23. Audrey
— ? —
Audrey
I wake to the smell of coffee and the unfamiliar warmth of another body beside me.
For a moment, I don’t remember where I am. The bed is too soft. The light is wrong. And there’s someone breathing against my shoulder, slow and steady, their arm draped across my waist.
Then the previous night comes flooding back.
The storm. The cliff. The truck bed and the rain and Rowan’s mouth on mine, desperate and hungry. The drive back to the rental, both of us shivering and soaked and unable to stop touching each other. Falling into my bed - my bed, not his couch - and holding on through the night.
I turn my head.
He’s awake. Watching me with those green eyes, soft in the morning light. His hair is a disaster - still damp and sticking up in every direction - and there’s a mark on his neck that I don’t remember leaving.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”
“You’re beautiful in the morning.”
“I’m a mess in the morning.”
“Same thing.” He reaches up, tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’ve missed waking up next to you.”
The words hit somewhere deep. I’ve missed it too - more than I let myself admit during all those weeks of careful distance and thin walls.
“What time is it?”
“Early. Lily’s still asleep.” His hand moves from my hair to my shoulder, tracing idle patterns on my skin. “We don’t have to get up yet.”
“Rowan-”
“I know. The texts. Maryse. All of it.” He props himself up on one elbow, looking down at me. “But right now, right here - can we have this? Just for a little while?”
I should say no. I should get up, get dressed, start preparing for the shitstorm that’s about to descend on our lives.
Instead, I reach for him.
This time is different.
Last night was desperation - two people clinging to each other in the middle of a storm, trying to find solid ground. This morning is something else entirely.
Rowan kisses me slowly, savoring it, like we have all the time in the world. His hands move over my body with a gentleness that makes my throat tight, mapping familiar territory like he’s seeing it for the first time.
“I forgot,” he murmurs against my collarbone. “How soft your skin is here.”
His lips trace down my chest, across the swell of my breast. He takes his time, kissing every inch of me, and I let myself sink into the sensation. Let myself be worshipped.
“Rowan...”
“I’m going to do this right.” He looks up at me, and there’s something fierce in his expression. “I’m going to touch every part of you and remind myself how lucky I am.”
He pulls down the sheet, exposing me to the cool morning air. I shiver, but not from cold.
“You’re staring.”
“I’m memorizing.” His hand skims down my stomach, and I feel my muscles clench in anticipation. “I want to remember exactly what you look like right now. In the morning light. In our bed.”
Our bed. The words send a thrill through me.
His fingers dip between my thighs, and I gasp. He finds me already wet - still sensitive from last night - and his touch is feather-light, teasing.
“Please-”
“We have time.” He strokes me gently, watching my face. “Let me take care of you.”
He builds me up slowly, impossibly slowly.
His fingers move in lazy circles, never quite giving me enough pressure, keeping me hovering on the edge without letting me fall. His mouth is on my neck, my breast, my stomach - everywhere and nowhere, driving me mad.
“I need-” I’m panting, hips rocking against his hand. “Rowan, I need-”
“Tell me what you need.”
“You. Inside me. Now.”
He smiles against my skin - that crooked smile that’s been undoing me since I was seventeen.
“Not yet.”
He slides down my body, settles between my thighs, and looks up at me with green eyes.
“I want to taste my wife again,” he says. “I want to feel you come on my tongue while the sun comes up. Is that okay?”
I can’t speak. I just nod.
His mouth closes over me, and I stop thinking entirely.
He takes his time.
Licking, sucking, stroking with his tongue until I’m writhing beneath him, hands fisted in the sheets, making sounds I don’t recognize as my own voice. He brings me to the edge once, twice, backing off each time until I’m begging.
“Please - Rowan - I can’t-”
“You can.” He slides two fingers inside me, curling them just right. “Come for me, Audrey. I want to watch my wife come for me.”
He sucks my clit into his mouth, presses hard with his fingers, and I shatter.
The orgasm tears through me like nothing I’ve felt before - wave after wave of pleasure that leaves me gasping, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes. He works me through it, gentling his touch as I come down, pressing soft kisses to my thighs.
“Beautiful,” he whispers. “My wife is so goddamn beautiful.”
When I can finally breathe again, I pull him up to me.
“Your turn,” I say.
“Audrey, you don’t have to-”
“I want to.” I push at his shoulder, rolling him onto his back. “Let me take care of you for once.”
He goes willingly, settling against the pillows, watching me with those hooded green eyes. He’s hard - has been for a while - and I take a moment just to look.
My husband. Scarred hands and messy hair and the body I’ve known for fifteen years.
I wrap my hand around him and watch his eyes flutter closed.
“Christ, Audrey-”
I stroke him slowly, learning him again. The way his breath catches when I twist my wrist. The way his hips buck when I run my thumb over the head. The way he says my name like it’s the only word he knows.
“I want you inside me,” I tell him. “I want to feel you.”
“Yeah - yes-” He’s barely coherent, hands gripping the sheets. “Whatever you want.”
I straddle him, positioning myself, and sink down slowly.
The stretch is exquisite.
I take him inch by inch, letting my body adjust, savoring the feeling of fullness. When I’m finally seated against him, we both go still.
“Audrey.” His voice is wrecked. “Look at me.”
I open my eyes. He’s staring up at me with an expression that makes my chest ache - wonder and gratitude and something that looks a lot like reverence.
“I love you,” he says. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”
“I love you too.” I start to move, rolling my hips slowly. “Even when I didn’t want to. Even when I was so angry I could barely see straight.”
“I know.”
“I never stopped.”
“I know.” He grips my hips, guiding my rhythm. “Neither did I. Not for a second.”
We move together, finding the pace that works, building toward something inevitable. He sits up, wrapping his arms around me, and we’re face to face, breath mingling, as close as two people can be.
“This is what I want,” he says against my lips. “Every morning. For the rest of my life.”
“Then don’t mess it up again.”
“I won’t.” He thrusts up into me, and I cry out. “I swear to God, Audrey, I won’t.”
The orgasm builds slowly this time - a wave gathering force, growing until it’s too big to contain. I feel it cresting, feel myself starting to break apart, and I hold his gaze as it hits.
“Rowan-”
“I’ve got you. Let go.”
I do.
The pleasure crashes over me, and I hear him groan my name as he follows, his whole body shuddering beneath me. We cling to each other through it, riding out the aftershocks, until finally we collapse together in a tangle of sweaty limbs and racing hearts.
After, we lie in the morning light, my head on his chest, his fingers tracing patterns on my back.
“The texts are probably up by now,” I say quietly.
“Probably.”
“Everyone will know.”
“Let them.”
I lift my head, look at him. “You’re really not scared?”
“Terrified.” He tucks my hair behind my ear. “But I’m done letting fear run my life. Whatever happens today, we face it together.”
I’m quiet for a moment. Then, softly:
“I want to believe you.”
“I know.” He kisses my forehead. “I’ll keep showing you until you do.”
Outside, the sun climbs higher. Somewhere in the house, I hear Lily stirring.
The real world is about to crash back in - Maryse’s texts and the town’s judgment and all the hard conversations still to come.
But right now, in this bed, with this man’s arms around me-
Right now, I feel like we might actually make it.