Despite trying really hard not to, I resented the brother I loved with all of my heart for being so strong in so many ways yet so weak when it came to her. Even though it was much more complicated than that. For my fragile heart it was.
“Want to cook dinner for you before we go upstairs and I fuck you in my bed,” Rowan murmured, jerking me out of my melancholy.
And it was a very nice way to be jerked from those thoughts.
“That sounds like a wonderful plan.”
He twirled me around, being careful of our wine. “You still holding on to today?” he asked with concern. “To whatever venom that bitch spouted?”
I smiled at how quickly Rowan transitioned from his post orgasm glow to the vengeful alpha once more.
“No,” I reassured him. “I’m not still holding on to that.”
He surveyed me for a long moment before nodding curtly and kissing me on the nose. “Good. I’m gonna go cook us dinner.” He motioned to the sofa. “You relax, read, whatever. Don’t have a TV but can get a laptop if you wanna watch somethin’.” He paused, tapping his lips. “We’ll have to get one so we can watch Yellowstone when we’re here.”
There was a lot to digest there, namely Rowan buying a television in order to watch a show with me. After our binge watching, it was safe to say he loved Yellowstone.
“You don’t have any TVs in the house?” I asked him in shock.
He shook his head. “Not really interested in TV. Like to read.”
I mused over this piece of information. “I’ve never met a person who is not into television.” I looked to his bookshelves then back to him. “I didn’t think it was possible for little details to make you more attractive to me, but you’ve gone and done it.”
His expression became strange then, some kind of serious intensity moving in his icy blues, his lips thinning.
I thought he might say something equally as serious as his expression, but he merely leaned forward to kiss me again.
“Or you can watch me cook?” he offered.
I glanced back to the bookshelf, incredibly anxious to check out his selection, but then my eyes went back to my rugged man and his sleek kitchen.
“Watch you cook.”
His eyes cleared, and his lips turned up. “Good.”
I settled on one of his barstools and sipped my wine as he moved around the kitchen, getting food from the fridge and a cutting board from a cupboard.
“I’m not on the pill,” I announced as he cooked dinner.
He glanced up from the chopping board but didn’t say anything.
“The past few times we’ve done it, you haven’t used a condom, and I’m not on the pill,” I continued, uncomfortable with this conversation, likely why my stomach still told me I was suffering from a tumor or something. I ignored the niggling pain, focusing on Rowan.
Rowan put down his knife and gave me his full attention. “I’ll use them from now on,” he replied immediately, without question, without blame or placing guilt on me.
“I don’t want you to,” I said quietly. “But I also don’t want to go on birth control. It fucks with women’s hormones.”
“Know that,” Rowan replied.
His response surprised me.
“Sisters,” he said in explanation. “Calliope’s into all that natural shit and tells anyone who will listen that Big Pharma is corrupt as all fuck, and the patriarchy are poisoning women with birth control.”
I grinned, despite my discomfort. “I think I’ll like your sister.”
“And they’ll both fucking love you.” He said it with ease. As if it were a foregone conclusion that I was going to meet his family, as if it were completely natural. Which wasn’t the norm with men, at least in my experience. They put off the meet-the-parents step for as long as they could. It sent the wrong message. It sent signals about commitment and monogamy.
Rowan had been sending those signals since the beginning, so his attitude made sense.
“I can get something inserted.” I shifted back to the contraceptive conversation… not very sexy but very necessary. “A copper IUD that doesn’t have hormones.” I’d had it with Nathan, even though I also made him use condoms—something he routinely complained about—because even though I was technically committing to forever with him by wearing his ring, I knew that a child would tie me to him forever, and I was protecting myself against that.
Not once did I let it slip, did I get too caught up in the passion with Nathan—not that there was a whole lot of passion—and let him have sex with me without a condom.
But twice I’d done it with Rowan, without complaint, with full awareness of what it meant.
“If you want to do that, you can,” Rowan said, eyes on me. “But if it fucks up your body in any way, if you’re not comfortable with it, don’t want you doin’ it.”