Chapter 10
Rowan
Not even in my wildest fantasies was sex with Natalia this good. She didn’t feel like this in my head.
I’m ruined.
I’m fucking ruined.
And the way she makes my name sound like something meaningful and magical. The way she moans it and cries it with each touch and kiss. God, she’s mine. She’s always been mine, and I’ve always been hers, without her even knowing it.
“Holy shit,” Natalia pants. Her ass is red with my handprint, and I soothe the skin I’m sure is stinging. But damn it if I don’t love the idea of my hand leaving a mark on her. “I’m coming. R—Rowan, I—Oh fuck.”
“Fuck, yes, sweetheart.” I pound into her harder, my hands gripping tighter around her hips as she thrusts back against me, meeting my every thrust with a harder one. “Come on my cock.”
Her sweet sounds are an epic symphony, our pleasure mixing together to create a rising crescendo that licks up my spine and across my limbs until it breaks every bone and muscle in my body—I’m sure of it.
I knew it.
I knew that once this happened between us, she’d ruin me for everyone else. I knew she’d break me in a way that meant that she would be the only person who could ever put me back together.
I was fucking right.
“Rowan,” she cries, her body coiling tight and her pussy pulsing around me.
Everything in my body keeps tightening—keeps breaking. “Fuck, Nat…”
“Yes,” she sighs. “Harder.”
I grit and clench my teeth, my hands holding her as tight as I can. I try to relent, loosen my grip before I bruise her, but her eyes snap to mine over her shoulder with her mouth parted and she nods. My hands naturally tighten again from the pleasure that is about to tear me apart.
I bend and kiss the curve of her spine before I groan. “I’m coming, sweetheart.”
Her reply is a moan as her back bows further and her thrusts against me come faster and harder, pulling my pleasure out of me—enough to set me aflame as it takes over every cell and nerve, leaving my body a sweaty, trembling mess.
I wish I could say that we shouldn’t have done this, that I regret it, because I know I’m only putting myself through pain.
“God,” I pant, my skin damp and strands of hair stuck at my temple, as my hips jerk into her. I remain buried inside of her, rocking slowly while holding her hips flush against mine until I think I might have actually died.
I pull back slowly, hating that this might be the end and not a beginning for us. I pull out of her with a groan, dying to have her again already. And again and again and again.
Natalia’s body falls lax onto her stomach, her head turned on the pillow with her curls fanning out to the other side.
The view of her smooth, bare back and the curves from up here is indescribable.
The shadows of the night outline the most goddamn beautiful features I’ve ever seen.
Her breaths come heavy between her swollen parted lips, and I try to catch myself—to calm my heart—but with her, it’s an impossible task.
There has never been a time in this life where my heart didn’t beat for her.
“Shit,” she pants, and I take care of the condom, tying then tossing it into the bin in the corner.
With my fingers, I push my hair back out of my face and drop beside her body, catching my breath. The ceiling fan is still, the breeze is whistling just outside the windows, and it’s me and her breathing together, in the dark.
Too scared to say her name, I turn onto my side and my eyes roam her perfect skin.
What is she doing to me?
Breaking me apart.
Fearlessly, I reach out and brush my finger tips down the length of her spine. The quiet moan she releases is breathy, more of a sigh, as I continue. There comes a moment when I think she might be sleeping but I keep going, using the excuse to touch her.
I don’t think she wants me to pull her in, cuddle and hold her, but this will be enough for me. Or maybe not, because I reach out until my lips touch the soft skin of her shoulder, pressing gently before I let my forehead rest on the warm skin, my fingers still moving.
“Hmm,” she moans and her shoulders roll as far as they can in her position. She sounds as though she’s waking up from a cat nap, still very unaware of her surroundings and readjusting. “Rowan?”
“I’m here, sweetheart.”
“Oh, I—I, um,” she stammers and pushes up with her hands, shifting until she’s seated with her legs hanging off the edge of the bed.
I try to sit up with her, touch her, but she’s too quick.
Natalia is on her feet, still naked, and frantically pushing her hair behind her ears as she eyes the floor, searching for her clothes. “Damn it,” she hisses quietly.
“Natalia—”
“I can’t find my underwear,” she groans and picks up her corset.
I blink, trying to make sense of what we’d just done and what’s going to happen next. With anxious, shaky hands, I push one of them through my hair and tug. “W-Where are you going?”
“Home,” she mumbles, pulling on her skirt. “This didn’t happen.”
I frown. “It happened—”
“Stop it.” Natalia groans. “This didn’t happen. We’re drunk.”
I force myself to smirk. “We didn’t drink.”
“Shut the fuck up, Rowan! Christ!” Natalia rushes to put on her corset, leaving it half open before she flees away. “Can’t you see I’m trying to make myself feel better?”
“No, because I don’t think you have to,” I say. A frown tugs at my lips as I watch her dress. I should have guessed she would run away. “You can stay.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Natalia—”
“Look, Rowan.” Nat sighs. “This…I don’t know what that was or what this is but—”
“We had sex, Natalia.”
“I know that!” She groans dramatically. “Look, I…I can’t…”
“You can’t…?”
“I have to go,” she breathes. “Binx has been alone for too long and she’s needy.” Another groan, louder this time. “God, where the fuck is my underwear?”
“Nat—”
“What?” she snaps and checks beneath the bed. “Got it.”
Coming to terms with the way she’s trying to run away, and trying not to let my heart break, I search for my own clothes. Natalia moves quickly, pulling up her panties and her skirt, leaving her shredded stockings on my floor as she stomps away.
