Page 74 of At First Dance
“Rowan,” I call, louder than I mean to.
His shoulders stiffen before he turns. Smoke shadows still cling to his jaw, shirt damp at the collar, pitchfork biting the earth. “Morning,” he says, clipped.
That’s it.Morning.
After last night—the way he stood between me and the fire, the way his hand found the small of my back when the wind shifted, the way he cleaned the grit from my knee like it was his own skin—he gives me ‘morning’?
I close the distance, not bothering to hide the heat in my voice. “We’re just… pretending none of that happened?”
He keeps working a beat too long, like the soil suddenly matters more than oxygen. “Not sure what you mean.”
“Oh, I think you do.” I fold my arms and plant my feet. “The part where you hovered near enough to catch me if I fell and then acted like you didn’t. The part where you watched me like I was a storm you wanted and feared at the same time.”
His eyes lift, guarded. “Don’t make it into something it’s not, Ivy.”
“Then what is it?” Softer now, because the bravado is just scaffolding over something far more breakable. “Because you carry me when I’m sick, you show up when things burn, and then you talk to me like we’re strangers at the feed store.”
The pitchfork teeth thud into the dirt. He drags a hand over his scruff, like the rasp might buy him time. “It’s not that simple.”
“Try me.”
He exhales like he’s been holding up the sky all morning. When he speaks, it lands low and unvarnished. “You terrify me.”
I blink. “What?”
“You come into this place—into my life—like a spark I didn’t ask for. Now everything smells like smoke.” His mouth flattens, then loosens. “I think about you when I’m counting fence posts. When I’m supposed to be sleeping. When I’m not supposed to be thinking at all. And I hate it because I know where wanting has taken me before.”
“You don’t know me,” I say, even though part of me aches at how much he already does.
“I know enough.” His voice snags on the last word. “I know I’m the guy who stays. And I know you’ve got a whole world that doesn’t look anything like this one.”
I take a step closer. The air between us tightens, humming. “Then stop pretending it doesn’t matter.”
He doesn’t answer.
“Tell me you don’t want me, Rowan,” I whisper. “Say it, and I’ll walk away.”
Silence.
“Say it,” I demand, voice shaking.
But he doesn’t. He justlooksat me. And then hemoves.
One step forward. One rough hand curling around my wrist, pulling me into him. His mouth hovers over mine, breath ragged.
“I can’t,” he rasps.
My heart thunders, then his lips crash into mine. It’s not tentative. It’s not soft. It’s hunger. Frustration. Weeks of wanting wrapped into one searing kiss.
His hands grip my waist like he’s been waiting forever to touch me. My fingers twist in his shirt, grounding myself in his heat.
He breaks the kiss first, forehead pressed to mine, breath still shaky.
“This is going to ruin me,” he whispers.
I smile against his mouth.
“Good.”
