Page 87 of Falling Like Stars

Oh, fuck.

With effort, I haul myself off of her and sit back against the headboard. Rowan straddles me, one silky thigh on either side of my hips.

“You like it like this,” I breathe, my hands sliding down her body to her hips, gripping them and wanting to impale her on me but drawing it out.

She nods, pressing her forehead to mine and inciting a round of heated, biting kisses, until she pulls back.

“When we’re like this,” she says, holding my face in her hands, her entrance sliding against my length, tormenting me, “I feel closer to you. I’m yours and you’re mine, and all I want is for you to feel that. To feel how badly I want you.”

Rowan reaches between us, and her head falls back, her mouth open as she takes me inside the tight heat of her. My eyes fall shut at the intensity of our connection, and we linger in the moment. The world dissolves until there is nothing but our sweat-slicked bodies, our rasping breaths, and this woman who is everything I want from now until the day I die.

“I love you, Rowan.”

Her breath is tremulous against my lips as I hold her in place, my hands on her hips, hers in my hair.

“I love you, Zach,” she whispers back. “With all that I am.”

“With all that I am,” I repeat, and then grit my teeth to hold back a sound of pure need as I move her on me. She moves too, riding me with pure abandon while keeping us close, kissing me when she’s able, our tongues and teeth taking what they can between thrusts. But it’s not enough.

I grip Rowan around the waist and take her down so that her head is at the foot of the bed, and then I’m driving into her.

“Yes,” she hisses. “Yes, Zach…oh God…”

She’s close. I feel the tension coil in her body and see it in the pained expression on her face. I’m close too, but driving her to the edge is all I care about. I want to see and feel and hear her come apart under me, to give her everything.

She pulls me to her, my face in her hands again. Always holding me like that as if I were valuable to her. I kiss her hard as her orgasm rips through her, tensing her body. Pain finds my lower lip as she bites me; unintentionally, but I taste the tang of my blood.

“Oh no,” she whispers. “No, I…”

I shake my head, my own orgasm cresting and then crashing. I hold myself over her, my body shuddering as I empty myself into her, and then she’s pulling me tight, wrapping arms and legs around me. Skin to skin. There are no parts of us that aren’t touching, aren’t joined.

“I’m sorry,” she says, touching my bloodied lip. “The last thing I want is to hurt you—”

“You’re not,” I say, cutting her off. “You’re not hurting me. Okay?”

She nods, understanding, her blue eyes electric and sad and full of love. For me. She holds me tight as if she’ll never let go. And I lie over Rowan, a shield between her and the world that’s been so cruel. I’ll take the pain, hers and mine, both. I can take it. I will take it if it means having her like this. Always.

Chapter Twenty-Four

MORNING SUN STREAMS into the guestroom, falling over the rustic, country-made furniture. The room is clean and simple but homey. Rowan sleeps curled up against me, my arms wrapped around her. I kiss her softly on the forehead, trying not to wake her, and slide my arm out from under her. She stirs but doesn’t wake.

In the en suite bathroom, I examine myself in the mirror. My lower lip is a tad swollen but not enough that anyone will notice. The cut is on the inside, small, and already better. Even so, a slew of complicated feelings rise up, namely a sense of déjà vu. I’ve been here before, at my parents’ home, hiding evidence of something having gone wrong the night before. Which is bullshit.

Rowan didn’t mean to do it, I think as I stare at my reflection. That’s the difference. The most important fucking difference.

But the unease won’t leave me. Not about Rowan but about Eva. How, even from the other side of the blockade I erected between us, she’s still fucking with me. A terrible instinctive voice tells me that it won’t stop until I have it out with her. About all of it. That the only way to be whole again is to take back the parts of me she’s still holding onto.

“Fuck that,” I mutter. “A Pandora’s box of a shit storm is all that’ll get me.”

I run the water and scrub my face. There are more important things in life to give my attention to, like the woman currently in my bed. A smile comes over my lips, and I ignore the tiny sting of the cut, like I ignore the voice.

I slide across the bed and wrap Rowan back up in my arms. She stirs awake and I kiss her neck, her cheek. She pulls back to look at me; I see her gaze drop to my mouth, but I deflect.

“You want some coffee?” I ask.

“I would love some,” she says, tracing her finger along my jaw. “But I can’t move at the moment. Which is all your fault.” She cocks a brow. “Is there anything you’re not good at?”

“No.”

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