“Okay, so I kind of assumed everyone was doing the same thing I was doing. Or, at least everyone who was seeing Dr. Weaver.” He grabs his glass off the table, downing a couple of swallows before continuing. “My parents—I’m sure you know them. Everyone knows them—they weren’t around a lot growing up. I spent a lot of time by myself. My nanny practically raised me. It was lonely, and as I got older, I started partying more. Being around all those people was comforting. It was better than going home to an empty house.”
Rowan’s body is rigid as he admits all of this to me. It’s clear it’s a hard topic to talk about. I meet his mossy green gaze, and I offer what I hope is a reassuring smile, urging him to continue. He does.
“But the people at the parties, they were never more than a surface level type of acquaintance. Aside from Brielle and Brynn, my two closest friends, I never allowed myself to have deeper connections. I didn’t even realize it was something I did until Dr. Weaver pointed it out. She nailed it right on the head, and I’m shocked I never noticed it before.”
Rowan downs the rest of drink, and I follow suit.
“In one of the first few sessions I had with Weaver, she gave me the journal, tasking me with trying to allow myself to be more open with people. She wanted me to try to find a deeper connection, or at least log what kind of relationships I would find myself in. She never asked to look at them, and I never shared with her any specifics or names, only vague scenarios. Writing it down was mostly for me; a conscious effort at making deeper connections.”
My blood pressure raises, and I grind my molars together. “So, you only started talking to me as part of your social experiment with the therapist?” The question comes out harsh, clipped, but I can’t help it. This is exactly what I was fucking worried about.
“No!” Jumping out of his chair, he kneels in front of mine, reaching for my hands. It happens so fast, I don’t have time to withdraw before he’s holding them in his soft, warm palms. “That morning I sat down at your table was before I even met with her. I met you the day after I arrived at the island. I hadn’t had a chance to go to any therapy sessions by then. Cas, everything we shared was real for me. My feelings for you are genuine, and I fucking need you to see that.”
Breathing out a sigh through my nose, I run through everything we did and said on the island. Iwantto believe him. Iwantto trust he’s being genuine, but I feel like trust like that has never gotten me anywhere good.
“Getting to know you was the easiest part of my time at Black Diamond,” he continues, squeezing my hand as if trying to convey how much he means what he’s saying. “Spending time with you, getting to see sides of you I know the world doesn’t get… it was the only thing that made that stay bearable. You have to believe me, Caspian. My need to be around you—to consume you—was a hundred percent genuine and real. You have no idea how fucking painful and lonely it was when you left, especially withhowyou left.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek as I take in what he’s saying, as I reallyhearhim. “I want to believe you, Row…”
“So, do it,” he says plainly. Like it’s that fucking easy. “Or at least try. Please. Do you really think I’d fly across the fucking world, buy tickets to, like, thirty fucking shows, if I wasn’t serious?”
Shrugging, I say, “I mean, you could.”
He rolls his eyes dramatically, and it makes me chuckle. “Be fucking for real, Cas. No, I wouldn’t.”
Sitting up, I take one of my hands out of his grip, using it to cup the back of his head at his nape. My thumb runs idly across his smooth cheek, gaze searching his. For the truth in what he’s saying, and I finally see it, I think. Rowan melts into the touch, and I melt into him. Having my hands back on him, having him be this close to me again, it’s ethereal. It’s familiar and comfortable and everything I’ve been missing.
I truthfully don’t know how he’s weaseled his way into me the way he has. He’s somehow clawed his way beneath my skin, wrapped around every fiber, every muscle, and managed to chip away at the walls I’ve spent my entire life enforcing. As I look into his mossy green eyes that are looking at me with such awe and such adoration, I can’t help but believe him. I can’t help but want to wrap myself up in him, bury all of my concerns and feelings inside of him, where I know they’re safe.
So, I do…
CHAPTERTHIRTY-TWO
Caspian
Our lips brush, a tidal wave of desire and need, and another emotion I can’t quite name washes through me. Rowan’s breath hitches, his body stiffening, but it doesn’t take long for him to relax and give himself over to me. His lips part, letting my tongue slip into his mouth, licking and tasting every crevice. The hands once holding mine slide up until they wrap around my neck as Rowan climbs into my lap with fervor.
Breaking the kiss, he reaches over, grabbing my drink, tossing some back. He uses two fingers to grip my chin, forcing my mouth open and my head back. Rowan towers over me, a mischievous smirk tugging on his lips as he spits the drink into my mouth. I swallow automatically, my eyes gazing up at him with awe and arousal and something else entirely as he sets the drink down, crashing his lips back onto mine.
Mouths moving together in perfect synchrony, my hands wrap around his middle, slipping underneath his shirt, the pads of my fingers caressing featherlight along his bare back before dipping beneath his pants, grabbing two handfuls of his taut, round ass. He moans, a needy little sound I gladly swallow down before slanting my head, allowing the kiss to grow deeper as my body grows needier.
Rowan grinds his ass on my lap, the blood in my body quickly moving south as my cock fills for him. His fingers reach up, threading through my hair, pulling roughly, our mouths separating as my throat is exposed to him. Searing hot lips create a path down to my neck as he kisses me all over, sucking the flesh into his mouth, no doubt leaving marks. The idea of performing with marks all across my neck from him turns me on more than it should.
I shove his pants down over the swell of his ass, a single digit dragging through the crease, circling his tight pucker, teasing him. A full body shiver runs through his body, and I relish the way his hole tightens and wrinkles under my touch.
I’ve fucking missed this so damn much.
Working his way back up, Rowan licks along my jaw, flicking his tongue into my mouth, along the back of my teeth before sealing his lips to mine, the fire behind this growing hotter by the second. I grab him by the backs of his thighs, raising us from the chair as I carry him inside blindly, never taking my mouth off his.
I’m somehow able to get us into the bedroom without knocking anything over or seriously injuring us, tossing him onto the bed as I shuck the rest of my clothes off. His hungry eyes devour me, his bottom lip tucked tightly between his teeth, cheeks a brilliant shade of pink.
“Fuck, princess, do you have any fucking idea how beautiful you look right now?”
He smirks. “You’re one to talk.”
Crawling on the bed over to him, my fingers go for the hem of his shirt, yanking it off and tossing it to the side. I shove him back until he’s lying flat, grabbing the waist of his pants, and removing those too. Sitting back on my haunches, I take a moment to just admire his naked body. His long limbs, lean torso, the deep, defined Adonis belt leading directly to dark, neatly trimmed hair at the base of a thick, mouthwatering cock, balls that are pink and full.
Slowly, I drag my gaze back up his body, landing on his pretty face. His features are sharp and sleek, lips full and pouty, and his eyes are dilated, endless pools of blackness laced with a need so strong, it's staggering. His forehead glistens with sweat my tongue aches to lap up. Leaning down, hovering over him, I press my lips to the soft flesh of his abdomen, his ab muscles flexing at the contact. I make my way all across the surface, letting my tongue dip into his naval before moving up to his chest.
