I liked to be a good host. Liked to separate myself from my childhood as much as I possibly could.
On that thought, I slammed the cabinet shut and walked out of the bathroom, moving to switch on the lamp that sat on top of the bedside table.
“TV.” I pointed to the large armoire against the wall. “Inside there. Remote in the drawer.” I patted the bed with the plush green, velvet comforter and ornate brass headboard. “Fresh sheets. Everything you might need, I guess.”
I was so entrenched in going through my hostess motions—or maybe I was clinging to them so I didn’t have to focus on Rowan—that I hadn’t realized the way he was looking at me.
His hands were clenched by his sides, so tightly the cords in his forearms were protruding. His posture was rigid, tight. The expression on his face could only be described as hungry.
Ravenous.
And I was the feast he was craving.
My fingers bit into the inside of my palms. Need thrummed in between my legs.
“Nora,” he ground out my name as if he were grappling for control. “You need to get out of this room right now.”
My knees shook. I stayed rooted in place. “Why?” I asked in a low whisper.
He swallowed. Visibly swallowed. I watched his Adam’s apple bob with the motion.
“Because I’m in a room with you. Where there’s a bed.” He nodded to the bed in question. “Because your cheeks are flushed, because I’ve been dreaming of what your lips taste like. Because I can barely fuckin’ control my need to claim them. Taste you.”
Holy. Fuck.
Did he just say that?
Yeah, he just said that. All of that. I was sure I was having some kind of out of body experience.
I stepped forward on shaky legs.
Rowan’s body visibly stiffened even more at my approach. His jaw was granite.
“Nora,” he warned.
His low rasp was like fucking catnip to me.
What I was intending as I continued to approach him, I wasn’t sure. I was not the initiator. I did not have sexual confidence. Sure, I harbored a lot of fantasies where I did have sexual confidence. Where I was unafraid to take charge, to let myself believe I was desirable to any and all men.
But I’d never put those fantasies into practice. I’d never been with a man who made me feel safe enough to explore that part of myself. Not with any of my long-term boyfriends. Especially not with the man I had agreed to marry.
But Rowan... The man I’d barely said boo to prior to the past forty-eight hours… he made me feel that way. Desirable. Powerful. The man looked like he could shatter from the force it was taking him not to claim me.
“You don’t need to control anything,” I told him, stopping inches from him. My bare toes almost touched his socks.
He straightened his stance, appearing even stiffer now. If it were possible for a man to turn to stone, I think he might’ve then and there. But he was flesh and blood and intoxicating.
“You can taste me,” I invited, licking my lips.
A vein in Rowan’s neck pulsated. His brows were bunched together, and I could see him gritting his teeth from my very close vantage point.
“Fuck,” he ground out. “You’re makin’ it really fuckin’ hard for me to do the honorable thing.”
I grinned, going up on my tiptoes so our lips were almost touching. “What if I want you to do the dishonorable thing?” My voice was almost unrecognizable. Sultry even.
And it was working. I could see it in the way Rowan’s expression went from hard, controlled to something else entirely.
Something primal. A man getting ready to claim a woman.
My body hummed with expectation and need.
I closed my eyes, preparing for the kiss and whatever else came after it.
But instead of hands grabbing my neck, waist or ass, instead of lips crashing against mine, Rowan’s hands went to my shoulders, firmly and purposefully pushing me back. He wasn’t gripping me hard enough to hurt, but the sting of rejection was more excruciating than anything else.
My muscles coiled with the need to run, fight or flight mode engaged.
But Rowan’s hands were still on my shoulders, holding me in place. He was frowning at me, and the tears that were filling my eyes.
I cursed myself for not being in control of them. My body’s first response to almost anything was tears. Anger. Frustration. Rejection.
It was bad enough to try to seduce a man and fail, but to have him see you cry after that failure was something else entirely.
Rowan raised one of his hands in order to wipe a tear from my cheek with his thumb.
“This is possibly the most embarrassing moment of my life,” I croaked. “Beating out the time that I ran into a screen door at Jasmine Floyd’s party in tenth grade and everyone, including the boy I liked, laughed at me.”