Chapter 17 #2
“I wanted this, Rowan. I wanted this.” Juniper’s confession was a rushed, whispered mess; careless about how those simple words gave away everything she’d held inside.
“I know.”
Rowan feathered kisses over Juniper’s temple, her cheeks, the corner of her lips, then the fullness of them.
She pushed her tongue into Juniper’s mouth as she continued to move her fingers in and out, curling them upward the more Juniper relaxed beneath her.
Then she leaned her forehead against Juniper’s shoulder and threaded the fingers of her free hand into Juniper’s and drew their joined hands up beside Juniper’s face.
Juniper slid her other hand around the back of Rowan’s head and wove her fingers through Rowan’s hair.
“Please don’t stop, please don’t stop.” Juniper’s words and sounds blended together into barely intelligible expressions.
Rowan squeezed Juniper’s hand and looked up at her again. “I won’t. I’m right here.”
Juniper heard: You’re safe. You’re with me now. I have you.
And like Rowan was reading her mind, she whispered, “Let yourself feel it, Juniper. I love you.”
Juniper came, gasping, clutching, breathing erratically as the force of everything that the last fifteen years had held and hadn’t held released itself like a torrent.
Juniper felt the saltwater well at the edge of her eyes.
She pressed them closed and let it spill.
She let it all go. And now it all felt so good.
It spilled in unbroken lines down her temples, mixing in with her hair, the sand, the cool water lapping against the edges of her body.
She was one with the land and with the water. And with Rowan.
Juniper clung to her neck, and they collapsed into each other, breathless.
Rowan rolled onto her back and pulled Juniper into her arms. Juniper immediately intertwined her top leg between Rowan’s.
Being touched by Rowan had been more than she could have ever imagined, and now she couldn’t imagine ever letting go.
As they lay there for what could have been minutes or hours for all Juniper cared, she let the warmth of the sun envelop her face as she lost herself in the sun’s glow through her eyelids.
The shadows of the trees overhead contrasted vibrantly against the fiery reds and warm golds of her eyelids. She had never felt more content.
The sun’s glow seeped in through the cracks in her lashes, and she smiled as she opened her eyes fully to see Rowan leaning back over her. She giggled at how close she was to her face. Rowan leaned over Juniper’s face and charted the freckles on her nose and cheeks with tiny kisses.
“I love it, don’t stop, but what are you doing?”
“Kissing your freckles.”
Juniper full on belly laughed and Rowan joined in.
“You’re laughing, but I know you secretly like it.”
Juniper smirked. “You can worship me any time, any place, Birdsong.”
Juniper began running her hands possessively over the rippled muscles in Rowan’s back, down the curved indent over her spine. She hooked her ankles around the backs of Rowan’s thighs and pulled her in even closer.
“I think I get it, Junie,” she chuckled, slid her forearms under Juniper’s shoulders, and settled her weight more directly over Juniper’s body.
“Don’t stop telling me nice things.”
“Hmm,” Rowan hummed contemplatively then nodded. “Okay. Do you want to know the first time I thought you were beautiful?”
“You’ve always thought I was beautiful.”
“Junie,” Rowan chided through a teasing sigh, smiling widely at the playful glimmer in Juniper’s eyes, “the first time I thought you were so beautiful I suspected I might have a crush on you.”
“Oh, yes, mhm.”
“When Wren was doing your hair for prom. This probably sounds crazy because she’s your cousin, but I was so jealous she got to, I don’t know, touch you. I wanted to be the one running my hands through your hair.”
“You wanted to do my hair?” Juniper asked incredulously.
“That would have been absolutely tragic. No, I wanted to make you feel beautiful. That was supposed to be my job, to show you how beautiful I thought you were. And I wanted to be your date.”
“Times are different now. You could be my date if we were in high school again now.” Juniper softened. “Is that why you refused to go?”
“Yes and no.”
“What was the ‘no’ reason?”
“I had made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t let anyone force me into a dress again.” Juniper noticed how Rowan quickly steered the conversation back. “I didn’t realize how lost I already was for you until the whole Jason thing.”
Juniper laughed. “You were so bashful when you admitted that to me. I still remember you couldn’t even look at me. You kept looking at your feet.”
“To be fair, it was also so I wouldn’t keep looking at your boobs. You tormented me all summer long with your bikinis, and you knew it.”
“You were like, respectfully horny for me.”
“So fucking respectfully horny for you. Not much has changed.”
“I’m still mad at you though.”
A brief moment of worry flickered through Rowan’s eyes. “Why?”
“You were supposed to be my first, asshole.”
“I did fuck that up. You know what I won’t fuck up?”
“What?”
“Being your last.”
Juniper groaned, even though the thought of Rowan staying with her forever was exactly what she wanted. “You’re so corny.”
“Again, you secretly love it.”
Juniper sighed. “I do.”
“You are everything,” Rowan murmured into the kiss she placed on Juniper’s temple.
Juniper angled her face toward Rowan’s again and ran her fingertips over her lips. “I want you to kiss me forever.”
“That’s exactly what I plan to do.”
Juniper’s fingers softly traced the lines of Rowan’s collarbone, the slight curve of her breast, and landed on the tattoo on her ribcage.
“And love me forever?” Juniper blushed at her own question and turned her face to the side.
Rowan cupped her face and turned it back so their eyes could meet. “Yes. That too.”
They laid that way for a while, basking in the sunlight while letting the water cool off their hot skin as it ebbed and flowed around them.
Eventually Juniper allowed Rowan to roll back onto the sand, but she wrapped herself around her body again anyway.
Each occasionally noticed something in their environment and called the other’s attention to it, like a heron flying above or the feathery shapes of the clouds.
When they were finally ready to get up, only when they were physically unable to lay their thirty-three year old bodies on the unforgiving beach anymore, they waded back into the water to rinse all of the sand off of each other.
They almost got caught up in another round, but they quickly got dressed at the realization that Rowan had an entire house with lots of much softer surfaces to explore.
Before they got back in the boat, Rowan’s arms wrapped tightly around her, binding themselves together for what Juniper hoped would be forever.
She settled into her body, and they swayed back and forth, kicking up water from the coastline as they did.
She wanted this to be the one true love story of her life — after all, it always had been.