Chapter 29
ROWE
She doesn’t get the chance.
Of all the things I’ve done in my life, trapping Tilly in my bed while we talk like grown fucking people is the easiest. Her glare doesn’t scare me, nor does the promise of whatever she’s planning on saying in a desperate attempt to piss me off.
I’ve been weathering this woman’s storms from a young age and have more than enough experience to know better than to let her pull back right now.
The moment I let her slip away, I’ll lose this moment, with no promise of seeing it again.
“You were my best friend,” she says, spitting it like she hates that fact when I know that isn’t true.
“Yeah, I was. And I knew my letters were selfish. Getting closer and closer to you was a fucking cruel, selfish act, Tilly. I don’t know what either of us were thinking growing a friendship through letters sent every few weeks.
It wasn’t going to do either of us any good, but I still couldn’t stop.
I clung to you while I was locked up, and I got too fucking reliant on hearing from you.
The only reason I didn’t lose my mind was because I kept reminding myself that any day I’d get a letter from you, and that once I did, everything would be okay again. ”
The palm she’s had rubbing my sternum presses harder into me, anger flickering to life in her gaze.
“And you think that it was any different for me? I grew dependent on seeing my name scrawled on an envelope, clinging to the writing inside. As long as you kept sending them to me, it didn’t matter how miserable I was.
Nothing about our friendship was healthy, but I didn’t care.
We gained a closeness in those few months sending letters that we hadn’t in the last ten years prior. ”
“I didn’t believe you. That last letter you sent was the reality check I’d been unknowingly begging for.
Your red pen was smudged, but I still made out the words you wrote, and they scared the shit out of me.
If you need a reason for why I said what I did to you in my last letter, this is it.
I knew that we’d gotten so tied up in our desperation to feel normal again that we’d become this .
. . intertwined, co-dependent being. Whatever you were feeling then, I hadn’t let myself believe it to be the truth.
And even if I would have, I can’t promise you that I wouldn’t have done the same thing. We had to stop.”
“So, you hurt me instead.”
I don’t hide from the truth of her statement. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I did.”
“Are you going to tell me the truth now?”
“There isn’t a truth that will fix what happened,” I say, trying to keep my voice soft despite the growing unease in my chest. “I shouldn’t have been as cruel as I was. But I don’t take back what I told about us not being more than friends. That’s the last thing we needed to happen then.”
She exhales softly, some of the tension leaking from her expression. I shift my hand to cover hers, softly guiding it away from where she’s attempted to shove it straight into my chest cavity.
“It would have been so fucking stupid,” she mutters in frustrated agreement. “I don’t know what I thought would have happened. I’d come for conjugal visits once a month, and we’d live happily ever after?”
“That doesn’t change that I hurt you. I was a careless motherfucker.”
“Can we be done talking about this now?”
I grunt a laugh. “You gonna keep holding that fucking letter against me if I say yes?”
“Are you going to keep holding my marriage over me?”
“Those two things aren’t equal.” My mouth morphs into a scowl.
She digs her tongue into her cheek and narrows her eyes. I tighten my hold on her wrist, daring her to shove me again.
“For someone who didn’t love me back then, you sure do hold a grudge for me moving on,” she smarts.
“Is it a love declaration you’re after here, hellcat?”
In a flash, she’s got me splayed on my back and her hair raining down over my face.
I grow still beneath the sudden change of her body pinning mine and hold her electric gaze.
Her palms move flush to my pecs and press just hard enough to keep me in place.
The move wouldn’t do shit if I truly wanted out from beneath her, but I’m content right here.
She can play my body like a fucking fiddle if that’ll keep her on top of me.
“I’m not foolish enough to expect that again. I’m just curious why you’re so bothered that I got married. What exactly about it pissed you off the most?”
“Just because I didn’t believe you when you told me how you felt doesn’t mean that I hadn’t wanted it to be true.
Like I said, our contact was fucking selfish.
And I’m far from a selfless man, then and now.
I may have thought you were lying, but that didn’t mean I wanted to find out years later that you’d moved on to someone else not all that long after we stopped speaking and you took off.
You fucking married him, and all that did was prove to me that I’d been right to begin with.
Yeah, that pissed me off. It ruined any dream I’d had of getting out and finding you outside waiting for me,” I explain, my voice tight, restricted.
There’s too much honesty in the words. It’s like ripping an old wound open, already knowing that it’ll never heal the same a second time around.
“Regardless of what I said and how I never got another letter from you, I wanted you waiting for me more than I wanted to see anyone else. But then Ash told me where you were, and I was too fucked up inside to think logically about anything, let alone you. I took your absence and the reason for it as one of your petty fits of payback and spent the next decade hating you for it.”
“It’s not nice to call women petty.”
My rebuttal gets caught in my throat when she drops her head and kisses me.
