Chapter Seven
CLAIRE
One moment, I'm pressed against Rowan on a ledge barely wide enough for the two of us, his body shielding mine from wind and rain while the flood rages thirty feet below. Then he pulls back, scans the canyon wall above us, and points.
"There." His voice is rough. "See it?"
I follow his gaze. Higher up, maybe forty feet, something juts from the rock. Angular. Man-made.
"What is it?"
"Mining cabin." He's already climbing, finding handholds, pulling himself up. "Come on. Before this ledge washes out."
I follow, fingers numb, arms shaking, every muscle screaming. He boosts me onto a wider shelf, then to flat ground where a dirt road cuts through the trees. The cabin sits back from the edge, wood sagging under decades of neglect, windows dark with grime.
We run up the rickety porch, where Rowan kicks the door in.
We stumble inside. The air is stale, but it’s dry.
So quiet, my ears ring at the sudden silence.
Dust covers everything …a tipped-over chair, a rusted lantern, a table with one short leg propped on a folded piece of tin.
The fireplace is full of old ash and a bird's nest that’s turned gray with age.
Rowan kicks the door shut behind us and wedges a broken chair under the handle.
We’re alone. Really alone.
No group. No Dave. No storm screaming in our ears, only the muffled roar of the storm through the walls and the sound of our breathing, harsh and synchronized.
His back is to me, shoulders heaving, hands braced on the door like he's holding it closed through sheer will.
"Rowan."
"Don't, Claire." His voice is raw. "Don't say my name like that."
"Like what?"
He turns, and the gray light filtering through dirty windows makes his face all shadows and hunger, his tough guy masks finally stripped away. "Like you want me to do something I'll regret."
I step toward him. My clothes are soaked, heavy, clinging to every curve. I should be freezing. But I'm not. I'm burning, and have been since he first looked at me in that diner with those dead eyes that weren't dead at all.
"What does that mean anyway?" I ask, and my voice doesn't shake. "Something you'll regret. And why did you say what you said before?"
"Because it's true." He pushes off the door, taking one step toward me before stopping like he's hit a wall. "All of it."
"You don't even know me."
"Claire, I know your type." He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "You’re used to men who ask permission. Who checks in, who makes your life comfortable…safe."
A laugh escapes from me, sharp and bitter.
"Safe." I step closer, my voice dropping.
"My ex-husband made me feel safe, alright.
Up until he chose his mother over me. Every single time.
I was never a priority, Rowan. I was an option.
The thing he settled for when she didn't need him.
" I tilt my head, standing my ground. "So don't tell me what kind of men I like.
I don't even know what I like. I only know what I've survived, what I deserve. And Daniel sure as hell wasn’t it. "
He's quiet for a long moment. When he finally speaks, his tone is low, rough. "I'm worse than that."
"How?"
"I spent time in places where the only thing that mattered was surviving until dawn.
Where you eliminate every threat. Everything soft, everything human, or you die.
" He steps closer, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes.
"That shit doesn't just go away because I'm back in the world.
I don't sleep through the night. I don't trust anyone.
And when I want something, I don't negotiate. I take it."
"What if I want you to take me?"
"You don’t know what you’re asking, Claire. You'd hate me by morning."
"How about you let me decide that?" I step toward him, “I'm so sick of people telling me what I should want. What I should feel. My ex-husband spent our whole marriage deciding what was best for me.” My voice rises, "So don't you stand there and tell me I'd hate you by morning.
Don't tell me what I can handle. I'm the only one who gets to decide that. Me. Not you. Not anyone."
He's staring at me, the silence stretching between us, thick and charged.
"Claire…"
"No." I grab the hem of my soaked tank and peel it over my head.
My bra is thin, white, and completely see-through, my nipples hard, straining against the fabric.
"You want me? Then take me. But stop pretending you're doing this for my sake.
I'm not some fragile thing you need to protect from yourself.
