Chapter 13
Rowan
Idon’t think there’s a limit to the things I would do to put a smile on her face. To see those freckles shine like stars because her happiness is so utterly unbridled that it pours out of her in any way it possibly can.
She glows.
She’s bright and light and the only thing I see in the dark.
I want everything and nothing from her. And I want her to have all the same from me.
I could tell her that, I know. I just…haven’t.
We were only seventeen when I first realized I had real feelings for her, and it was right before she was admitted into a psychiatric unit.
Then I visited her and I obviously couldn’t confess my feelings in those circumstances.
Not when she was healing and I was still broken.
But she was the only person who made me feel like I wasn’t.
The only person that made me think maybe life wasn’t so terrible.
Eventually, she was discharged and even then it wasn’t the right time. We were friends. We were all still in school and figuring ourselves out. I began to lose hope and think she would always be the right person at the wrong time. The one that got away from me.
Then she started dating that jackass Adrian who belittled her and disrespected her every chance he got.
That fucking twat always told her what and how to eat.
To get over her mental illness because it was just for attention.
That her scars were ugly and needed to be covered up if she didn’t want to embarrass him.
I swear I could have killed him.
And now…Well, now I don’t know. I just want to give her everything. I want to love her loudly.
I put the car in park after backing into a perfect spot in the dark, where there is no glare or reflections and the film will be played clearly.
I change the channel on the radio to find the movie, listening to the commercials and trailers playing before the movie starts as Natalia is still silent beside me, hugging her coat over her chest.
“Natalia?”
Her head snaps toward me, her eyes finding mine instantly. “Hmm?”
“Are you okay?” I unbuckle my seatbelt and turn up the heat.
“Oh, um, yeah,” she murmurs, fidgeting with her nails. “Just…a bit cold, I guess.”
I nod and rake my fingers through my hair, my heart unable to settle. It isn’t awkward—it shouldn’t be. This is nerves. Anxiety about what might happen next and where we go from here. I don’t know how to begin to ask her about it.
“Nat—”
“Ro—” She giggles, the smile reaching her eyes. “Sorry, go ahead.”
I huff a quiet laugh. “I was just going to ask if you’re warm enough, or if you’re still cold.”
She nods, pressing her lips together with a smile. “I’m good now. Thank you.”
I nod too. “Okay. Okay, good.”
“I’m sorry,” Nat blurts. “I’m just… I feel…”
“Anxious? Nervous?”
An insecure, shy shrug from her.
“Me too,” I assure her. “But nothing has changed for me. I want you to know that. I’m still…”
“I know,” she breathes. “Me too. I just thought…that was it for us. That maybe we wouldn’t really be good friends anymore.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Sometimes sex ruins the friendship.”
“Do you think it ruined ours?” I ask just as the opening song begins with Danny and Sandy on a beach.
“Did it?”
“Not for me, sweetheart,” I say, low and deep. Nothing could ever change the way I feel about you.
“Oh,” she mutters and adjusts her position so she’s sitting upright. It takes longer than I’d like for her to say something else but when she does she whispers, “Me either.”
“We’re still good friends, Natalia,” I say.
“Good friends who are in a relationship in front of my dads.” She chuckles.
“That too.” I laugh softly. “They still don’t know?”
She shakes her head. “Haven’t had the heart to tell them. They seem…less worried now that they think I’m happy and in love.”
“Are you?” I ask. She blinks, her brows pinching together, wrinkling her forehead. “Happy, I mean.”
Her expression softens after my clarification. “You ask me that a lot.”
“I worry about you a lot,” I say. “And I want you to be happy, Natalia.”
Her eyes soften, still giving me the barely-there, close-lipped smile. “I know. But I’m happy enough.”
“Natalia…”
“I’m good, Rowan,” she says with an unconvincing smile, her teeth grazing over her lips. “I’m good.”
She isn’t, but tonight isn’t the night to push it. I only want to be here with her, buy her snacks and watch a movie while having the privilege of being in her vicinity.
“You know I’d do anything for you, right?” I say.
The way she’s looking at me… “I know,” she breathes. “Thank you.”
I count how many breaths she takes as she stares at me, and I stare back through all of them—nearly ten breaths. Anymore than that I’m a ruined man. Okay, a man more ruined.
“Should we, um” —I clear my throat— “go to the back and put the seats down to watch the movie now?”
“It started?”
“Yeah.”
Natalia nods, her eyes searching mine and her beautiful face glowing with something ethereal. “Yeah, okay. Do you have a blanket?”
