Page 24 of Where the Roses Bloom (Gospels & Grimoires #1)

Willow

The dust clouds from Carter’s tires were still floating in the air on the driveway when I turned to Rhett and said, “I need you to fuck me. Right now.”

His jaw twitched like he was still waiting for the asshole to circle back and try something stupid. He watched the driveway like it might open up and spit out something worse—like he hadn’t already seen the worst of it in Carter’s eyes.

But me? I was done.

Good riddance to him. He could go die in a fire, for all I cared. Honestly, if the land swallowed him whole before he hit the county line, I wouldn’t shed a single tear.

Rhett still hadn’t moved, fists clenched at his sides, chest rising and falling hard and fast like he hadn’t taken a full breath since Carter called me a bitch. I could see it in him: the war between wanting to protect me and wanting to pick me up and carry me back to bed.

I walked right up to him and put my palms flat against his bare chest. His skin was warm and tight with tension, heart pounding.

“You’re still here,” I said. “He’s gone. ”

“Not gone enough,” Rhett growled. “I should’ve?—”

“No,” I interrupted. “You did exactly what you needed to do. You didn’t let him lay a finger on me. You didn’t let him take up more space than he already has. And you didn’t swing first, which means we get to keep our peace.”

His green eyes finally dropped to mine.

Still wild. Still feral.

Still so full of heat I could barely breathe.

“I wanna take care of you,” he rasped. “Make you forget he ever existed.”

“Then do it,” I said, wrapping my arms around his neck so I could stand on tip-toe and brush my mouth against his. “Rhett…I know we’ve talked about it, but I want you to knock me up. I want you to get me pregnant right fucking now.”

For a second, Rhett just stared at me.

Like he hadn’t heard me right.

Like the words get me pregnant right fucking now were still ringing in his ears and his brain hadn’t caught up.

Then something snapped.

He let out a low, broken sound, and I was in his arms before I could blink—lifted straight off the grass like I weighed nothing, his grip steel around the backs of my thighs as I locked myself around his waist.

“You sure?” he whispered, voice shaking. “You sure, baby?”

He’d asked so many times. I didn’t know how many times he needed to hear it before he believed it… believed that I wanted a future with him.

“I’m sure.”

My mouth found his jaw, his throat, tasting the salt on his skin. His hands flexed on my thighs, and he turned away from the porch like he was too worked up to make it back inside.

We didn’t need a bed.

We had the whole damn world .

Rhett strode toward the tree line with me wrapped around him, breath ragged, teeth clenched.

He didn’t speak. Just walked like a man possessed, one hand tangled in my hair, the other gripping my ass.

We didn’t go far—just stopped right inside the privacy of the forest, the whole world alive with an old and watchful kind of magic.

He dropped to his knees with me still in his arms, then laid me back in the grass, so gentle it nearly broke me.

“Look at you,” he whispered. “Goddamn, Willow. You’re everything. Everything.”

He practically tore the t-shirt off and stared down at my bare chest, my flushed skin, the wet heat waiting for him between my thighs.

“You want my baby?” he asked. “You want me to fuck you full right here?”

I nodded, reaching for him. “Yes, Rhett, please?—”

And then he was there.

Inside me with one deep, perfect thrust, the moment we’d been trying to reach all fucking morning.

His lips found my neck as I arched into him, nails skating down his spine…but he wasn’t just kissing me. He was talking, like Carter leaving had opened the floodgates.

“I’ll give you everything, Willow Rhodes,” Rhett growled. “You hear me, baby? Everything . A home. A life. A family. You’re mine now. Mine . And I’m yours, damn it, every part of me, everything I have to give…”

He pulled out and thrust in again, deep.

My back arched off the grass, my thighs trembling around his waist. He was everywhere—his hands braced beside my shoulders, his body heavy and perfect, driving into me like he could bury everything that came before. And maybe he could. Maybe he already had.

Because nothing in this world had ever felt like this .

“I love you,” I choked out, gasping as he hit that spot again. “Rhett—I love you?—”

His head dropped to my shoulder with a sound that was part groan, part prayer. “Say it again.”

“I love you,” I whispered, wrapping my legs tighter around his hips. “I want this. I want you .”

He was shaking. His breath stuttered as he slowed, grinding into me deep, grinding until I felt him in places no man had ever touched.

“I’ll be so good to you,” he promised. “So good to our baby. Willow…swear to God, I’ll spend the rest of my life makin’ this right. Every day. Every goddamn day.”

“Then give it to me,” I begged, my voice breaking. “Rhett—please—give it to me. Fill me up. Breed me. I want you to come inside me—please, please ?—”

“Marry me,” he rasped, thrusting into me, holding me close. “Fuck, Willow, marry me…tell me you’ll stay.”

“Yes, yes…yes, of course I’ll marry you, of course…”

“ Fuck ,” he groaned…

…and then he lost it.

His rhythm turned savage, hips snapping, body straining as he pounded into me. I clung to him, nails in his back, stars behind my eyes, pleasure unfurling fast like a flood. I was crying—maybe both of us were—but it didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered but this.

His name ripped from my throat as I came, harder than I ever had before—my whole body locking, clenching around him.

And Rhett—God, Rhett—he broke with me.

He shouted my name like it was the only word he’d ever learned, hips stuttering as he came inside me, hard and deep, spilling everything he had into me like he could plant it there and never look back.

We stayed like that for a long moment, trembling together in the soft grass and sunlight, our breaths tangled, his body covering mine. The world had gone quiet—like the trees were holding their breath, like even the birds knew not to interrupt what had just happened.

He didn’t pull out.

Didn’t move.

Just kept whispering against my neck, “I love you, I love you, I love you…” like maybe if he said it enough times, the land itself would hear it and let it stay.

I threaded my fingers through his hair, gliding across his scalp. My thighs were sticky, my cheeks flushed, my whole body aching in the best possible way.

He finally lifted his head, green eyes heavy with emotion, lips red and kiss-bruised.

“You still wanna go back inside?” he asked hoarsely.

I smiled up at him. “No. This is better.”

He chuckled, the sound low and masculine, and I questioned for the thousandth time what I’d done to deserve this. “I mean it, you know. I’m gonna marry you.”

“I know.”

“And I’m gonna give you a baby.”

I pressed my hand to his chest, right over his heart. “I know.”

His breath caught. For a second, he looked like he might cry or start laughing…or both. But instead, he kissed me—sealing every promise between us.

And around us, the forest stirred.

A breeze swept through the trees, warm and sweet like honey on the wind. Flowers we hadn’t planted bloomed at the edge of the clearing—tiny white blossoms opening like they’d been waiting for this moment.

The land had heard us.

And it was answering.