Chapter 46
memories on a loop
Hannah
“What time is it?” Rowan asks, voice gruff with sleep.
With the exception of the soldier currently occupying my bed, the guys didn’t stay as sober as they planned to last night. That left Bri, Rowan, and myself to drive the lot of them back to Boulder after the sun went down.
I dropped Mom at her house where Richard was waiting and met everyone else back at my place. Two pots of decaf for the guys, some homemade hot chocolate for Rowan, and several hours later, Tess, Bri, and myself called it a night, leaving the six soldiers to reminisce in my living room.
Rowan finally climbed into bed around 3 a.m. after his buddies left. His arms curled around me and he whispered a quiet, “Thank you” before I drifted off again.
I look up from where I’m sliding on my tennis shoes. He’s sprawled out on his stomach across my mattress, morning sun glowing off his bare shoulders.
“A little after seven,” I answer. “Sorry if I woke you. I have to go to work.”
He rolls to his back. “You don’t look dressed for the office.”
I tug at the hem of my T-shirt over my yoga pants. “It’s setup day for the gala, business dress not required.”
“Come here.”
Rowan pulls me down to the bed, finds my lips in a deep kiss. “Sorry my friends took over the night.”
“Don’t be. I’m glad they came.”
I nuzzle my nose over his and kiss him some more.
Outside of cuddles and practice touches, he hasn’t touched me since before the run-in with Daniel earlier this week. At times I’ve thought maybe I was ready—I really wanted to be—but then my mind would play tricks on me and I’d convince myself otherwise.
Rowan’s never once been frustrated by my indecisiveness. He’s been my calm and steady, the fixed point in a sea of variables. An anchor.
I pull back for air and he takes the opportunity to trail wet kisses over my jaw, down my neck—soft but determined.
“Rowan, I want you to touch me.”
He smiles against my ear. “Yeah?”
I nod, an ache blooming between my legs. “But your family’s all over this house.”
A hum vibrates along my cheek, he peeks over my shoulder. “Door’s closed. Can you be quiet?”
He looks at me, waiting. I shake my head slowly, wet my lips. It only encourages him. In one move, he reconfigures our bodies so my back is to his front.
“Brat,” he says, walking his fingers down my stomach. They creep under the hem of my shirt to toy with the waistband of my pants.
I arch into his touch. “Tease.”
The bed dips behind me and he shifts his hips away from mine. I know exactly what he’s doing. Which is why I reach back, look at him over my shoulder, and urge him forward.
“I wanna feel you.”
“But, baby, I’m—”
“Hard, I know. It’s okay, I promise.”
His head falls to the pillow, I give his hips another tug. He finally gives in and scoots closer so his hard length presses against the backs of my thighs. The contact twists his vocal cords into a whispered rush of air into my neck.
He’s sacrificed so much of his own pleasure for my comfort these past couple of weeks. It makes me fall for him even more—irreversibly. I may not be ready for everything right now, but I’m ready for this.
He makes a gentle thrust of his hips, a tiny taste of friction for himself through his pajama pants, and he stills again.
“I don’t want you to stop,” I assure him.
“Hannah, you don’t have to—”
I cut him off with a press of my ass into his groin. His words fumble on a reckless groan. “Sshhh. You have to be quiet,” I quip.
He growls against my jaw. “You’re a menace, sunshine. Kick off your shoes.”
They land on the floor with a thud as Rowan slides his hand into my pants.
I barely stifle a moan when his finger begins soft, idle movements through my core. My hand clutches his hip. His breath hot on my neck, temple pressed into the hair above my ear, Rowan pushes himself against me in time with the work of his fingers. I’m maddeningly close in a matter of minutes.
He sinks his middle digit inside, but pulls out just as quickly, tapping it firmly on my apex.
My body arches into him, and I whimper, biting my lip to keep from screaming. I fist the fabric of his pants. His movements quicken and my hips roll to meet him, pressing into his touch one second, grinding back into him the next.
“Come with me, baby,” I beg.
“God, say that again.”
I angle my head up at him. “Baby, please. I want you to come with me.”
His fingers curl inside, thumb circling the most sensitive part on the outside. The pleasure rackets so high, I can’t hold it in any longer.
“Rowan,” I huff, staccato and breathless. “Please, I can’t stay quiet. I don’t wanna be—”
I’m silenced by his palm over my mouth. I widen my eyes.
“It’s just you and me, baby. Trust me?”
His gaze bores into mine like he has no intention of letting me fall without being there to catch me. It’s never been a question—of course I trust him.
