Chapter 18
Rowan
I’m holding Ed’s coat in my lap on the bench in the utility room, the first-aid kit I used for the scratch on my leg beside me as I wonder how everything could change so completely in the span of an hour. Maybe less.
It feels like it’s been days. Weeks. Years since we ventured outside to survey the damage, and even longer since he kissed me like I was his next breath.
Jason stomps in, dripping and bringing a wet gust with him, before slamming the door.
He stills, then points at the door. “That was the wind.”
“Okay.” Sure.
Seemingly satisfied that I believe he’s too much of a rational, controlled guy to do anything so temperamental as slam a door, he moves on to what I’m pretty sure is going to be a bitching out of epic proportions.
Why did he have to kiss me?
Why did he have to stop?
“Don’t know which of you is crazier,” he growls, shoving a radio I’m guessing Bruce delivered onto the counter before taking Ed’s coat from me to hang up.
“Me or Bruce? Does it have to be one of us? My money is on you.”
I’m going for cute, trying to lighten things up, but the ogre has woken… and based on that dark glare, he’s not in the mood.
“He shouldn’t have been out there. The guy is practically skin and bones. He could have sent anyone across to check on us, but no.”
“He had to see with his own eyes that you were okay.” It’s something I’m understanding more and more. Because mantrums aside, Jason Stanvic is all too easy to care about.
And kiss… when the rare opportunity presents itself.
He crouches in front of me, his muscular thighs bulging beneath his soaked jeans.
“And you.” There’s so much accusation in those two words, but it’s hard to feel guilty when he reaches for my leg, sliding a gentle, massive hand to cradle my calf as he works the heel of my boot free with the other. “You should have gotten on that damned boat with him.”
The boot slides free, and I wiggle my toes in relief as he sets it aside.
He cups my other calf in his palm. It’s the leg with the scrape, and he’s somehow even more careful this time. Pausing after the first light tug, he asks, “Is this okay?”
I nod, watching as rivulets of water run from his hair down the heavy lines of his face.
Most of the mud is gone, but the few smudges that remain only add to his rugged appeal.
“I used the antiseptic in the kit here and put a bandage on it.” I pull at the new and expanded rip in my jeans to show him.
He nods. Swallows. Gets back to work.
“The Mae Belle is harbor-locked because of the storm damage. Bruce had to borrow a boat small enough to put in from a launch a mile down just to get out here. There’s no power or phone service in at least a dozen counties, and they’re saying it could be a week or more.
” He lets out a frustrated breath, still cradling my leg.
“And if we get the storms they’re expecting through the next three days, Bruce doesn’t know when he’s going to be able to cross to us again. ”
“Harbor-locked?” I can’t even imagine what that kind of damage looks like. “Was anyone hurt?”
“Not that he mentioned. But did you hear what I said? You’re stuck out here with me.”
“Pretty sure you mean that you’re stuck here with me.”
He looks away, like maybe I’ve hit the nail on the head and he doesn’t have a way to soften the blow.
And… it hurts.
Fundamentally, I understand that Jason and I aren’t destined to be forever friends. But after last night, I guess I thought maybe we’d at least have a few days to get to know each other in the ways that weren’t possible when we were young.
And when he kissed me?
Well. I don’t know what I was thinking with that. Except that I wanted it enough that all the reasons it was a terrible idea didn’t totally register.
My second boot comes off, and he sets it beside the first. When he turns back, it’s to tell me, “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
Okay, time to address the elephant on the island.
“I figured.” The whole trying to hustle me off the island thirty seconds after his lips left mine was a pretty good indicator that he’d had second thoughts.
Even if I hadn’t.
I shrug, waving a careless hand through the space between us like I’m brushing aside a topic too trivial to occupy it. “It was the adrenaline. Getting caught up in the intensity of the moment.” I want to let him off the hook. Salvage what peace we found last night. “It wasn’t about us.”
It wasn’t about this thing I swear I keep feeling but should probably chalk up to wishful echoes from a time before my mother and I turned his life upside down.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t think it meant you wanted—” I stall out, searching the dim corners of the room for what this man could possibly want from me at all.
He didn’t ask for company.
He wasn’t looking for another friend. He brought three and had to send them away because of me.
He can’t fathom that he might actually need help packing up the cabin. And once his lawyers get involved, I truly hope that he never has to.
The only thing this man actually wanted… was for me to leave. And I refused.
Maybe that was a mistake.
Yes, I have reasons for staying… But I could have come back. Given Jason some time to himself.
Turning to him, I swallow hard at what’s in his eyes. Equal parts frustration, anger, and something else I don’t quite understand.
He leans closer, his voice going low. “Are you seriously going to look me in the eye and tell me you think I don’t want you?”
