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She focused on the way he felt in her, on her, and let the pleasure build and build. The climax felt different in the new position and she gasped from the power of it.
Bennett gripped her hips and released his control, coating her with his seed as he roared her name into their silent bedroom.
Gasping, he said, “Don’t stop, Rowan. Don’t stop.”
She kept going.
His heart was like a hammer in his chest but she kept going because she finally - truly - understood what he wanted. It would break her to give it to him but for the love they shared, for the man who earned her devotion, she would.
“Yes, Rowan. Yes. Love me through it. I’ll take your love with me, darling. It will be like armor around me.” Her tears never stopped but she kept going, kept loving him. “You don’t know how you saved me. You can’t know how I love you.” He came high and hot in her body a third time and it was like a miracle of a different kind.
Rowan knew when his heart began to seize but still, she moved. It was what he’d wanted, what he’d planned.
To let go of his life in her arms.
“I love you, Bennett. I love you more than I love myself.” She could be strong enough to give the man she loved the choice of how and when his life ended. “You’re the best man I’ve ever known and I’ll love you forever.”
His hand shook as he lifted it to her chest. “This heart is big enough to love more than one person, Rowan.” His voice was strained as he stared into her eyes. “I’m not afraid. Thank you for loving me and letting me love you as long as I could. My beautiful, fearless Rowan.”
She kept moving, crying brokenly. He dropped his hands to her thighs and kept his eyes locked on her face.
When his heart stopped, when he exhaled his last breath, there was a smile on his lips.
Chapter Eleven
Rowan dropped over Bennett’s chest, holding him with her entire body and sobbing hard enough that she thought her own heart truly would stop.
“I’m not ready. I’m not strong enough! Don’t leave me, Bennett. I need you. I love you...please.”
Then James was there, pulling a robe over Rowan’s nakedness as he wept, too. He crouched beside the bed.
Her cheek on Bennett’s still chest, Rowan stroked her fingers through her husband’s soft hair and kept her eyes closed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Come back. P-please don’t leave me alone, Bennett. Please don’t leave me alone.”
After a few minutes, James stood and moved to lift her off of Bennett’s body. Rowan fought him violently.
“Leave me here! No, James!”
“You can’t go with him, Rowan. Bennett wanted you toliveand you promised. Remember your promise to him.”
“I’m not ready! No!”
The bodyguard held her shoulders. “Rowan, ssh. Bennett is gone and I need to move you. I swore an oath to protect you. I can’t leave you like this. He wouldn’t want this.”
A shudder so hard it hurt rocked through her and reality filtered through her grief.
Nodding slowly, she leaned forward to kiss Bennett’s lips one last time as she held his head. “I miss you already. No one will ever understand this. I don’t understand this. I love you, Bennett. Despite what I’ve done, I love you.”
Rowan’s soul wrenched in denial as their bodies were separated from one another. She released an agonized wail as James wrapped her tightly in the robe and pulled the blankets over Bennett’s groin as he fully lifted her.
With Rowan in his arms, he walked to the door and tapped it twice with the toe of his shoe. It opened immediately and she thought she glimpsed a sobbing Mary-Margaret behind three men in uniforms.
Hysteria welled up inside Rowan and she started to scream. “I didn’t stop it. I didn’t stop it! I l-let him die. Bennett…”
James walked rapidly to her old room across the hall and held her as she was injected with a sedative by one of the uniformed men.
“Rest, Rowan. You need rest before dealing with anything else. I’ll watch over you. Just sleep.”
* * *
