Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
claire
I leap from the couch and bolt to the window the second I hear tires crunching over the gravel driveway.
“It’s him,” I announce to Oscar and Frankie when I see Rowan through the blinds. He’s smiling to himself as he goes into the back seat for his overnight bag, and I feel my shoulders drooping. “I shouldn’t be this sad because he had a good time, should I?” I turn to ask my dogs.
Oscar yips and wags his tail, and Frankie’s tongue flops out as he pants and vibrates with excitement. I sigh, because the sight of Rowan makes me lose control of my tongue, too.
He makes it to the front door faster than I expect, and I scramble to fix the blinds and return to my place on the sofa when I hear him unlocking the door.
“Hey,” he greets me warmly while I adjust my position and try to look aloof.
“Oh, hey. You’re back,” I say, keeping my tone even. I yawn and toss the remote away as if I’ve just been surfing through the channels. “I guess your date went well?”
He shrugs and crouches down to pet the dogs. “What makes you think that?”
“Well, you’re smiling for starters. And you never checked any of my texts, so you must have been enjoying her company.”
His lips lift higher on one side, making him look more smug than smitten. “Maybe I’m just amused because I caught you peeking at me through the blinds. It’s almost as if you’ve been waiting for me to come home.”
I ignore the way he’s referring to my house as “home” in lieu of watching him take off his jacket.
“Are you wearing scrubs?” I blurt out. Because holy shit does he look hot.
“Yes, and I did read your texts, but I couldn’t exactly make her wait on me while I stopped to answer you.”
“Duh,” I say, scoffing. “And that wasn’t even me in the window, just so you know. It was Oscar,” I lie, pointing to the disordered blinds.
He purses his lips. “So … Oscar’s the one who’s jealous of my big date?”
I gulp and look away as he moves to sit next to me, tightening my robe over one of my more risqué pajama sets, a decision which feels pretty silly right now.
“Oh, yeah. Look at him. The poor little guy’s been green with envy,” I say. Oscar takes his cue to waddle over and push his paws into Rowan’s shins.
“Those blinds seem pretty high for legs this stubby. Just sayin’,” Rowan drawls while he gives Oscar another affectionate ear rub.
“Pointing out his flaws isn’t going to make him feel any better. Especially since your date probably had better legs.”
“If that were the case, he’d definitely be more envious of you.”
I let out a defeated exhale and ignore his flirty tone. “Fine. I may have been a little anxious to hear from you. Not because I’m jealous or anything, though.”
“Sure you’re not,” he replies, still smirking.
“So?” I ask after he doesn’t say more. “Aren’t you going to tell me how it went?”
He chuckles. “I don’t know. I kind of like torturing you.”
I shove him playfully. “Are you getting married next month or what?”
“Is that a proposal?” he asks, lifting an eyebrow. I growl and push at his chest again, and he laughs. “Nah, tell Oscar I’m his for a little longer.”
An embarrassingly telling sense of relief floods my chest, and I bite my lip in an effort to keep my reaction neutral. “Oh, well, I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
He shrugs, his expression still oddly buoyant.
“What happened?” I ask, pulling my knees up to wrap my arms around them and already feeling guilty for secretly hoping she wasn’t the love of his life.
“Well, Tenley had introduced me to Gianna a few weeks ago—”
“Wait, I thought your date’s name was Cecelia?” I furrow my brow in confusion.
He shakes his head. “I told you, I had no intentions of letting Heath set me up.”
“But … Cecelia’s perfect for you,” I protest.
“No, she’s not,” he says plainly.
“You don’t know that unless you at least give her a shot.”
Why am I defending this chick again?
He chuckles softly. “I do know that, because I have given her a shot before.”
“Wait, what?”
“Cecelia and I went on a date about a year ago. She’s Marigold’s husband’s cousin, and they insisted on setting us up. So I took her on a brunch date after Mass one Sunday, kissed her at the end of it and everything,” he explains, still looking completely nonplussed.
“Oh.” I may have joked about it earlier, but I’m too breathless at the thought of him kissing another woman to say anything else right away, especially since it all sounds so idyllic, so Rowan.
“Did it not go well?” I ask cautiously once I’ve gotten my shit together again.
“She was nice, but there wasn’t …” He shakes his head as he trails off. “It just wasn’t there. I mean, we agreed that we were probably compatible enough to make do, but Cecelia was actually the one who said neither of us should be settling for nice.”
“That makes sense,” I reply when he looks at me as if he wants my reassurance.
“I left the date feeling disappointed, but she was right. The old me might have been perfectly satisfied with nice, had I never …” He leaves his gaze locked onto mine as he lets me fill in the blanks, and my stomach dips.
“I never imagined chemistry would be so important to me until I actually felt it.” He swallows hard, and my cheeks heat as I watch his throat work. “But now, I don’t think I’ll be able to settle for anything less.”
“And … what about Gianna?” I ask breathlessly.
A grin spreads across his face. “I didn’t actually go out with Gianna, but I did meet a real beauty named Adele.”
“What?” I practically shriek and throw a pillow at him. “Athanasius Rowan, how many girls are you stringing along at the same time?”
He tosses his head back and laughs, looking more like me this time, and Oscar and Frankie yip along with him.
“Adele is the baby girl I helped deliver tonight,” he says, gesturing over his scrubs.
“And Gianna is her mother. She and her husband Jonas wanted a VBAC, so Tenley asked me to be on standby in case she’d end up needing an emergency C-section.
