Epilogue #2
He moves onto the bed, his hard length pulsing against my thigh. He positions himself at my entrance, his eyes locked on mine. There is a moment of stillness where the only sound is our ragged breathing.
“Okay?” he whispers, his voice strained with the effort of holding back.
“Yes,” I say, lifting my hips to meet him. “Now.”
He thrusts inside me, filling me completely.
I groan, the sensation of him stretching me, joining with me, so perfect it feels like a physical ache.
He pauses, his forehead against mine, letting us both adjust to the overwhelming closeness.
He is thick and hot, a solid presence that anchors me to the earth.
We begin to move, finding a rhythm that is as old as the mountains.
Every thrust is a promise, every gasp a confession.
I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, wanting to feel every inch of him.
He moves with a controlled power, his hands gripping the headboard as he drives into me, his jaw tight with the effort of his own pleasure.
“You’re mine,” he rumbles, his voice vibrating through my chest. “Wren. Always.”
“I’m here,” I answer, my nails tracing the muscles of his shoulders. “I’m not going anywhere.”
The pleasure builds, a mounting pressure that makes my vision blur at the edges.
It’s a spiral of sensation, tight and hot, coiling in my belly until it’s all I can feel.
Rowan senses it, his movements becoming faster, more urgent.
He buries his face in the crook of my neck, his breath hot against my skin as he whispers things in a language I don’t understand.
When it breaks, it’s like the mountain itself cracking open.
Pleasure crashes over me in waves, a violent, beautiful release that makes me call his name.
My body clenches around him, pulling him into the peak with me.
He groans, a deep, primal sound, and shudders in my arms as his own release takes him, filling me with his heat.
We stay joined for a long time, the only sound the frantic thud of our hearts and the distant, rhythmic tap of a woodpecker on a cedar tree outside.
The air in the room is heavy and warm, the light fading into the soft, golden glow of late afternoon.
Rowan doesn’t pull away. He stays heavy on top of me, his face tucked into my hair, his breathing slowly evening out.
I trace the line of his spine, the skin damp with sweat.
This is the reality I chose. Not a media buyout, not a viral sensation, but a man who is the soul of the forest and the heart of my home.
The debt is manageable. The lodge is standing.
And the secret we keep isn’t a burden—it’s the ground we stand on.
Afterward, we get in the shower. The water is strong and warm.
“The boiler really is better,” he says quietly, his voice vibrating through my cheek. “Walt is a competent human.”
“Don’t let him hear you say that. He’ll start charging us double. And we still need to pay for the new gift shop roof.”
“We have the honey,” Rowan says. “The bees are productive this year. They like the new clearing.”
“They like you,” I correct him. “Everyone likes you. It’s the beard. It makes you look like you have secrets, and humans are suckers for a man with a secret.”
“I only have one secret left, Wren. And she’s currently trying to figure out how to tax my existence.”
I laugh as we get out of the shower and towel off. “It’s called a domestic partnership, Rowan. It’s very modern. You’ll hate the paperwork.”
The phone on the bedside table pings. It’s the hotline.
Even now, after the ‘hoax’ was exposed and the documentary crew left in a huff of indignant silence, people still call.
They call because they want to believe. They call because the world is too loud and too fast, and they need to think there is something out there that doesn’t care about their Wi-Fi signal.
I move toward it, but Rowan gets there first. He looks at the screen, a small, amused huff escaping his nose. He slides the answer button and puts it on speaker.
“Bigfoot Hotline,” I say, my voice still thick with the lingering heat of him. “Describe the encounter, please.”
There’s a long silence on the other end, followed by the sound of heavy breathing and the rustle of a windbreaker. “Yeah... hi. I’m up by the old logging road? Near the Cascades cutoff? And I definitely just saw him. He was... he was wearing a shirt?”
I catch Rowan’s eye. He’s grinning—a wide, genuine grin that reaches his eyes. He leans toward the phone, his voice dropping into that low, authoritative rumble that always makes callers go silent with awe.
“What did you see?” he asks.
The caller hesitates. “He was... huge. But he looked like he knew where he was going. He looked like he belonged there.”
“He does,” I say, reaching out to lace my fingers with Rowan’s. “He’s exactly where he’s supposed to be.”
I hang up the phone before the caller can ask about the shirt.
The silence of the room settles back over us, warm and permanent.
Outside, the sun finally disappears behind the ridge, casting the valley into the long, protective shadows of the mountain.
We get into bed again, and lie there in the dark, the keeper of the myth and the man who made it real, and for the first time in my life, I don’t have to curate the mystery. I’m living inside it.