Chapter 29
can i have this?
Hannah
Rowan clings to my hand with a death grip as he weaves us through the parking lot.
Something in his demeanor shifted after his interaction with Micah and his mother. Like every wall he’d built suddenly collapsed into rubble.
“Rowan,” I pant, breathless from trying to match his long strides. “Slow down.”
He doesn’t reply. Just takes the bear from my hands and hauls me over his shoulder in one fell swoop.
“Wow! Neanderthal much?” I shout at his backside. “At least the view is nice.”
I land one sharp slap to his left cheek. He grunts, locks his free hand around my ankle, and launches my foot in the air until I’m fully vertical. I yelp in protest. Poor guy never sees it coming when I grab his ass by two handfuls to keep from sliding down his back.
And, I can confirm, he is all muscle back there.
Without dropping the stuffed animal or slowing his pace, he maneuvers me back into a fireman’s carry like I weigh nothing.
He rounds the hood of the truck and pulls out his keys to manually unlock the passenger door. I get an upside-down look as he swings it open on a loud screech, tosses the bear in the cab, and slams it back shut.
Contrary to the breakneck speed he maintained to get us here, Rowan lowers me to the ground slowly, ensuring my feet are steady before he eases back.
The blood has barely had a chance to drain from my head to the rest of my extremities before he’s in my space with a fire in his eyes that says he’s about two seconds from breaking.
“You know you’re safe with me, right?” he grumbles, as if the words physically pain him.
“Of course. I know.”
He sweeps the damp hair off my face and brackets his palms over my jaw. “And if you tell me to stop, I’ll stop. I swear to God, Hannah, you’ll never have to say that word twice. Not with me.”
I suck in a breath, grab his waist like a lifeline.
His forehead drops to mine, rich blue eyes piercing through me so sharply I don’t misread a thing. “Tell me you know that.”
My hushed reply floats out on a breath to land on his. “I know.”
His throat bobs, eyes dipping to my mouth. “Good.”
Then his lips crash down on mine.
My sigh of satisfaction is swallowed up by the sudden, fervent press of his mouth, his grunt of approval when I meet his pressure with my own.
His calloused hands hold my face, the tips of his fingers toying with my hair, the sensation so feather soft, so at odds with the intensity of the kiss, I’m instantly drunk on the feel of it.
He glides his tongue across the seam of my lips, and I angle my head to let him in.
I grip the back of his neck, lifting on my toes to get closer. My other palm rests over his heart, fingers clawing at his wet shirt like I might be able to break through cotton and skin and bone until I’m holding the best part of him in my hand. Like I might get to keep it.
Heads turning, tongues seeking, teeth nipping, we don’t come up for air before opening wide and diving in again.
He doesn’t press me against the truck, because Rowan—even this feral, desperate version of him—is always aware, always cautious of the needs of others.
I may not crave the press of cold metal on my back, but I do want more.
I try to show him as much by snaking a full arm around his neck and pulling him down to meet me.
My fingers tug at the ends of his hair, causing his hat to shift.
I tear it off and throw it in the truck bed.
He smiles against my mouth, dips low, braces a forearm around the back of my thighs as he hoists me up and moves us to the rear of the truck. The tailgate drops with a loud thunk. Our lips never lose connection as he sets me on the edge.
My legs open and Rowan settles in the cradle of my thighs.
The chill in the night air and our damp clothes are no match for the hot frenzy of hands and tongues carving out paths of heat over my body. It’s fast and slow, frantic but with nowhere else to be.
I inhale the groans that rumble up the back of his throat and he swallows my moans like they’re his oxygen.
The melding of our mouths is uncharted territory, but it feels familiar. Like I was born knowing the curve of his lips, the feel of his skin under my palms, the taste of his breath in my lungs, and it’s taken me twenty-eight years to find my way back home.
He grips the back of my knee, and I hitch my leg around his waist.
Rowan’s touch brands me only in the places already exposed for him, never pushing the boundaries or demanding access. Even though the ache between my legs demands friction, and I know he’s hard beneath his jeans, simply kissing him is perfect.
It’s everything.
Our lips give and take, slowing to a lazy rhythm then speeding up again, neither of us ready to let it end. Only when the parking lot begins to buzz with people chattering and engines vibrating around us do we stop.
Rowan doesn’t pull back though. He wraps me in a hug and crushes me hard against him.
I don’t know how long we stay like this. Long enough for the lot to clear and our breathing to fall into sync.
When he loosens his hold, his palms lower to the metal truck bed on either side of my hips as he pulls his head back to meet my gaze. He looks at me through hazy, low-lidded eyes.
I see the conflict staring back at me, before he even gives life to the words.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he says, voice strained.
“Because you’re leaving soon?” He nods and I take a deep breath. “And saying goodbye would hurt even more the second time?” The words are as much a confession as they are a question. I can’t be the only one feeling this.
The corners of his eyes pinch. “It already hurts.”
Our gazes drop simultaneously to the hands in my lap. His fingers come to toy with mine, mindlessly burrowing and looping until they’re fully intertwined.
“If circumstances were different,” he starts. “If I didn’t have to leave, what would you want?” My throat shrinks. He answers his own question before I can. “Cause I’d want you.”
“I’d want you, too.” The admission is easy but devastating. Our situation hasn’t changed and it’s not going to. Not anytime soon, at least.
Yet, he’s here now. Even if it’s undefined and comes with an expiration date, why can’t we enjoy it while we have it?
A defeated sigh escapes his lips. “I don’t know what’s gonna happen with my mom or how long it’ll take. And your entire world is here with your mom and your job. You deserve promises that I can’t make.”
I lift a hand to his cheek, urge his eyes to mine. “I know and I understand.” This round of crappy timing and even crappier circumstances isn’t his fault. It’s nobody’s fault.
“What I feel for you scares the shit out of me.”
“I’m scared too.”
“I wanna be selfish and keep you for myself these next two weeks.”
I offer a weak smile. “Then keep me.”
His grin is reluctant and a little sad. “But what about after?”
My mouth falls open and my heart spills out onto the grass. I don’t know what comes after.
“I don’t do casual,” he goes on. “It’s not the guy I am, and it’s especially not the guy I wanna be when it comes to you. You deserve better than a summer fling, Hannah. I wanna be the man who promises you the moon, and it kills me that I can’t give it to you.”
Heart on his sleeve, he holds my gaze in a stare that’s so painfully earnest it leaves me speechless. Fling sounds cheap and meaningless and a terrible word for what I feel for him. And I have zero experience with casual relationships.
“You’re right. You can’t promise me the moon.” I settle a palm over his chest, the steady thump of his heartbeat pulsing beneath it. “But what about this? For two weeks, can I have this?”
He moves in, bringing our foreheads together. “Baby, that already belongs to you.”