Page 121 of At First Dance
He shrugs. “Just observant.”
I walk up behind him, looping my arms around his waist and pressing my cheek against the warm skin of his back. “I like this version of you,” I murmur. “Domestic cowboy with a spatula.”
He chuckles, flipping a pancake. “Don’t get used to it. This is a one-time special.”
I peek at the counter. There’s a stack of pancakes, a bowl of sliced strawberries, and fresh whipped cream.
“I didn’t think you cooked anything other than meat and eggs for breakfast.”
“I don’t usually. Evelyn helped me this morning.” He gestures to his phone with the screen still on that reads:
Use strawbewwies and LOTS of whip. She’ll like it.??
I blink, caught off guard by the sweetness of it. “God, I love her.”
“She loves you too,” he says softly. “They all do.”
His voice is so quiet, so full of unspoken meaning, that I freeze.
“Ivy.”
I look up.
Rowan’s gaze meets mine, searching, serious. “We need to talk.”
My stomach dips. “About last night?”
He shakes his head. “About everything.”
He sets the spatula down and leans back against the counter, arms crossed over his chest. “I know you’ve got a lifein Nashville. A career. Your mom, your team, all those people pulling you in every direction.”
I nod slowly, unsure where this is going.
“But when you’re here... when you’re with me, it’s like I can breathe. Like the chaos shuts up for five seconds.”
A lump forms in my throat. “Rowan—”
“I want you to stay and make this place—my house, not the cottage—your home,” he says bluntly. “But I’m not gonna ask you to give everything up for me. I just... I needed to say it. I want you here. I want mornings like this. I want pancakes and Evelyn’s texts on Lila’s phone and you in my bed.”
Something shifts in his expression—something fierce and gentle all at once. “You don’t have to say anything.”
“I want to,” I say, stepping into him. “I love you, Rowan.”
His arms are around me in seconds, holding me like the ground might fall out from under us. “I love you too, darlin’. So damn much.”
He kisses me, slow and deep, and suddenly, breakfast is forgotten.
He lifts me onto the kitchen counter, his hands under the hem of his shirt—his shirt—pushing it up over my ribs. The granite is cool under my thighs, but his mouth is hot, branding me in all the places that ache for him.
“God, you’re everything,” he growls, dragging my hips forward.
Rowan drops to his knees in front of me like it's a prayer.
His palms glide up the outsides of my thighs, slow and reverent, before curling around to the backs of my knees. I feel his breath against the apex of my thighs, warm and deliberate, like he’s savoring every second before he touches me.
The cool air kisses my skin, but his mouth is warmer. He presses a kiss to the inside of my knee, then higher. Higher.
“Rowan,” I whisper, already trembling, toes curling against the edge of the counter.
