Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Owen
Later, Emma is asleep against my chest. The fire snaps low in the hearth, and her breath is soft and steady. But I can’t sleep. Not yet. Not when everything I’ve ever wanted is finally curled up in my arms—naked, exhausted. Mine.
I swear if I fall asleep, I’ll wake up and she’ll be gone. Like this was all a mirage, something my starving mind conjured in the dark.
Wouldn’t be the first time. I sigh and brush my thumb over the curve of her hip, memorizing it, committing the shape of her to memory. Her skin’s still marked—faint reds and bruises on her ass, on her thighs—where I grabbed her, bit her, spanked her.
Fuck I’m hard again just thinking about it.
“You're so fucking perfect,” I whisper as she sleeps. “You're so fucking mine.”
The quiet hush of snow outside wraps around the house like a secret, and the room smells like sex—thick, warm, and spent.
Our skin sticks together where we touch, a sheen of sweat clinging between us.
Her hair’s damp and tangled across her shoulders, and I don't give a damn.
I've never seen anyone more beautiful in my entire life.
I told her to sleep. She didn’t need convincing.
Maybe we should move to the bed. Or maybe… maybe it’s perfect right here with the floor beneath us, a blanket tangled around our legs, and the soft glow of winter light sneaking in through the curtains.
She stirs, and her lashes flutter against her cheeks as her eyes slowly open. Her freckles are scattered across her nose adorably, and her warm brown eyes look sleepy and soft. That mess of brown hair? She used to call it mousy. Thought she was plain. Plain Jane, she’d say.
I thought it was perfect even then.
"Hey, you," she whispers, her voice barely audible. I smile down at her, my throat raw, and my ears ringing a little from the silence. Her fingers trail across my chest, slow and light, almost absent-minded.
"You know," she murmurs, "I think I fell asleep right there." Her lips curve into a small half smile.
I lean down and press a kiss to her temple. She shifts even closer, somehow.
"Aye, I think you did."
"Owen," she says. There’s that tiny furrow between her brows, the one I know like the back of my hand. "I didn’t really know that you were into me. I thought it was… I thought it was one-sided."
She looks away, and something in my chest tightens, pulling my ribs in like a vice. I look away, too, my jaw clenched.
"I couldn’t let you know, Emma. Could I?"
"Why not?"
"You were too fucking young. And I was already half in love with you." My voice is quiet now. "It wasn’t right. You deserved better than some obsessed older boy who couldn’t stop watching you. I knew that if I let it slip—if I said anything—then maybe… maybe I’d ruin it.
I didn’t want you to deal with the aftermath.
Not with your mom, not with my father, not your friends. No one."
She swallows hard. There’s something behind her eyes—hurt, maybe, or a memory.
"And you let me go," she says.
"Jesus, Emma." My chest aches. "Do you think I wanted to? Do you know what it was like? Watching you drive away with that fucking loser? I remember everything. The letter I wrote and never sent. The silence. The years."
She glances at me, just for a moment, and then her eyes dart away. She bites her lip—not embarrassed, just… resigned.
"I got pregnant," she whispers. “That was… why we got married.”
I go completely still.
What?
She doesn’t have any kids. I would know.
Her lip trembles, but she holds my gaze for a beat. "It felt like the right thing to do at the time. I was pregnant and not even in college yet. My mom and your dad and their old-fashioned ways…" She trails off.
I sit up straighter, every muscle pulled taut. "You were? How the hell did I not know that? How did that get past me? Was I really that fucked up in my own head that I didn’t even see it?"
Does Emma have a child?
Her voice is thinner now, breaking. "I lost the baby, Owen.” She sighs. “But by then… it was too late. We were already married."
A violent, hot fury twists in my gut. Jesus fucking Christ. I remember those wedding photos plastered all over social media. My stepmother’s smug face, dripping pearls and pride. I couldn’t eat for two weeks. Couldn’t think straight for longer.
"Your mother was thrilled," I mutter, bitterness thick as tar. "Marrying into money. Fancy new son-in-law. She didn’t have to worry about you anymore."
Emma lets out a dry, hollow laugh. "Joke’s on her. Wasn’t even his money—it was his parents’. He blew through every cent the second he got it."
She tucks herself into my side, and her voice dips low. "We lived on credit cards. Some weeks, we barely ate. The only thing that saved us was when my first book got published."
I feel the rage harden inside me, deep and unmoving.
"But we were still in debt," she adds.
"I’m gonna find that fucking bastard." My fists clench. I breathe slowly, trying to keep the storm inside.
