Chapter 26 – Rowan
ROWAN
Iwasn’t going to come down to see her. I held off all night and was more than a little preoccupied by the latest development on Marie Elonaise.
It was the first thing to distract my thoughts from the blonde since I first laid eyes on her.
It was welcome, and I pored over the intel from the French government. Fingerprints. That’s it.
But Marie’s still out there. She’s still slinking around.
I leave in the morning, and I’m anxious to go.
Except I don’t want to leave Marcella. At first, I told myself that the gnawing sensation was because I don’t trust her, and I’m the only one here who knows she’s Ella and is possibly up to no good. At least she could be. I honestly don’t know.
It occurred to me that she could simply be running from something or someone—the person who did that to her back. The palace could be her safe haven from years of abuse. That’s almost how this seems. But I don’t know because she won’t tell me, and because she won’t tell me, I still don’t trust her.
Tonight she ran right past me in the hall.
I was still debating whether I was going to go to her room and had been standing outside, pacing the servants’ quarters at midnight for longer than I care to think about.
I couldn’t decide if I was going to talk myself into her room and spend my remaining hours inside of her. Holding her. Talking to her.
Or if I was going to do the sensible thing and go back upstairs to bed.
I knew I was going to do the latter. But I resisted and tried to talk myself out of it all the same. The woman has me spun up. I’m a junkie in need of a fix, and she’s the only drug I crave a taste of.
But when she ran past me, breaking before my eyes, I didn’t question myself. I followed her out into the rain. I don’t know what happened. What drove her to this moment. Why she wasn’t in her room at this late hour. I doubt she’ll tell me, but right now, I don’t care.
Her body settles, collapsing exhaustedly against the rocks. Lightning flashes, and her head quirks up, catching me as I move toward her.
“What are you doing out here?” she yells, furious that I saw her, yes, but also to be heard over the pounding rain.
“That’s my question to you.” I take another step, climbing up the rocks and mindful of my footing so I don’t slip.
“What the hell are you doing out here in the middle of a storm like this?” Screaming your head off and crying like no one is watching, I don’t add.
I climb up to the next. This is where Samil fell to his death, so it’s a bit ominous for me.
Even more so because it’s where he wanted to throw Bellamy to.
It’s likely coincidence that she picked this spot to lose herself for a bit, but still, I don’t like it.
“I…” She trails off and almost comically wipes her face. For what? So I won’t know she’s been crying? It’s pouring rain. Who cares about tears?
I reach the large boulder she’s perched on and crouch beside her. My hands cup her face, and I hold her steady, my eyes bouncing back and forth between hers. “Are you okay?”
She laughs, but there’s no humor. “I’m great. Never better.”
“Did someone hurt you?”
She pushes my hands away, ever the tough girl. “You need to stop trying to be my hero. I don’t need you to save me. Hell, I don’t even want you to try.”
I stare into her. “Is that true? That you don’t want me to try?”
She looks away. “Stop following me. It’s creepy.”
I chuckle. I can’t stop following her, even if it is creepy. She’s made me a stalker. Whether that’s due to safety concerns or my previously mentioned obsession, I don’t exactly care.
“No,” I tell her bluntly.
She goes to argue, but a whole-body tremble hits her, and she’s shaking. From the rain or from adrenaline or from her tears, I don’t know.
“Shh. I’ve got you.” I kiss her forehead and encircle my arms around her so I can tuck her body against mine. She’s cold and shivering uncontrollably despite the warm temperature. I draw her into me, shifting us both so she’s on my lap and I can hold her.
Lightning flashes overhead, and I want to get us out of here.
I take her face in my hand and lift it. I do it to gauge her reaction. To see if she’ll let me take her inside, but the look in her eyes stalls my breath, and I dip in and kiss her instead.
I expect her to push me away or tell me this can’t happen—as she always does—or possibly tell me to fuck off and mind my own business.
What I don’t expect is for her arms to wrap around my neck so she can hold me close as she kisses me back as if her life depends on it.