I'm a grown woman who knows exactly what she's asking for. "
His eyes drop to my chest.
"Do it, Rowan," I whisper.
He stares at me like I’m speaking a different language.
"Do it," I tell him again, louder this time. "Fuck me, Rowan. However you want, wherever you want. I'm not scared of you. I'm not scared of this."
"You should be."
"Well, I'm not. So either take what I'm offering or keep standing there like some weak-ass pussy."
His control shatters, and he crosses the distance between us in two strides, grabs my face in both hands, and kisses me.
His mouth is brutal, demanding, teeth taking my lip hard enough to sting before his tongue drives inside.
I moan into it, arching against him, feeling the outline of his hard cock pressing against my stomach through his soaked pants.
His hands drop to my waist, tugging at the button on my shorts, the zipper next. He shoves my shorts down my hips, taking my underwear with them. His fingers are between my legs, finding me slick and swollen, my pussy so needy I gasp at his touch.
"Fuck, baby," he groans against my mouth. "You're already wet for me."
"Since the diner," I breathe, and it's true, God, it's true. "Since you said all those things before we started our hike."
His laugh is dark, "And now?"
"Now I'm begging."
He spins me around, bends me over the dusty table, and I barely have time to brace myself before he's kicking my feet wider, shoving my shorts lower, baring my ass.
I hear him undoing his belt, the rustle of fabric, and then his hand is between my shoulder blades, pressing me flat, my cheek against the wood.
"Last chance," he breathes, and I feel the thick head of his cock nudging against my entrance, hot, heavy, and impossibly big.
"Fuck me, Rowan," I gasp. "Fuck me. Now."
He drives into me with one brutal thrust, filling me.
I scream out, the sound echoing off the cabin walls.
He doesn't stop, doesn't give me time to adjust. He pulls back and slams in again, and again, setting a rhythm that has the table scraping against the floor, my tits bouncing with each impact, my fingers clawing at the wood.
"Is this what you wanted?" he grunts, each word punctuated by a deep thrust that hits something inside me and makes my vision blur. "Is this what you were begging for?"
"Yes," I moan. "Yes, God, yes…"
He leans over me, covering my body with his, his mouth at my ear. "You feel so fucking good," he growls. "So tight. So hot around my cock. Mine, Claire. This pussy is mine. Say it."
"Yours," I breathe. "I'm yours, Rowan. All yours."
He makes a feral sound as if I've unleashed something in him, and then his hand is between my legs again, his fingers finding my clit, rubbing tight circles as he pounds into me. I'm climbing fast, the pleasure building on the edge of pain, it’s almost too much.
"Come for me, baby," he orders. "I want to feel you come on my cock. Now, Claire…"
That’s all it takes for me to shatter.
My orgasm rips through me, violent and blinding. I clamp down on him, screaming his name, my body milking him in rhythmic pulses. He fucks me through it, drawing it out, until I'm trembling and gasping. My body goes limp against the table.
He pulls out suddenly, spins me around, lifts me onto the table's edge. "I’m not done," he growls, and then he's pushing back inside me, my legs wrapping around his waist, pulling him in deeper. He's kissing me again as the sound of flesh against flesh fills the space around us.
"Touch yourself," he commands against my lips. "I want to watch you make yourself come while I fuck you."
I do as he says, my hand dropping between us, fingers finding my oversensitive clit. The sight of his cock driving into me, of me touching myself, makes him groan louder, makes him fuck me harder, deeper.
"That's it," he breathes. "Rub that pretty little clit for me. Show me how you like it."
I work myself in tight circles, the pleasure building again, even faster this time, impossibly intense. He's watching my face, my hand, the place where we're joined, and the hunger in his eyes feeds into my own, pushing me closer to the edge.
"Rowan… I'm going to…"
"Together," he growls. "Come with me. Now."