"And to think that’s who your mother wanted you with," I say. "And she sure as hell didn’t want you with me. What would that have looked like at church, huh? With her little Bible study group? What would she have said when that news came out?"
Emma blinks up at me, something raw in her gaze.
"Of course," she says, like she’s realizing it all again. "That’s exactly it. Our parents met in the goddamn choir. Wednesday night practice. Matching casseroles on Christmas Eve. It was always about the image. Always about control. About what people would think."
"And we fell for it," I say.
"But that was then," she murmurs. "And this is now."
The fire in the hearth has died down to embers, soft and low. I rise, still naked, and wrap the blanket tighter around her.
"Come on," I say, my voice rough, thick with everything I can’t say yet. "We’re making s’mores."
She sits up slowly, blinking. "What? Are you serious? We’re still—” She gestures wildly at our naked, sweat-slicked bodies.
"Dead serious." I grin a little. "I fucking love s’mores. Don’t you?"
She shrugs, rubbing her eyes. "I mean… who doesn’t love s’mores? I just didn’t know we had that stuff."
"Well, I was the one who did the grocery shopping," I say, grinning at her.
A few minutes later, we’re sitting by the fire, marshmallows speared onto skewers, the ends blackened from the last round.
She’s naked, swaddled in a blanket that clings to her. I’ve managed to pull on my damn sweats, if only to give myself an illusion of control. We hold the marshmallows over the flames, watching them toast to a perfect golden brown. Then she loses one.
It drops straight into the fire, hissing and bursting into flame.
“Oh,” she says, giggling, her eyes wide and amused.
Without missing a beat, I hand her mine and start roasting another. Her smile is everything.
After a minute, we press the melted marshmallow between two pieces of warm chocolate and a graham cracker. The heat softens everything, melding into a sweet, sticky mess. I hold mine out to her, open.
Her eyes go half-lidded, mouth parting slightly as she leans forward. When I feed it to her, it’s hot, decadent, chaotic… kinda like her. Marshmallow drips down her chin, and I lean in and lick it off, slow and deliberate.
My cock throbs. Jesus, I want her all over again. I can’t stop the feeling that we’re on bloody borrowed time and any minute, I’ll wake up, or the world will end, or she’ll realize who I really am… and I won’t have her anymore.
“We need sleep.” I say it rough, like it might stop the tension buzzing under my skin. My thumb grazes the top of her cheek.
“Tomorrow morning,” I murmur, “we’ve got session two of unblocking the writer.”
“Oh, yeah?” she teases. She lifts my hand to her mouth and licks a swirl of chocolate from my knuckle. “What if I don’t want to write?” she whispers. “What if I just want to keep being unblocked?”
I lean in, my voice dropping to something low and dangerous because I like watching her reaction. “Then you’ll be in trouble.”
Her eyes flare at me. “What does that mean?”
I can picture it now. “It means I’ll bend you over my knee, drag your panties around your ankles, and then spank your pretty ass until you hit your word count.”
Her breath catches, and her cheeks flush.
“That might get the job done,” she says softly. “Or it could be the ultimate distraction.”
I press a kiss to her shoulder, and my cock throbs again. Can’t help it—she’s here, and I’ll never get enough.
Then something moves outside the window. It’s not the wind… It’s something else.
A sharp, violent smash that sounds like wood rattles the side of the cabin.
I’m on my feet, adrenaline surging.
Emma gasps, scrambling upright. The blanket slips down to her waist.
I grab the poker from the hearth. My muscles are tight, my heart is hammering, and every instinct in me is awake.
“Stay there,” I snap. “And wrap that fucking blanket around you.”
I stalk toward the door, half-naked and barefoot, every nerve in my body alive and ready. I don’t open it—not yet. I kill the lights, then I crack it, just an inch.
Cold air punches me in the face.
I see nothing. But whatever made that sound, it wasn’t the wind. Not a footprint in the snow as far as I can see, so it couldn’t have been a human.
“Looks like it was just an icicle,” I say over my shoulder, breathing a sigh. “Not even an animal’s tracks in the snow. I can see where it fell off the roof.”
She doesn’t look convinced. “Who’s around here, Owen?”
“No one,” I tell her. “We’re really in the middle of nowhere.”
I glance back at her, standing there in the firelight.
“Wasn’t the smartest fucking place for you to run off to, Emma.”
She shrugs. “But you’re here.”
“Yeah. I am.” I nod. “And I’m not going anywhere.”