I stared at the ground, commanding my heart to calm, my breaths to slow, and my fear to release its stranglehold on my thoughts. The situation was so much worse than I imagined—both for Rowan and myself.
Had the men I’d seen outside Wellington’s place worked for Damyon? Surely, Oran hadn’t been stupid enough to do a deal with such a psychopath. Although, that would explain why he might lie about the guns being stolen. He would have known we’d never approve of a deal with the Russian.
I hated that we might be linked to the man, but the fact that he now had Rowan on his radar terrified me. Wellington was bad enough; Damyon amplified the threat ten times over.
“I can’t believe you went back there when I told you to stay away from him.” My fear was so consuming, I knew of no other way to express it besides blistering anger. The emotion strained against the thin membrane of my control, threatening annihilation.
“Stetson and his dad were supposed to be out of the house,” Rowan said softly. “None of this was supposed to happen.”
“No, you weren’t supposed to step foot back in that house.” My elevated voice echoed the emotions brewing inside me, and I didn’t fully understand them. Rowan was most at risk, not me or my family. I had no obligation to help her. Nothing forced me to continue associating with her. I could cut all ties and hope the angry black cloud over her head didn’t follow me.
The reason I was so upset wasn’t about Damyon or her going back to that house. I was furious because I knew I wouldn’t walk away from her. I couldn’t. Something intangible bound me to her. Something I couldn’t name. She had come to me, of all people, for help. Twice. Some unevolved, half savage part of me had decided she was now mine to protect. Logic had no say in the matter, which was the true source of my anger.
Rowan didn’t yell back at me.
Had she done that, it would have been far more satisfying than the eerily detached way she responded.
“I couldn’t leave her there without knowing help was coming.”
“Couldn’t or didn’t want to?”
Her eyes cut to mine with a spark of fight. “Same damn thing.”
“No. Not unless you have some sort of savior complex.” I moved closer until only a matter of inches separated us. “So what is it, Miss Alexander?” I asked with lethal precision. “Were you thinking of the girl, or just satisfying your own need to play the hero?” It was hypocritical, considering my recent revelation, but my frustration had taken aim at her emotional barriers with the intent of watching them crumble.
Rowan slammed her hands against my chest. “Don’t fucking call me that!”
There we go. I want to see the real Rowan come out to play.
Any other woman would have been coming apart at the seams by now—hell, man or woman. But not Rowan. She’d mastered the ability to suppress her natural responses. This display of anger was the perfect thread to pull for more. I wanted to unravel each impenetrable layer of armor until I’d exposed every captivating inch of her.
I reached around her and wrapped my fist in her long hair, pulling her body flush with mine. “Is it the name you don’t like, or my implication that you’re acting like a child?”
“Neither,” she snarled.
My eyes narrowed, and I tugged her head back a fraction farther. “It’s the intimacy,” I mused. An unexpected sense of satisfaction swelled in my chest, but I didn’t let it show. “You want there to be some sort of connection between us.”
Be careful what you wish for.
“I never said that.” She tried to backpedal.
“You didn’t have to. It’s written all over your face.”
She tried to school her features, but it was too late. I had her in my web. “Just because I want to fuck you doesn’t mean I want to keep you, Miss Alexander.”
Point. Set. Match.
An aggravated scream bellowed up from deep inside her as she twisted and fought her way out of my grasp. She lunged for a glass bowl on the entry credenza and flung it at me with all her might. I ducked just in time, and it shattered against the door behind me. Before I could react, she already had a small ceramic lamp in her hands.
“You think you can just break into my house, turn my life upside down, then waltz away?” she yelled. Her face was mottled an angry red, eyes growing glassy.
“You turned your life upside down, not me. I told you to stay away from him.”
Show me all your fury, beautiful. Unleash it all.
“Ugh! This has nothing to do with him or that fucking house!”
She launched the lamp. This time, I ducked then flowed straight into a lunge, rushing at her before she could grab anything else. I forced her back against the wall, her hands shackled in mine and pinned on either side of her head. Our heavy breaths mingled in a cloud of frustrated desire.
“Then tell me what it does have to do with,” I demanded.
Her lips pursed in refusal, a fiery gold dominating her hazel eyes. “Fucking tell me!” I roared in her face.
