9. Elise
— ? —
Elise
“Rowan!”
We come apart so fast I nearly go off the side of the bed.
He’s up and pulling his shirt over his head before I’ve got my dress straightened, and there is something almost funny about it, two adults scrambling around a squeaking bed in the middle of a Thursday afternoon like teenagers, except my heart is going so hard I can feel it in my throat.
“Rowan, come here a second.”
“Yeah.” He’s at the door. His voice comes out completely level, which I don’t understand and would like to learn. “Coming.”
He looks back at me once, and his eyes go over my face and my hair and the state of the bed, and then he’s gone down the stairs two at a time.
I sit on the edge of the mattress and count to a hundred.
That’s the whole plan. I don’t have a better one. I sit there in a room that smells like both of us and I listen to the two of them talking downstairs, the words indistinct through the floor, Simon’s voice going up at the end of everything the way it does, Rowan’s staying flat.
Then a third sound, which is the two of them going back out the front door.
I fix my hair in the black window and go down.
They’re in the yard with the tailgate down. Simon’s bought the tie-downs and also, apparently, a considerable amount of beer, and he’s standing at the back of the truck in the late gold light explaining something about ratchets that Rowan already knows.
“There you are,” Simon says. “Where were you?”
“Upstairs.”
“Doing what?”
“Sorting the linen closet.”
The lie comes out so easily it startles me. I have not been in the linen closet. I don’t know that there is a linen closet.
“Any good?”
“It’s all towels. Every single thing in it is a towel.”
“Sounds about right.” He pulls a case of beer off the truck bed and hands it to Rowan without looking, the way he hands everybody everything.
“So the guy at the hardware place says the road’s fine now but it’ll go if we get what they’re forecasting.
Which means if we’re not done by Saturday we’re not going anywhere. ”
“Mabel said the same thing.”
“Mabel says a lot of things.” He straightens up and puts his hands on his hips. “But yeah. So we work.”
And then he looks at me. Not at anything, not at the truck or the tie-downs or the house. At me, for about a second and a half, with an expression I’ve been married to for three years and still can’t read.
“You look different,” he says.
Everything in me stops.
“It’s the dust,” I say.
“No. Something.” He waves a hand, dismissing it, already turning back to the truck. “Whatever. Grab that end.”
We give up on the couch, which has defeated the doorway from both directions, and carry the armchair and the dressers out to the truck instead as the light goes.
It takes all three of us more trips than it should, and by the time everything’s strapped down under a tarp it’s fully dark and my arms are shaking.
Nobody says anything else about how I look.
***
The next two days are a fever dream of stolen moments and desperate touches.
We can’t keep our hands off each other. Whatever restraint we had left died on that table, and now that we’ve stopped pretending, there’s no going back to it.
We’re supposed to be cleaning, sorting, preparing this cabin for sale, maintaining some pretense of normalcy, but every time Simon turns his back, we’re on each other.
His mouth on mine in the hallway, pressing me against the wall until I’m dizzy.
My hand sliding into his jeans in the pantry while he bites back a groan.
His fingers between my thighs in the laundry room, working me to a silent orgasm while Simon watches TV in the next room, completely oblivious.
One reckless afternoon on the living room couch while Simon’s shower ran upstairs, both of us finished and on opposite sides of the room before the water shut off.
It’s reckless and stupid and I would have judged anyone else for it a week ago.
I don’t care.
For the first time in years I feel awake.
When Rowan looks at me across a room I feel it on my skin.
When his hand brushes mine passing a box I lose the thread of whatever I was doing.
When he leans in to say something filthy against my ear, what he’s going to do later, how I tasted this morning, I have to press my thighs together and wait for it to pass.
Simon notices something is different. I catch him watching us with narrowed eyes, his jaw tight with suspicion. But he doesn’t say anything. Maybe he’s afraid of what he’ll confirm. Maybe he just doesn’t want to know.
Either way, his silence feels like permission.
On the fifth evening at the cabin, we’re in the old study, supposedly cataloguing books for donation. The room is all dark wood and leather chairs and a heavy oak desk that looks like it weighs more than my car. One lamp, dust in the light, the smell of old paper.
Simon went to bed an hour ago, claiming a headache. More likely he’s sulking in his room, scrolling through his phone, maybe texting Lilia. I don’t care enough to wonder.
