Page 181 of Twisted Knight

So why am I fighting that realization like my life fucking depends on it?

Absently, I go to press a kiss to the top of her head and then stop myself.

What the fuck are you doing, Holden? You’ve spent your whole fucking life to get to this point, creating opportunities to fulfill the promise you made to Mase.

You’ve just completed the first step. You have several more to go.

And now you’re, what? What even is this that you’re doing? That you’re allowing to happen?

This can’t happen.

And yet aren’t I the one who made it happen? The one who planned this. Who wanted to do this. Who chose to stay the night when the jet was fueled and waiting on the tarmac for us after the performance last night.

I scrub a hand over my face and sigh.

“You okay?” Rowan murmurs, lifting her head up and against mine.

“Yeah. Fine. I just…”

“Just what?”

“Nothing.” I do in fact press a kiss to her head this time and keep my lips there when I answer. “It’s nothing.”

“Dreading going back to reality?” she teases.

“Mmm.” If she only knew what that reality was. “Something like that.”

She reaches out for her cell phone across the table. “Maybe I should turn it back on just in case—”

“No.” I take it from her and toss it out of reach as my other hand slides around the front of her neck and prompts her head to lean all the way back. “Not yet.” I press my lips to hers in an upside-down kiss. “Can we just forget the world for a few more hours until we land?”

That’s not going to fix shit, Knight.

Her lips spread in a smile against mine before she kisses me back again, but this time our tongues touch and a soft moan falls from between her lips. “No complaints here.”

“That’s what I thought.”

But when she snuggles back up against me and falls asleep as we ascend, all I can do is lean my head back and stare at the ceiling.

The thoughts and plans that constantly shift and meld when I can’t sleep are there like always.

But now there is something new mixed in.

Now there’s Rowan.

And I’m not fucking sure how she fits.

SIXTY-ONE

Rowan

The jet is fueled and ready when you are.

I reread the text from Holden as I pull into the TinSpirits’ parking lot. My smile is automatic. Just like it has been every time I think of the past forty-eight hours. The magic of it. The settling into the notion that I’ve fallen for him. The realization that I’m pretty sure it’s mutual, and what exactly do I think about that? Even worse, what if it is mutual and he refuses to accept it?

Because if there’s one thing I know about Holden Knight, it’s that I don’t know him.

But whatever it is, it feels good.