Chapter Thirty-Four. Dorothy
THIRTY-FOUR
Dorothy
We find the shed Remy pointed us to around the back of the house.
The old hinges creak when Rook undoes the latch and pulls the doors open.
Dust swirls out. There is the scent of earth, old wood, and something that reminds me vaguely of citronella oil.
There are a few uncorked jars on the shelves above the workbench, paper labels peeling away from the glass.
Whatever was inside is a mystery now, the handwriting on the labels all but faded.
Rook goes to the back of the shed where faint light filters in through a grimy window. He crouches down and starts shoving things aside. A few canisters, a stack of wooden crates full of amber glass bottles, a pile of books, a crumpled box with several half-used candles inside.
Once those are moved, a trapdoor emerges.
“Judging by the location of the entrance,” Rook says, “it should be a short walk from here to the other side. Grab one of those candles.”
I turn around and reach inside the box now stacked on top of the crates while Rook searches the workbench for something to light it with. He comes up with a book of matches.
After sticking the taper candle into the end of one of the amber bottles, Rook strikes a match and holds it to the wick. The flame catches, the wick crackling, and light dances in the murky darkness of the shed.
“We should move,” Rook says.
There is still an unreadable tension to him, to the tenor of his voice, to the way he’s holding me at arm’s length.
I hope it’s just the stress of being hunted and not something else I can’t put my finger on.
I like to know where I stand with people and since he’s my only friend here, I want to know that we’re good.
We haven’t had a chance to talk since he kissed me at the ball, after I told him about Edward.
“Come on, Toto,” I say, and scoop him into my arms.
“I’ll go first,” Rook tells me and quickly scales the wooden ladder down into the hole.
It’s not deep, maybe six feet down, and he has to stoop to fit in the tunnel. I hand him the bottle with the candle.
I take the first step down the ladder. Rook appears behind me, holding the ladder still, his presence a promise to catch me if I fall. Just like Edward. But vastly different from Edward in every measurable way.
My chest squeezes as I think of Edward and the question that is now hanging between us, hanging between worlds.
Marry me, Dutchie.
He wants me to be that girl, the farm girl, the mother, the wife, the homesteader.
But I can’t be.
Suddenly rushing home feels …
No. No. I have to get home. I have to get back to Em and Henry.
I take the last step off the ladder, my slippers hitting soft earth below.
Rook’s free hand finds me in the semidarkness and his fingers thread through mine.
The tunnel is silent as we make our way from one end to the other.
I stumble after Rook, only getting half the bloom of candlelight, most of it blocked by the broad line of Rook’s shoulders.
Old roots jut out from the earth, catching my step, making me stumble.
Rook doesn’t slow his pace, doesn’t pause to let me catch up.
His sense of urgency has tripled since we encountered the Tinman.
And his urgency has anxiety burning at the back of my throat.
What if the Tinman has found Remy? What if he’s making his way down into the tunnel already, close on our heels?
I glance back over my shoulder and quickly right myself again. The darkness behind us is all-consuming. Terrifyingly close.
Goosebumps lift on my arms.
Finally, we reach the end of the tunnel and find another ladder that leads up into the ceiling. Rook holds the candle up, revealing a tangled web of more roots over the trapdoor.
“Hold this,” he tells me and hands off the bottle. I keep it aloft, shedding light on the exit as he pulls at the tangle of roots.
Dirt runs down around us. Toto yips as a thick clod bounces off his forehead. “Stay behind me,” I tell him, and he winds through my legs, shielding himself from the worst of it.
“Rook,” I say, as he fights with a thick root tangled up with another. “I’ve been thinking … Henrietta said the Tinman loves you and hates you.”
The root gives and Rook stumbles back.
“Do you think … I mean … how I found you, the way you were injured…”
He stops and turns to face me. There’s a smudge of dirt on the sharp line of his jaw. The candle flame flickers in the reflection of his green eyes.
“He wants you dead, so you must be enemies,” I say. “But that means he knows who you are.”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “Are you suggesting I ask him for my name next time he’s trying to chop me down with his axe?”
“No! But…” I sigh. “You’re making fun of me.”
“No, I’m not, Kansas. I just find your innocence endearing.” He rips down another root. “And adorable.”
