Chapter 25 Natalia
Natalia
It happens the way it usually does, but slower. More calculated and thoughtful. More loving…
He kisses me softly, slowly. With nudges and gentle nips, his tongue grazes mine before they dance and tangle.
It’s a dance we’ve mastered, a song we know every word to.
I know every line of his body—every curve and dip and ridge.
Every inch of him is engraved in my memory for however long this life will last me.
And if I can’t ever have him—if the universe won’t let me—the permanent memory will haunt me.
Rowan’s arms lift and hold me together the way they always do when I’m one gust of wind from falling apart. But, somehow, he is the gust of wind that comes during the pinkest sunset to chill your cheeks and remind you that you’re alive.
He tears me open, rips me apart, shreds me to dust, but only so I can be set free.
I wonder if I make him feel that way. I wish I could.
Do I?
As if he’s answering the question, he groans into my mouth and presses me into the wall after closing the door with his foot. He presses himself into me like the final piece of a puzzle and I think there is something wrong with me because now I might crumble if he ever lets me go.
“Rowan,” I say.
“Natalia,” he breathes against my skin like poems and promises as he brushes his lips down my jaw and neck.
And for my poor heart’s sake, I let Rowan have me anyway he wants tonight as the rain falls around us like an omen.
Good or bad? I don’t know. Blessing or a curse?
I suppose we’ll find out soon enough. Either way, my heart beats to the syllables of his name and if I listen close enough it’s singing it too.
Rowan, Rowan, Rowan.
“Rowan,” I moan, his lips still kissing my neck and causing my head to drop back with a thud against the wall.
“Yes. Yes,” he breathes back and takes us into my bedroom. “Fuck, Natalia.”
I whimper at the loss of him pressed so tightly against me that I want to beg him to lie on me tonight. To keep his weight on me so I can sleep soundly and safely. So I can feel loved and cared for by him even in my sleep.
His clothes come off first and fast, thanks to my frantic little nimble fingers and the ache in my core urging me on—leading the way. He’s naked, I’m naked, and his lips chase every inch of my skin but he won’t let me touch any part of his, aside from his sharp jaw and cheekbones.
Rowan touches me—god, does he touch me. His fingertips send electric waves through my veins, zapping me every so often and turning me on beyond anything I thought possible. He touches and touches and touches until it hurts. Until everything hurts.
Even when he kisses down my body, tasting every inch before his tongue is between my legs, it isn’t enough. Will it ever be enough? Rowan will always be enough but I’ll never get enough of him.
Who will I be if I can’t touch him? Who will I be if he doesn’t touch me? Will I even exist if his fingers don’t brush mine when we walk or if his lips don’t kiss my temple when he calls me his sweetheart?
I wish I could see myself the way he sees me.
I wonder what I would find. Maybe he can pull me out of my body and I can stand beside him while he points out his favorite parts of me—the things he inexplicably loves.
He could say, “Here. This is my favorite freckle. Or here, look, you see that color around your irises? You see this curl? This one is my favorite.”
Maybe then I would feel like someone special. Because if there is anyone who can make me feel it, it’s him.
Oh my god.
His tongue sends me into an abyss that is always easy to get lost in if I weren’t tethered to him with strings knotted around each other at both ends. My body writhes and trembles and breaks, and he holds me down—together. All the pieces that shatter off, he picks up and puts back together.
And no matter how many times I beg him to please, because I need him inside me, but he says no because he wants this, he loves this. So I let him continue because I love this too.
Rowan kisses up my body, chasing everything he wants from me with his lips and leaving a path of his devotion with the tip of his tongue across my skin, circling my nipples, before he finds what he’s looking for in my lips.
Refuge—that’s what I find. A place I can be and exist easily. No work required, only breathing and heartbeats that magically come at the same rhythms as his.
His lips fit with mine before he whispers, “How do you want me, sweetheart?”
“Close,” I breathe.
He falls onto his side and pulls me back against his chest, lifting my leg over his hip. Then Rowan’s inside me and our moans fall together like a sweet song.
His name slips from between my lips, forming its own song in the air around us. I kiss him the best I can, taking anything I can before I lose it all. Because I know I will—it’s inevitable with me.
