SLOANE
I can’t sleep, even though my mind is more relaxed than it’s ever been and my body is exhausted.
It might have something to do with the cock buried in my pussy.
I think I could fall asleep like this, wrapped in Rowan’s arms. There’s never been a safer place. And I love the idea of drifting off like this, still connected in a way I don’t want to be with anyone else.
But I can’t. Because despite how tired I am, I want him.
He unleashed something in me, cracking me open to reveal layers beneath that I didn’t know existed. It’s not like I haven’t had good sex before, but nothing even close to what it was with Rowan. He takes in a way that’s giving. He seems to know exactly when to push and how far. And in the end, it’s fervent. Uninhibited.
And I already want it again, even though our hosts would probably hate us for it.
Every time I think about facing Rose and Fionn tomorrow morning, heat burns in my cheeks. We were so loud. Both of us. I screamed Rowan’s name more than once. He roared mine as he came in my mouth, my hair twisted around his fist.
When I finally begged him to stop making me come, he gathered my limp, spent body in his embrace, piled pillows around my injured arm, and then slid back into my pussy to the sound of my gasp. I felt the smile in his lips against my neck when I whispered a disbelieving curse.
“Go to sleep, Blackbird,” he’d said, then placed a kiss on my neck before laying his head down on the pillow. “Or don’t, up to you. But I’m going to sleep like a fucking rock with my cock buried deep in your perfect pussy.”
How the fuck was I supposed to sleep after he said that?
And now here I am, desperate for movement, for friction, and not wanting to wake the man whose cock is balls-deep in my cunt.
“Jesus,” I whisper.
I thought at first that he would soften and slip free, but that has not happened. I’m not sure how long it’s been, maybe twenty minutes, but it feels like a fucking eternity. If I could just move, get some relief from this aching need between my thighs…
I’m going to be awake all night at this rate.
Nope. That will be torture. Which he’d probably love.
A thin, determined breath of air threads past my lips.
I shimmy my left arm through the nest of pillows until I’m able to press my fingers to my clit with a sigh of relief. My shoulder is too sore to move easily, but it doesn’t need to be perfect, not with Rowan’s cock filling my pussy. I’m halfway there already, I just need a little pressure.
I start swirling my fingers over the sensitive bundle of nerves, rolling my touch over my piercing as I bite down on my bottom lip. A moan begs to slip free. Moisture slicks my fingers. As I touch myself, I think about all Rowan’s fantasies he whispered while he fucked me—about taking me in a public place, about spreading me wide on a table at the restaurant and devouring me, about using my toy in my pussy as he fills my ass with cum.
A little whimper escapes my lips.
I go still. Hold my breath. Nothing changes in Rowan’s hold or the cadence of his exhalations. No indication that I’ve disturbed him.
When I’m sure nothing has changed, I resume the slow circles.
“Sloane.”
I go completely still, a breath caught in my lungs, my fingers still pressed against my clit and piercing.
“You seem to be up to something. Want to tell me about it?”
“Umm…”
Rowan props himself up on an elbow so he can gaze down at the side of my face. “I thought we talked about hiding.” He shifts his other arm from where it’s draped across my waist and lays his palm on my elbow. I shiver as his lips graze the shell of my ear. I don’t need to see him to know his face is lit with that teasing grin of his, the one he wears so often when we’re together. He’s always trying to get under my skin. Just like now. This was probably his plan all along.
I huff, disgruntled.
He laughs. “I have some ideas. Let me give you my theories.”
His palm slides down my forearm, over my wrist, engulfing my hand. He presses my fingers harder against my clit and I squeeze my eyes closed as a burst of sensation overtakes me.
“I think you couldn’t fall asleep. You were thinking about how good it felt to be fucked the way you deserved. Admittedly, it was probably a little hard to fall asleep with my cock lodged deep in your greedy cunt, wasn’t it?”
Rowan pulls out slowly and slides back in until his hips are flush with my ass. I’m already trembling. He does it again and then bites my earlobe, not hard enough to hurt but with enough force to make me gasp.
“I just asked you a question, love.”
“Y-yes,” I say, and I’m rewarded with a kiss and a harder press of his fingers against my throbbing clit. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Was that so hard?”
