Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Rowan
By the time we pulled into the garage, my body was screaming for Chance’s. I was pretty sure it had nothing to do with pregnancy hormones and everything to do with feeling his body against me for the past hour. His solid, hard body.
It went beyond knowing he was turned on…
so far beyond that. I was beginning to suspect that, approximately three months ago when I’d landed somewhat randomly in Dragonfly Lake, decided on a whim to go to a New Year’s Eve party, and said yes to the handsome stranger who’d asked me to dance, the universe had thrown me right in the path of the man who might be perfect for me.
We climbed out of the SUV without speaking, both of us apparently lost in our thoughts. Between Everly’s music that resonated in my heart and Chance’s closeness, I was buzzing with contentment.
When I’d moved into his house, I’d planned to stay in my room most of the time, out of the way. I’d never intended to spend a lot of time with him or get to know him better. He’d been welcoming from the start though, including me in everything.
The better I knew Chance, the more I liked him. Whether we were cooking, working, or reading or watching a show together, living with him was comfortable. No, it was more than comfortable. I loved being with him.
Caring for my grandmother, I’d become such an island, a total loner.
Of course she’d been there with me, but sadly she wasn’t really there.
Not the Gram I knew and loved. I’d figured out how to be alone with my thoughts, my fears, my decisions, because that’s what she’d needed of me.
I’d made it through. But life was so much better when you had someone.
Of course, I didn’t have Chance.
But damn did I ever want him.
At least for tonight. Maybe more.
Probably more.
I’d been searching for Everly’s music on a streaming service on my phone during the short drive home. Once I was in the kitchen, I set my phone on the counter and pushed Play while I helped myself to a glass of water. I hadn’t heard this song, called “Clear-Hearted,” before tonight.
When Everly had introduced it, she’d said the lyrics had flowed out of her in less than an hour one day and that they came from her heart and her life. The mellow song was about her future unfurling in a good way, about life feeling right at long last, as her path became clear and meaningful.
Knowing what little I did about her personally—that she was head over heels in love with her husband, Seth, and they were visibly expecting their first baby—it made perfect sense to me.
I felt the song in my soul. Not necessarily about Chance, because who knew where we would end up, but about my pregnancy and this town and the people I was getting to know. I was starting to feel like I might be right where I belonged.
As I set the glass down after drinking half of it, Chance came up beside me at the counter.
The only light on was the one over the table, which we’d left on a dim setting while we were gone.
When he peered down at me in the low light, extended his hand, and said, “May I have this dance?” my insides melted.
I smiled up at him and took his hand. Our bodies met as we wound our arms around each other and found the slow rhythm.
As we swayed together, he trailed his hands below my waist, over my butt.
He pulled me even closer, letting me feel his hardness at my core, telling me the drive home hadn’t cooled him down either.
With hot need instantly pulsing through my body, I lifted my gaze to his.
Our lips met at once, and it was as if the wind caught a spark and blew it into an inferno in a flash.
As if both of us had been wanting this all night, thinking about it, imagining it throughout the concert and the drive home, and now that we were home, alone, we could finally get our hands and mouths on each other.
“God, Rowan,” he said between frenetic kisses, his hands all over me.
“I know.”
I kissed him with all the pent-up need that’d been building for weeks, grasping the back of his head, not about to let him get away from me.
Chance slipped his hands under my shirt and ran them over my skin, kneading me, caressing me as if he couldn’t get enough.
“I want you,” he said as he angled us against the cabinets and pressed his body into me.
“Same,” I managed as his fingers brushed across my oversensitive nipple. Even with the bra material between us, his touch made me want to climb him.
He pulled his head back from mine and made eye contact, both of us breathing hard. “Is this okay?” he asked. “I mean, with your pregnancy?”
“Yes.” I cradled his handsome cheek in my palm.
“Thank fuck.”
He brought his mouth to mine again, and we kissed like we were starving for each other, our tongues twisting and tangling, teeth hitting, breaths stuttering together.
“Where’s Sam?” I finally thought to ask, pulling away enough to listen and ensure she wasn’t in the basement.
“Exactly where she said she’d be. At Kinsley’s. I checked on the way inside.”
I was happy to hear that on multiple levels.
“We should take this upstairs though,” he said, reading my thoughts. “Since she has a history of not staying put.”
“Right. I think she’s in a different place, so to speak, but it’s better to be safe.”
Chance took both my hands in his and wove our fingers together by our hips, our bodies still touching. “You’re…okay with this?”
If we went up those stairs together, we’d be changing the rules.
I was more than okay with it.
I stretched up, kissed him, and whispered, “Let’s go.”
He tugged me behind him and flipped the light off as he hurried for the stairs, not that I needed tugging. I loved the feel of his hand though, his larger, stronger fingers surrounding mine.
At the top of the stairs, he didn’t hesitate. He took a right and led me into his bedroom. Once he’d shut the door behind us, he turned on the lamp on his nightstand as I pulled my tunic-style shirt over my head.
“I’ve regretted not seeing you last time,” he said as he came toward me.
“I don’t quite look the same as I did on New Year’s Eve.” I touched my belly. He probably couldn’t tell the difference, but I could, especially when I tried to wear jeans. I’d opted for leggings tonight because they stretched over my extra curves.