Tonight feels different though. The rain falling is the only music behind our voices and silent words. And for the first time, I think I can admit I’m making love with Rowan. To Rowan.
I’m letting this man make love to me and I give him everything I have left to give.
Maybe he’ll never have to say it, and maybe I won’t either.
Who has to when it feels like this? Like you just know.
It’s a fact of the universe, one they teach you when you’re young.
A fact that is common sense and everyone should know.
I know.
He knows.
I think we are the sick, twisted epitome of what they mean when they say that words are nothing without action. Rowan Asher loves me and he behaves as such; words have never been necessary. Meanwhile, I’m the asshole with a mind just can’t let her be. And yet, he wants me.
His hips rock into mine gently even as he buries himself deep inside of me, stilling every so often to calm himself and let me feel every thick inch of him.
And it’s a holy experience all in itself. Or resurrection.
Oh, shit.
Yes, yes that is exactly what being with Rowan is. Resurrection.
He awakens parts of me I’ve spent so much time thinking were long gone—buried so deep they wasted away. But instead, he dug all of it up and poured life back into them. He’s poured life back into me.
And it scares me to admit: what if I don’t want that life? What if I can’t have the life he’s brought back to me? And what if I ruin it? Ruin him and us for good. What if it’s me that puts us in the grave before we have the chance to see where life takes us?
It’s me. It’s always going to be me that ruins things first, so it would be easier to break both of our hearts now before we both get hurt. Before loving him actually kills me.
“Natalia,” he groans in my ear and I reach to push my fingers through his hair, keeping him close. “Sweetheart.”
His lips brush along my shoulder, reverence in the touch and burning through my skin. He says my name again and all I can hear him say is how much he loves me. And I can’t unhear it now.
I can’t unhear the way he says my name like I’m his savior. Little does he know, he’s my savior. He’s my prince, my knight.
But he can still get hurt in the war.
Why me?
“Why not you, sweetheart?” Rowan whispers in my ear just before he kisses my cheek. “Why not you?”
“What?” I breathe, my head lolling back. I said it out loud?
“Always. You.” He kisses my spine.
I’m on my back and he’s between the cradle of my legs. Even in the dark, his lips find mine so easily and I begin to mindlessly wonder, if I am, what he is for me? Could I be the light in his dark tunnel?
I tell myself yes, and that’s why he finds me, every time. Without even trying.
“Always you,” Rowan says, his blue ocean eyes drowning me in everything he holds in his giant heart.
“For how long?” I rasp, letting myself sink beneath the surface.
“For however long you’ll let me,” he whispers, rolling his hips slowly and gently but pressing deeper somehow every time. “Natalia…”
“Hmm.”
My legs and arms wrap around him, the idea of not having him this close hurting, and his arms slip beneath the curve of my spine. I’m lifted as he sits back on his heels, and I’m sitting on his lap, feeling him deeper.
He holds me like I’m his to keep, my chest plastered to his as my lips brush his.
“You wanted me close?” Rowan whispers, pushing a knotted and frizzy curl behind my ear—so goddamn lovingly. I want him to do that again and again, forever.
I nod, holding his gorgeous fucking face in my hands like I’m holding the world—the entire universe, for that matter.
“I’m close,” he says quietly, his hands at my waist as he moves me on his cock with each of his upward thrusts. “I’ll always be close to you, sweetheart.”
“You promise?” I moan, undulating my hips so my clit gains the friction it aches for.
“I promise,” Rowan moans too.
It happens faster than expected—faster than I’d like. What I would love is for it to last forever, really.
His strong arm comes around my entire body and his other hand holds the back of my head just as he crashes his lips onto mine. And all I know then is, I love you.
Don’t ask my name or where I live or what year it is, because all I know are three little words.
Rowan whispers my name as an incantation, and my name will never sound the same again. No one, not even me, should ever say my name ever again. Only him—only ever him. Always.
My body trembles. I can’t see or breathe and my fingers are twisting in his hair. I don’t have time to tell him I’m coming but it doesn’t matter anyway because he jumps off the edge with me, his hand in mine.
“Natalia,” he breathes, and all I hear are those three words.
Three words that feel like freedom, but three words that terrify me the most.
I moan his name anyway, wondering how he hears those five letters. If he hears them the way I mean to say them.