Chapter 30 – Rowan
Chapter Thirty
Rowan
There was never a version of this evening where we didn’t win this game. I don’t enter competitions to participate. I enter them to eliminate variables, and tonight, there were none left standing.
The applause that follows is polite enough to pass for sportsmanship as the moderator lifts our hands with forced enthusiasm. “Team King and Whitmore—undefeated.”
A bottle of expensive, aged scotch is placed in my hand. The label is understated in the way brands are when they assume you already understand the price. I rotate it once, reading the year, committing it to memory out of habit more than interest.
“Will you be sharing that?”
“No.”
Tessa snorts, but her smile doesn’t fade. She won something tonight, and it wasn’t just trivia.
“Mr. King, Miss Whitmore.” A woman in a navy blazer approaches with a practiced grin. “Chef Bastien would like to welcome you for your private tasting whenever you’re ready.”
I glance at Tessa.
She arches a brow. “Are you ready?”
Translation: she’s starving and will eat the napkins if I don’t say yes right now.
We follow the chef through a tucked-away corridor off the dining hall. The walls are darker here, lit by soft sconces. Everything feels quieter. Like we’ve stepped behind the curtain into someplace exclusive.
However, we are shocked when the private dining room comes into view.
It barely qualifies as a room.
One round table. Two high-backed chairs designed for people who enjoy being uncomfortable in expensive ways. Linen napkins. Flickering candlelight that’s definitely a fire hazard.
There’s an open view into the kitchen, where a tall, tattooed man in a black apron greets us with a single nod before returning to his work.
Tessa takes it all in with a soft smile. “This is dangerously romantic.”
“It’s a tax write-off with mood lighting,” I mutter.
But I pull out her chair anyway.
“I’ll tell them to bring back the trivia host if it’ll help,” I offer.
She laughs.
It’s real and unfiltered, slipping out before she can stop it.
The sound settles somewhere under my ribs and stays there longer than it should.
I take a slow breath and pretend I don’t notice the way my attention locks onto her immediately, like the rest of the room has lowered its volume without permission.
She reaches for her chair.
I’m already moving.
Habit. Instinct. Control. I step behind her and slide the chair in as she sits. My hand lingers a fraction too long on the backrest. Her hair brushes my wrist, catching against my skin. I feel the contact all the way up my arm. She doesn’t react.
Neither do I.
That is the only reason it feels dangerous.
I return to my seat and adjust my napkin with unnecessary precision, giving my hands something to do while my brain tracks the way she tucks her hair behind her ear and scans the table like she’s still half convinced someone will call her out for being here.
The first course arrives before I can correct my focus.
Handmade pasta. Truffle shaved so thin it almost disappears against the plate.
She takes a bite.
The sound she makes is quiet, and every coherent thought I had dissolves on impact.
I stare at my wineglass because looking directly at her would be a mistake. My memory, apparently traitorous, supplies an inventory of every similar sound she used to make years ago.
“Oh, my gosh,” she whispers, eyes wide as she looks at the plate. “Why does this taste so good? Where has this been my whole life?”
I take a measured sip of the wine.
“You’re giving the pasta more credit than it deserves,” I say calmly. “If anyone earned that reaction tonight, it was me.”
She scoffs without looking up. “Please. I buzzed first. I answered cleanly. You just stood there, looking intense and muttering citations.”
“I corrected your citations,” I reply. “Twice.”
She finally glances at me, unimpressed. “You piggybacked.”
“I prevented public humiliation,” I say evenly. “You’re welcome.”
Her lips twitch. “You’re exhausting.”
“And yet,” I murmur, setting the glass down with deliberate care, “you keep inviting me to save you.”
“And you love it.”
I clear my throat.
She finally looks at me, eyes bright, already preparing her next argument.
And there’s the pull again. The familiarity. The part of me that never learned how to sit across from her and feel nothing.
She catches me watching.
We both pause.
Something about this feels unarmored.
The real reward isn’t the wine or the chef.
It’s this.
Her.
Sitting across from me, hair loose around her shoulders, dress dipping just enough when she leans in to steal my last bite.
“You’re staring,” she says.
“You’re doing that thing where you make it hard not to.”
“What thing?”
“Being you.”
The candle flickers.
Her eyes sparkle with a challenge as she licks wine from her lower lip and leans in, voice low. “You look like you’re planning something reckless.”
I set my napkin down slowly.
“I am.”
