Chapter Sixteen – Rowan #3
I edge Jasper alongside her mare and touch her knee, steady. “Hey. Eyes on me, not the sky,” I say, calm as I can make it. “We’ll cut over to the equipment shed by the north lot. Two minutes.”
She nods once. “I’m okay.”
“Good. Stay close.” I slide my cap off and pull it low on her, then add, “If the flashes bug you, look down at the mane. Tell me if you feel… anything.”
“Got it,” she says, and I can hear the steel under the soft.
We move out, not a run—steady, smart. The wind lifts the hay in long shivers. Another flash. I put myself between her and the open, angling her mare to my right so I take the widest slice of sky. By the time we reach the low, tin-roofed shed, the air tastes like rain and pennies.
I get her inside first, swing the door, and drop the bar. It goes dark in that good, even way—no sudden strobe, just the gray of a storm-room. I push a battered canvas coat into her hands and drape it over her shoulders, then crouch to loosen the mare’s cinch so she can breathe easier.
“You good?” I ask, close enough that I don’t have to raise my voice over the rain starting to drum.
Her palm finds my forearm. “I’m good,” she says, and adds, because she knows me now, “Really.”
I nod, but the anger at myself has already lit. “I should’ve been watching the sky. I know better.”
“You were talking to me,” she says, a little smile in it.
“Not an excuse.” I glance at the thin line of light under the door, then back to her. “Next time, I pull us in sooner. If the flashes bother you at all, I’ll throw a blanket over the door seam.”
She tilts her head. “Next time?”
“Storms happen,” I say. “And you’re not staying inside just because I forgot my brain.”
The rain sharpens until the roof turns into a drumline.
She steps in closer, shoulder to mine under the coat, cheek finding my chest like she’s choosing the quietest place in the room.
I fold her in without thinking—palms open between her shoulder blades, my body a wall against the slit of light at the door.
“I’ve got you,” I tell the crown of her head, steady as I can make it. “You’re safe here.”
Her fingers bunch in the front of my shirt. “I know.”
Thunder rolls, low and long. I feel her breathe with it—inhale when it fades, exhale when the rain rushes back.
I match her rhythm on purpose, counting it out like I would for a skittish colt, the way my mama taught me.
A minute. Maybe two. Then she tips her head back to look at me, stormlight catching the flecks in her eyes.
“Rowan,” she says, my name soft and sure. Not a question. A choice.
Something in my chest shifts into place. I brush a damp strand from her temple and tuck it behind her ear, knuckles grazing skin warm from the dash here. “You cold?”
She shakes her head. “Not even a little.”
I mean to kiss her forehead—careful, simple, the way I’ve been telling myself I know how to be.
My mouth finds the corner of hers instead.
It’s barely a touch and somehow everything at once.
She answers with the smallest sound and rises onto her toes, hands sliding up my chest, over my shoulders, hooking behind my neck like she’s drawing me down where she wants me.
“Tell me if you want me to stop,” I say, already lost.
“I’ll say it,” she whispers. “I won’t.”
The kiss is slow—unhurried and deep, all the honesty I’m better at with tools than words.
She tastes like rain and something honey-sweet from earlier, and when my thumb skims her jaw, her whole body leans into it like the touch is a door she’s been waiting to walk through.
The shed hums around us, a small world of our own making—tin roof singing, horses shifting, wind at our backs while we stand still.
I back us toward the stack of folded tarps and drag one down, throw an old canvas blanket over it.
We sink together, knees brushing, thighs aligning, the coat falling open and pooling around us like a tent.
She pulls me closer by the front of my shirt, mouth opening under mine, and whatever restraint I had gives up politely and steps outside.
“I want to take care of you,” I murmur against her cheek, and I mean a hundred things—warmth, water, a hand to hold when lightning trips the dark.
She answers by tugging me down until my weight is something we share.
Heat sparks everywhere our bodies learn a new map—her palm at the small of my back, my hand splayed over her ribs, both of us moving in the soft, uncoordinated way of people who can’t get close enough fast enough.
We don’t talk much. There isn’t room for it. The words we do manage come out as breath between kisses:
“Here.”
“Closer.”
“Don’t rush.”
Thunder answers like it’s taking requests.
The rain thickens and softens by turns, and I mark time by the way her hands wander—up my spine, over my shoulders, into my hair— and the way she sighs when I learn another place that makes her go quiet and boneless.
I keep one eye on the seam of light at the door, an old habit I don’t have to think about, the rest of me learning her—how she likes my mouth slower, my hands firmer; how she tips her chin to deepen a kiss like she’s been doing it with me for years.
“Rowan,” she breathes again, a little wrecked now, and I answer the only way I know—by giving her more, by letting the careful break into something hungry, by meeting every ask with the best of what I have.
When we finally ease back, it’s only far enough to breathe.
I rest my forehead to hers, both of us laughing that stunned, quiet laugh people do when a storm passes and the world is still standing.
My thumb finds the line of her cheekbone; her fingers trace the edge of my jaw like she’s memorizing it.
A low, constant rumble settles in my chest as I lay Ivy down on the blanket. Her hair fans out like wildfire against the dark fabric, cheeks flushed, lips kiss-bruised and parted.
She looks like temptation made real. And I’m done pretending I can resist her.