I shake my head, even though it might be a lie. If he knows, he doesn’t call me on it.
“I think you couldn’t get out of your head all the things I told you I was going to do to you. You’ve been wondering if they were just fantasies, or promises. And when you couldn’t stop, all those ideas running through your head became need. You need to be fucked, even though you’re so goddamn tired. And you need to know what’s real.”
He’s in my head. It’s terrifying and exhilarating. I’ve been on my own for so long. And now he’s in every thought like he’s always been here.
He was right when he said there’s no way to hide from him anymore. He didn’t just open my cage, he shattered it, and the first breaths of freedom burn in my lungs.
“Yes,” I admit, with more confidence this time. “It’s all true.”
Rowan’s long exhalation drifts across my shoulder, raising goosebumps in my skin. I know without asking that he’s relieved he doesn’t have to pull an answer from me, that as much as I trust him with my body, I trust him with my thoughts and hopes and fears, too.
“Stay right here,” he demands with a press of his hand to mine in a request to keep going.
He slides out of me and the mattress dips as he shifts away. I twist enough that I can watch what he’s doing as he heads toward our luggage. It’s the first time I’ve actually seen his back, and even in the dim light from the ensuite I can see that his skin is marred with several wide, long, scars, but something else spread across his shoulders.
My heart climbs into my throat and threatens to dump itself on the bed.
“Rowan…”
He stops, turning his head to watch over his shoulder as I sit up and look more closely at the black ink that flows over the thick muscles lining his spine. He twists as far as his neck allows to follow my line of sight, but can only see the tip of one wing.
“Is that…? Did you…?”
“Did I get the raven you left on the table tattooed on my back?” His smile is teasing, but there’s a hint of shyness in it as he finishes my thought. “Yeah. Appears to be the case.”
I swallow the vise that threatens to choke me. “Why?”
His grin widens and he shrugs before turning away to rifle through one of the bags. My bag.
“For one thing, I couldn’t really take the original with me. Might get damaged.” He lets out a little sound of triumph and faces me. My mouth is still hanging open with this revelation when I take in what he’s holding—my dildo in one hand, my bottle of lube in the other. “Seems like I still need to clear up a few things for you.”
Rowan prowls toward the bed. My heart ricochets against my ribs like a pinball.
“Turn around. On your knees.”
I swallow. “You’re very demanding.”
Rowan smirks. I give him one final, heated glance before I do as he says and turn my back to him. “Don’t even pretend you don’t enjoy it,” he says as he comes up behind me on the bed. He takes my good hand and folds it around one of the crossbars of the headboard, then positions my hips where he wants them, nudging my knees wider with one of his muscular legs. “Your pussy gives you away. It’s dripping for me, Sloane.”
“You were right. You’re no fucking angel.”
He slides the toy through my lips and presses it to my entrance. “Damn straight. And neither are you.” He guides it into my pussy and back out again in several shallow strokes before turning the vibration on. “I told you I was going to fuck your mouth and I did. I told you I was going to eat your pussy at the restaurant like it’s the best goddamn meal I’ve ever had, and I will. And I told you I was going to fill your ass with cum as I fucked you with a toy. And you know what happened when I said that?”
“No,” I say on the heels of a gasp as he works the toy in deeper thrusts.
“Your cunt gripped so tight around my cock that I thought I’d fucking explode. You were soaked. Dripping down your thighs.” The cap snaps open on the bottle. Lube drizzles down my ass and over the pleated hole. “Have you done this before?”
“Kind of—it was the other way around.” He presses his thumb to my hole, massaging the rim as he continues the rhythm of the toy.
“And you loved it.”
I nod again. “Yes.”
“Good,” is all he says, his tone definitive as he pushes his thumb into my ass to the sound of my gasp.
He loosens my tight ring of muscle, relaxes me into the sensation until I’m pushing back on him in a silent request for more. And then his thumb is gone, replaced with the lubed head of his cock as he glides it over the tight hole, pressing it against me until it slips past the resistance. He pauses as I breathe through the foreign sensation of fullness and then picks up slow and shallow thrusts, each one delving a little deeper against the vibration of the toy.
“Now that we’ve established that everything I told you is a fucking promise,” he grits out as he intensifies the rhythm of his thrusts, “we should probably clear up your other question.”
