Chapter 18
eighteen
. . .
Rowan
Her mouth opens for me, and I lose my goddamn mind.
I kiss her like a man who’s been holding his breath too long, because I have been—holding back, pretending I didn’t need this as badly as I do.
As badly as I need her. Her lips are soft, hesitant for half a heartbeat, then warmer, surer, and the small sound she makes against my mouth hits me straight in the chest. It unravels me.
Every wall I’ve built with the best of intentions starts to give away, piece by piece.
My hand slides into her hair, fist tightening as I deepen the kiss, and when she gives in to me fully and sweetly, my body answers before I can stop it. A rough groan tears free, pulled from somewhere deep, the sound of a man finally done pretending he doesn’t want what’s always been his.
She has no idea how many nights I’ve spent thinking about her.
How often I’ve imagined this moment, memorized the shape of her mouth without ever touching it, my hands twisted in the sheets, trying to quench the thirst for something I thought I’d never have.
She doesn’t know how many times I’ve stood near her pretending indifference, how many times it hollowed me out to watch her laugh with someone else, to see her attention drift away while I stayed rooted in place, trapped between desire and the rule I made that said I couldn’t reach.
I slide my tongue into her mouth and kiss her with everything I’ve held back, desperate to make her feel every damn truth I should have said sooner. Part of me is waiting for the moment I wake up alone, foolish, and fifteen again, realizing this was just another thing I wasn’t brave enough to try.
She whimpers into my mouth, and it knocks the wind out of me. I slow down, not because I want to, but because I have to. If I keep going, I’m going to fall all the way in and never come up for air.
So I kiss her softer. Slower. Every missed opportunity is wrapped up in the way her lips are so sweet and warm against mine. I bite her bottom lip gently, pulling back just enough to breathe her in.
Our foreheads press together, her breath shaky against my lips. Her eyes lock with mine, and they’re wide, full of everything I’ve ever wanted from her. Her heart is in her gaze, laid bare, and I can’t look away, even if it means breaking mine wide open in the process.
“You okay?” I whisper.
She nods, and then a tear slips down her cheek.
It wrecks me. I don’t want to be the reason for her tears. Not ever.
I don’t think, I just move. My lips brush over her skin, kissing it away before my brain can catch up. It’s silent and desperate, a wordless apology for every year I let pass without her, for every time I held myself back. A plea stitched into a kiss. Forgive me.
Her lips are swollen, lashes damp with more tears she hasn’t let fall. She’s heartbreak and hope tangled into one, cutting me open with the ache of how much I’ve wanted her all this time.
She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“I didn’t plan this,” I say, voice rough even to my own ears.
“Liar,” she whispers, but there’s a curve to her lips that softens the word.
“Maybe a little,” I admit.
She reaches up, her fingers brushing the line of my jaw. Her touch is light, tentative.
I want to pull her into my lap, feel the weight of her against me, breathe her in until she’s the only thing in the world. The problem is, I’m not sure how to stop at just kissing when every inch of me is on fire for her.
Her hand slips from my jaw as she exhales. “What are we doing?”
She tucks her hair behind her ear, and that gesture might as well be a punch to the gut. I know that move. She’s trying to protect herself, trying to distance herself from whatever this is.
“We won’t do anything you don’t want to do,” I tell her, and I mean it. Because even though every part of me screaming for more of her, I’d rather have this, her sitting across from me, bathed in the moonlight, her hair catching the silver glow, her heart on her sleeve, than nothing at all.
She looks at me for a long moment, her eyes searching mine, weighing desire against caution, hope against fear. Finally, she speaks, her voice barely above a whisper. It’s soft but heavy with truth. “That’s the problem.” She takes a breath, almost like the words are too big. “I want too much.”
The confession hangs between us, and Christ, I want to tell her that I’d give her everything. I want to give her the moon, the stars, my heart on a fucking platter if that’s what she needs.
Her eyes meet mine, and there’s something so vulnerable in them, it hits me straight in the chest. She’s looking at me like she’s waiting for me to say the wrong thing and prove every doubt she’s been holding inside her all these years.
I see it all in the flicker of her gaze—fear, hesitation, a deep-seated belief that whatever this is, it won’t last.
“It’s late,” she says softly.
But I’m not ready for her to leave.
“Stay.” The word slips out before I can stop it. I don’t think. I just feel.
Her eyes flicker to mine, searching and unsure. “Not like that,” I rush to add because I need her to know. I need her to understand. “Just…stay a little longer. We can talk. Or not talk. Whatever you want.”
She looks at me for a long beat, and I can see her weighing it all out. The risk. The reward. What it might cost her. I know she’s scared. I can see it in the way her shoulders tighten, the way her gaze flits from my eyes to my lips, then back up.
“Just for a little while,” she finally says.
A small smile tugs at the corner of my lips. It’s a win, I know that, even though I’m not sure what I’ve won just yet.
“Just for a little while,” I repeat, echoing her words and leaning back in my chair. “I can handle that. I’ll even try not to be too charming.”
She laughs softly, but there’s something hesitant in it, like she’s afraid to let herself fully relax. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll be so good at that.”
I grin, watching her for a moment. “Yeah, well, it’s not easy when you’re sitting across from someone so goddamn distracting.”
It sounds like a tease, maybe even a joke, but it’s not. She’s wrecking me. Completely. In ways I didn’t even know I could be wrecked because we’ve never ventured this far before.
She raises an eyebrow, but I catch the small smirk on her lips. “Is that so?”
I lean in, elbows on my knees, eyes locked on her mouth. “It’s absolutely so.”
My voice drops lower. “You’re a fucking temptation, Violet. You always have been. You could look at me a certain way and I’d forget my own name. Hell, I’d beg if you asked me to.”
She snorts, rolling her eyes, but there’s no missing the flush climbing her throat, blooming soft and pink across her cheeks. It’s adorable. Infuriating. Irresistible.
I can’t not touch her.
I shift forward, brushing my fingers over her wrist. Just a whisper of contact, but her pulse jumps beneath my touch.
“Did you know, Violet…” I murmur. “That you taste like everything I’ve ever wanted?”
It’s true. I swear to god something inside me split wide open when our mouths brushed. She tastes like home. Like a memory. Like the hope I finally believe I’m allowed to want.
This woman has always been mine. Long before I had any right to claim her.
And now, sitting here, watching her cheeks blush and her eyes linger on my mouth… I want her more than I’ve ever wanted anything. Not just her body—though, fuck, that’s part of it—but all of her. Her sharp tongue. Her stubbornness. Her laugh that always comes out just before she tries to hide it.
I want my fingers lost in her hair, my mouth teaching her that I’m not something she has to brace for.
I want to kiss her until every doubt loosens its grip, until she understands how certain I am.
I want to map my promise into her skin, linger long enough that she knows I’m not leaving, that there’s nowhere else I want to be.
God help me, if she asks—if she even breathes the question—I’ll give her everything I have, without hesitation. She’s the choice I’m making. Every time.