Chapter 28 Rosie
My dreams are full of Boone.
Boone hugging me on Valentine’s Day in front of our friends and family.
Boone telling me I’m beautiful.
Boone skating around me in circles, looking the happiest he’s been since he got forced into marrying me.
Boone carrying me to safety and holding me in the shower.
They’re so vivid, so real that when I wake up and smell his familiar scent—leather, like his uniform and gloves, mixed with the soft smell of my soap—I’m convinced that I’m still dreaming.
But then I feel it. The solid, unmistakable warmth of damp skin pressed against mine, the rise and fall of his chest beneath my cheek, and the soft woosh of his breath as it caresses the top of my head.
I pull back, just enough to take in my reality.
He’s here. In my bed. In Brookhaven. Cradling me like I’m something precious, his arms locked tight around me as if he’s afraid to let go.
His eyes are shut, his breathing repetitive, but there’s worry lines etched in his handsome face like he’s having a bad dream.
The room is wrapped in silence, the kind that only exists deep in the night. I have no sense of what time it is. But the darkness coming in from my balcony window tells me it’s late.
I wiggle a little, testing the hold he has on me, but his arms tighten on instinct, pulling me closer instead of letting me go. A soft groan rattles through his chest but his eyes don’t open.
A smile pulls at my lips, and I give in, nuzzling my face back into the dark hair that’s covering his broad chest and inhaling deeply.
Despite every conversation we’ve had about keeping this thing between us casual and focused on the case, about not crossing lines again, here we are. Naked. Wrapped up in each other. And somehow, nothing about it feels sexual—though the intimacy is undeniable.
I don’t think this is what he meant about ‘not touching me again.’ Maybe this is all still friendly to him. Not that I’d know much about friendship.
That thought stops me cold because I do know about friendship now. Boone is my friend. One of the few that I have.
He’s spoken positively about me publicly. He’s looked out for my best interests by forcing us to focus on the case. He cares about me.
More than that, I care about Boone. And the thought of losing that—losing him—in a month when this is over is the first time in my life that the future doesn’t feel like something to look forward to. It feels like something to dread.
The dinner's that we've spent for show, the simple, easy conversations that we've had laughing and chatting about anything. They've become everything to me. They’re something that I look forward to outside of work. They’ve given me meaning and purpose behind billable hours and career accomplishments.
“Hey,” I whisper, my voice hardly loud enough to break through the quiet because I can't sit here in silence spiraling anymore. I hope it’ll stir him, bring him back to me. I need to talk to him.
He mumbles something about hockey and ice, his words slurred with sleep, and I can’t help but smile. I wonder if this is how he was as a child, dreaming about the thing he loves the most in the world.
I try again, poking him lightly in the hip with my one free hand. “Boone. Wake up.”
“Did you just poke me?” he grumbles, his eyes still closed, voice gravelly and thick.
“I did,” I say, my grin widening.
His arms loosen a fraction, just enough to let me breathe, and his eyes crack open to meet mine. They’re dark, warm, and full of something heavier than I’m used to seeing in him.
It’s concern, I think. He looks wounded too.
It’s so different from his usual carefree demeanor, and it hits me all over again—the way he blamed himself in the shower as he tried to warm me up, the way he held me until the warmth came back to my body, and then let me drift off to sleep, safe in his arms while we rested in the tub.
“Are you okay?” I ask softly.
He shakes his head, his jaw ticking with restraint. “No. I’m not.”
“I’m fine. I promise. Look.” I wiggle my toes and flex my fingers around his hip. “Everything still works.”
“You don’t understand.” His voice is quiet, but the weight of it presses down on me.
“It could’ve been so much worse. You don’t even realize how much worse it could’ve been, Rosie.
But I do. I’ve seen it. People falling into frozen lakes, their bodies pulled out hours later, frozen solid.
Dead. I shouldn’t have brought you out there to skate.
I shouldn’t have been so reckless with your safety. ”
The ache and pain in his voice makes my chest hurt.
“You’re right. It could’ve been worse. But it wasn’t. And I wasn’t scared. Not for a second.”
He looks at me like I’m crazy. “You should’ve been.”
I reach up, resting my palm against his jaw, my thumb brushing along the rough line of stubble there. It isn’t lost on me that in the span of just a few months, I’ve moved past feeling awkward and shy, to feeling comfortable lying in bed and bathing with him.