“Of course I do.”
I kick off my shoes and climb over to the back, grunting from the struggle and earning a giggle from Natalia. “Help.”
She laughs. “How?”
I wince when my head hits the roof of the car and my bent leg cramps. “Push me, I’m stuck.”
“Well, you’re a giant.” She pushes her hands against my back to launch me forward with a hard, loud laugh. “You should know better than to climb in a car smaller than you.”
“I bought this car specifically because it was big.”
“Not big enough.”
I laugh and fall into the back seat. The song of our laughter overpowers the music coming through the cars speakers as the movie plays from behind us.
I shift to lower one side of the back seat before I do the other, then I unravel the blankets as far as they can go and set out two smaller pillows I brought from home as Natalia joins me in the now-flat back seat.
I grab a pillow to put against the side of the car and lean against it. Natalia remains seated with her legs criss-crossed and eyes looking out the rear window. Flashes of color bounce across her face as she watches the movie, and I just watch her.
How anyone can take their eyes off of her, I don’t know.
“You’re staring,” she whispers only seconds before she turns to me. “Why are you staring?”
“I can’t look at you?”
“Not like that.”
“Says who?” My brow arches.
“Me,” Natalia says, breathless. Her eyes turn into something fiery and sultry, taking a siren shape that is pulling me, a poor sailor, down to his death. Her full, plump lips part with a shaky breath and she leans forward.
“Natalia,” I breathe, my body leaning forward to mirror her actions. “Sweetheart…”
“Yeah?”
She inches forward; I inch forward. Her eyes fall to my lips, my eyes fall to hers.
“I’m going to kiss you,” I warn and leave only an inch between us. I tuck her curls behind her ears and cup her cheeks. “Tell me now—tell me if you want me to stop.”
Natalia swallows and her eyes flutter closed. “Are we sure we should do this again?”
“Are we sure that we shouldn’t?”
Natalia shakes her head and her fingers delve into my hair. “No. I’m not.”
“Do you regret it?” I ask again because I’m a masochist and if she says yes then I’ll break right here.
Natalia pulls back, her fingers in my hair, reminding me I’m human, and slowly shakes her head. “No.”
“Will you regret it?”
“No,” she breathes.
For that answer alone, I kiss her the way I’ve been dreaming about. It’s slow. It’s gentle. And even though she tugs hard at my hair to urge me on, I don’t. My lips mold with hers and move effortlessly, and when my tongue slides against hers she lets out a breathy sigh.
Natalia pulls back only an inch to breathe, “Rowan.”
Then her lips are back against mine. Her kisses are tranquil, forgiving, merciful—all of it.
I pull her over me to straddle my thighs as I peel off her shirt and she nearly rips apart my sweater, bonking her head on the roof in the process but remaining unphased by it.
I unclip her bra, and it gets lost somewhere, but I can’t think of anything other than getting her naked and worshipping every inch of her skin.
My hands roam, coaxing breathy moans and whimpers from her as I flick my thumbs over her nipples, cup her breasts, grasp her ass, lick at her skin. It’s happening too quickly and I need to get as much as I possibly can but I need it to slow down so I can get even more.
“W-We need ground rules,” Natalia breathes just before biting into her lip and grinding her hips down. I suck her nipple and her mouth falls open with a hitched breath that transforms into a breathy moan.
“Like what?”
“Well…” She inhales sharply when I drag my teeth across her nipples. “We shouldn’t be having sex in public.”
“We’re in my car,” I mumble against her breasts, taking my time to lick and suck and bite.
“Rowan,” she groans, her nimble fingers reaching between us for my pants. “It’s public.”
“It’s the drive-in,” I say. “Everyone hooks up at the drive-in.”
“It’s still public.”
“Fuck it.” I hold her with an arm around her to turn our bodies until she’s on her back. I kiss up her body, worshipping every inch the way I’ve been desperate to do for years.
“Oh fuck,” she moans and tries her best to push my pants and boxers off my hips. “Don’t st-stop.”
I stop and hold myself over her, shoving my pants and underwear off my body. “What rules?”
“No…Um.” I nip at her neck and follow a similar path down her skin as she whispers, “No sleepovers. No s-s-strings. Only each other unless the other…” She moans when I trail my tongue across her chest. “Comm—Fuck—Communication. Rowan.”
“I’ve got you,” I whisper and kiss my path down her body again, removing her jeans. “Lift your hips for me, sweetheart.”
“Hmm,” she whimpers and does as I say, allowing me to peel them off her with her panties in one go. “Rowan.”