Page 24 of He Falls First

Her urgent grip pulls me down for a kiss.

We lose ourselves in prolonged, sensuous kissing, full of tender caresses amid the mess we’ve made.

I don’t want to leave her for a second, but I know what I have to do now.

“Where are you going?” Briar asks sleepily, rising up on her elbows.

“Forgot about the sex towel.”

Her shoulders shimmy as she laughs. “Sex towel!”

As long as I can keep her smiling and laughing, that’s what matters to me more than anything.

nine

Briar

I don’t want him to go, but it’s now Saturday morning and Esme has already missed her morning yoga session, if the schedule in my phone is correct.

And Rowan needs to go back to Fate and rest before his next shift at the firehouse. Besides, what if the whole town burns down without him, and he’s here, thirty minutes away, fooling around with me?

With my bathrobe carelessly tied around me, I walk him to his truck.

I hand Rowan a foil-wrapped breakfast burrito I found in the kitchen, freshly made and still warm.

“What’s this?”

“Breakfast of champions, obviously.”

“You love me.”

“Dork.”

He kisses my forehead sweetly and smiles at me. Rowan really is wonderfully easy to be around, and I hate to see him go.

“Drive safe.”

He takes my hand and kisses the inside of my wrist tenderly.

“Can I see you tomorrow?”

I laugh. “If I don’t get fired. Frye comes back tomorrow afternoon so I might have lots of free time after that.”

“Then I’ll come back and help you pack. We’ll talk about what happens next.”

He really does not have to concern himself with my future plans. But look at this boy. Just look at that face.

Who would have thought someone like this would fall for someone like me so quickly?

Do they make more like him at the factory he came from? The world needs more Rowans because there’s just not enough of them to go around.

I give him the code to the gate and make sure he doesn’t share it with anyone.

“I’m serious. If this code gets into anyone else’s hands, I’m dead meat. Frye already has it in for me.”

“If you’d just let me use the strobe light again, I wouldn’t have to know the secret code that would lead to me accidentally leaking it to someone else.”

“Rowan!”