Chapter 32 Only inside me #2
“I read an article about you once. It said you’re a master of words,” I admit, my fingers finding his hand and guiding it over my heart, where it’s racing far too fast to hide. “And that’s so true. You always know exactly what to say… to make my heart race like this.”
His hand stays over my chest, feeling every piece of me, before he leans in and presses a soft, fleeting kiss to my lips.
“Can I say something mean?” I settle back, sinking into his warmth, and his arms tighten around me.
“You can say anything you want. I know it won’t be mean.”
“Hear me first… then decide.”
He nods once.
“Go ahead.”
I glance down, hesitating for a brief second, before letting it out.
“I’m kind of glad I’m your first.”
I don’t know what sort of reaction I was expecting from him, but the shy grin that slowly spreads across his face steals the breath right out of my lungs.
He rolls his tongue against his cheek, and then his fingers move.
“Possessive much, baby?”
A giggle escapes me. “Apparently… a little too much.”
He shifts slightly behind me, taking my arm and stretching it out between us. His fingers trace along the inside of my wrist, and I follow the movement, watching the invisible words take shape beneath his touch.
My first. My last.
The air leaves my lungs.
Without thinking, I mirror him, taking his arm the same way he held mine.
My forever. My last.
He pulls me closer, pressing a kiss to the top of my head, and my hands drift to his chest. My fingers move absentmindedly, tracing the lines of him until they catch on the tattooed date there.
“What does this mean?”
His body stiffens beneath my touch. When my gaze lifts to his face, I find his eyes closed.
I push myself up, turning toward him fully, and Rowan doesn’t make me wait long.
“It’s the day I was found.”
There’s pure pain on his face, which scares me for a second. I thought I knew everything about him, but I guess not.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper.
He lifts his hands, and his fingers pause before moving toward his throat. “I told you about…”
I nod. “I know. You were shot… by accident.”
“He thought I was a deer.” Rowan’s gaze drops to his hands as they begin to move once more. “I heard the shot first… and then I felt the bullet hit here.”
His fingers brush the side of his neck, right where the faint scar rests. I’ve noticed it before.
“I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. There was blood everywhere.”
His gaze flicks toward me, as if checking whether I’m okay hearing this. But I nod for him to keep going.
“When he realized he’d shot a human, he came to check on me.
I tried to speak but couldn’t. I’ll never forget the look on his face.
He was terrified. Even as a child, seeing him scared made me more afraid than the pain, because it meant it was bad.
And then he said sorry.” His hands still for a moment. “And he left.”
“He just left you?”
Rowan gives a small nod. “I tried to call Archer, but I couldn’t. It was so damn painful.”
My throat tightens painfully.
“I stayed there for almost thirty hours.”
“Th-thirty? Rowan…” My voice cracks. Two days alone in the woods with a bullet wound in his neck.
How did he even survive?
And I don’t have to voice those horrible words. Rowan’s hands keep moving, though slower now, like each one costs him something.
“I thought I would die.”
There are no dramatics, no attempt to make it sound worse than it was—just unfiltered truth. I press my lips together, holding them still. If I let myself react, I might not be able to stop.
“But I was told I was lucky.”
His expression twists, like even now he doesn’t quite believe it, and how could he? Nothing he has said so far feels anything close to lucky.
“The bullet caused partial damage to my vocal cords, but it exited. There was no internal bleeding. The snow… the cold… it slowed the blood loss. Since that day, I’ve had a strange relationship with snow. I hate the cold—it takes me back there. To that night.”
His fingers pause briefly before moving again.
“But I’m also grateful for it. It kept me alive. It didn’t let me die.”
My gaze follows his, drifting toward the glass ceiling, where the snow is still falling.
“That’s why you built the solarium,” I whisper.
“It might sound cynical, but whenever something good happens in my life… it snows, like the universe is reminding me it’s still watching over me.”
A slow smile forms on his face, and I’m in awe of him—of the way he has taken something so painful and found meaning in it.
“No wonder it snowed tonight, when we’re like this.”
I hate asking for more, but tonight I want to know every part of his story—not out of curiosity, but because I never want him to have to relive it like this again… not for me.
“What happened then?” I ask softly.
“The search party found me barely conscious.”
Of course they did. Zane and Vienna would have torn the world apart looking for him.
Rowan rubs the back of his neck before signing again. “I underwent surgeries, but my voice…” His fingers hesitate before the final words. “It never sounded the same.”
“Does it hurt? To speak?”
“Not anymore.”
The room falls into a gentle silence as I look at Rowan. At the man who wears his quiet like armor. At the boy he must have been, lying alone in those woods, bleeding, waiting.
Without thinking, I move closer, wrapping my arms around him, and after a second, his arms come around me too, holding me tighter than before.
I rest my cheek against his chest, right over the date inked into his skin, and press a soft kiss there.
“I hate that you went through something so horrible,” I murmur. “You were just a kid, Ro.”
Rowan doesn’t respond with his hands this time. He just holds me tight. After a moment, I tilt my head back, searching his face.
“And for the record”—my fingers brush over the scar along his neck—“I don’t care how your voice sounds.”
His gaze sharpens slightly, searching mine like he’s trying to decide if I mean it, and I don’t look away.
“If you ever feel like sharing your words—your spoken words—just know I’m here. And I’d be grateful for it.”
Vulnerability flickers across his face. “You wouldn’t like it.”
“Try me.”
For a moment, he just looks at me, and my heart begins to pound louder with every passing second as I wait for him to decide. Then his fingers move again.
“Maybe one day.”