Rowan is leaning against the bookshelf, watching me sort through a stack of paperbacks. He’s got that look I’ve learned to recognize, the one that means he’s stopped thinking about the books.
“You’ve been watching me,” I say without looking up.
“Can you blame me?” He pushes off the bookshelf and crosses the room toward me. “You’ve been driving me crazy all day.”
“I’ve been sorting books all day.”
“Exactly.” He stops behind me, close enough that I can feel the heat of his body. “Do you have any idea what it does to me, watching you like this? Knowing what you look like underneath those clothes? Knowing how you sound when you come?”
His breath is warm against my ear, and I shiver despite myself.
“We’re supposed to be working.”
“We’ve been working for hours.” His hands find my hips, pulling me back against him. I feel the hard length of him pressing against my ass, and my breath catches. “I think we’ve earned a break.”
“Simon could…”
“Simon is passed out in his room. I heard him snoring when I walked past.” His lips brush the side of my neck, and I tilt my head to give him better access. “We have plenty of time.”
His hands slide up my body, cupping my breasts through my shirt. My nipples harden instantly, pushing against the thin cotton, and he rolls them between his fingers until I’m biting my lip to keep from moaning.
“This brings back memories,” he murmurs against my throat.
“What memories?”
“You. Behind a desk.” He turns me around and steers me back until my thighs hit the edge of the massive oak desk. “Working late. Looking at me with those blue eyes that made me want to forget every rule I’d ever made for myself.”
My breath catches. “I never looked at you like…”
“You did.” His hands grip my waist, and he lifts me onto the desk like I weigh nothing.
Papers scatter beneath me, but neither of us moves to catch them.
“I noticed every look, Elise. Every time you bit your lip when you were concentrating. Every time you leaned over my desk and I got a glimpse down your shirt. Every time you laughed at something I said and I wanted to kiss the smile right off your face.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
The question comes out more vulnerable than I intended. He pauses, something shifting in his expression.
“Because I was a coward.” His voice is rough, and he leaves it there, and the look on his face says this room isn’t getting the rest of it.
“And now?”
“Now I’m done being scared.” He steps between my spread thighs, his hips pressing against mine. Even through our clothes, I can feel how hard he is. “Now I’m going to take what I should have taken from the moment I met you.”
Every word lands somewhere low.
“We could play it out,” he says, his voice dropping lower. “If you want.”
“Play what out?”
“The fantasy. The version where I wasn’t too chickenshit to go after what I wanted.
” His thumb traces circles on my hip, a maddening tease.
“You come to my office after hours. Everyone else has gone home. You’ve been working up the nerve for weeks to tell me how you feel.
And this time, I don’t let you walk away. ”
It’s ridiculous, two adults playing pretend in a dusty study. And I want it anyway, the version where I didn’t bury this.
“How do we start?” I hear myself ask.
His smile is slow and wicked. “You knock on my office door.”
I slide off the desk, my legs unsteady, and walk to the study door. My heart is pounding. This is insane.
I knock.
“Come in,” Rowan calls, and when I turn around, he’s sitting behind the desk. His posture is straight, his expression professionally neutral. Every inch the boss I remember: commanding, slightly intimidating, unfairly attractive in the lamplight.
I step into the room, smoothing my hands down my thighs. “Mr. Maine. I know it’s late. I hope I’m not interrupting.”
“Not at all, Miss Brown.” He gestures to the chair across from him. “Please. Have a seat.”
I lower myself into the leather chair, crossing my legs slowly, deliberately. I watch his eyes track the movement before returning to my face.
“What can I do for you?” he asks, his voice perfectly professional.
“I need to talk to you about something.” I take a breath, letting myself sink into the fantasy. “Something personal.”
“Personal?” His eyebrow rises. “That’s… unusual.”
“I know. And I know this is probably inappropriate. But I can’t keep pretending everything is normal between us.” I stand and move around the desk toward him, my heart hammering. “Not anymore.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I think you do.” I stop beside his chair, close enough to touch.
“The way you look at me when you think I’m not watching.
The coffee you bring me every morning, even though bosses don’t fetch coffee for their assistants.
The way you find excuses to touch my shoulder, my hand, the small of my back. ”
“Miss Brown…”