Page 85 of Claiming Charlotte

She turned around and locked eyes with me, but she wasn't happy. I leaned in wanting to feel her lips on mine, but she turned away.

“Lottie,” I said worriedly. “It’s me, I promise.” My hand moved to her face and my thumb caressed her jawline. “I’m so sorry.”

She pushed on my chest lightly, putting distance between us. For a moment I thought she was going to embrace me when she reeled back and slapped me across the face.

“How dare you,” she whispered. “I had to mourn you and my father, I woke up and you were dead!”

Now I was feeling some shame for not telling her, but she needed to see reason, so I asked her to trust me.

“Charlotte, you can be mad for however long you need, but understand now that I am dead, we can do or go wherever we want.”

“Why are you always leaving me, Rowan? I always lose. Is something wrong with me!?” Her voice cracked. “You should have warned me that I would have had to live without you, Rowan! I would have been fine with that. You can't just show up like this!” She yelled, throwing a plate and I ducked as it crashed into the wall behind me. “Where have you been, and why are you bloody!”

My heart shattered watching all the emotions she had been holding in every time a plate or cup was thrown my way, and I hated myself for causing that pain.

Red painted her cheeks and her eyes were blazing as they met my glossy ones, and she shattered, her lower lip quivered.

I opened my arms hoping she would embrace me like I needed her to. And after an agonizing minute she did, wrapping around me tight, and I placed my face into her hair, soothed by the familiar scent as she sobbed.

“I’m so sorry” I said, my own tears pooling at the surface and falling down into her hair.

“You need to leave and stay gone,” She demanded. “You will always leave me behind.”

“Please, no. I won’t leave again, I did this for us; so, I could give you the life you want.” I whispered, falling to my knees. I wrapped my arms around her waist, and pulled her close, and my tear-stained face rested on her abdomen. “Please, Lottie, I'll do anything.” I begged, sobbing against her.

“Retire,” she said quietly.

“What do you mean?” I sniffed.

“Retire, Rowan. You’re fired. If you want to stay, you are going back to school and you are going to do what you should have done a long time ago. The mask disappears, and you stop going after the Walkers. It’s not your fight anymore.”

“I’m not going to let them hurt you,” I whispered to her.

“Look at me Rowan, you have no choice in the matter. I never had a choice, but you do; if you love me, you will do this. For us.”

Her face never faltered, I never thought about the consequences of this life, and now it was threatening to crash around me, but I would let it all burn, if it meant I didn’t lose her.

I stood up towering over her and lifted her up, instantly she wrapped her legs around my waist. My lips found the vein on her neck, and I kissed against her slowed pulse.

“Okay,” She moaned as my lips trailed down her neck. “Consider me retired, Princess, you will always be my priority.”

I carried her over and laid her down on the kitchen table, rubbing her nipples with the palm of my hand through the pink silk of her nightgown.

“Roe,” she moaned out, and my dick stirred, straining against the fabric of my jeans.

Her slender fingers reached for the buttons on my shirt undoing them one by one until it fell from my shoulders.

Wrapping my hands around her thighs I pulled her to the edge of the table and teased her with my fingers. “I want your wetness dripping off of this table, Charlotte."

“Then stop teasing and fuck me Rowan,” she pleaded.

And I always complied.

I lined up with her entrance and groaned and I drove into her. Missing the way, she fit around me like the piece to a puzzle I had been missing.

36

6 YEARS LATER…

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