“I don’t deserve you,” I rasp, fingers dragging over her waist. “But I’m done letting that stop me.”
She shakes her head, eyes glassy. “I really wish you’d stop questioning yourself. I don’t want perfect. I want real. I want you. ”
I crush my mouth to hers again, letting months of restraint finally snap. My hands find the hem of her shirt, pushing it up until she arches to help me pull it over her head. I press kisses down her neck, across the delicate slope of her collarbone, and down the line of her sternum.
She makes this soft sound—half sigh, half gasp—and it undoes me.
“You’re shaking,” I murmur.
“From you, ” she breathes. “Keep going.”
I obey.
I unclasp her bra slowly, reverently, letting it slide from her shoulders before I lower my mouth to one breast. I kiss the soft swell, lick around the nipple until she’s arching up into my mouth.
Her hands are in my hair, tugging, needy.
“Rowan,” she pants, and the sound of my name on her lips is a fucking prayer.
“Tell me what you want,” I demand.
“You. All of you.”
I trail kisses down her ribs, over the faint curve of her stomach, dragging her jeans down inch by inch. My hands slide beneath the waistband of her panties, and she lifts her hips, trusting me completely.
God, she’s a vision.
I look up at her, lips parted, pupils blown wide.
“This okay?” I ask, voice rough.
She nods, breathless. “Please.”
I kiss the inside of her thigh, then again higher, until her legs tremble and her hand fumbles toward me.
I settle between her legs and taste her like I’ve been dying of thirst.
She gasps, her thighs clenching around me, hips rising in time with my tongue. She’s hot, slick, and perfect, and I make it my mission to learn every sound she makes when I bring her closer.
When her cries start to break, I pull back just enough to slide two fingers inside, curling them just right while my mouth works in tandem. Fucking her with my fingers may be one of my new favorite things.
She comes apart with a sob.
“Oh my God, Rowan—”
“Good girl,” I whisper, holding her through it. “You’re doing so fucking good for me.”
She pulls at me then, desperate and impatient, fumbling with my belt.
“I want you,” she says. “Now.”
My jeans are gone in seconds, my body moving on instinct. I grab a condom from my wallet—never thought I’d need one in a damn shed—but thank God I was wrong.
Ivy wraps her legs around me as I enter her, both of us freezing for a beat at the overwhelming sensation.
“Jesus,” I grit. “You feel—God—better than anything.”
Her nails drag down my back as I start to move. Slow at first. Deep. Controlled. But she urges me on, gasping my name, hips matching every thrust until we’re both trembling.
Her walls clench around my erection, sucking at pulling it farther into the channel. Her ass slaps against my thighs with each thrust, and I can’t help but grab one of those glorious globes in my fist.
And when we come—it’s not just physical.
It’s a release. Of pain. Of fear. Of all the words we haven’t said.
I collapse beside her on the blanket, chest heaving.
She turns her head, eyes locked with mine.
“That was—” I kiss her before she can finish.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “It was.”
We lie tangled in each other’s limbs. The blankets are crumpled beneath us, and the storm is tapering off outside the barn. The soft hum of rain hitting the tin roof now sounds more like a lullaby than a warning.
Ivy traces lazy circles on my chest, her breath still uneven, her bare leg draped over mine. I want to say something. Anything. But I don’t know what the hell to say.
My throat is dry, my heart too full, and my brain scrambles for the right words that won’t ruin this moment. Won’t make it too much too fast. Or worse—too little, too late.
I tilt my head toward her, brushing a damp strand of hair from her cheek.
She’s not smiling.
Not frowning either.
Just… quiet. Thoughtful. Her expression is unreadable in the pale light that seeps through the warped wooden slats of the barn.
“Are you okay?” I ask, voice hoarse.
She nods slowly. “Yeah. Just… thinking.”
I wait. Give her space.
She exhales. “I keep wondering if this changes things.”
“What do you want it to change?”
Her lips twist. “That’s the thing, Rowan. I don’t know. I just know I don’t want to go back to pretending I don’t want this. Last time seemed like a fluke, but now that it’s happened twice, I can’t brush it aside like you can.”
My chest tightens.
She turns on her side, propping her head on her hand. “I don’t regret any of it. But if we’re gonna wake up tomorrow and pretend it didn’t happen—”
“We won’t,” I cut in. “I won’t. ”
I pull her closer, resting my forehead against hers. “You said once that you weren’t ready to be sent away. That you wanted to stay. And I never told you the truth.”
She doesn’t blink. Just watches me like she already knows what’s coming.
“I wanted you to stay, too,” I admit. “But I was scared. Of this. Of you. Of what you make me feel.”
“Why?”
I pause, heart thudding. “Because the last time I let someone in… it almost ruined me.”
She swallows, her thumb stroking along my jaw as I reveal the entire story with Marissa. I expect to find a sense of pity in her gaze, but it never shows.
“I’m not her,” she says softly.
“I know.”
She nods once, then curls into my side, resting her head on my shoulder. We lie like that in silence, letting the storm and our breathing fill the empty spaces between us.
But even as the tension softens, a new one builds.
What happens now? Because sex is one thing. Wanting is another. But feelings? Real ones? Those are where things get messy.
And I’m terrified I’ll mess this up before I even have a chance to make it right.