“You look beautiful.” He busied himself unbuttoning his shirt, but his eyes didn’t leave my body as I kicked off my boots and peeled my leggings down my legs.
I shoved my socks off with them, then stood in nothing but my lavender lace bra and underwear. They matched and were nearly new thanks to my boobs getting bigger and requiring me to go shopping.
“Gorgeous,” Chance said, closing the space between us.
He’d unbuttoned his jeans and removed his shoes, looking delectable with his fit, solid upper body bared, a line of hair trailing down his muscled abdomen and disappearing beneath his jeans.
Instead of taking off the rest of his clothes, he ran his hands over me, down my back, over my butt, to my upper thighs, up again.
He stepped back enough to peer at my belly and caressed it.
Just a single reverent brush of his hand over my admittedly small, not-really-showing-yet belly.
Before I could let the tenderness of that gesture sink in, he palmed my breast with one hand and reached behind me to unfasten my bra with the other. I shrugged it to the floor.
My nipples were so sensitive that just his breath fluttering over one of them made me gasp and arch closer to his mouth. When he closed his lips over the tip, I felt a tight, hollow pull at my core.
“Chance,” I gasped out.
“Mm-hmm?”
“Get your clothes off.”
“How about you get them off for me?”
He’d barely gotten the words out before I slid my hands down the inside back of his jeans and underwear, over his perfect butt, taking both layers of fabric down at once. He growled and moved to the edge of the bed, then lowered himself to the mattress, yanking his pants the rest of the way off.
As I stepped between his knees, he slid my panties down my legs, his gaze at the apex of my thighs making me burn lava-hot as I stepped out of them.
He grasped my butt with both hands, kneading my cheeks as he roved his gaze upward and made eye contact.
“If anything doesn’t feel right,” he said as I straddled him, my knees on either side of his hips, his dick teasing me, “we stop.”
“The only thing that doesn’t feel right is that you’re not inside me.”
“You better do something about that then,” he said with a sexy smirk.
He palmed my breast and brought it to his mouth. The way he flicked his tongue over my nipple drew a gasp from me and intensified the hollow, needful ache between my legs.
“Condom?” I managed to ask.
He met my eyes with a grin. “So you don’t get pregnant?” He swirled his tongue around the very tip of my nipple. “I’m clean.”
“Me too,” I said as I wrapped my hand around his shaft and lined him up with my entrance. In the next breath, I joined our bodies, impaling myself, letting out a slow moan at the delicious sensation.
Chance’s head fell back, a look of ecstasy on his face that gave me the last bit of confidence I needed.
I ground my hips into him, watching his lust-heavy eyes, learning what he liked most, with the single goal of making him lose control.
His hands were all over me, his talented fingers making it hard for me to keep my gaze locked on him.
I’d never had a man look me in the eyes as we made love.
The depth of the connection I felt with him was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
I sought out his mouth, wanting to taste him again, craving the feel of his hungry lips locking with mine, devouring me.
When he angled his body up and thrust harder into me, palming my butt with both hands, I threw my head back at the exquisite feel of his onslaught.
My attempts to make him lose control were backfiring.
I couldn’t think straight and stopped trying, merely holding on and riding him like a crazed, insatiable woman.
“Take what you need,” he said in a sexy, growly command. “Come for me, Rowan.”
I shifted my legs to cross them behind his back, our bodies moving as one to a frantic, escalating rhythm. He banded one arm around me, holding me tightly, and pinched and teased my nipple with his other hand.
My orgasm came on like a runaway truck out of nowhere, barreling over me, drawing sounds and words out of me that I had no control over. I didn’t care. All I cared about was the sheer ecstasy that overtook me.
“Fuck, Rowan,” he gritted out, arching higher, clinging tighter, thrusting harder a final time as he found his release.
With our bodies locked together, both of us momentarily wringing out every blissful second, it was as if there was a crack in the time continuum, and this moment was all that existed.
Several heartbeats later, our bodies went lax, and together we collapsed onto the bed, with me sprawling gracelessly on top of him. My heart pounded as I remembered how to breathe, and my body reluctantly eased back toward functioning.
I became aware of Chance’s arms wrapped tightly around me, as if he wouldn’t let me go. I melted into his body, breathed him in as my senses came online again.
“Are you doing okay?” he eventually whispered in my ear.
“Very okay,” I answered drowsily.
“No pain or anything?”
I kissed his rough jaw as I realized he was worried about the pregnancy. “Everything’s good. Pregnant people do that all the time.”
“I know.” He brushed my hair back. “Just making sure.”
As my body came down from stupendously good sex, I shivered.
“Cold?” Chance asked.
“Starting to be.”
He shifted and pulled the covers back, and I crawled under them.
“Be right back,” he said, then kissed me and went to the master bathroom. As sated and boneless as I felt, I made a point of watching him walk away so I could admire his naked body.
I growled lazily and said, “Ten.”
He paused at the door to the bathroom and turned back to me with a confused expression.
“That ass,” I said, too boneless to point. “Ten.”
He laughed as he closed the door between us.
I snuggled into the blankets, a dopey smile on my face, thinking it wasn’t just his backside. The whole man was a solid ten in my book.