Ugh, I hated that he looked as if I’d struck him. “I appreciate your help, I really do. But I can’t learn to rely on you. Can you understand that?”
He nodded once and took a step back. “Yeah, I get it.”
“I’m not mad at you.” My hands shook, and I shoved them into the pockets of my jeans. “I just need a minute.”
I marched through the staff door to the kitchen and straight into the walk-in fridge. With a huff, I dropped to my knees. Looking around for anything to scream into, I groaned. Not even a bag of flour. It was a goddamn fridge. I buried my face in my apron, wishing I could cover myself with it and disappear.
What the hell are you doing? You let him get into you again.
Andrew was a piece of manipulative shit that I had flushed months ago. He had no power over me. Yet I hated how he could throw me off by showing his mug at my cafe.
Rowan was only trying to help.Fuck.
“I’m here if you need me. Or you can tell me to go.” Rowan’s voice was muffled from the other side of the heavy door. “Sophia let me in.”
I sucked in an angry breath through my teeth with the intention of telling Rowan to go the fuck away, but I released it slowly instead. Did I want him to leave?
No.
“Um…I don’t know if you can hear me,” Rowan said, “but for what it’s worth, I’m sorry that I overstepped.”
I sat against a shelf and banged the back of my head on it. My teeth rattled. Not from the hit, but from the cold. I rubbed my hands together, generating no warmth whatsoever.
Rowan shuffled on the other side. “I’ll go. You need your space.”
“No! Don’t go.” I scrambled to open the door. Warm air hit me in the face as I toppled over.
Rowan’s arms were around me, and he sat on the ground with me on his lap. Only then, feeling safe and understood, did my tears fall, rolling down my cheeks.
Rowan held me loosely, giving me a way out, but also comforting me with a kindness I’d never truly known from a partner. I was stupid for crying, but I couldn’t help it.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” I sniffled and wiped my face on my apron. “I shouldn’t let that asshole affect me. You were hot out there.” I snort-laughed through drying tears and turned around to straddle him.
“I’m sorry, Milo. You always understand what people need out there, and you read me like an open book. No one has ever done that before.” Rowan cupped my face. “Sometimes I don’t know what you need from me, but if you tell me, I’ll listen, I promise. No more macho shit.”
I kissed him. I had to. And he opened to it with a gentleness so usual to him, yet so contrary to his size. He held me like I mattered and kissed me back like I was becoming the air he needed to survive.
My body responded to his proximity and to Rowan’s scent of leather mixed with freshly cut wood. I’d thought it was his cologne but he always smelled the same. It was his natural scent, and it was a strong aphrodisiac to my senses. I broke away from him, panting.
“I need you right now.” I ground my butt on his lap, driving my point across.
“Here?” He stroked my back in circles, then down to my ass.
I stood up, backed into the storage room, and beckoned him with a finger. “Yes.”
He pulled to his feet, his gaze darkening to that expression of needy surrender, as if he wanted me so much he’d follow me everywhere. No one has ever looked at me like that before, and I was drunk on the attention.
Rowan was so fucking sexy when aroused.
“Make me feel good. I don’t care how.” I raked my fingers through the hair peeking from the vee of his open shirt. I needed Rowan to fuck Andrew out of my head as soon as possible.
He caught my wrist, turned me around and placed my hands on the shelf. “Hold on to it.”
“I need it fast and raw.” I looked at him over my shoulder and thrust my ass back. “Please.”
Rowan pulled my pants, along with my underwear, down to my ankles, and squeezed my butt with both hands. “I love your ass. I could wake up with you sitting on my face every day.”
“Fucking hell.” My head filled with ideas on how to surprise him with exactly that one morning.
