Page 19 of Where the Roses Bloom (Gospels & Grimoires #1)

Rhett

Before now, I never would have even spent the night in this clearing.

But now…now, I was kissing the woman I loved at the foot of the Witch Tree, and I intended on making love to her right here and now.

The moss was damp under my knees, the air thick with the scent of rain and roses. Willow’s hands were in my hair, her mouth open against mine, face slanted, lips soft and hungry. Her breath hitched as I deepened the kiss, my hands sliding down to her hips.

“I didn’t think…” she said as I trailed my lips lower, down to her throat. “I didn’t think you would…”

“Anything for you, rosebud,” I rasped. “If you’re sure…I’ll give you whatever you ask for.”

“I’m sure,” she gasped, pulse fluttering against my tongue. “I want to remember this with my whole body…I want this forest to remember.”

God help me, that did something to me.

Something I didn’t think I’d ever fully understand.

The rain started as a whisper—soft at first, just a few drops tapping against the canopy above—but as we kissed, it broke through in earnest, cool and sudden.

Rain streaked down between the willow branches, dousing us both, soaking through our clothes…

and I didn’t care. Willow gasped as the cold hit her skin, but it just made her cling to me tighter, sliding into my lap, her legs straddling my hips as I tossed my pack aside and began to shrug out of my jacket.

Lightning cracked somewhere close by, but it could’ve been her touch, for all I knew.

Because I was shaking.

We both were.

“Goddamn,” I muttered against her mouth, fumbling with her shirt now, yanking it up over her head as the rain plastered her long hair to her cheeks.

She was flushed and glowing and soaked through, cotton bra clinging to her skin, nipples hard beneath it.

Her breath ran ragged like she couldn’t keep up with whatever we’d summoned between us.

“You feel that?” she whispered, voice trembling.

I didn’t ask what she meant.

I didn’t have to.

The way the air buzzed around us, thick with ozone…

with the energy of something watching. Not anything threatening or cruel, but something all the same, something that took up all the space and held us in a tense embrace.

It was like the trees had bent their heads to listen, like the earth itself needed to be consummated.

“I feel you,” I rasped. “That’s all I need.”

She keened when I ducked my head to suck one nipple into my mouth, yanking her bra aside, using teeth not because I wanted to but because I had to.

Willow rocked against me, my cock impossibly hard, aching.

She moaned, her nails digging into my shoulders, rain trailing down her spine like the grove itself was touching her.

I didn’t know if this was magic, or grief, or sex, or salvation .

“Fuck, baby,” I panted, pressing my forehead to her sternum as I slid one hand between us, unfastening her jeans with fingers that barely worked. “I need you outta these—now.”

“Yes,” she gasped. “Yes, take them off. Please.”

I got them down over her hips, helping her shimmy out of the soaked denim, her underwear sliding with them. Willow didn’t blush, didn’t flinch, holding my gaze as if getting naked and making love on the forest floor was the most natural thing she could possibly do.

And Jesus Christ, I loved her.

In a matter of weeks, I’d fallen head over heels for this woman…this wild, interminable, undefinable woman.

We were going to break the Ward family curse together. I felt it in my bones.

She reached for my jeans, fumbling the button and dragging the zipper down with a snarl of frustration, like every second she didn’t have me inside her was one too long.

“Come on, Rhett,” she hissed, wrapping a fist around my cock as soon as I’d shoved my jeans down low enough to free it. “Please…please, I need you now .”

I didn’t need more than that.

She let out a loud, breathy gasp when I laid her back against the moss at the foot of the tree…as her thighs parted, wet with rain and arousal.

Then I lined myself up and pressed inside to the hilt.

The wind howled, the trees shivered. Thunder rumbled and lightning struck close enough that it lit the whole clearing in neon blue.

What we were doing probably wasn’t safe, but it was necessary. I knew that, without a doubt.

Willow cried out, arching beneath me, and I felt her everywhere: my cock, my thighs, my fingertips, deep in my chest, wrapped around my heart. She was tight and wet and perfect, her body clenching around mine.

“Oh, fuck ,” I groaned, driving deeper, her breath catching on each thrust. “Willow…you feel so fuckin’ good, baby. You’re mine. Mine .”

“And you’re mine,” she breathed. “You were always mine.”

I braced a hand beside her head, the moss slick beneath my palm, and thrust again—harder, deeper. Her nails scraped down my back, a raw, possessive mark that made me hiss between my teeth.

“Harder,” she begged. “Please, I need?—”

I gave her what she asked for.

My rhythm turned savage, hips snapping forward with the kind of force that felt ancient, primordial.

She met every thrust, body greedy for it, her cries swallowed by thunder and the constant thrum of rain.

My cock dragged against her walls, caught in her clenching heat, each stroke a prayer to whatever god presided over this land.

It felt like the grove was breathing with us.

Like every breath she took, every moan, every sigh, echoed into the trees and came back into our lungs.

