyes open, Hawthorne. I want to see you come undone for me.” He eases one finger inside me.
I’m already drenched, my body shamelessly weeping for him. His thumb never ceases that devastating rhythm of friction. My voice comes out in a broken moan.
He hooks his finger, finding a spot deep inside that sends a jolt of electricity straight through me.
“Rowan… please,” I choke out, my legs trembling over his arms.
“Not yet,” he whispers. He watches my face with a feral intensity, increasing the pace as his fingers slide in and out. The tension inside me coils tighter and tighter until I’m at breaking point.
“Come for me, Elodie.”
I shatter into pieces.
A violent hot wave of pleasure crashes over me, my back arching back as my head tips to the roof. The tremors from my release are still echoing through my limbs when Rowan withdraws his fingers. He steps back, hauling me off the bench as he guides me down onto the soft bags of mulch and peat stacked neatly on the floor.
“I think you have a lot more to give, Elodie,” he rasps. Shifting his body, his knee parting my thighs with a blunt, heavy pressure. Reaching down, he guides his length to my entrance, his expression physically painful as he trembles with restraint. He doesn’t take it slow this time, driving into me with one deep, staggering thrust that buries him to the hilt. My breath leaves my lungs in sharp moans as he fills me completely. His body anchoring me, stitching my fragile soul back together with every inch of his body.
“Rowan,” I sob his name, my legs locking around his hips, pulling him in deeper. He moves with a relentless, driving rhythm. Each thrust for all the times we had come close to taking what we wanted.
A reclamation.
His mouth claims mine, swallowing my moans whole, as his hands fist in my hair and pin down my waist.
“You are not a failure, Elodie,” he hisses, his breath hot and ragged against my ear as he hooks my knees higher.
“You’re the only thing in this godforsaken kingdom that’s actually alive. And you’re mine. Do you hear me?Mine.”
I come apart once more, pleasure exploding in my core. My moan echoes through the glasshouse, the sound tearing out of me in an unhinged scream.
A second of euphoria that feels like a lifetime.
At the sound of my voice, the last of his iron-clad restraint evaporates. His fingers dig into the soft earth of the bags beside my head as his body shudders. He lets out a low, broken sound — a choked, breathless gasp of my name that sounds like a surrender. He drives into me one last time, a deep thrust that causes him to go completely rigid. The sound of his moans is my final undoing. He slumps forward, his forehead resting on mine as we cling to each other. Wrapping his arms around me with a desperate strength, as if he’s afraid that if he lets go, the world will rush back in and tear us apart.
For a long time, the only sound filling this glass dome is the rain pattering against the glass panes and the synchronised thuds of our hearts.
“I’ve never made that sound before…” I start, my voice a thin rasp. Rowan doesn’t move for a long moment. When he finally lifts his head, his eyes are raw and vulnerable. No longer the high warden. He looks like a man who has finally taken what he wanted.
“Good,” he whispers, his voice rough. He brushes away a smudge of soil on my cheek. “Because I don’t think I could survive you making that sound for anyone else.” Time slows as we lay there beside each other. The world, the kingdom, dying seeds, failures — it all vanishes. There is only the roar of the storm outside, the scent of wet earth, and the staggering, heavy reality of just how thoroughly we have dismantled each other.
The air in the glasshouse is humid. Damp earth now mingled with the musk of salt and skin. The storm outside slowly settles into a steady, rhythmic drumming against the glass.
Peaceful.
It feels like we are in our own little bubble.
I’m tucked atop a makeshift nest of burlap sacks and discarded cloaks, my head resting on the muscle of his shoulder. Rowan’s arm is a solid weight across my waist, his fingers tracing aimless, possessive patterns against my bare hip. I watch a single droplet of rain spill down the glass pane. “You are awfully quiet, Warden.” I whisper softly. “Are you mentally checking those manuals for ‘Aftercare and Recovery’?” I feel the vibration of a low, dry chuckle in his chest.
“There isn’t a chapter on you, Elodie,” he utters, “and if there were, I’d have it turned to dust by now. I don’t want anyone else knowing how to have you.”
“You are very self-assured.”