I grip her tighter, my head tilting, and my mouth opens.
Our tongues meet, and it’s wet and warm, and she tastes like tears and sorrow.
My heart shifts in my chest. It becomes…well, it becomes hers. I could lie and say a million other things, but I know they’d all be exactly that. A lie. My heart is hers. I’m hers.
She fists the back of my shirt and my hair, and I kiss her as I lift her off the rocks and up into my arms.
She tucks into my chest, and I kiss the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her soaked in rain.
The rocks are a motherfucker. The incline of the earth is too.
It’s slippery, and this storm is no joke.
But I don’t care. I shouldn’t be here with her.
I don’t know who or what’s compelling her.
I know it’s something. No one cries the way she was crying on their own. Someone did that to her.
She’s not here by accident.
That should have me staying a million miles away from her.
But I can’t. I just…I can’t. The scars on her back and the way she is with Bellamy and the kids and how she was losing her mind tonight.
Hers is a heavy, tormented heart. A broken heart.
But her soul is there. I know it is. She’s fighting me, but she’s not.
She wants to push me away, but she doesn’t.
She’s conflicted, and if she didn’t give a shit, that wouldn’t be the case.
I kiss her head again. “I’ve got you, baby.”
She sniffles and holds on tighter even as she says, “Don’t be good to me.”
“Marcella, I’m starting to realize that’s all I want to be. Let me be good to you. Let me take care of you. It’s okay to put your faith in me. I won’t hurt you.”
She shakes her head against me, but then we’re walking inside, and I’m still carrying her, and this palace is huge, and we’re dripping water everywhere, but so be it.
I don’t take her to her room. I want her in my bed tonight.
I’m too big to share a double bed anyway, and I want to sleep with her. Not just fuck her. I want to hold her.
We reach the third floor, and her chin tilts up as if she’s finally coming to and realizing where we are. “What are you doing?”
I smirk. “You’re mine tonight, mia stella.”
“Rowan. No.”
Except it’s too late because we’re at my suite. “This way you can smell my pillows without having to sneak around about it.”
I shut the door behind me and walk us toward my bathroom, but she wiggles, trying to get out of my arms.
“Put me down. I can’t be in here.”
I don’t put her down. I walk us into the shower and turn it on to hot. She shrieks when cold water hits her, but I press her against the wall.
“I’m not letting you go.” I take her mouth with mine, instantly splitting her lips with my tongue and tasting her once again. Her kisses are becoming something I can’t give up—just like her.
“That’s not going to be your choice.”
“It’s not going to be yours either.”
The water turns warm, and with it, she melts against me, the tension in her muscles relaxing. I toe off my ruined shoes and kick them to the corner, then remove my shirt. Hers is next, and I have to pick her up again to get her shoes and socks off.
It’s ridiculous and difficult with how wet everything is. She laughs when I struggle with her pants that are now stuck on her hips.
I growl in frustration. “This is impossible.”
“I’ve been trying to tell you that, but you don’t want to listen.”
I chew on her bottom lip. “Still don’t. Take them off. I need to be inside you.”
“And if I don’t? If I walk out of the shower and never look back?”
I spin her around and force her hands up against the shower wall, my mouth coming down to her ear. “I’ll chase you. Then I’ll spank you for running.”
I press my chest into her back and grip the sides of her pants before I yank them down her legs. I pull one foot out, then the other, until I have her naked before me.
I kiss a trail down her neck and along her back.
Her breath hitches when I kiss and lick along her scars, but I continue down to her ass.
I bite one supple cheek, followed by the other.
She yelps as I do it again, harder this time, and I smack my hand over the indent of my teeth before I trace them with my fingers.
I want to be rough with her. I want to brand myself all over her skin.
I want to fuck her so hard she feels me for days every time she moves.
She makes me savage, and I like it. I like this feeling.
This version of me. It’s one I’ve never had with anyone else before.
It’s not charming or manicured. It’s crude and unpolished.
