Chapter 23 #2
The realization crashed over me with the force of revelation. I am not his anymore. I am free. Then my sobs intensified, wracking my body with violent tremors.
My hands reached for Rowan instinctively, and he wrapped me in his arms without hesitation. He pulled me against his chest, one hand cradling the back of my head while the other pressed against my spine, holding me together while I fell apart.
He whispered words of affirmation I wasn’t sure I believed, his voice a low rumble against my ear. “You are loved. You are safe. You are with me.”
He nuzzled into my hair as the wails began in earnest—animal sounds I didn’t recognize as coming from my own throat, grief so profound it had no language.
I was empty, pouring years of rage and frustration and shame and terror into him. My fists pounded against his chest, beating against solid muscle, needing to hit something, to hurt something the way I’d been hurt. He merely held me tighter, absorbing every blow without flinching.
“You are strength,” he whispered into my hair. “You are fire, Violet. You may have broken, but you are the metal that has been reforged in flame. You are the weapon you have become now.”
The words shouldn’t have helped. Shouldn’t have penetrated the storm of grief consuming me.
But they did.
I drowned in memory and present simultaneously—smelling the warehouse’s mildew and Rowan’s pine scent, feeling Edward’s hands and Rowan’s gentle hold, hearing my own screams and Rowan’s steady heartbeat against my ear.
I was drowning, and Rowan was my anchor. He led me both into the deep abyss of my endless sea of pain and simultaneously towards the light of salvation, refusing to let me drown alone in either.
I didn’t know when it began—couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment—but the truth of it crashed into me in relentless waves.
I had always felt safe with him. Even when I’d antagonized him, pushed his buttons, dared him to retaliate—I’d never once feared his response. He was my pillar, holding me with unwavering strength and those icy eyes that always seemed to see straight through every defense I’d constructed.
“Rowan.” I gasped his name, searching for something—air, grounding, him.
I clutched at his shirt, my skin suddenly on fire again. But this wasn’t the drug-induced fever from last night. This was something else entirely.
“Rowan, I need. . .” I struggled to articulate what was happening, my body responding to his proximity, his scent, the safety of his arms with a desire that felt overwhelming.
He tightened his embrace, one hand stroking down my spine in soothing repetition. “Shh, volchok. I am here. Whatever you need, you only need to ask.”
The endearment slipped out so naturally, as if he’d been calling me that for years.
The fire surged through me, hot and unrelenting. I began to shake, but not from grief this time. The agony of emotional pain was being replaced by wildfire, desire coursing through my veins like molten metal.
It should feel wrong. I’d just confessed the horror of my previous life, sobbed in his arms like a broken child. My eyes were swollen, my face blotchy, my nose running.
And yet.
He’d accepted me. Accepted the impossible nature of my rebirth without question, already familiar with Levi and Charlie’s situation.
He’d led me through my breakdown with a calm, steady presence.
He was everything I’d lacked in my other life—patience where Edward had been cruel, gentleness where I’d known only violence, choice where I’d had none.
I craved him the way the earth craved spring after endless winter, the way life and death danced in their eternal cycle. The world had been twisting and turning towards this moment of acceptance and absolutes, and I was done fighting it.
I shoved hard against his chest, expecting resistance.
To my surprise, he let me push him back against the headboard. His eyes were dark, pupils blown wide, and I recognized that look—wildfire to match my own.
We stared at each other, the silence pregnant with implications neither of us was willing to voice first. I trailed my gaze down from his blown pupils to his lips, watching his mouth with rapt fascination. My tongue darted out to wet my own lips, and I watched his eyes track the movement.
I wanted to taste him. Needed to.
He must have felt it radiating from me because he started to protest, his voice carrying a low warning. “Violet. . .”
Don’t. Don’t ruin this with logic or reason or regret we might feel later.
I silenced him with a searing kiss.
He groaned into my mouth, his hands immediately moving up to tangle in my hair.
I felt it then—the truth of us. We were an inferno together, unstoppable and consuming.
Tongues and lips clashing, teeth scraping, neither of us holding back.
We were fire and ice attempting to devour each other, each trying to melt or freeze the other in equal measures of passion that felt dangerously close to worship.
