“Now that we’ve established that everything I told you is a fucking promise,” he grits out as he intensifies the rhythm of his thrusts, “we should probably clear up your other question.”

I’m shaking, sweating, lost to some mindless dimension where all I know is the feeling of intense pleasure twined with a hint of discomfort, but one I welcome because it only adds to the euphoric haze that consumes me. Rowan has picked up an unbroken cadence of deep thrusts and I don’t think I can even remember my own name, let alone something I said a few minutes ago.  “Question…was…?”

I hear the smirk in his huffed laugh. Jesus fucking Christ. I’m incapable of stringing together a simple sentence and this man is fucking me relentlessly while probably able to recite the entire year-by-year history of the Napoleonic Wars.

Rowan leans closer, slows his thrusts, covers my back with the heat of his body. One of his hands finds my breast and he rolls my nipple between his fingers as he blows a thin stream of cool air across my neck to make me shiver. “About the tattoo, Sloane,” he says, his voice saccharine. “You asked me why I got it.”

I whimper as a deep thrust pushes me closer to an intense orgasm that’s nearly within reach. “Right…uhh…”

“Any guesses?”

My forehead presses to my arm as I let out a strangled cry. “…like me…?”

“Because I ‘like you’...?” Rowan cackles an incredulous laugh. “Like. You. Seriously…? Christ, Sloane. You are fucking brilliant but also the most willfully oblivious person I have ever met. Do you really think I just like you when I framed a drawing you left for me on a scrap of paper you tore from a notebook? The one I hung it in the kitchen so I can look at it every day and think of you? Do you think I just like you when I tattoo it on my skin? I play this fucking game every year and tear my heart out watching you walk away, only to do it all over again, and I like you? You think I just like you when I fuck you like this?”

The pace quickens. Rowan’s hot palm caresses my breast. He pistons into me. I cry out his name and he fucks me harder.

“I would kill for you, and I have. I would do it again, every damn day. I’d turn myself inside out for you. I would die for you. I don’t just like you, Sloane, and you fucking know it.”

Vicious thrusts throw me over the edge. Stars shatter across my vision. A sound I’ve never before made spills across my lips as the orgasm breaks me apart.

I don’t unravel. I detonate.

Rowan’s arm folds around my waist and he holds me close as he comes, my name dulled by my heart as it thunders in my ears.

His breath is still ragged, his chest shuddering when I turn off the toy and he whispers against my neck, “I don’t just ‘like you’, understand?”

I nod.

Rowan’s fingers trace my jaw, soft and slow, a touch I lean into when his palm stops to rest against my cheek. “And you don’t just ‘like me’ either, do you.”

It’s not a question. It’s not even a demand. It’s a need to be freed from a place where he thinks he’s been alone.

The key slides into the lock as Lark’s words echo in my mind above the riot of heartbeats.

Put some of that bravery to use for yourself for a change.

All the what ifs, I set them aside. All except one.

“No,” I whisper. “I more than like you, Rowan. I think about you all the time. I miss you every day. You appeared one moment and nothing has been the same since. And that scares me. A lot.”

Rowan presses a kiss to my shoulder as his thumb glides across my cheek. “I know.”

“You’re braver than me.”

“No, Sloane,” he says with a low chuckle as he pulls away. “I’m just more reckless, with less sense of self-preservation. I’m scared too.”

I watch as he climbs off the bed to head to the ensuite only to return with the washcloth and tissues. He takes time to clean my skin with gentle strokes, his attention caught on the movement of his hand and his brow creased as he seems deep in thought.

“What are you scared of?” I ask when the silence stretches so long that it feels like it’s tugging on my bones.

Rowan shrugs, not looking up when he says, “I dunno. Having my eyeballs sucked out of my head with an industrial vacuum is a recurring nightmare. Not sure how I came about that one.” When I slap his arm, Rowan’s stoic mask finally cracks into a faint smile. But it slowly fades, and he doesn’t answer until it’s gone. “I’m scared of you destroying me. Me destroying you.”

I blow out a dramatic breath. “Going straight for destruction, huh? Not the easy stuff to be terrified of, like the fact that we live in different states, or that we’re both crazy busy at work, or like, I have one friend and you apparently hang out with the entire city of Boston. Nope. Straight for destroy.”

His smile returns, but I can still see it in his eyes, how fear clings to his thoughts, finding its way into mine too. “None of those are insurmountable things. We just have to do what normal people do. Talk and stuff.”

“We don’t have a good track record of normal people stuff.” I point to my face. “Exhibit A. We could have gone for beers.”

“Then we’ll get good at it. We’ve just gotta practice.”

Seems simple enough, doesn’t it. Practice. Get a little better most days. A little stronger. It’s hard to imagine how to climb past these obstacles that seem like mountains when you’re standing in their shade. But I’ll never climb if I just keep standing still. And Lark was right, I have been lonely standing in the shadows.

So I keep asking myself the same question: What if I try?

I don’t let my mind wander to an answer. Because the real answer is, I don’t know. I’ve never really tried and meant it before, not like this.

Don’t answer the question. Just try. 

That’s what I think when I look at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. It’s what I think when I come back to the bed and Rowan helps me into a tank top before putting my sling back on. It’s what I think when I lay down next to him. He watches me openly, and I watch him back. His eyelids are heavy, just like mine, but he refuses to look away. And still I think, just try.

I shimmy my right arm from beneath me and raise a fist between us. “Rock-paper-scissors.”

“What for?”

“Just do it, pretty boy.”

He gives me a suspicious grin, and then he meets my fist with his. On the count of three, we make our selection. Rowan goes with rock. I go with scissors.

I already know that rock is chosen the majority of the time in games of rock-paper-scissors. I looked it up after the first time I met Rowan and he suggested it in the event of a tie-breaker. And I already know that Rowan almost always chooses rock.

“What did I just win?” he says.

“You can ask me anything, and I’ll answer you honestly.”

His eyes flash in the dim light. “Really?”

“Yeah. Go on. Anything.”

Rowan chews at his lip as he deliberates. It takes him a long moment to settle on a question. “You were going to leave when we were in West Virginia and I killed Francis. Why didn’t you?”

The image of Rowan kneeling on the road bursts to the forefront of my mind. I’ve thought about it so many times, the way he rained relentless blows on the man clutched in the grip of his madness. I’d watched from the shadows, and as Rowan slowed and stopped, I backed away. Leaving was the smart thing to do. He was clearly unhinged. Dangerous. He’d grabbed me by the throat only moments before, and even though I was afraid, I still trusted him. Part of me knew he pushed me away from Francis and the car to hide me in the shadows. And when it was over, my mind screamed at me to run, but my heart saw a broken man on the road, struggling to find himself in the haze of rage.

And the first word to pass his lips was my name.