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Rowan was looking at me, but he wasn’t. He was looking above my head. Like he couldn’t look me in the eyes when he told me this. Like he was afraid of what he might see on my face.
“Fucked me up for a long time. Fucked me up for life,” he continued, still looking above my head. “I’ve dealt with it as much as a human being can deal with that shit. But it changed me for life, Nora. I’ll never be whole. Never be right. Not completely. Which is why I stayed away from you for so fuckin’ long. Not because of the ring on your finger. Knew that you didn’t belong to that fuck, that you belonged to me before you even knew it.”
Despite the horrific subject matter, my heart leaped at that little gem of information. That Rowan had considered me his before I thought he knew I existed.
“I stayed away ’cause I thought I’d ruin you,” he peered down at his scarlet knuckles. “Thought that my filth would rub off on you. And you’re so fuckin’ clean. You smell like fuckin’ sugar, for fuck’s sake. You’re sweet, you’re good, and a man like me has absolutely no business bein’ near a woman like you.”
I struggled to hold back the tears filling my eyes.
“Want to lie to myself and you and say I might’ve held out, been content in just looking at you, talking to you for a minute a day about fuckin’ Yellowstone or whatever the fuck.” He rubbed his jaw. “But I won’t do that. As much as I want to be one, I’m not a good man. Got a code, to be sure. One I live by because it keeps me sane mostly, and because without that code, I’m afraid of who I might be.”
My knees shook.
“But you’re mine now,” he said, his voice no longer even and flat. “And I’m not lettin’ you go. I’m yours too, Nora. And I thought you understood me well enough to know that I’m not a man who wants easy. Who wants anyone but you. Thought I’d done a good job of showin’ you that. Obviously, I haven’t. So, I’ll lay it out for you. I fuckin’ like that you’re a bit broken. I wish I could say that I’d fix you if I could, but I ain’t gonna say that because if I did, then I couldn’t have you. I need hard, Nora. Want hard, ugly love. ’Cause that’s all I’m capable of.”
The ground shook underneath my feet.
Rowan had created distance between us in order to give me that part of him, the part he’d been holding back, the part my outburst had brought forward. But now he’d opened up to me, he surged forward, grabbing the sides of my neck so our mouths were inches apart.
He was warm. Solid. Comforting.
“If I could bring your brother back, I would,” he murmured. “I would do anything to not see you in this kind of pain. I’d sell my fuckin’ soul to the devil.” He rested his forehead against mine. “But I can’t. Neither can you. You can’t drink away the feelings either.” He stroked my jaw with his thumb. “But if you want to keep tryin’, I’m gonna be at your side, and you sure as shit won’t be at a dive bar on your own.”
I chewed my lip, not having the strength to try to push Rowan away any further. It had been a futile attempt in the first place. What was my life without this man?
“Are you going to get in trouble?” I asked, looking back at the bar then to Rowan’s bloodstained knuckles. He’d unleashed a lot of violence on the man, and he’d deserved it. But not at the expense of Rowan’s freedom. My throat dried with the panic of thinking about Rowan behind bars.
Rowan’s jaw clenched. “No. I won’t be in trouble for that shit. Finn will probably thank me for doin’ what he can’t.”
My interest piqued. “What do you know about Finn and him being into Lori?”
Rowan’s eyes went wide. “You’re seriously trying to matchmake right now, in the middle of all this?”
Though I wouldn’t have thought it was possible minutes earlier, I smiled. “Well, I’ve gotta find a silver lining somewhere, and a happily ever after for two people who deserve it meets the criteria.”
Rowan’s lips stretched into a grin as he shook his head, kissing me on the nose.
“You and I are the two people havin’ a happily ever after.” He pulled me close, tucking me into the crook of his neck. “And you’re gonna be okay, cupcake. Now let me take you home.”
Home.
My house had always just been a place for me. I’d created a pretty one, to be sure. But home had always been Ansel. That’s why I was at the bar in the first place. Because I was drifting, anchorless. Homeless. But staring at Rowan, I realized that I had a home.
