Page 53 of Where the Roses Bloom
“I didn’t think…” she said as I trailed my lips lower, down to her throat. “I didn’t think you would…”
“Anything for you, rosebud,” I rasped. “If you’re sure…I’ll give you whatever you ask for.”
“I’m sure,” she gasped, pulse fluttering against my tongue. “I want to remember this with my whole body…I want this forest to remember.”
God help me, that did something to me.
Something I didn’t think I’d ever fully understand.
The rain started as a whisper—soft at first, just a few dropstapping against the canopy above—but as we kissed, it broke through in earnest, cool and sudden. Rain streaked down between the willow branches, dousing us both, soaking through our clothes…and I didn’t care. Willow gasped as the cold hit her skin, but it just made her cling to me tighter, sliding into my lap, her legs straddling my hips as I tossed my pack aside and began to shrug out of my jacket.
Lightning cracked somewhere close by, but it could’ve been her touch, for all I knew.
Because I was shaking.
We both were.
“Goddamn,” I muttered against her mouth, fumbling with her shirt now, yanking it up over her head as the rain plastered her long hair to her cheeks. She was flushed and glowing and soaked through, cotton bra clinging to her skin, nipples hard beneath it. Her breath ran ragged like she couldn’t keep up with whatever we’d summoned between us.
“You feel that?” she whispered, voice trembling.
I didn’t ask what she meant.
I didn’t have to.
The way the air buzzed around us, thick with ozone…with the energy of something watching. Not anything threatening or cruel, butsomethingall the same, something that took up all the space and held us in a tense embrace. It was like the trees had bent their heads to listen, like the earth itself needed to be consummated.
“I feel you,” I rasped. “That’s all I need.”
She keened when I ducked my head to suck one nipple into my mouth, yanking her bra aside, using teeth not because I wanted to but because I had to. Willow rocked against me, my cock impossibly hard, aching. She moaned, her nails digging into my shoulders, rain trailing down her spine like the grove itself was touching her. I didn’t know if this was magic, or grief, or sex, or salvation.
“Fuck, baby,” I panted, pressing my forehead to her sternum as I slid one hand between us, unfastening her jeans with fingers that barely worked. “I need you outta these—now.”
“Yes,” she gasped. “Yes, take them off. Please.”
I got them down over her hips, helping her shimmy out of the soaked denim, her underwear sliding with them. Willow didn’t blush, didn’t flinch, holding my gaze as if getting naked and making love on the forest floor was the most natural thing she could possibly do.
And Jesus Christ, I loved her.
In a matter of weeks, I’d fallen head over heels for this woman…this wild, interminable, undefinable woman.
We were going to break the Ward family curse together. I felt it in my bones.
She reached for my jeans, fumbling the button and dragging the zipper down with a snarl of frustration, like every second she didn’t have me inside her was one too long.
“Come on, Rhett,” she hissed, wrapping a fist around my cock as soon as I’d shoved my jeans down low enough to free it. “Please…please, I need younow.”
I didn’t need more than that.
She let out a loud, breathy gasp when I laid her back against the moss at the foot of the tree…as her thighs parted, wet with rain and arousal.
Then I lined myself up and pressed inside to the hilt.
The wind howled, the trees shivered. Thunder rumbled and lightning struck close enough that it lit the whole clearing in neon blue.
What we were doing probably wasn’t safe, but it was necessary. I knew that, without a doubt.
Willow cried out, arching beneath me, and I felt her everywhere: my cock, my thighs, my fingertips, deepin my chest, wrapped around my heart. She was tight and wet and perfect, her body clenching around mine.
