24. Erik #2
Her cheeks color slightly before she gets up to carry the bowls to the sink. "I'd need to stay close enough to Blackthorne until I finish school."
I follow with the second bowl. "You're finishing."
"That sounded suspiciously like an order." She starts the water and rinses the first dish.
"It was confidence." There's no reason to wash two bowls immediately, but she keeps going. I lean against the counter while she dries the first one. "I've thought about taking a reduced load next term."
"Because of the investigation?"
She turns off the faucet and reaches for the towel. "Because life is more complicated than it was when the semester started."
I wait for more, but she dries both bowls and puts them on the counter without offering it. She folds the towel once, then looks at me. "Would you want children?"
The change in subject is abrupt enough to get my full attention. "Yes."
Rowan leans back against the sink. "You answered that fast."
I incline my head. "I know the answer."
"How many?"
I consider it for less time than she probably expects. "Two, maybe three." She stares at me long enough that I straighten away from the counter. "What?"
"Three is a lot." Rowan picks up the towel again, although the dishes are already dry.
"I said maybe."
She turns toward me with the towel still in her hand. "You should understand that three children aren't a minor adjustment to a household."
"I understand how numbers work."
I take the towel from her before she can dry the counter twice and lay it beside the sink. "How many do you want?"
Her face warms again. "I hadn't decided."
"You asked me first. That usually means something." I watch her fold her arms after I deprive her of the towel.
She looks toward the dark windows instead of at me. "I'm gathering information."
She's asked whether I can leave, where I would live, what happens after Blackthorne, and now whether I want children.
Four nights ago, she stood in my kitchen and told me there was something I didn't know.
She stopped before she could tell me what it was, and tonight every question has pointed toward the same future.
She isn't asking for reassurance. She's checking my answers against something she already knows.
I step closer. "You've been asking me questions for days."
"I ask you questions constantly." Rowan straightens against the counter.
"Not these. They're specific." I watch her expression when I continue. "You told me there was something you hadn't told me yet."
Her attention fixes on me.
I don't need Makari to tell me when I've found the right trail. "Does this have anything to do with it?"
Rowan looks toward the dark window again, then back at me. "Some of it."
That's more than she intended to give me. She shifts away from the counter and reaches for the towel before remembering I took it.
"What aren't you telling me?"
"I told you I'd tell you when I'm ready." Her tone stays firm, but she doesn't sound angry.
"You did." Every instinct I have wants the missing information, and every lesson Rowan has taught me says not to take it from her.
She studies me, probably waiting for the interrogation that doesn't come. I stop in front of her instead. "You can ask whatever you need to ask."
Some of the tension leaves her shoulders. "Maybe I finally decided the answers mattered."
"They matter to me."
"I know." Rowan reaches for my shirt before the rain can swallow the answer.
I kiss her.
She comes against me without hesitation, sliding her arms around my neck while I pull her closer. There's no argument underneath it tonight and nothing either of us is trying to prove. She kisses me slowly until I stop thinking about the documents on the island.
Rowan pushes my jacket from my shoulders and works open the first button of my shirt. "One usable bedroom?"
"Yes."
She gets the next button. "That remains suspicious."
"You can sleep on the sofa." I smile against her mouth when she glances toward the dark opening where a living room should be.
"There's no finished living room."
She opens the last button and catches the front of my shirt. "I'll think of something."
I carry her upstairs.
The bedroom is colder without power, so I pull the comforter back before setting her on the mattress. Candlelight from the nightstand reaches far enough to show her smile when I take off my shirt.
Rowan runs her fingers over the scar from Orell's bullet. "Does this still hurt?"
"Sometimes."
"You never say when." She catches my waistband and pulls me closer before I can argue with that. I bend and kiss her, and she laughs against my mouth before pulling me down beside her.
We undress each other without hurry. I get her shirt over her head and unhook her bra while she works my belt open, and neither of us tries to rush the other. When I kiss down her neck and close my mouth around one nipple, she arches off the mattress and threads her fingers into my hair.
I take my time with her breasts. I suck one peak until she pulls me closer, then move to the other and circle it with my tongue before drawing it between my lips. Rowan's breathing changes beneath me, and she tugs my trousers down my hips with one hand while keeping the other in my hair.
I push her underwear down her thighs, and she kicks them away.
When I slide my hand between her legs, she's already wet enough that my fingers move through her easily.
I stroke her clit in slow circles while I kiss the underside of her breast, and the sound she makes against the pillow is one I want to memorize.
"More." She shifts her hips toward my hand.
I push two fingers inside her and curl them forward. Her pussy grips me immediately, warm and slick, and she rolls her hips against my palm while I keep steady pressure on the front wall. When I press my thumb against her clit at the same time, she gasps and reaches for my cock.
Her grip is firm enough that I press my forehead to hers and stop pretending I have unlimited patience. She strokes me root to tip, spreading the moisture already gathering at the head, and my hips push forward before I can stop the reaction.
"You're close." Rowan sounds pleased with herself.
"You're not helping."
"I'm not trying to help." She strokes me again, slower, with her thumb circling beneath the crown.