Heat rushes to my cheeks. In the days we’ve been together, he’s gotten better and better at charming me into submission.
Is he doing it on purpose?
“Maybe there is room for reasoning with him,” I say.
“His axe seemed like a pretty clear message.”
“Yes, but perhaps there’s more to the story.”
“There always is.”
“So don’t you want to know it? Don’t you want to know your story?”
The final root comes down and the door comes into view.
Rook takes the candle from me and sets it on one of the flat rungs of the ladder closer to the top so he can inspect the exit.
“A heartless man will never give up information freely.” He runs his fingers under the lip of the door and the old wood creaks.
“The Tinman is a Soldier of Fortune; what he gives, he does not give freely, and I’m not interested in buying my story. Certainly not from him.”
I rake my teeth over my bottom lip. “I suppose you’re right.”
He dusts off his hands and steps away from the ladder to face me. “Can I tell you a secret, Kansas?”
The smile that comes to my lips is automatic. “Yes, of course.”
“I would rather write a new story with you. Word by word. Page by page.”
I let out a little gasp of surprise as butterflies spin in my stomach.
I search his face again, checking for levity. But he’s serious now, a pinch furrowing the lines between his dark brows. He seems desperate for something but I don’t know what.
Henrietta’s warning runs through my mind.
Yours is the kind of love that changes the wind and breaks the stars.
The kind of love that ignites.
Ever since I arrived on the Kansas farm, I’ve been careening toward a life that lacks any kind of spark or flame. Edward was always the safe choice, the comfortable and familiar one. That felt like enough. Or maybe I just believed that it was. That hoping for more was selfish and delusional.
But if I contain a wick, do I not deserve to burn?
Without thinking, without doubting, I stumble forward and collide with Rook and press my lips to his.
He inhales and freezes for a second before he’s pressing forward, pressing into me, his hands coming to my face, fingers threaded with my hair.
He spins me around, driving me back. I bump into the tunnel wall. Dirt rains down around us but we don’t stop this time.
Where two seconds ago he was unsure in his movements, now he is demanding. His tongue darts out to meet mine. He tastes like mint and coffee and desire and the touch of him makes my heart beat in my throat, stealing the air from my lungs.
I push my hips forward, my body moving without thought or plan or intention, but Rook meets me, his groin driving against me.
I feel the hardness of him through his pants and an excited moan escapes me.
The flame flickers, the wick snapping.
“Kansas,” he says into me, his hand trailing down my body, resting on the swell of my hip.
“Yes?”
“Can I tell you a secret?”
I kiss him again. Our tongues slide against one another.
“Yes.”
“I didn’t expect you’d be so dangerous.”
His hand comes to my ass and he pulls me forward where he throbs against the material of his pants.
“I promise there’s nothing dangerous about me.”
He groans and wraps a length of my hair around the knuckles of his other hand. “The most dangerous thing of all is a woman who thinks she is powerless.”
Yanking my hair back, he forces me to bend, exposing my neck, and he drops his mouth to my pulse point, kissing, tasting.
A sizzle of pleasure sinks to my core.
The candle gusts, the flame going sideways.
I’m burning from end to end now, nearly engulfed.
I’ve never been so turned on, covered in dirt.
Give in, a voice in the back of my mind says. Give in and fucking live.
Since landing in Oz, I’ve been out of my depth, unsteady, so unsure of everything.
But I’ve never been more sure of this.
I reach between us, finding the cold press of metal of Rook’s belt buckle. I fumble with it, finally managing to open the buckle, unthread the pin.
Rook nips at my neck and my insides sway as new wetness spreads over my panties.
I unbutton his pants and slip inside the gaping zipper.
Rook hangs his head back and expels a breath at the root-bound ceiling.
He’s throbbing beneath my hand, hard as stone, and his sudden hunger for me is like a drug.
I stroke him and he rocks his hips forward, working himself against my touch, building the friction.
I’m impatient for more. Desperate for more. Everything about Rook is a mystery and maybe feeling him inside me might make him less of a question.
Maybe I will finally understand something real about him.
I pull back his underwear, releasing him, and he hisses in the flickering candlelight.
I take him in hand and stroke him from base to tip, feeling the thick swell of the head of his cock in the curl of my fingers.