Her fingers splay out over my chest before curling into my shirt and yanking both sides in opposite directions.
I groan into her mouth when I feel the buttons give and the heat of her body hit my bare skin.
Her touch is calloused as it drifts beneath the split fabric and over every inch of my torso.
“You can take as long as you need to get over Ethan, Rowe. Just don’t take longer than I did. We both know I don’t share your attention well.”
The thinly veiled threat makes my cock hard.
She laughs against my lips when I take her head in my hands and pull her closer. Carding my fingers through her hair, I drag my mouth across her cheek and down to the thumping pulse in her throat. That beautiful laugh dips into a moan so soft it’s almost a sigh.
“You’ve never shared my attention with anyone. Not now, not then,” I rasp.
“Liar. My brother got more of it for way too long.”
I rub my beard against her soft skin, marking it up. “That was different.”
“Didn’t feel like it to me.”
“You jealous, hellcat?”
She leans her jaw against where I’m kissing her, squishing my face until I’m forced to pull back. I smirk, tugging at her nape in punishment.
“Was that a trick question?” she asks slyly.
“Jealous and possessive, then.”
She touches me more daringly. My jeans are still open from earlier, and she wastes no time in reaching inside my briefs. I lock my jaw at the feel of her small hand wrapping around me, stroking just once.
Her eyelids fall to half-mast. “From how hard you are, I’d say you like it.”
“You’ve got no fucking idea.”
“Show me, then,” she taunts, swiping her thumb over where I’m leaking for her.
I watch in awe as she brings the slick digit up to her lips and pushes it between them. A shredded groan escapes me. I fit my hands with her ass, jerking her up my body, away from my cock. She squeaks, reaching for the headboard behind me for balance.
Lust races through my veins, and I sink into the feeling. I move quickly and eagerly as I swat her bare ass and take her lips again. She presses back into my hold and sucks my tongue into her mouth, meeting me touch for touch, kiss for kiss.
“Flip over,” I bark, already guiding her. “You want me to prove it, then sit on my fucking face and let me.”
Her eyes flare, the green darkening as she nods and obeys, suddenly a lot less argumentative. I flip her shirt up and swat her ass one final time before pulling her onto my mouth. There’s not a single fucking thought in my mind that doesn’t involve her and this still-swollen pussy.
“Oh shit,” she moans, pressing against my tongue when I glide it up her slit.
I don’t have to tell her what to do next.
Without taking my jeans off, she pulls my dick out and fills her mouth with it.
My first instinct is to thrust into the wet heat, but I hold back, busying myself with not letting a drop of arousal slip down my chin and go to waste.
She bucks against my lips, not hesitating to take her pleasure despite the intimate position.
I throb in her mouth, the confidence she has in spades affecting me more than it probably should.
Tilly hums softly around my shaft, sending the vibrations down to my balls. I take her waist into my hand and grip her ass with the other, forcing her further back and onto my tongue as I spear it inside of her.
We’re moving fast. The reminder is there like a warning in the back of my head, pleading with me to slow down. I move my tongue quicker inside of her as if that’ll make it go away. It’s an annoying prick amongst the pleasure erupting in my middle.
Tilly squeezes my thigh and cries out around my cock so loudly that the annoying voice disappears completely. I let myself go and finally thrust up into her mouth. She gags at the intrusion but strokes me faster, the suction of her lips increasing.
Her cunt soaks my beard as I shift to lash at her clit. She quivers against me, and I know she’s close. The words don’t escape her while I’ve got her choking on my dick, but I don’t need them. Doubt I ever fucking did when I know this woman the way I do.
Whether it was a decade ago or today, she’s still the same person deep down. Everything I learn about her in the present solidifies that.
Her nails cut into my thighs, the pain blooming at the same time I spit a string of unintelligible words into her pussy and snap my hips. She spasms against my tongue, her thighs clenching tight against the sides of my face as I spray cum across the back of her throat.
Silence falls. She rises off my dick, and I hold her hips while she lifts off my face. I keep her beneath my stare as she climbs off my body and collapses on the bed beside me.
“Three in one night is a record for me,” she says.
I scoff a laugh and tuck an arm beneath my head, continuing to watch her. “Could try for a fourth if you want.”
“Not a chance.”
“Come back up here, then,” I demand softly.
“Rowe Carrigan wants to cuddle?”
“Fuck off. That’s what we’ve been doing this whole time. Don’t act like it’s a surprise now.”
She winks and comes to lie at my side. “Maybe I just wanted to hear you say it.”
Taking in how far she is from me, I scowl and haul her onto my body. And for once, there isn’t a single tease or dig that falls from her mouth at the way I hold her like I’m scared she’s going to disappear.
Because yeah, that’s exactly what I am. And from the way she clings to me just as tightly, I’d say she’s fearing the same thing.