“You, you fucking asshole!” she screamed back. “It has to do with you and the way I feel alive every time I’m around you. Like I can fucking breathe for the first time in my life.” She paused, her body shuddering on a shaky breath. I wanted to inhale every last morsel and saturate my lungs with her.
I wrenched her hands above her head, securing her wrists in one of my fists, then slammed my mouth down on hers. Her body gave way to mine like clay molded to stone.
The taste of passionate defiance on her lips sent a jolt of electric need straight to my cock. I was so damn hard I could have come in my fucking pants. I wanted to punish her for making me lose control. Judging from the way she bit my lower lip, then sucked it between hers, she struggled with the same sense of conflict. We were two trains on the same track with no way to avoid the collision.
I hooked my fingers into her leggings, making sure to include her panties, then dragged them both down enough that I could use my foot to stomp the fabric to the ground.
“I’m going to fuck you against this wall,” I informed her, sounding half savage even to my own ears. “I do something you don’t like, I expect you to fucking tell me.”
She nodded quickly.
Greedy lust coiled at the base of my spine as I tugged down my joggers and freed my cock. When I released her arms, she draped them around my shoulders. I lifted her, securing her legs around my waist and her back against the wall. My cock throbbed insatiably when it made contact with her warm folds.
“Already so goddamn wet for me.” I was about to plunge deep inside her when three loud knocks sounded on the front door.
“Go away!” Rowan called.
“You okay in there?” The man sounded uncertain. One of my neighbors must have heard us arguing.
It pissed me off that someone would think I’d ever hurt her. An angry retort died on the tip of my tongue when Rowan beat me to the punch.
“Seriously, fuck off!”
Goddamn if I didn’t grin as I thrust inside her.
Jesus, this girl.
Rowan let out a guttural moan that made me want to lock her in my bedroom and spend every damn day for the rest of my life coaxing that same sound past her lips. “Oh God. This feels so good.” She sounded incredulous.
Just wait, princess, it gets better.
I buried myself inside her, one voracious thrust after another. It was a miracle we didn’t put a damn hole in the wall. I kissed and nipped down the column of her neck. She tugged at my hair and arched into every movement, welcoming my body into hers.
When I reached between us and pinched one of her nipples, her inner muscles squeezed me so hard I saw fucking stars.
“Oh shit! Keir, I think I’m gonna come.”
“You better, baby, because I’m right behind you.” I was so damn close it was a struggle to speak. Every ounce of my blood had migrated into my dick, clamoring for release.
“No, I…I haven’t…oh!” She gasped, then cried out as her entire body began to shudder and shake, her thighs squeezing so tight they almost kept me from moving.
Fortunately, that didn’t matter because feeling her come undone in my arms shoved me over the edge with unexpected force. Like a teen unable to control himself, my orgasm exploded without warning, from deep in my balls to the base of my spine and outward to every extremity.
I held her in my arms for countless seconds. She relaxed into my hold, and a piece of my soul shifted deep in my chest. Rowan was changing me. She carved out a place for herself within me until the boundaries between us blurred and overlapped.
“That’s never happened before,” she murmured absently, her lips close to my ear.
“You’ve never come before?”
“I’ve come, but never during sex.”
Equal degrees of smugness and violence fought for dominance in my head. I liked knowing I could give her something he couldn’t, but I fucking abhorred thinking of that worthless piece of shit inside her. Instead of saying something I’d regret, I carried her to the bathroom.
Reality slowly trickled back in, leaving us both silent.
I lifted her shirt over her head and unclasped her bra. When my gaze lifted to the mirror, I discovered she had a vine tattooed the length of her spine. Again, not what I expected. Would I ever begin to know this woman, or was it in her nature to keep everyone guessing?
My need to find out overwhelmed me.
“Is that ivy?” I asked, moving close enough to trail my fingers down her spine, watching the movement in the mirror.
A full-body shiver overtook her. “Yeah,” she said softly. “You have so many tattoos, it would take a lifetime to identify them all.” Her hand hesitantly grazed my chest, drifting along the trunk of a Celtic tree of life tattooed over my heart. A constant reminder of my roots.
“Not quite that many, but yeah. I’ve spent some time under the needle.” I could stand there and let her touch me all damn night, but I didn’t want her to freeze to death. “Let’s get you showered. Then we need to talk.”
