Page 15 of The Autumn We Fell in Love

Because my belly, my ass, my most intimate place? They’ve all only been seen by one man ever, and — thankfully — rarely at that, and not for quite some time.

I’m no virgin, but in this moment, beckoning Rowan through the front door of my home, I feel like one.

In a short while, I’ll have fully bared myself before this man in every way possible. Then I’ll learn if his words are true.

I’ll learn if a smart, smoldering twenty-something hunk of beautiful man really can feel the things he’s professing for a flabby, wrinkled forty-two-year-old.

I’m terrified.

And I’m exhilarated, excited.

I haven’t let myself hope in so long. But with Rowan, I have.

I’m about to find out just how foolish that was.

Even just having him in my foyer feels scandalous and risky. Already he’s learning more about me as he takes in the small home that would be called a cottage if it was located in New England and not the Rocky Mountains.

I lead him through to the living room, then the kitchen. His eyes sweep over the walls adorned with art, twinkle lights, and framed photographs of loved ones and the red brick accent wall that just about every room boasts.

After I’d divorced Seth the Sack, I’d let him keep the house that we’d shared — in exchange for its current market value. With that and my aunt’s money, I’d purchased a restored home in the city’s oldest district that made my heart go pitter-patter.

Seeing Rowan standing in it makes my heart race even faster.

I could get used to seeing him in this sunlit kitchen every day, or lounging on the squashy turquoise chaise lounge in the living room, or between my tousled sheets.

I wanted him before.

But seeing him here in my home is making me realize just how fiercely I ache to call this man mine.

He is kind and thoughtful and talented and witty. He’s beautiful to look at, and I shiver at the thought of how good his hands will feel on my naked body.

Rowan Keating is the kind of man I’ve always wanted. The kind a woman could grow old with. Or older with, anyway.

I suddenly both can’t wait to jump his bones and am terrified to.

Because if he sees all of me and turns away, it’ll break my heart more than Seth did in the decades of our sham of a marriage.

But if I send Rowan away, choosing the safe path to a lifetime loneliness, I’ll regret it forever.

So I go for it. I have to. I make the leap, take the plunge, and carpe the hell out of this diem.

I have no other choice. Not one that I can live with.

I turn to invite him upstairs and into my bed.

But I don’t get even the first word out of my mouth before his hands are on me, lips moving for mine.

What else can I do? I let myself fall into his strong arms, meeting him kiss for kiss, probing his mouth with my tongue while his fingers rove my body. He reaches under my shirt and explores every sag of fat, every span of cellulite.

He nuzzles the folds of my neck with his lips and I hold my breath waiting for him to pull away.

Instead, he presses his hips against mine so I can feel how aroused he is. My face heats as I realize how hard and ready his cock his — how ready forme. How arousedI’vemade him, as is, with this body.

The response of Rowan’s body does more for me than his murmured promises of forever love. The embers of desire that have been kindling in my belly since the start of the semester burst into sudden, glorious fire. My insides are an inferno and the only thing that can tame these flames is the man grazing the top of my shoulder with light teeth.

I need more.

I need all of him.

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