Jason
She blinks in stunned silence as I mentally berate myself for once again laying way more out on the table than I ever intended.
But no way am I going to let her lie to the both of us about what is or isn’t happening here.
“I don’t… Jason,” she whispers, slowly shaking her head. “A minute ago, yes. I could have. But now… I don’t know what you want. You said kissing me was a mistake, but if it’s not because—”
“I shouldn’t have kissed you because you’re stuck on this island with me, Rowan.
” I shouldn’t have wanted to. Shouldn’t have dreamed about it for a decade.
Absofuckinglutely should not have acted on it.
“Just like when we were stuck in my house when we were kids. I hate that I made you uncomfortable back then. And now, Jesus, you don’t have any private space here at all.
Not your own room, your own bed… hell, not even a way to get off this damned island that doesn’t involve radioing Bruce and hoping there’s a window of calm long enough that sending a boat across the water is even an option. You have no place to escape.”
“Escape?” She pushes to her feet in front of me, staring in that direct way I’ll never get used to… even if I was going to have the chance. Which I won’t.
Her brows pull together. “From you? The most overprotective guy I’ve ever known.
The boy who rescued me the night we met, made sure everyone at my school knew you were looking out for me even though I was the one making you uncomfortable in your own home…
and just threw himself into harm’s way to keep me from getting hurt. ”
I open my mouth to object, but she’s not done. “From the first day, you’ve been looking out for others… even strangers stranded at baseball fields. So honestly, I’m not sensing a significant threat here, Jason.”
I rub my neck. “Pretty girls stranded at baseball fields… not exactly noble.”
A ghost of a smile touches her lips.
“Jason, has it ever occurred to you that maybe this is my escape?”
My head comes up. She takes a slow breath and goes on.
“These last months have been a lot. Losing Ed. Navigating all the plans I’ve made for a future that isn’t going to happen… my job, the apartment I never moved into, the man I thought I’d marry.”
I don’t want to be jealous. But there is a part of me that can’t stand thinking about the life she and this doctor might have had together. I’m picturing the years they’ve already shared and wondering how the hell a guy with medical degree smarts could be so damn stupid as to let this woman go.
Oblivious to my sketchy train of thought, she looks around as the baby-fine hairs framing her face dry into perfect corkscrews. “So for me, this is a break from having to figure out how to rebuild my life from the ground up.”
I hear what she’s saying. And I get it. She’s telling me she’s ready for the peace this place offers. The break from dealing with her mother, and the life that’s waiting for her to find it once she leaves.
The last thing she needed was some asshole who’s never been able to shake his crush, putting some move on her when—
“And maybe being kissed by a gorgeous guy who lands somewhere between stranger and—” She shakes her head as I wait on the edge of my seat for her to finish that sentence.
But she just shrugs. “Maybe you are exactly the kind of escape I need.”
Holy shit.
Slow down, asshole. She said, maybe.
“But what I don’t need,” she says, something in her eyes shifting as she slow-motion pushes a finger into my sternum. “Is some overprotective”— her middle finger lands in a poke two inches higher in a push I can’t help liking just a little —“hockey boy…”
Oh, no she didn’t.
“Hockey man,” I correct pointedly, leaning into that single finger just so I can feel the pressure seeping into me and watch as her eyes flare, their focus sharpening inside the span of a single beat.
“Hockey man,” she concedes with a slow curve of her lips that feels more provocative than if she’d stripped naked in front of me.
“Who are you?” I ask before my brain catches up to stop me.
That sexy smile takes on a playful edge that’s somehow even hotter than before, underscoring the contrast and contradictions to everything I believed about her.
“Someone who doesn’t need you”— another poke —“or anyone else”— and one more —“making my decisions for me.” She hooks her index finger in the neck of my shirt, twists and— oh hell, yes —tugs me down to within an inch of her face. “Got it?”
That quiet challenge wrapped up in her defiant softness?
I’m. Done.
Catching her by the hips, I pull her in. “Got it.”
“So you want me?” she murmurs, releasing her hold on my shirt to brush my bottom lip with her thumb.
From the minute I saw her standing alone after that game nearly ten years ago. “Like my next breath, Rowan.”
I touch my tongue to the pad of her thumb and then catch it between my teeth to give it a slow lick.
Her lips part on a soft gasp and, Christ, that low rumbling growl emanating from the center of my soul couldn’t sound more possessive if I thumped my chest and grunted “Mine.”
“Gonna die if I don’t get my mouth on you again.”
She’s a scant whisper away, close enough that I can feel her breath washing over my lips and chin. She smiles again. “Better kiss me, then… Motive is a thing.”