Chapter 16 Final Cut: The Night the Sky Burned Down
Rowan’s knees slammed into the snow so hard the impact jarred his spine.
The blanket that covered them in the cold was gone, ripped away by a wind that suddenly felt like fire against their skin. Holly’s thin sweater and his flannel did nothing to stop the cold; they might as well have been naked already.
Rowan couldn’t open the ring box he had planned to propose to Holly with; his hands shook too violently. Holly took it from him, popped it open, and the silver band flashed like a blade under the aurora. She dropped to her knees in front of him, snow instantly soaking through denim, ice biting into skin. They were eye-level, breath ragged, faces inches apart.
His palms cupped her face, thumbs dragging roughly across her cheekbones, smearing tears and melted snow.
“Look at me,” he growled, voice shredded raw. “Only me.”
She did.
And the world narrowed to the storm in his eyes.
Rowan’s mouth crashed into hers without warning; no gentle lead-in, no permission asked. Just teeth and tongue and four years of repressed hunger detonating in one violent kiss. Holly moaned into him, the sound swallowed by his lips, her fingers fisting in his hair hard enough to scalp. He kissed her like punishment and prayer, like he was trying to crawl inside her skin and never leave.
When they broke apart, lungs screaming, his forehead slammed against hers.
“I almost lost you tonight,” he rasped, voice cracked open. “I will never survive that again.”
His hands dropped to her hips, fingers digging in with bruising force, yanking her flush against him. The thin layers between them were suddenly unbearable. Holly felt every inch of him; hard, shaking, alive; and her body answered with a flood of heat that made the snow hiss where it touched her skin.
“Rowan—”
“Marry me.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a demand carved out of his soul.
Holly’s answer was to rip his flannel open, buttons scattering like hailstones. She dragged her nails down his chest hard enough to leave red trails, and he hissed, hips jerking forward involuntarily. She felt him against her belly; thick, rigid, unmistakable; and the sound that tore out of her throat was pure, feral need.
“Yes,” she snarled against his mouth. “Yes, right now, yes—”
Rowan’s hands slid under her sweater, palms rough against bare skin, dragging the fabric up and off in one savage motion. Cold air hit her breasts and her nipples peaked instantly, aching. He groaned like a dying man and dropped his mouth to one, sucking hard, teeth grazing the sensitive tip until she cried out, back arching, snow crunching beneath her knees.
“Inside,” she gasped, but neither of them moved.
Couldn’t.
Rowan shoved her sweater under her knees for padding, then yanked her jeans open with trembling fingers. The zipper screamed. He didn’t bother pulling them down; just shoved his hand inside, past lace, finding her slick and ready and burning. Holly’s head fell back, a broken moan echoing into the night as two fingers slid deep, curling, stroking, claiming.
“Mine,” he growled against her throat, teeth scraping the tendon there. “Say it.”
“Yours,” she sobbed, riding his hand shamelessly, hips rolling in desperate circles. “Always yours—”
He withdrew only long enough to free himself; jeans shoved down just far enough, cock heavy and hot against her thigh. Then he was inside her in one brutal thrust, no condom, no hesitation, nothing between them but snow and skin and the end of the world.
Holly screamed into his shoulder, nails raking down his back, legs locking around his waist. Rowan pinned her against the porch railing, driving into her with a rhythm that was punishment and worship and everything they’d never said. The wood creaked under the force; snow cascaded off the roof in miniature avalanches.
Every thrust was a vow.
Every cry was a promise.
When she came, it was violent; body seizing, inner muscles clamping down so hard Rowan followed her over the edge with a guttural shout that cracked the night open. He spilled inside her, hot and endless, hips jerking through the aftershocks until they both collapsed, trembling, into the snow.
For a long moment there was only panting, the wet slide of melting ice, and the aurora painting their sweat-slick skin in liquid fire.
Rowan’s arms banded around her so tightly she could barely breathe.
“Marry me,” he whispered again, voice hoarse, lips against her ear. “Tomorrow. Next week. Fifty years from now. Every day. Marry me, Holly.”
She laughed through tears, through the ache between her thighs, through the ring now glinting on her finger where he’d slid it sometime during the storm.
“I already said yes, you lunatic,” she gasped, kissing him slow and filthy. “But if you ever propose like that again, I’ll kill you myself.”
Rowan’s grin was feral, possessive, utterly ruined.
“Deal.”
They stayed there, half-naked in the snow, long after the northern lights faded; long after the cold should have killed them; long after the ring on her finger stopped shaking.
Inside the house, Lily slept on, dreaming of sunshine.
Outside, two people who had survived hell finally learned what heaven felt like.
And the sky; having witnessed everything; quietly caught fire and burned itself out, just for them.