I grabbed his shirt and pulled him over me, wrapping my legs around his waist. He made an approving sound deep in his chest as I felt the hard length of him press against my core through the thin fabric of his sweats.
It was glorious. Sinful. Not nearly enough.
I couldn’t get enough of him—his taste (mint and something darker), his scent (pine and clean male musk), the solid weight of him settling between my thighs.
“We should talk more—” He tried to inject reason into the chaos, pulling back enough to search my face.
“Fuck now, talk later.” I gripped the hem of his shirt and lifted it off him, raking my nails down his firm torso.
He was beautiful. I loved the way his muscles rippled underneath my fingertips, the way his abs contracted when I scraped across them, the small sharp intake of breath when my nails found his nipples.
“Violet.” His voice came out strangled, somewhere between a plea and a warning. “Your body is reacting from opening up and sharing your trauma with me. That combined with last night—”
I nibbled his jaw. “Don’t fucking psychoanalyze me right now, Rowan. I want you.”
His breath hitched. “I will not last long after last night. We should not do this when you have been so upset. There is more we should discuss—”
I bit into his shoulder, my teeth sinking into the junction where his neck met muscle. His body quivered, and he went silent.
When did I gain so much power over him?
The realization was intoxicating, headier than any drug. He showed me his desire freely, without restraint or shame, and I wanted to bathe in it.
“I am choosing this, Rowan.” I released his shoulder, admiring the perfect impression of my teeth in his skin. “I want you to fuck me.”
I felt him shudder, his whole body trembling against mine. “Nyet, wait, Violet. I might—”
I reached down and cupped him through his sweats, enjoying how hard and thick he felt against my palm. His cock jumped at the contact, and I couldn’t suppress my smile.
“I want your cock in me, filling me to the brim.” I stroked him slowly, feeling him throb and thicken. “I want to feel your balls slap against me while you—”
He shuddered again, more violently this time, and I felt moisture gather near his head, soaking through the fabric.
I looked down, then back up at him, surprised and delighted. “Did you just—?”
“Fuck.” He glared down at me, but there was no real anger in it. “Now you have done it.”
His infuriating smirk played at his lips despite the flush staining his cheeks, despite the small sheen of sweat gathering at his temple.
“Did you?” I asked again, wanting to hear him say it.
He let out a low laugh that I felt vibrate through his chest and into mine.
“I challenge any man not to after spending an entire night with you, followed by you whispering filthy things in their ear while gripping their cock.” He shuddered again, his eyes closing briefly.
“It has been hell and bliss in equal measure.”
I couldn’t help the way my body responded—nipples going tight and aching, the throb between my legs blooming into a need I couldn’t control. “Can we keep going?”
“Of course.” His eyes opened, darker now, pupils eclipsing the pale blue-gray. “Though I might need to tie you down to keep you reigned in. You are fucking dangerous.”
My breath caught. “Does that upset you?”
“You are perfect, Violet.”
My heart clenched at the words, at the raw honesty in his voice. I squeezed him once more through the damp fabric of his sweats, eliciting another groan that shot straight to my core.
Addicting. This is addicting.
“Then tie me up, Rowan.”
The look he gave me was enough to bring me to my knees had I not already been laying beneath him. Heat and hunger and something that looked dangerously like devotion.
“Violet, I do not think that is wise.” But the desire burning in his eyes contradicted his words, uncoiling a part of me I’d thought had died with my previous body.
“I trust you.” The confession tumbled out in a rushed frenzy, desperate and honest. “I want you to. I need you, Rowan.”
His gaze traveled down my body slowly, deliberately, leaving my mouth dry and my pulse thundering. My nipples peaked beneath his gaze, and I watched his tongue dart out to wet his lips.
He wanted me. The evidence was written across every line of his body, every labored breath, every minute tremor in his hands.
I can’t get enough of that look.
“Please.” I begged, past pride or shame. “I’ll be good. I’ll listen to every command.”
His breath shuddered out of him, and he closed his eyes like he was in pain. “Fuck, Violet. If we do this, you really cannot act up. You will need to trust me completely.”
I slid my hands along his torso, torturously slow, mapping every ridge of muscle and plane of skin until my hands wrapped around the back of his head. His hair was silk between my fingers, finer than it looked.
“Violet—” he started, the warning lacing his tone.