Boone makes me feel that way. He makes me feel safe.
“Maybe I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t because I knew you’d get me out. I trust you.”
“You put too much trust in me,” he growls, his voice breaking at the edges.
“Maybe,” I admit again, though my voice trails off.
Maybe I am putting too much trust in what's between us because it was never supposed to be more. My heart aches because I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know how to turn this weekend around. I don’t know how to show Boone that I’m fine.
Tomorrow morning, he’ll leave. He’ll spend the whole day with Cain working on the case, and these final hours of the night—this fragile moment that we’re sharing together—are all I have left.
Hours spent hiding under the veil we’ve woven. The lies we’ve told ourselves about what this is, and all this can be.
My hands trail down over the dark hair on his chest, slow, reverent, feeling the strength beneath my palms. Gone are the insecurities that used to creep in, the ones that whispered about him being a professional athlete, about me somehow coming up short in comparison.
When I’m with Boone, those thoughts don’t stand a chance.
I feel precious. Not fragile but chosen. I feel desired. I feel appreciated. I feel like a woman in his hands, in the way his body responds to mine, in the way his attention never wavers.
Maybe nothing more will come of this. Maybe this is all it’s allowed to be. But tonight, I want him to feel it—to understand how much I appreciate what he’s unlocked inside me. What he’s shown me I’m capable of feeling.
I let my fingers drift lower. When I reach his belly button, his hand darts out, capturing my wrist in a firm grip to stop me.
“What are you doing, Rosie?” His voice is rough, a warning and a plea all at once.
I look up at him, mustering every ounce of boldness I can, trying to channel the confidence he’s always made me feel when he looks at me like I’m something extraordinary and special to him.
“I want you, Boone.”
His eyes narrow, scrutinizing me, but he doesn’t let go of my wrist. I tug gently, trying to guide my hand lower, desperate to touch what I already feel pressing hard and hot against my stomach.
"Why?" his voice deepens. “Why do you want me?”
“Because…” I pause, steadying myself, my heart racing with the truth I’m about to admit. “You make me feel desirable.”
“You were always desirable,” he says, his tone softening just slightly.
I nod, knowing he’s probably right, I just hadn't been able to see it for myself until now. “And you showed me that. You gave me the confidence to see it. And I like myself better...” With you.
His grip slackens just a little and it’s enough for my hand to slip lower. When my fingers wrap around his bare shaft he draws in a sharp breath.
“Rosie.”
I’m startled by the sheer weight and heat of him. The soft, velvety skin over unyielding steel. I can't fit my fingers around him, but I squeeze firmly what I can grasp, savoring the way he twitches under my touch, the way his breathing becomes sharper above me.
Yes, I’ve tasted him before, had him in my mouth and on my tongue, but after what I just confessed, he somehow feels even larger.
I pump him slowly, watching as his composure cracks. His eyes stay locked on mine, dark and full of hunger, but his mouth slacks and his breathing changes.
He shuts his eyes takes a deep inhale and then suddenly, he’s rolling me onto my back, hovering over top of me before one hand gently comes up to cup my face.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” he says. I stroke him in my palm all the way to the base then back to the tip.
“Okay,” I whisper.
My fingers run along the sides of him, tracing the veins down to his sack that I cup gently. And then his mouth is on mine.
It feels like I’m coming up for air after being trapped under the icy lake.
His lips part mine instantly, his tongue demands entrance and when he drags it across mine, showing me how I know he’ll fuck me tonight, my mind goes blank.
No one prepares you for a kiss that changes every kiss you’ve had before. No one teaches you that not all kisses are the same. That something as intimate as kissing the person you trust with your body, with your life, can feel more like devotion than sex.
I lose my grip on him, forgetting what’s happening, but his hand is already there, guiding mine back to take him in my fist. Together, we find a new rhythm, my hand pumping him as he thrusts into my grip with a groan.
“Don’t ever,” he growls, pulling back just enough to speak, his voice raw and full of unspoken emotion, eyes studying my every feature.
Then his mouth moves to my neck, where he sucks hard enough to leave a mark before grazing his teeth against the tender skin and soothing the scrape of his touch with his tongue.
“Don’t ever scare me like that again, Rosie. I can’t…”