Rowdy (Marked Men #5)(66)
“I’m not exactly dressed for this, Rowland.”
He smirked at me and got the door open and ushered me inside the tiny space. I almost turned around and ran back out the door. There was nothing there. Four walls, a woodburning stove, no lights shining, which led to everything being cast in creepy shadows. A beat-up chair that looked like it had dropped from the back of a garbage truck and an old-style army cot were the only furnishings. I balked and turned to tell him flatly, “I’m not sleeping on the floor and there better not be bats.”
He laughed out loud and hauled all of our stuff inside. He disappeared to the back of the SUV again and brought in a giant Rubbermaid container that he set down by me with a thud. He popped it open and pulled out a couple of lanterns that he lit up right away and an air mattress that had an adapter to blow it up off the cigarette lighter in the car. He also produced several blankets and offered to let me dig through the supplies he brought to find something to eat. There was plenty of beer, some bottles of water, and stuff for sandwiches and breakfast. I had to give it to him, he was superprepared for this venture.
Once he muscled the inflated air mattress back inside and made up the makeshift bed, he kicked off his cowboy boots and flopped on his back to stare at the ceiling. He put his hands behind his head and just lay there in silence, so I took my own shoes off, grabbed a couple of beers, and went over to join him. I set the cans on the floor and sat next to his hip on the squishy bed.
“How are you going to survive not having junk to put in your hair for a couple of days?” I playfully poked at the slicked-up blond strands.
He caught my arm in his hand and brought it down to put a kiss on my fluttering pulse on the underside of my wrist. He lifted an eyebrow and tilted his chin down so he could look at me.
“I brought my cowboy hat.”
Oh, sweet baby Jesus, we needed to make up real quick, then. I reached out so I could trace the line of one of his golden eyebrows.
“I’m sorry you felt like you had to go to such an extreme just to talk about our relationship. That isn’t right and it isn’t fair to you. I was just freaking out and I know I didn’t handle it correctly.”
His chest rose and fell as he exhaled loudly. He caught my hand and used it to pull me over him so that I was lying across his broad chest.
“It’s not the freak-out or the way you handled it that worries me. It’s the fact that you felt like you had to freak out in the first place. I know the whole Poppy thing is tricky and uncomfortable, but I think I have it figured out now. But even if I didn’t, it has been you for months now, Salem. I just don’t get how you can’t know that.”
He brushed his fingers through my hair and it felt so good I wanted to purr like a cat and rub up against him.
“I don’t know. I guess it’s the same as me telling you I’m here because you’re here and that means I’m not leaving and yet you still look at me all the time like I’m going to vanish into thin air. We can know one thing, Rowdy, but our heart holds on to something else.”
“I don’t want it to hold on to that anymore. I just want it to hold on to you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and had to swallow around how happy and terrified his words made me.
“Yeah?”
He nodded and his chin rubbed against the top of my head. “Yeah.”
“We just need to let everything go. We have to trust each other if we’re going to be together. I missed you this week and so did Jimbo.”
He yawned so loud I heard his jaw crack and he squeezed me closer. “I’m older now and a lot bigger than you. Getting away isn’t going to be as easy as it once was, Salem. I’m not going to let you run anymore.”
He sounded so sure, and for the first time since this all started between us I just believed. I believed in him. I believed in me and I believed in this thing between us having enough legs to be real and forever because that was what fate, and maybe something bigger than fate, wanted for both of us.
“I’m not looking to get away, Rowdy.”
I was expecting some kind of clever comeback, one of his off-the-cuff quips, but all I got was a steady rise and fall of that strong chest and his breath moving my hair as he breathed in and out above my head. The big jerk had fallen asleep on me.
I sighed and wiggled off of him so that I could wrestle his legs up on the air mattress so that he would be more comfortable. I couldn’t blame him. It was a challenging drive after a full day of work and I’m sure his week hadn’t been any better than mine. I was bummed out that his crashing out early shot all my visions of playing sexy cowgirl on top of him with no one around to hear me scream in pleasure all to hell.
Slightly put out, I dug around in the bag my sister packed until I found a pair of yoga pants and a tank to sleep in. I made a PB&J for dinner and tried to send Poppy a text to make sure she took Jimbo out before bed but was further disgruntled to find that this far out in the woods there was no service. I killed an hour and then decided all there was to do was curl up next to Rowdy and try to sleep, so I shut down the lanterns and curled up next to him as close as I could. His massive frame took up most of the available space.
I listened to the lulling sounds of the forest and the night. I listened to Rowdy’s rhythmic breathing and sighed when he wrapped his arm around me in his sleep and hauled me tightly to his side.
I realized it really was all about where I had ended up and not where I had been, because as long as he was there, wherever that happened to be was going to be where I was supposed to be at as well.