It’s been a while since I attended a delivery, but thankfully, everything went well.
I actually enjoyed it more than I expected. ”
“Oh,” I say again. “That’s great. But … you didn’t go on any actual dates tonight?”
He shakes his head, smiling ruefully. “No. I don’t need to go out looking for what I’ve already found.”
“But aren’t you still worried about confusing lust with chemistry?” I barely manage to say. As much as I enjoy being wanted by him, I can’t bear the thought of being the reason he passes up his best chance at getting the family he’s been longing for.
He frowns. “I’d be lying if I said I was immune to lust, particularly when it comes to you. But I know the difference now.”
So why is he still looking at me like he wants to do very, very lust-driven things together?
If I’m being honest, the line between wanting Rowan to fill the hole in my heart and the space in my bed has gotten pretty damned blurry for me, as well.
He sighs and taps on his smart watch when I don’t reply right away, then flips his wrist to show me his resting heart rate. “See this? Normal, right?”
I nod hesitantly, and he switches to show a graph outlining the past few hours.
“No spikes, not even during that delivery,” he tells me, as if he’s proving his point.
“Okay, so your heart is healthy?”
This time he growls in frustration and scoots closer as he reaches out to grab my hand. “Here,” he says, crushing my palm against his chest. “Feel that?”
His heart thumps within his solid chest, and my own pulse quickens from the contact. He turns his forearm to show me his BPM steadily climbing while mine follows suit.
“Now kiss me,” he demands, and my eyes fly up to his.
“What?” I squeak.
“On the cheek. It doesn’t matter. I just need to feel your lips on my skin.”
But we don’t need to continue with this demonstration to confirm his hypothesis.
His breathing sounding more labored by the second, and I haven’t even agreed to anything yet.
My own chest rises and falls as I watch him get all worked up over the prospect of a cheek kiss from me, and it’s so freaking hot that I couldn’t stop myself from following through with it, even if I wanted to.
I lean up and shift my weight onto my knees, both of us keeping our eyes trained on his watch as I brush my lips over his cheekbone. There’s a full-second delay before the numbers spike.
“See what I mean? If this is all it takes from you …” he begins, his voice gravelly.
He’s probably assuming I’ll back away now that he’s made his point. However, I’m already tracing a path over his jawline, watching his breathing grow more ragged as his short stubble scrapes my lips in the most delicious way.
He doesn’t move to stop me as I continue down his neck.
My nose grazes his pulse point before I place an open-mouthed kiss over the spot.
The artery throbs beneath his skin and tickles my tongue, as does the moan reverberating from deep within his throat.
I don’t have to look at his watch to know what I’m doing to him now.
“Claire,” he says my name on a gasp. “You’re gonna give me a heart attack.”
“Can you really get a heart attack from all your blood pooling in one extremity?” I ask with a short laugh.
“A stroke, then,” he grunts in confirmation.
“Hmm, last I checked that’s not exactly a fatal condition, Doc,” I pose in a sultry tone.
He whimpers when I go back to kissing down his neck. “It certainly feels like I’m dying,” he declares. “Although, I can think of worse ways to go.”
I smile, and he tilts his head to give me better access as he brings his hand around to cradle my back, silently pleading for me to continue.
“There are a few life-saving measures I’d be willing to perform on you before it came to that.
With your consent, of course,” I mumble against his skin, and he groans.
“I could put an end to our suffering right now. All you’d have to do is ask.
Better yet, make it a direct order.” I add a gentle nip at his jaw to make my intentions clear.
“You know we can’t,” he chokes out at the same time he fists his hand in the back of my shirt and pulls me in, guiding me as I climb into his lap. He may be saying no, but the way his body keeps betraying him speaks volumes.
“But if you didn’t want this, why’d you make me kiss you? Why tease me and make me so jealous?” I ask, staring down at him.
He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to … to go this far.”
I watch his throat work again as he struggles with himself, and it’s a reminder that I care too much to coax him into doing something he’d regret. But my stupid ego requires me to crack at least one more inappropriate joke in order to bounce back from his rejection.
“You’d be less sorry if you took off your pants,” I add to lighten the mood and smile when he snorts out a laugh.
He gazes up at me adoringly while he strokes my back, making me even more desperate to keep this going. “Were you really jealous?” he asks, surprising me with his forwardness.
I narrow my eyes and deliberately roll my hips over him as punishment for making me think about my feelings, and he whines again.
“Okay, okay,” he concedes, squirming beneath me. “You win.”
“Does that mean I get to name my prize?” This time I lean down so that my lips nearly graze over his, pulling back and smiling in satisfaction when he tips his chin up to meet me.
“Please don’t tempt me, Claire,” he rasps, melting away the resolve I’d just built up. “I’m so weak.”
I sigh in defeat and rest my forehead against his. “So am I. And I kind of hate the idea of you kissing anyone else,” I admit against my better judgment.
He straightens his posture as his brows draw in tightly. “You do?”
“Yes.” I cringe.
“What are you going to do about it?” he asks, his expression still strained.
His dare sends a wave of heat through me, but I remind myself that he’s just going to keep toying with me as long as I let him. He won’t allow himself to make another move, no matter how badly he wants this.
“Whatever it is, I should probably make you beg for it,” I reply coyly, testing his resolve.
Rowan licks his lips, bringing my attention back to his mouth. “I know I haven’t earned it, but maybe just … one kiss? To remind me what it’s supposed to feel like … please?”