Before she can ask what I’m doing, I slide my chair back and disappear beneath the table.
“Rowan,” she breathes, alarm threading through my name. “Don’t—”
“Quiet,” I murmur.
Her words stop immediately.
The tablecloth drops around me. Conversation hums around us, oblivious, but my attention narrows to one thing only.
Her body.
My hand settles at the back of her calf.
She inhales sharply, absorbing the contact like her body recognizes me before her mind catches up.
I move slowly, giving her every opportunity to stop this.
She doesn’t.
Her muscles tighten beneath my palm, then soften. I feel it the moment she realizes I’m serious and the exact second she decides not to fight me.
Her knees shift apart slightly.
Permission disguised as adjustment.
My fingers trace upward, paying attention to everything. The rhythm of her breathing. The faint tremor she tries to suppress.
“Rowan,” she whispers again.
Its’s a warning meant only for appearances.
“We’re celebrating,” I say quietly.
“This is insane,” she breathes.
Probably, but I lean closer anyway, pressing a slow kiss just inside her knee.
Her reaction is immediate. A broken inhale she tries to bury behind a sip of water she hasn’t actually taken.
Above me, her hand grips the edge of the table. I watch her knuckles pale through the linen.
She’s holding herself together by force.
That knowledge settles something darker in me.
I pause there intentionally, letting the anticipation stretch until it becomes unbearable.
“You’re out of your mind,” she whispers.
There’s no heat in it. Only breathlessness.
I let my hand rest lightly against her thigh, still and steady. Only the faintest scrap of lace and restraint is between us.
My fingers brush the edge of her panties.
She jumps ever so slightly in her chair but settles quickly.
I take her shock and exploit it by nudging the fabric aside gently and placing a wet kiss to her center.
“Holy shit,” she whispers.
I smile against her skin, then slide her panties down inch by torturous inch.
She lifts her hips just enough for me to work them over her thighs, down her legs, and off her ankles.
I fold them once in my hand and tuck them into my jacket pocket as a trophy.
Above me, I imagine she’s trying to act unaffected with her spine straight, shoulders lifted, and fork poised in midair like she’s still tasting the food and not unraveling by the second.
But her trembling legs tell a different story. The way her thigh brushes against my shoulder when she shifts.
I ease closer beneath the tablecloth, the dim flicker of candlelight above casting shadows I can almost feel. My fingers find her hot center and gently part her.
One finger disappears between her folds. Her muscles contract, gripping my finger hard. Slowly, I pull back and insert two, keeping a steady motion of in and out while spreading my fingers apart, loosening her for later.
I don’t rush.
I want her steeped in the moment, suspended in it. I want her trembling in ways no one else in this building will ever see.
I kiss the inside of her thigh and add my thumb to her tight bundle of nerves.
She gasps, and her hands find my head under the table, attempting to hold me still. It doesn’t work. I won’t allow her to stop trembling under my hands.
“Rowan,” she whispers. It’s a plea in one syllable.
I don’t answer.
Instead, I move my thumb, and my mouth finds the soft spot just above where she’s aching.
I devour her. The sweet nectar that is her flavor floods my mouth like the most delicious dessert.
I stay there, laving her with my tongue over and over until she’s shaking, her legs tightening instinctively around my shoulders.
She’s wet and desperate, trying so hard not to fall apart in a room where falling apart is absolutely not allowed.
Which is exactly why she will.
I curl my fingers slowly, and I swear I can feel her center pulse against my lips.
Her body arches. Her hips shift. The leg braced against my shoulder tenses hard.
But I don’t stop.
Not until I feel her fall over the edge in short, hot quivers.
Finally, she exhales and stills.
She slumps slightly in her chair, thighs still trembling, fingers gripping my hair like it’s the only thing anchoring her to the floor.
I stay there a moment longer.
Just breathing her in.
Then I press one last kiss to the inside of her thigh and slide back up into my chair like nothing happened.
Across from me, she’s flushed and beautifully wrecked.
She’s staring at me as if I’ve just detonated every nerve in her body with nothing but patience and a dare.
“You’re a menace,” she says finally, her voice ragged.
I sip my wine. “You look like you enjoyed the food.”
She stares at me for three long seconds.
Then she smiles. A slow, devastating smile.
“We’re not making it through dessert, King.”
That’s my girl.
I lean in, voice low.
“Well, then, Whitmore, you best finish your wine.”