Chapter 24 #2
With a single thrust, Rowan pushes inside me. The sudden fullness tears a cry from my throat that I’m too slow to muffle, and we both freeze, listening for any sound from Lena’s room, but only our ragged breathing and the pounding of my heart fills the silence.
“Quiet, precious,” Rowan whispers, his mouth curved in a wicked grin. “Unless you want your sister to hear what I do to you.”
He hooks my knees over his forearms, spreading me wider, folding me in half as he withdraws until his crown sits at my entrance. The sudden emptiness claws at my insides, a desperate void that needs to be filled.
My greedy body clenches around nothing until he slams back in with enough force to steal my breath. The bed frame hits the wall with a dull thud, and I bite my lip hard enough to break skin, desperate to trap the broken, animal sound clawing for release.
Each brutal thrust rocks me on the mattress, only Rowan’s hold on my knees keeping me in place, my sweat-slick skin dragging across the cheap cotton sheets. The springs beneath us scream in protest, broadcasting our coming together to anyone listening.
When Rowan shifts his angle, his cock drags across the sweet spot inside me that shatters my vision into white-hot fragments. All-consuming pleasure crashes through my system, and I drown in it, surrendering to Rowan.
“You feel so good,” he pants, his hips maintaining their merciless pace. “So tight around my cock. Want to stay buried in you forever.”
His words flow over me, each syllable burning into my skin. “My deadly little mate. So fucking perfect for me.”
A warm pride curls through me that I’ve never experienced before.
His voice drops lower, rumbling through my bones as his teeth scrape my collarbone. “Going to fuck you so deep you’ll still ache from me days later, precious.”
The promise makes me shudder, along with more heated slick.
“This body,” he groans, grinding into my ass as deep as he can go, “made to take me and only me.”
I believe him. God help me, I believe him.
My dick bounces on my stomach, leaking clear fluid with each thrust. The need for release builds, coiling tighter with every drag of his length against my inner walls.
My nails dig into his shoulders, leaving crescent marks as I try to anchor myself within the tide of sensation threatening to sweep me away.
“Mine. My Omega,” Rowan snarls, his thrusts growing harder, more erratic. “Say it.”
“Yours,” I gasp, the admission born on a wave of pleasure so intense I can’t think straight. “All yours.”
His teeth graze the vulnerable skin of my throat above the nape guard, testing the boundary without crossing it. The threat of a claiming bite, even one that can’t penetrate the protective plastic, sends another wave of slick rushing from my body.
The bed rocks, its metal feet scraping the floor with each powerful thrust, the headboard hammering the wall in a rhythm capable of waking the dead. Any thought of discretion vanishes beneath the tide of need consuming us both.
Rowan shifts one of my legs to his shoulder so he can grip my neglected dick. One stroke, two, and stars burst behind my eyelids as release crashes through me. My body clamps down around his thick length, inner muscles rippling with aftershocks as ropes of white paint my chest and stomach.
Rowan’s rhythm falters as my body squeezes him. “Fuck.”
His hips snap forward one final time, grinding deep as his release floods me, his cock pulsing.
The sudden, hot flood of cum triggers a second, unexpected climax that tears through me. My back arches off the bed, a silent scream locked behind clenched teeth.
We collapse together, sweaty limbs tangled on a mattress too narrow for one person, let alone two. The musk of sex and pheromones fills the room, thick enough for it to coat the back of my tongue.
Rowan’s softening cock stays buried inside me, any movement sending aftershocks of pleasure through my oversensitive body. His weight pins me to the mattress, but I welcome it as proof of the choice I made to let him back in.
With gentle movements, Rowan shifts to his side, bringing me with him as his cock slips from my body.
His arm slides beneath my head, creating a pillow of his bicep that’s more comfortable than it should be.
My muscles turn to liquid, tension drained by my release.
A pleasant soreness settles into my hips and thighs, physical reminders I’ll carry tomorrow, just as Rowan promised.
Rowan’s hand traces lazy patterns across my chest, circling the marks his mouth left earlier. Our breathing slows, heartbeats finding a shared rhythm as sweat cools on our skin.
Moonlight paints silver stripes across the ceiling through the blinds, shifting with each passing car outside. A fragile quiet surrounds us, a bubble of peace that can’t last but I want to preserve, anyway.
“Do you really think it’ll work?” The question escapes before I can reconsider, breaking the silence.
Rowan’s fingers pause on my ribs. “What?”
“The server.” My voice sounds smaller than I intend. “Delivering it to the Vartanians. Will it really get the police to stop circling Lena for Danny’s disappearance?”
The fear has been gnawing at me since Officer Ramirez first showed up at our door to question me about my sister, and has kept me awake on nights when Rowan wasn’t beside me. It’s the one threat I can’t neutralize with a knife or lock picks.
Rowan’s arm tightens around my waist. “Once the Vartanians have the information Danny stole from them, they’ll have no reason to keep digging into Danny’s acquaintances.”
“But what if they don’t stop? What if they think we kept a copy for ourselves?” The fear rises again, breaking through the post-sex haze. “What if whoever stole the information from Danny’s server tries to get the information back? Lena—”
“The person who stole the information is the Vartanian’s problem, not ours. And if giving them the server doesn’t work,” Rowan interrupts, steady and certain as a heartbeat, “then we’ll destroy anyone who comes to threaten her.”
The certainty in his words eases my worries. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.” His lips brush the side of my neck. “You protected me tonight, because I’m yours. And I protect what’s mine, too. Lena is family now.”
Family.
The word catches in my chest, a hook pulling at pieces of me I thought had scarred over years ago. Not Lena and me alone anymore, surviving day by day through will and careful calculations. But a wider circle with strong arms and dangerous hands, resources I’ve never had access to before.
“She’s all I have,” I whisper into the darkness, words I’ve never admitted aloud to anyone.
Rowan cradles my jaw, his thumb brushing across my cheekbone with surprising gentleness. “Not anymore. You have me. You have Saint. You have my crew. Anyone who comes for her comes through all of us.”
The burden I’ve carried for years doesn’t vanish, but it lessens with the knowledge that I no longer carry it alone.
I tuck my head beneath Rowan’s chin, allowing myself this moment of vulnerability in the dark. His heart beats steady beneath my ear, a rhythm I could time my life by.
“Try to sleep,” Rowan murmurs, his fingers carding through my hair in slow, hypnotic strokes. “Tomorrow, we’ll talk to Lena and move you both into our home for good.”
Home. The concept has always been fluid for me, a series of apartments, each one chosen for security rather than comfort, for affordability rather than belonging.
But when Rowan says it, I picture his loft with its solid walls and reinforced locks, its soundproofed walls and space enough for Lena to spread out without fear.
More than that, I picture Rowan placing his body in the path of danger, shielding those he claims as his, and for the first time, I understand true safety isn’t about walls or locks or escape routes. It’s about knowing you’re not facing the darkness alone.
My palm rests over his heart, soothed by the strong, steady rhythm beneath warm skin. Outside, a siren wails in the distance, rising and falling as it cuts through the night.
My mind tracks it, calculating distance, direction, and how long it takes before it fades, the way I always do, measuring response time and calculating risk.
Then I realize I’m not planning anything.
I’m not counting seconds between the rise and fall.
Not cataloging exits.
Not mapping the quickest route from Lena’s room to the fire escape.
The apartment sits quiet around us, Rowan’s arm holding me, his heartbeat still steady beneath my palm.
For once, I don’t need a backup plan.
Outside, the siren fades into nothing, and I let myself follow Rowan into sleep.