I’m shaking, sweating, lost to some mindless dimension where all I know is the feeling of intense pleasure twined with a hint of discomfort, but one I welcome because it only adds to the euphoric haze that consumes me. Rowan has picked up an unbroken cadence of deep thrusts and I don’t think I can even remember my own name, let alone something I said a few minutes ago. “Question…was…?”
I hear the smirk in his huffed laugh. Jesus fucking Christ. I’m incapable of stringing together a simple sentence and this man is fucking me relentlessly while probably able to recite the entire year-by-year history of the Napoleonic Wars.
Rowan leans closer, slows his thrusts, covers my back with the heat of his body. One of his hands finds my breast and he rolls my nipple between his fingers as he blows a thin stream of cool air across my neck to make me shiver. “About the tattoo, Sloane,” he says, his voice saccharine. “You asked me why I got it.”
I whimper as a deep thrust pushes me closer to an intense orgasm that’s nearly within reach. “Right…uhh…”
“Any guesses?”
My forehead presses to my arm as I let out a strangled cry. “…like me…?”
“Because I ‘like you’…?” Rowan cackles an incredulous laugh. “Like. You. Seriously…? Christ, Sloane. You are fucking brilliant but also the most willfully oblivious person I have ever met. Do you really think I just like you when I framed a drawing you left for me on a scrap of paper you tore from a notebook? The one I hung it in the kitchen so I can look at it every day and think of you? Do you think I just like you when I tattoo it on my skin? I play this fucking game every year and tear my heart out watching you walk away, only to do it all over again, and I like you? You think I just like you when I fuck you like this?”
The pace quickens. Rowan’s hot palm caresses my breast. He pistons into me. I cry out his name and he fucks me harder.
“I would kill for you, and I have. I would do it again, every damn day. I’d turn myself inside out for you. I would die for you. I don’t just like you, Sloane, and you fucking know it.”
Vicious thrusts throw me over the edge. Stars shatter across my vision. A sound I’ve never before made spills across my lips as the orgasm breaks me apart.
I don’t unravel. I detonate.
Rowan’s arm folds around my waist and he holds me close as he comes, my name dulled by my heart as it thunders in my ears.
His breath is still ragged, his chest shuddering when I turn off the toy and he whispers against my neck, “I don’t just ‘like you’, understand?”
I nod.
Rowan’s fingers trace my jaw, soft and slow, a touch I lean into when his palm stops to rest against my cheek. “And you don’t just ‘like me’ either, do you.”
It’s not a question. It’s not even a demand. It’s a need to be freed from a place where he thinks he’s been alone.
The key slides into the lock as Lark’s words echo in my mind above the riot of heartbeats.
Put some of that bravery to use for yourself for a change.
All the what ifs, I set them aside. All except one.
“No,” I whisper. “I more than like you, Rowan. I think about you all the time. I miss you every day. You appeared one moment and nothing has been the same since. And that scares me. A lot.”
Rowan presses a kiss to my shoulder as his thumb glides across my cheek. “I know.”
“You’re braver than me.”
“No, Sloane,” he says with a low chuckle as he pulls away. “I’m just more reckless, with less sense of self-preservation. I’m scared too.”
I watch as he climbs off the bed to head to the ensuite only to return with the washcloth and tissues. He takes time to clean my skin with gentle strokes, his attention caught on the movement of his hand and his brow creased as he seems deep in thought.
“What are you scared of?” I ask when the silence stretches so long that it feels like it’s tugging on my bones.
Rowan shrugs, not looking up when he says, “I dunno. Having my eyeballs sucked out of my head with an industrial vacuum is a recurring nightmare. Not sure how I came about that one.” When I slap his arm, Rowan’s stoic mask finally cracks into a faint smile. But it slowly fades, and he doesn’t answer until it’s gone. “I’m scared of you destroying me. Me destroying you.”
I blow out a dramatic breath. “Going straight for destruction, huh? Not the easy stuff to be terrified of, like the fact that we live in different states, or that we’re both crazy busy at work, or like, I have one friend and you apparently hang out with the entire city of Boston. Nope. Straight for destroy.”