“Natalia, we can talk about this like adults,” I say, pulling on my underwear and running after her. “Nat, please.”
“I can’t.” I hear her sniff quietly and pull open my apartment door. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Natalia.” My hand slams against the door above her head and I close it. Her shoulders sag and her head hangs between them. They shake the tiniest bit and I can hear the sound of faint choking coming from her. “Natalia, we can talk about it.”
Please, let’s talk about it.
“It was just sex,” she rasps, her voice more hoarse and raspy than usual.
Not to me.
“Okay,” I mutter. “Then it was just sex. But what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Mind your fucking business, Rowan,” she snaps quietly but her body contradicts her words as her forehead thuds against the door.
“Natalia…” I take a breath and a step, her body’s warmth radiating off against my bare chest. “Do you regret it?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice trembles and I think I hear a crack, loud in my ears—the sound coming from my chest
With my other hand, I hold her hip lightly for merely two seconds before she swats it away. “Don’t do that.” Her head is shaking frantically so I move to cradle her face in my hands. “Rowan, don’t. You’re making a mistake.”
“I’m not making a mistake.”
“You are,” she mutters and steps back, out of my hold. My hands fall, empty. Vacant. “I’m—”
“Nat—”
“I’m leaving,” she says. “Move.”
“No,” I press again. “You don’t have your car and I’m not letting you call a cab. I’ll drive you.”
“Don’t be awkward about it—”
“Nothing about it is awkward,” I say. “Why are you running away?”
Natalia groans. “Because we had sex, Rowan! So, now, I leave.”
I blink down at her, her cheeks flushed and curls a frizzy mane around her head. “That’s how sex works?”
“When it’s casual, usually.”
“So…it’s just sex.” I break a little.
“Yes, Rowan,” she states her painful truth. “It’s just sex. We…It was once, right?”
No. “Sure.”
She nods, accepting my agreement. “Great.”
“Good.”
“Good,” she echoes.
“Great.” I sigh. “But I’m driving you back.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Fine,” she groans with an eye roll.
I grab a simple pair of sweats and a black hoodie, throwing it all on in record time before Natalia makes a run for it. By the time I’m grabbing my keys from the floor, she’s already out the door, speed-walking toward my SUV.
She doesn’t give me the chance to open the door for her. Instead, she hops into her seat, buckles herself in, and curls toward the window—all before I can lock the door behind me.
I wish I knew what I could do to make her not run away from me. Maybe it felt like just sex during it, but it definitely didn’t feel that way before or after. And it certainly doesn’t feel that way right now. It feels like I’d lay my life on the line for her.
But I’m still stuck chasing a girl who keeps running away.
How do I get her to understand that she’s safe here? How do I get her to see that, with me, she doesn’t ever have to hide?
As soon as I’m in the car, I press the button to start the engine and turn up the heat, adjusting all of the ventilators toward her body. I sit back and wait with hope that she’ll turn and face me—that she’ll look at me and tell me she doesn’t regret it. But she doesn’t.
I put the car in reverse and back out of the driveway before I begin the ten-minute drive to Lana and Christian’s.
Those ten minutes are silent. Tortuous. Her eyes never leave from wherever they are staring out the window, and not once does she turn her head.
Every so often I look over, assessing her expressions to find something.
But Natalia has officially shut down. She’s gone for the rest of the night, and my chances of getting her to come back to me now are slim.
I press slowly down on the brake, pulling up behind her car and parking. I sigh and turn off the car. Natalia is still silent beside me, her body angled away from mine and her eyes still stuck out the window. Unmoving. Unnerving.
Sighing, I rub my face. “Natalia—”
“I’m fine,” she rasps and quickly unbuckles her seat belt. The metal clacks against the door as it slips back up and the door opens wide as Natalia mutters, “See you whenever.”
“Nat, just wait—Damn it.” She doesn’t listen—never does—and gets out of my car. She practically tip-toes to her car, even barefoot, holding her thick, bright pink pumps in her hand as she crosses over to the driver’s side.
My fingers fumble with my buckle, the strap holding me back and suffocating me each time I try to lean forward. By the time I get the buckle undone, she’s opening her car door. Heart racing, I hop out the car, leaving the door wide open, and run to her.
I grab the driver’s side door and hold it open. “Sweetheart, wait. Please.”
“Please don’t do that,” she rasps, her back to me and her head low. “Don’t do that to me.”
“I’m sorry,” I say immediately, even though I have no idea what I’m doing. “Natalia, can you talk to me?”
“It was sex, Rowan,” she croaks, her voice cracking. “Please.”
Maybe she feels she really needs this to be just sex, but I really need this to be more. “What if—”
“You can’t finish that sentence.” Her exhale is a shudder. “Don’t finish that sentence.”
“Fine,” I whisper, my ribs feeling too tight around my organs. “But will you at least turn around and look at me.”
“No.” Natalia sniffs. “Thank you for driving me back.”
“Natalia, please talk to me, sweetheart, you’re breaking my heart,” I rasp, my own voice breaking now too.
“My own too,” she whispers, and I know it was meant only for her, but hearing it is like a stab between my fourth and fifth ribs.
“Nat…” I breathe and take a step. “Don’t push me away after what happened, please. It happened and I don’t regret it.”
“Not yet,” Natalia says and swings a leg to sit in the black leather seat. “Goodnight, Rowan.”
My only option left is to step back from the car and let her speed off, down the road. And I’m left here, alone, dying to chase her again. Until the ends of the earth.