Chapter 18
eighteen
Finn
My throat is dry and my stomach is in knots, but I don’t know what I expected.
Rosie was always going to return to her world and leave me behind, and I’m proud that she’s gathered enough strength to do it, but beneath that is panic.
How do I know she’ll be safe on her own? How am I supposed to live without her?
I clear my throat, but keeping my voice even takes effort. “There’s still the problem of the guy from New Orleans. We don’t know where he is or if he’s planning something.”
Rosie drops her head to one side. “And we may never know,” she says gently.
“Yeah.” I look at our hands, noting the smooth softness of hers against the rough texture of mine. She doesn’t belong here. We both know it even if neither of us wants to say it. “Maybe.”
Rosie lifts her chin, shaking off the gloom of our conversation. “But we don’t need to talk about that now, and I can delay long enough to meet your family. Game nights for me growing up were only ever playing gin rummy with my grandmother. Yours sound a lot more, uh… energetic?”
I snort. “They’re pretty low-key, but yeah, they’re kind of fun.”
“So… can we go?”
She bounces with enthusiasm, which means it’s impossible to disappoint her. I shake my head, adoration tugging at my mouth, as I swipe to open my phone and return Dylan’s call.
“Put it on speaker,” she whispers as she squirms against me, and I can’t quite believe she’s this invested in a night with my siblings.
I hit the microphone icon, and the sound of an outgoing call reverberates around the cabin.
“Bro,” Dylan says on the other end of the line. “I was twelve hours away from doing a welfare check. Everything all right?”
I cast a look toward Rosie to make sure she knows Dylan’s joking, but her brow creases. In the background of the call, the noises of a commercial kitchen fade as Dylan moves to a quieter location at our family restaurant, The Hill at Silver Leaf Ranch.
“Sorry about that,” I reply. “I’ve, uh… I’ve been busy.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s going on?”
“I relaid Dad’s flagstone path down to the river dock,” I tell him.
“It took two weeks? Man. You should have said something. I’d have come down there to help out.”
“Nah. I had it under control.”
“Charlie mentioned you’ve been focused on your own projects and made us promise to give you a few days to yourself, but Izzy’s planning another family night. Are you up for it?”
I throw a cautious look at Rosie, a warning that this is her final chance to back out. She digs her fingers into my bicep, nodding as she tries to shake a reply out of me.
“Yeah. Of course, bro. Wouldn’t miss it, but…”
“But?”
“But I’m going to bring someone. You think Izzy will be all right with that?”
There’s a beat of silence that lasts a little too long, and I share a puzzled look with Rosie.
“You still there?” I ask.
Dylan laughs. “Fuck, yeah. You got yourself a girl? About time.”
The back of my neck grows hot as, beside me, Rosie covers her mouth to stifle a giggle.
“How old are you, little brother?” I ask dryly.
Dylan hoots again. “Young enough to know our sisters are going to flip out over this. Does your date know she’s the first girl you’ve ever brought home?”
Rosie grows still at my side.
“Just set an extra place at the table, okay?” I say into the phone.
“Sure, sure.” The grin on Dylan’s face is obvious in his voice. “Can’t wait to meet the first woman who finally made it through your front door.”
“Great,” I say. “That’s awesome.”
My voice is flat, a knee-jerk defense to my brother’s good-natured ribbing, but there’s more to it than that.
He’s right. I’ve never been serious with anyone.
Not as a teenager. Not when I was home between deployments.
Not in the year and more since I’ve been discharged.
Sex is simple. I’m good at sex. Relationships are complicated and I don’t do complicated.
But the thought of Rosie sitting at my family’s table, the one where my mom and dad served their kids breakfast every morning and dinner every night, fills me with a rising kind of satisfaction and joy, but also grief and sorrow.
I swallow down a confused swirl of emotions for all the things I can’t share with my parents.
The things I don’t have and will never have. The things I want but can’t keep.
I can’t look at Rosie in case she reads the torment in my eyes, and from his restaurant all the way on the other side of Silver Leaf, Dylan’s got no idea what he’s just stirred up.
“Oh, and the theme for this month is tacos and tunes,” Dylan tosses out as an afterthought.
“So let me know if your girlfriend has any dietary restrictions. Poppy rented a karaoke machine, and Izzy asked if you could bring your guitar. She’s been practicing that damn trumpet morning and night so she can perform with you.
Heads up: her tune of choice is ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb.’” He pauses, then adds, “I think.”