He thrusts deep, holds there, and I feel his cock getting harder, pulsing inside me. Then I feel the hot flood of his release as my own orgasm crashes over me, both of us crying out, shaking, clinging to each other.
We stay like that, neither of us moves. The storm is still going strong outside. But in here, wrapped around each other, we're safe.
Slowly, he starts to pull out, but he doesn't let me go. He lifts me off the table and carries me to the only bed. The frame creaks as he settles us both onto the thin mattress. He wraps his arms around me and holds me so tight, his face buried in my neck.
"I was supposed to protect you," he whispers, and I hear the old wound in it, the guilt, the fear.
"You did." I hold him back just as tight. "You are."
"Not from me."
I pull back enough to meet his eyes. "I didn't want protection from you, Rowan. I wanted you."
He stares at me, with something vulnerable and new in his expression, something that looks almost like hope. "What happens when we get back? When there's no storm, no flood, no excuse?"
I touch his face, tracing the hard line of his jaw. "We’ll figure it out. Together."
He turns into my touch and presses a kiss to my palm. "I've never done ‘together,’" he admits quietly. "I don't know how."
I smile, it’s small but real. "Me neither. But I'm willing to learn. With you."
The rain begins to lighten up. And through the dirty windows, I can see the floodwaters still churning, but the worst has passed. We cling to each other on that narrow bed, two people who found something worth holding onto in the middle of the storm.
"Rowan?"
"Yeah?"
"Next time, can we do this somewhere with a bigger bed?"
He laughs, the sound warm, and pulls me closer. "Yeah, baby. Next time, I'll make sure there’s a bigger bed. And a door that locks."
"Promise?"
He kisses me again. This time, soft and slow, not the desperate fury from before. "Promise."
The next morning, we wake wrapped in each other's arms, the morning sun bright. The floodwaters have finally receded enough to risk the hike back.
It takes hours. We're exhausted, bruised in places I didn't know I could bruise, tender in the best possible way.
But when we finally make our way back to where it all started, we head straight for the parking lot to Rowan's truck.
Completely disregarding the fact that I have my own vehicle parked close by.
"Well, well. Look who finally made it back." The same guy who was helping Rowan yesterday pushes off from where he's leaning against a beat-up truck, arms crossed, “It’ll pass, huh?” That same smirk plastered across his face. "Thought for sure you'd have drowned him by now, sweetheart."
Rowan doesn't break stride. "Fuck off, Asher."
"That's the thanks I get? I kept your spot warm."
Rowan flips him off without looking back, already pulling the passenger door open for me. "Did Dave make it back?"
"Everyone's accounted for. Dave's over there trying to get his new girlfriend's number." Asher's eyes move to me, reassessing. "The storm's got the east pass flooded. You two might want to stick around for a bit longer."
Rowan's jaw tightens. "We'll manage."
“Sure you will,” he’s laughing as he walks away. "Try not to kill each other."
That's when I see Lou. She's perched on the tailgate of her own truck, paper coffee cups and a grease-stained bag from the diner arranged around her. She hops down, her eyes darting between Rowan and me, taking in my wet clothes, his hand on my lower back, and the way we stand too close.
"Brought breakfast," she says, holding out a cup. "Figured everyone who got stuck here last night would need it." Her gaze lingers on me, then drops to Rowan's hand, and a slow smile spreads across her face. "Looks like you two found your own way to stay warm."
She presses the coffee into my hand, and when I take it, she leans in close enough that only I can hear. "Good for you, honey," she whispers. Then she winks before turning back to her truck. "See you around, Cross."
Rowan watches her go, surprise flickering across his face. "What the hell was that?"
I take a sip of the coffee, scalding and perfect. "That," I say, "was a woman who recognizes another woman who has finally chosen herself."
I climb in the passenger seat of Rowan’s truck, and he climbs in beside me. He starts the engine and pulls out onto the road. Instinctively, his hand finds mine on the center console, our fingers threading together, like they belong this way.
Like we belong this way.
Together.