His smile returns, but I can still see it in his eyes, how fear clings to his thoughts, finding its way into mine too. “None of those are insurmountable things. We just have to do what normal people do. Talk and stuff.”
“We don’t have a good track record of normal people stuff.” I point to my face. “Exhibit A. We could have gone for beers.”
“Then we’ll get good at it. We’ve just gotta practice.”
Seems simple enough, doesn’t it. Practice. Get a little better most days. A little stronger. It’s hard to imagine how to climb past these obstacles that seem like mountains when you’re standing in their shade. But I’ll never climb if I just keep standing still. And Lark was right, I have been lonely standing in the shadows.
So I keep asking myself the same question: What if I try?
I don’t let my mind wander to an answer. Because the real answer is, I don’t know. I’ve never really tried and meant it before, not like this.
Don’t answer the question. Just try.
That’s what I think when I look at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. It’s what I think when I come back to the bed and Rowan helps me into a tank top before putting my sling back on. It’s what I think when I lay down next to him. He watches me openly, and I watch him back. His eyelids are heavy, just like mine, but he refuses to look away. And still I think, just try.
I shimmy my right arm from beneath me and raise a fist between us. “Rock-paper-scissors.”
“What for?”
“Just do it, pretty boy.”
He gives me a suspicious grin, and then he meets my fist with his. On the count of three, we make our selection. Rowan goes with rock. I go with scissors.
I already know that rock is chosen the majority of the time in games of rock-paper-scissors. I looked it up after the first time I met Rowan and he suggested it in the event of a tie-breaker. And I already know that Rowan almost always chooses rock.
“What did I just win?” he says.
“You can ask me anything, and I’ll answer you honestly.”
His eyes flash in the dim light. “Really?”
“Yeah. Go on. Anything.”
Rowan chews at his lip as he deliberates. It takes him a long moment to settle on a question. “You were going to leave when we were in West Virginia and I killed Francis. Why didn’t you?”
The image of Rowan kneeling on the road bursts to the forefront of my mind. I’ve thought about it so many times, the way he rained relentless blows on the man clutched in the grip of his madness. I’d watched from the shadows, and as Rowan slowed and stopped, I backed away. Leaving was the smart thing to do. He was clearly unhinged. Dangerous. He’d grabbed me by the throat only moments before, and even though I was afraid, I still trusted him. Part of me knew he pushed me away from Francis and the car to hide me in the shadows. And when it was over, my mind screamed at me to run, but my heart saw a broken man on the road, struggling to find himself in the haze of rage.
And the first word to pass his lips was my name.
I hadn’t made it more than two steps backward. I never even turned away.
“You called out for me. It sounded like loss. I…” I swallow, and his touch finds me from the shadows, a trace of tingling warmth that flows up my arm and back down again. “I knew you didn’t just want me to stay. You needed me to. I haven’t been needed like that in a long time.”
His gentle caress finds my cheek, a contrast to the violence that carved scars into his knuckles that night. “It’s probably pretty obvious by now, but I’m glad you stayed.”
“Me too.” I lean closer and press my lips to his, relishing his familiar scent and the warmth of his presence. When I pull away, I say, “Can I ask you a question, even though I just lost rock-paper-scissors?”
Rowan’s laugh precedes a kiss to my temple. “I think I can give you a freebie. Just one though.”
“I remember you whispering to Francis before you beat him. What did you say?”
The pause of silence between us stretches on, and for a moment I think he’s not going to answer. Rowan slides his hand beneath my pillow and pulls me closer until my head rests on his chest, his heartbeat a comfort in the dark.
“I said the same thing that I told you just before I killed him,” he finally says. “That you’re mine.”
When that piece of the puzzle snaps into place, it aches a little, like my heart has to crack to make room for it to fit. It doesn’t seem like it could be true, but maybe Rowan really has been sure about us all along, about what we could be and what he wanted. He was patiently waiting for me to catch up.
I press a kiss to his chest and settle my cheek above his heart. “Yeah. I guess I am.”
My eyes drift closed, and the next time I open them, the room is washed in the dawn light that creeps in through the slatted blinds.