It’s as if she’s waking me up, and now I’m the man I want to be instead of the prince the world sees.
My hand slides up her inner thigh, and I use it to spread her wider, making her take steps to accommodate me. The sweet pink of her pussy is right in front of me, and I bite her inner thighs, making her jump and move to escape me.
“My beautiful, sexy girl, you look absolutely stunning with these on your skin.” I drag my fingers along the indents of my teeth and climb back up her body. My good girl still has her arms raised, and it shocks me how one can be so defiant and anxious to submit at the same time.
It makes me so fucking hard, I have stars behind my eyes from the lack of blood flow in my brain.
I turn her back around and kiss her with an all-consuming, I can’t get close enough level of desperation.
The heat of her mouth and the way she kisses me back, filled with longing and lust, makes me tremble.
Our hands are everywhere, our mouths messy as we groan and moan and grind, wanting to fuck, needing to come.
She’s sin racing through my veins and capturing my heart.
My fingers split her pussy lips and rub her clit.
She moans, kissing me and rocking against my hand.
Before her, I never kissed much. It felt misleading and intimate when I knew the woman was only going to be a simple fuck and nothing more.
But from the night I first met her, all I want to do is kiss her.
Again and again, over and over. Any distance between us feels like too much.
She rolls up onto the balls of her feet and pushes down on my fingers, rolling her hips as she fucks against my hand. Steam surrounds us, making me dizzy and high.
“You’re so fucking wet for me.”
“Rowan.” My name is an expletive. A plea. More internal conflict.
“You can pretend you don’t want me, sweetheart, but your hungry little cunt is grinding on my fingers, desperate to get more friction so you can come.”
Her eyes clench, and she coils in, but I’m not having that. I pick her up, force her legs around my waist, and enter her. My lungs empty, and my eyes roll back. Jesus. How is it this good every fucking time? How is that even possible?
I settle into her as deep as I can go. All the fucking way until I’m practically in her womb.
“There. It’s just us. Me inside of you, you surrounding me. I’ve never wanted anything as badly as I want you. I have you, and it’s not enough. I keep needing more.”
“Rowan, please.”
I pepper her face with kisses and grip her ass, splitting her cheeks so I can really drive into her. I’m unyielding. I hold her steady and plunge in and out of her like the palace is burning around us, and this is my last chance to feel her.
Because that’s what this is like. It’s always like this. Every time with her feels like the first and last. Like I’m chasing her and will never stop because she believes she always has to run from me. It thrills and terrifies me all at once.
The piston of my hips doesn’t let up as I move into her, sinking deeper, going harder.
I groan against her lips and kiss her sloppily. Her hands hold the back of my head, fingers knotted in my hair. Her pussy spasms and clenches, her breath seizing as she gets close. I nibble and kiss her wet skin, giving her every inch of me, burying myself, pounding, my breath shaking.
Her cunt grips me, squeezing me to the point where light dances behind my eyes.
“So fucking tight, sweetheart. Fuck, your pussy is amazing.”
“More,” she pants. “Rowan, more.”
I’d do anything she asked. Fucking anything.
I work into her, hiking her thighs up higher, the slide so fucking good we’re both loud. I get us both to the end, my orgasm racing up my spine like a shot. She rides me through hers, wiggling her hips and moaning and crying out.
I slow, savoring the feel of her as the tail end of pleasure holds me.
More kisses. More touching. More breathing.
I pull out and set her down, but I don’t stop touching her. I can’t. I wash her hair and body, and she only mildly protests, but the truth is, she’s spent. Her eyes are heavy, and her muscles are lax. I dry her off and dress her in my clothes and tuck her into my bed.
“No sneaking out on me,” I whisper as I hold her tight.
She stiffens, but I simply kiss her neck and trickle my fingers along her skin until she gives up the fight and falls asleep.
A few moments later, I do too, thoughts of morning on my mind and questions about whether my Cinderella will be there this time when I wake up.