Dropping my hair, Rook sheds his coat, shrugging it off easily where it pools at our feet in the dirt, then he hooks his hands around the backs of my thighs, lifting me into his arms. My legs wrap around his hips and suddenly I’m there, my damp panties lined up with the head of his cock.
I’m a little afraid of what this all means, afraid of the doubts that might creep in after, for him and for me. I’m afraid that I might be changed forever after this and that there’s no returning to the life I had.
Rook presses forward, and the head of his cock digs into me.
I moan out in the semidarkness.
“Kansas.”
The nickname sounds like a plea on his lips.
I look down at him.
“Yeah?”
“Tell me to stop and I will.” He swallows, waiting, his Adam’s apple dipping in his throat.
For a brief moment, his green eyes glinting in the light, I think I see him, the true him beneath the gauzy layers of his unknown story.
Tell me to stop.…
Almost like a plea. Like he’s begging me to run to safety.
But my entire life has been lived by safe measures, by clearly defined rules and expectations.
I kiss him. Slowly, gently, a brush of his tongue against the tip of mine.
His breath is hot.
Mine is quick and shallow.
We are strung tightly, holding ourselves back, a crumbling dam trying to withstand the force of a thousand pounds of rushing water.
Another press of lips.
I want to feel something so desperately I want to cry.
So I close my eyes, ward off the stinging in my sinuses, and sink into the feel of him, the rush of the encounter, the fire and the fear and the illicitness of it all.
“Don’t stop,” I say against his mouth, and he exhales, relieved, and yanks my underwear aside so he can plunge inside me.
He’s rough, possessive, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of my thigh as he controls us both, as he leads the pleasure.
“You feel so fucking good, Kansas.”
I tighten my hold on him as my teeth clack together, as he thrusts into me.
I’m so far from home and none of this feels real, and somehow it feels more real than anything that has come before.
Shifting my hips, I find the right angle so every thrust of Rook’s hips causes friction at my clit.
I’m burning up, buzzing with pleasure. I’ve never wanted to chase an orgasm so badly.
I want us to come together.
But I need more. I need more friction.
Reaching up, I find a thick, tangled root hanging from the tunnel’s ceiling. I grab on to it and arch my back, rocking my hips forward.
Rook pounds into me, his hands on my ass now, driving me to him as he drives into me.
“Come for me, Kansas,” he says and I swear his eyes burn like flames. “Don’t hold back.”
His words, the commanding tone of his voice, lift the hair on the back of my neck despite the sweat beading on my skin.
I like the way he takes control.
I like that he isn’t consumed by his own pleasure to the point that he’s forgotten mine.
I rock forward, finding the right bit of friction between us, and the pressure builds.
“Just like that,” I breathe out. “Don’t stop.”
He keeps going, keeps fucking me, finding the right momentum to bring me crashing over.
I come loudly, almost violently, and it’s as if the earth trembles.
Rook pushes me against the tunnel wall, his body covering mine as he rams into me with a final grunt.
I sink against him, burying my face in the crook of his neck, drinking in the scent of him.
I don’t know what the future holds, but I don’t want to forget this moment.
We both linger there, trapped in the aftershock of the pleasure, breathing heavily against one another.
What now?
What now?
Rook pulls out of me, but he sets me down gently, his mouth still close to mine. “You okay, Kansas?” His voice is softer now.
“Yeah. I’m good.”
What a dumb thing to say.
I’m amazing. I’m better than ever. I’m fucking confused.
What now?
He presses a gentle kiss to the corner of my mouth, then steps back to adjust himself, to zip up his pants.
Knees a little wobbly, thighs shaking, I slump down the tunnel wall and sit in the cool dirt. I’m tired all of a sudden, but also … excited. Or maybe that’s the burnout of adrenaline. Either way, I want to bask in it.
Rook sits next to me and pulls me into him. Without thinking, I tilt over, lay my head in his lap. He stretches, grabbing his coat, laying it over me. The coat smells like him, like wild earth and lightning and the cool air of the woods. Some of the trembling subsides.
I close my eyes.
Rook drags his fingers through my hair from root to tip, and back again.
“We shouldn’t stay long,” he tells me.
“Just a minute or two.”
He murmurs his assent and I sink into the darkness behind my lids, into the feel of his tender care.