I’m still wrapped in Rowan’s embrace, his legs intertwined with mine and his arm slung across my waist. He’s fast asleep. I take a moment to just watch the twitch of his eyelids and the steady rise and fall of his chest, and then I untangle myself from his limbs and slide away. When I’m done in the bathroom, he still hasn’t moved, so I get dressed in silence and leave him to sleep.
The scent of coffee and sugary batter pull me down the hall. When I make it to the dining room, Rose is already there, her dark hair looped over her shoulder in a loose braid and a plate of waffles set before her. She looks up as I approach and gives me a bright smile, her big brown eyes welcoming.
“Morning,” she says. “There’s more in the kitchen. Help yourself.”
“Thank you. And I’m so sorry.”
“For what?” Rose says around a mouthful of waffle. Her gaze darts around and she squints at me like she’s trying to work out if I stole something from her in the night.
“For being…loud.”
Rose just shrugs and drops her attention to her plate of food. “Honey, I’ve lived in a literal circus since I was fifteen. I could sleep on the Tilt-a-Whirl if I had to.”
I snort a laugh and head to the kitchen, pulling two mugs from the shelf to fill them with coffee. “The clown alley thing from yesterday makes more sense now.”
“Well, whatever was going on,” she says with a goofy, exaggerated wink as I meet her eyes across the kitchen island, “I didn’t hear a thing. But him, on the other hand…he looks a little worse for wear.”
I turn as Fionn enters the dining room in his pajamas, his hair disheveled, eyes half-lidded. He heads straight for the fridge and pulls a bottle of probiotics from a row on the door. When I glance at Rose, her smile is wicked.
“Good sleep, doc?” she asks. “I slept like a rock. Not sure about Sloane and Rowan though.”
Fionn gives her a dark look. But there’s a banked heat in it too.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my cheeks heating with fire beneath my skin. “You’ve been so kind to take us in on zero notice. We didn’t mean to keep you up with the whole uh… pent up… um. Stuff.”
“Don’t worry, Blackbird. He’ll be just fine. Doctor Blueballs is just a little jealous.”
Rowan approaches in a pair of low-slung sweats and nothing on top but a delicious spread of muscle and ink. My blush heats a second time as he stops by my side to lay a kiss on my temple.
“Put a shirt on, loser,” Fionn grumbles as Rowan slaps him on the back and pushes past him to grab the milk.
“Why? I figure it’s good to remind you periodically that even though you spend hours a day on your burpees, I can still kick your ass.”
Fionn looks like he wants to argue that point, but his gaze darts over his older brother’s muscled and scarred body before he seems to rethink that idea. “I thought I said something about taking it easy,” he argues instead. “Getting rest. No rough…sports.”
Rowan’s grin is nothing short of diabolical. “We weren’t playing sports. We were having sex.”
Rose cackles at the table and stuffs another bite of waffle into her mouth. “Amazing. I love these two. Can they stay?”
“No.” Fionn glares at Rose and then Rowan before shifting his attention to me, his expression taking on an apologetic quality. “I’m sorry. Under normal circumstances, definitely. But that prick over there,” he says, hooking a thumb toward Rowan, “he’s going to make my life hell for the nickname thing until he gets it out of his system. I need sleep at night. And so do you. In fact, you should probably take a couple of weeks off work until you’re out of the sling.”
“I’ve still got another week of vacation,” I reply. “I haven’t taken a sick day in almost two years, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“I’m going to write you a doctor’s note anyway, just in case. I want you to wear the sling as much as you can. And schedule some time with a physical therapist. No heavy lifting, no sports,” he says as he darts a pointed look to Rowan. When Fionn’s gaze returns to me, his brow furrows with worry. “Do you have someone who can help you at home if you need it?”
“She does,” Rowan replies before I have a chance to even mention Lark’s name. “She’s got me.”
My gaze bounces between Rowan and his brother. Disbelief and nerves and excitement twine together like rope in my chest. “You’re coming to Raleigh?”
Rowan sets his coffee on the counter. His blue eyes hold mine, the shade of the deep sea beneath the sun. There’s no teasing smile to light his skin, no amused smirk that dances across his lips when steps closer and stops in front of me. He watches the motion of his fingers as they trace the contours of my cheek.
The rest of the world falls away.
“No, Sloane,” he says. “I’m taking you home. To Boston.”
