Whatever I need to do, I’ll figure it out here, with Rose.
I don’t want to think of a time without her, but I do anyway.
Your trigger finger, my boy, is the part of your body you might come to hate the most. You might even argue with it.
Your right hand will always be the hand that takes charge, the hand that fucks…the hand that destroys.
Warren Kingston, my late father, comes to my mind.
The night air is cool, and the rising scent of blooming flowers accompanies the shifting of trees. Their sweetness reminds me of my Rosie. She’s somewhere behind me inside the house.
She belongs in this place with me, and I want to keep her here with me for as long as possible. I need to have her here.
I step back inside from the veranda, closing the swinging wooden door behind me.
My father’s voice returns to my thoughts unwarranted once more.
There is power in your body, the strength of a thousand men that lay behind you. If you ever fear the things you want, my boy, you have all the power you need in your blood to be whoever you want to be.
Then, another voice that sounds suspiciously like my mother’s just before the accident ended them both forever rises.
Look after yourself, my love. This world might surprise you yet.
My mother was right. The world has surprised me more than I can say.
I don’t regret one single portion, not one crumb, of my life as I look over at Rose standing by the bookcases. The library is expansive, and Rose looks like a kid in a candy store. She stands in her short dress and reaches up for a moment to tug down a leather-bound book from the middle shelf, holding it in her hands.
I would help her, but the picture she paints is too tempting, and I want to look.
Every part of her body looks as if she has never been touched, and I know now that she hasn’t.
I remember dipping my fingers inside of her sweet heat and bringing them back out to taste her on my own skin, and I wonder if she thinks of me as I think of her.
I might have been able to get Rose out of my head before, but not now. Not ever.
Every second she stands before me with her long, glimmering strawberry blonde hair bouncing gently makes my blood run hotter and hotter in my veins.
She leans up onto her toes to reach for something on a higher shelf, an old, well-worn novel, maybe. She’s barefoot now, and I know her heels are by the front door, right beside my array of loafers, as they should be.
Her pink dress is just a little too small for her, and the hem rides up until I can see the soft, rounded curve of her thighs, quivering, pale, and too smooth to be real.
Mine, I immediately think to myself as I look her over with my gaze.
She was made for my hands, my touch, and no one else’s.
I move closer to Rose, and I watch her lean her shoulder against the bookcase. She must be exhausted, but she remains standing, skimming over the book.
“You should sit,” I tell her softly, nodding to the two chairs by the fireplace.
“I’m okay,” Rose says, glancing up at me. “I’m not even tired anymore.”
She yawns after that, and I can’t help but let out a chuckle. She’s adorable.
“I can see that,” I answer with a laugh, coming up to put my arms around her. She puts the tattered copy of Wuthering Heights on the shelf, and she seems to almost sink into my embrace. “Did you ever get in touch with your dad?”
Rose nods. Her voice is quiet, colored by the flames that flicker in the fireplace. “Natalie let me use her phone charger. She told me to tell you that she was going up to the west wing and that she’s really glad it’s far from your bedroom and that the walls are thick. I guess she knows something is up between us.”
Rose is blushing, and she looks flustered, but she doesn’t look embarrassed.
It’s obvious that she’s thinking about me, too, like I hoped that she was.
I can see the multitude of freckles across her nose and cheeks from up close. Her skin is glowing in the firelight. That little dimple at the edge of her smile is still there, but now there is something undeniably darker and more effortlessly devastating in the way she looks tonight.
The night’s events have made her confident and more sure of herself.
Her glittering dress is cut low and just transparent enough for the points of her nipples to show through. I decided right then and there that the pink of her dress is my new favorite color, and is only surpassed by the whiskey shade of brown in her eyes.