Willow’s hands slid to my chest, fingers splayed wide like she would take hold of my heart. Her hips moved beneath mine, but her eyes opened and locked on my gaze. “I need…” she gasped.

“What do you need, baby?” I breathed. “Tell me, please, I?—”

But before I could finish, she pushed.

Hard.

I didn’t fight it, couldn’t have if I tried. She didn’t want to get away; she rolled me over, thighs still locked around my hips, straddling me in one fluid motion. Rain streaked down her bare skin like ribbons of light, lightning flashing, illuminating her through the canopy…

A silver halo around her head, those golden eyes flashing like a wildcat.

Not bright, not garish, but lit from within.

“Willow,” I breathed.

She sank down on me deeper than before, eyes raised toward the evening sky, her lips parted. My cock stretched her open, filled her all over again, and she rode me like she already knew the rhythm of this ritual.

Like the land had written it into her blood.

“Fuck,” I gasped, grabbing her hips, helpless against the feel of her tightening arousal. “Fuck, rosebud…you’re beautiful. You’re beautiful…”

She didn’t answer. Just rocked her hips, slow and deep, then again, faster, faster…

She was soaked, wild, alive in a way I’d never seen anyone alive . And she moved like she was claiming me—like her body was the altar and I was the offering. I wanted to be. I wanted it more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life.

I wanted a whole damn life with her, years and years…none of this short-lived Ward bullshit.

So I let go.

Let her take me, let her ride me like the rain was anointing oil and the moss our marriage bed.

My back arched off the ground as she squeezed around me, slick and hot and pulsing, her hands splayed across my chest, her body writhing.

Every snap of her hips brought us closer—to climax, to rapture, to whatever spell this grove had been waiting hundreds of years for.

She moved like she was dancing on the edge of something sacred, like the weight of generations had settled in her hips and she was shaking it loose with every grind, every breathless moan that left her throat.

The rain poured harder.

It traced the lines of her throat, her collarbone, dripped from her pink nipples, slid over her stomach to where my cock disappeared inside her.

Her thighs gripped my hips like she was anchoring herself between this world and the next, and I watched her, stunned, utterly wrecked by the sight of her.

This woman.

This fucking miracle.

I slid my hands up her sides, holding her steady as her rhythm turned frantic. Her head fell back, back arched, her hair dark and tangled with rain, and she cried out?—

—and something in the grove changed .

The pressure in the air cracked, lightning splitting the clouds above us. The earth didn’t shake, but it inhaled .

And Willow was screaming my name, sobbing, trembling so hard I thought she might collapse. Her whole body locked around me, and I roared right along with her, loud and unrestrained, as I spilled inside her, buried to the hilt.

I didn’t stop.

Couldn’t.

Held her to me as the aftershocks rolled through us both, my face in her neck, my hands splayed across her lower back.

The rain lessened…slowed to a drizzle. A shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds and lit every rain-soaked inch of Willow’s skin in gold.

Eventually, she looked down at me, her eyes soft again. All the wild magic had gentled into something achingly human, and I knew without a doubt that she was here for a reason.

She stroked my cheek. “Do you think it worked?”

I didn’t know what exactly she meant—if we’d broken the curse, if the land accepted our offering…if she was pregnant.

God, I hoped she was pregnant.

“I don’t know,” I croaked. “But that…it wasn’t just sex. I felt it.”

She nodded slowly, her hair falling around our faces as she lay against me. I stroked her hip, thumb sliding over the curve of her waist. “If that was the curse,” I went on. “If that was the thing that just broke…”

“…then maybe we let it die with pleasure instead of pain,” she finished.

We’d given the grove something it hadn’t felt in centuries: desire without fear. Love without loss.

Willow leaned down and kissed me—soft and unhurried. A kiss that wasn’t about claiming or desperation.

Just presence.

Just us.

When she finally pulled back, I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You okay?”

She gave me a sleepy, crooked smile. “I just had sex in the dirt under a haunted tree, so I think I’m somewhere between transcendent and filthy.”

I huffed a laugh. “Let’s get you dressed. I don’t want you catchin’ cold.”

Reluctantly, we pulled apart, helping each other with damp clothes and stolen glances, hands lingering. The storm had passed, leaving the air fresh and new. The whole grove smelled like turned earth and something green—a wound starting to heal.

As we packed up, I watched her glance back toward the tree.

“You think we need to come back?” she asked.

I followed her gaze. The willow branches swayed gently now. The spell bottle she’d unearthed still rested near the roots where we’d left it…but the glass was clear, like it had been polished clean.

And roses bloomed in the wounded tree trunk.

Yeah…something had happened, even if I didn’t yet understand what it was.

“No,” I said after a beat. “I think this place got what it needed. ”

She nodded.

But still, before we left, she knelt again by the tree and whispered something I couldn’t hear—something soft and private. When she stood, she looked…settled. Brighter.

I took her hand. We started back down the path in silence, the world around us still quiet, but not heavy anymore. It felt like a beginning.

And maybe it was.