I blink up at him, nodding rapidly against his hand as his finger pumps in and out.
“Good girl,” he purrs.
The praise shatters something inside and my release slams into me. My head strains against his hold as I surrender to the fall. I moan through every wave of my climax, Rowan’s hand muffling the sound.
He growls out a low curse, his hips shudder. Without warning his mouth replaces his hand. He groans into a claiming kiss as his own release consumes him, until all the tremors have passed and our bodies come down from the high.
I roll over to face him fully, wishing I could stay in bed with him all day.
“I have to go to work,” I grumble between kisses. “But more of this later?”
He pinches my waist. “As many times as you want, runaway. Now you better get outta here before it happens again and I have no clean boxers left.”
I tiptoe past the closed guest bedroom door and a sleeping Dubs in the living room to get to the kitchen.
“Good morning.” Tess’ greeting from her seat at the dining table startles me, and I let out a small shriek. “Oh gosh, sorry I scared you, sweetheart.”
Shaking my head, I chuckle to myself. “All good. Can I top you off?” I ask, pointing at her half-full coffee cup.
After I fill her cup and my travel mug, I place the pot back on the counter.
Rowan saunters into the kitchen behind me, clocks his mom across the room, and flashes me a brief panicked look over what we were just up to in my bedroom.
We kept things quiet, but I think we both thought everyone was still asleep. Oops.
I give an inconspicuous shrug, hide my grin behind my coffee.
Rowan takes the seat next to his mom. “What’chu looking at?”
“I found this photo album in the garage at the lake house.”
I float around the kitchen, collecting my purse and stocking it with snacks for the long day ahead. Behind me, Rowan and Tess hum and chuckle over what they see, the old binding crackling with every turn of the page.
“You remember that summer, Ro?”
Rowan huffs. “The summer Pops made me chop all the wood for the upcoming winter. How could I forget?”
I grab a granola bar from the pantry, close the door. The page flips again.
“What were you, seventeen here?” Tess asks.
His chair creaks. “Eighteen. That was the last summer before I left for basic.”
I toss the bar into my bag and grab a banana off the counter. Tess turns the page.
“Wait,” Rowan interrupts. “Why is Nana in scrubs?”
“What do you mean? She was a nurse, she was always in scrubs.”
My movements slow as I slide the zipper closed and throw my purse over my shoulder.
“I thought she retired after Dad died.”
I give them my back to retrieve my mug from across the kitchen, feet quiet as I listen in.
“She did,” Tess confirms. “But she never stopped volunteering.”
My head angles slightly toward the table, breath seized in my lungs as I wait for Rowan’s response.
After long seconds, he finally says, “I never knew that.”
“I guess you wouldn’t. She took the summers off when you were visiting.”
Nonchalantly, I spin back to the table, my heart beating against my rib cage. Neither of them notice my approach. I step up behind Rowan, squeezing his arm as I get a look at the photo.
His hand comes up to caress mine, but he doesn’t pause the conversation with his mom. “Where?”
Tess shrugs. “Anywhere that would have her. You know that woman loved being around people. Never met a stranger.”
Time seems to pause, my gaze locked on the image of Margaret Shaw in a pair of navy-blue scrubs sitting next to her husband on the porch swing of their Boulder home.
This is the aged version of Norm I came to know—white hair, bifocals, skin aged by a lifetime of sun and manual labor—and his wife of many decades by his side.
Rowan and Tess carry on, album pages shuffling through months and years of memories, yet I’m stuck looping only one in my mind.
I paste on a smile that betrays the nerves in my belly. “Gotta go. See you guys later.”
My phone is already to my ear by the time I get in my car. I crank the engine. Staring back at my front door, I lean against the seat, knee bouncing as I wait for the call to connect.
“Pick up, pick up,” I mumble through the third ring.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Whitley, it’s Hannah James.”
“Good morning, Ms. James. Tomorrow’s the big day, we’re all very excited.”
“Yes, sir. Me too. Listen, I have another favor to ask.”
“Okay, I’ll do the best I can. Shoot.”
My stomach is a wreck and my pulse races.
“Hannah, are you there?”
I shake my head, attention still glued to my house. “Yes, sorry. I’m here. Um…that name I gave you earlier this week…” The end of my sentence gets caught in my throat, unsure how to go on.
“Yes,” he chimes in at my silence. “I’m sorry, I checked the hospital’s staff records and didn’t find a record of employment for anyone with that name.”
“Yes, I know.” A deep breath. “But would you mind checking the volunteer records?”