“Noted,” I reply. “And not a problem. See you tomorrow.”
As soon as I end the call, I spin to Rosie to offer her an out. “I’ll tell them you’re sick. We’re sick. We got food poisoning or something.”
She laughs lightly. “That’s so not necessary. Let’s do karaoke. It’ll be fun.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and take a deep breath, imagining Rosie with a ratty rented microphone in my parents’ old house singing along to a static “Total Eclipse of the Heart” backing track while my siblings play it really uncool.
“You do not have to sing in my family’s old living room,” I say.
Rosie takes my hand and gently pulls it from my face. “I’m the first girl you’ve brought home, huh?”
I play dumb. “You heard that?”
She drops her head to the side. “Yes, I heard it, but if you don’t want to talk about it, we don’t have to.”
Rosie brushes my lips with a quick kiss, then collects our bowls and takes them to the kitchen sink. I watch her walk away, flannel shirt fluttering around her thighs, smooth calves lithe and lean, and her hair a natural tangle of curls.
I’m still watching when she gets to the foot of the ladder, ready to ascend for bed, and pauses with her hand on a rung. I drag my eyes up her body, and she’s watching me with a smile that confirms she can read my mind.
“About our sleeping arrangements, Mr. Morals. I’m wondering, after what we did this afternoon, if we can forget this whole sleeping-on-the-couch thing?”
I launch myself over the back of the couch, smooth enough to barely disturb my sleeping Labrador, and I’m across the room in half a dozen strides.
I loop my arms around her waist. “Hell, yeah, we can do that.”
After a kiss that makes her moan, I follow her up the ladder.
My bedroom is cloaked in shadow and tinted with the moon glow seeping through the windows, and soon we’re naked under the covers, Rosie with her head on my chest. She cranes her neck to kiss me, breasts pressed against my side, hips nudging mine, our legs tangled beneath the sheets.
I’m hard and ready to go when she whispers against my chest.
“Can we stay like this for a while?” She reaches down to stroke my rock-hard dick, and I drop my head back with a groan. “I know that probably isn’t what you had in mind for tonight, but I feel so happy and so safe right now. In my whole life, I’ve never gone to sleep feeling like this.”
She slips her hand up my stomach, tucks it between her cheek and my pec, and watches me closely for an answer. I tighten my arm around her body and kiss her again. Softly. A silent promise to be the man she needs tonight, whoever and whatever that might be.
“We can do that,” I tell her, and we do. We sleep twisted around each other without waking once. All night long.
I wake up with a soft, slender hand on my abs, temptingly close to my morning hard-on. I turn my head toward the blonde, rose-petal scented locks fanned out over my shoulder and inhale deeply, moaning and flexing my thighs as that same hand flutters lower.
I push the covers down over my hips, exposing Rosie’s naked form beside me and her hand edging closer to my dick.
“You have the most perfect…” She sighs and kisses my chest, then looks up at me. “Can I touch it?”
I lift my hips and nudge her hovering fingers with the crown. “You can do whatever you want with me, Songbird.”
Her fingers are cool as she wraps them around my shaft, and my breath hisses between my teeth.
“You’re so hard.” Rosie strokes me from root to tip with a featherlight touch that’s too much and not enough all at the same time. “And… big.”
I grunt and resist the instinct to thrust up into her hand. There’s a divine torture in lying perfectly still and letting her explore me. Her admiration does things to me, and my dick swells as my arousal heightens.
Rosie responds with a light squeeze that makes me close my eyes, and when her thumb glides over my slit, it takes a bead of precum with it.
She spreads the moisture over the head of my dick in soft swirls, and I watch as she lifts her wet thumb to her lips.
Her pleased hum when the taste of me hits her tongue pulls at my fraying self-control, and her mouth curves up with satisfaction.
“The other day, when you made yourself come in that chair over there?” She waits for my pained nod of understanding. “That was the first time in my life I wanted to kneel for a man.”
I moan and shift my hips in a silent plea for her to put her hand on me again. She obliges, keeping her touch light and gentle as she drags her palm to the base of my dick then slips her fingers underneath to cup my balls. Her fingers dance over me before she gives them an almost rough tug.
“Fuck, Songbird.” My words come out through gritted teeth, and the hand I slide into her pillow-mussed hair grips the strands with more force than I intended. Her eyes grow bright at the brief tension on her scalp. “You’re going to kill me.”
Her mouth quirks again, like she enjoys having power over me. “I’ve never fantasized about a… a cock before,” she says.