ROWAN
She had become a cliché. She was the woman standing outside the restaurant’s window, in the dark, in the rain, her long black hair swimming in rivulets down her back, lashes dripping, rain cutting paths across the planes of her face. Her cold, wet misery—her tithe to watch the warm scene inside. Everyone was smiling and laughing, eating and drinking, kisses to cheeks and hands touching beneath the table.
For the ones inside, it was family. It was love.
For her, the woman outside, it was lonely. It was cold. A recurring, waking nightmare.
Raven and River. Rowan’s beloved sisters. They were the ones she was watching through the window—with the men they loved.
Rowan’s problem—she didn’t want a bright-haired fairytale prince. No, she wanted the dark king.
A man who did not want her.
Outside looking in. Wishes that don’t come true.
1
NEW YEAR’S DAY—EARLY MORNING
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” Hugh bellowed, startling Rowan and almost making her tumble from her precarious perch.
She was currently stretched atop one of the highest rungs on Hugh’s library ladder. Flustered and annoyed, her usual feelings around the retired oil billionaire, she stopped reaching for the book that had caught her eye. Technically, a book hadn’t caught her eye, but an exquisitely crafted archival box and her curiosity about what it might hold got the best of her. It was placed on thehighestbookshelf, mocking her short frame, which was why she found herself on the ladder in the first place.
Rowan swung her head around, ready to growl back a response, the only language the man seemed to understand, and remind Hugh the Harasser that he had, in fact,givenher permission to be here not three hours ago at Irish Wolves Pub & Eatery.
Wolves was the O’Faolains’ first experimental step as restaurateurs and where she’d spent New Year’s Eve with her two sisters and their significant others, Bran and Patrick, Hugh’s sons…andHugh. Both of their families had been staying atthe O’Faolain compound in Muskogee, Oklahoma, during the holiday season and for Raven and Bran’s wedding.
Before she could shut down the Master of Moodiness, Rowan lost her balance. One moment, she was all easy elegance—à laBelle swinging on her hometown bookstore’s ladder, carefree and smiling. Then one foot slipped, the arm previously reaching for the treasure above her head flailing, which shifted her weight and momentum. A ballet choreographed in disaster, and unlike the bibliophilic Beauty, there was no singing and certainly no grace.
She felt her remaining hand slip, which allowed her upper body to slow-fall backward. The only purchase left was one foot, five little toes, gripping a step. For a single heartbeat, Rowan thought she might tip her body back toward the ladder’s safety. Unfortunately, her windmilling arms had no effect on gravity.
Rowan had a moment to consider what a header to the stone library floor might feel like—on her face—when a warm hand slid beneath Rowan’s pajama shorts. Beast to the rescue. Large fingers gripped her bare ass, stopping the inevitable fall. Rowan’s body halted abruptly, arched backward at an awkward angle like a stringless marionette.
However, with Hugh’s hand hidden beneath her shorts, a risqué sculpture in freefall might be a better description. Visualize Atlas holding up the heavens and then replace the Titan with Hugh holding her ass.
His warm grip was the architectural keystone suspending disaster and injury. It also created a shocking level of intimacy.
As Rowan slightly twisted toward the O’Faolain patriarch, she witnessed the widening of his eyes and the complete stillness of his body as his fingertips found their resting places, touching her most intimate...nooks and crannies.
Hugh might not be a Greek god, but the man was huge and mouthwateringly gorgeous. No matter how undignified her current position, she prayed he’d keep touching her.
Rowan was afraid to move. First, she didn’t want him to take his fingers away, and second, if he moved his fingers, she was afraid a moan might slip out.
And then...his fingers flexed—barely—and, oh God, she moan-squeaked.Kill me.
Squeaking was so not sexy.
Hugh’s eyes flew to hers. He was the most intense man Rowan had ever met, and right now, she wanted all that pent-up, growling, testosterone-fueled intensity sinking into her body. His dark brown eyes looked almost black as they stared at one another.
Hugh inhaled deeply before reaching his free hand toward her and placing it against her side closest to the rungs. Rowan shivered as his heat radiated through the thin material of her sleep tank, then inhaled sharply as his grip tightened and his thumb pressed below her right breast.
It was Hugh’s turn to moan. Rowan watched him close his eyes and swallow. He wasalwaysrigidly in control of himself. At that moment, he looked a hairsbreadth away from pulling Rowan into his arms and finally,finally, touching her the way she’d dreamed of him doing—the way his face always said he wanted to.
Opening his eyes, Hugh easily lifted her from the ladder, setting her carefully in front of him. As he slowly pulled his fingers from inside her shorts, Rowan knew he must have felt her damp heat. When he muttered “Christ” under his breath, she was sure of it.
He hadn’t removed his hand from her side yet. From his much greater height, Hugh was 6’4” to her 5’4”, his thumb rested snugly under her breast, pushing her boob slightly higher thanthe other. Hehadto know where he was touching her. When his thumb slowly swiped right, the nail’s tip edging her painfully erect nipple, Rowanknewhe knew what he was touching.
As Rowan took a tentative half step forward to close the gap between their bodies, Hugh’s breath exploded, and he practically tripped over his feet as he released her and jumped back. Rowan could only blink in wonderment at the man’s mercurial moods. She was tired of him looking at her like he wanted her close while putting up walls to keep her far away. It was confusing and frustrating—and had been going on for months.
