Why was it so different with Farren? How could one tiny little woman bring him to his knees like she’s conquering an empire?
His phone vibrated in his back pocket. He pulled it out to see what it was. The notification that the condo’s alarm system had been disarmed and the front door had been opened blinked across his screen.
“Fuck,” he cursed.
“What? What is it?” Elaina asked, worried.
“She’s at our place. She’s probably there to get the rest of her things. Fuck!” He ran a worried hand though his hair.
“What the hell are you sticking around here for? Go!” Elaina exclaimed, motioning for him to move.
He sprinted out of Elaina’s and tore off toward home.
TWENTY ONE
“Seriously, thank you for doing this with me. I just… couldn’t face this alone.”
Farren pulled her clothes from the hangers in the closet she used to share with… him. She could hardly bear to even think his name anymore without the almost physical, wrenching pain in her gut flaring to life.
“You know I got you, Fair Child,” Shea replied as she emptied the clothes from the dresser into a suitcase.
“Don’t forget the stuff from Harley’s room. He’s got some toys in there and clothes we should grab,” Farren’s voice trailed from the closet.
Shea walked out of the bedroom and across the hall to the nursery.
It was quiet for a moment as Farren emerged from the closet and stood looking around the room. She was going to miss so much about this place. She soaked in the sights and smells of it, taking it all in for the last time as a quiet calm settled over her. Not the peaceful type of calm, but more like the dreadful, empty calm in the eye of a storm, where the chaos and devastation ravaged all around.
“Farren?”
She tensed as the deep, familiar voice pulled her from her thoughts. She turned around, realizing she was face to face with the man she was so torn over.
He looked so… defeated. She’d never seen him look so weary, so beaten, as though a lifetime of pain shown through his glass-covered eyes.
He looked as though he hadn’t shaved in days, and his clothes were a bit disheveled, not carefully pressed and put together like they usually were, as if he just didn’t care. This wasn’t like him.
Part of her wanted to go to him, take his face in her hands, and comfort him. God knew she needed the comfort as much as he looked like he did, but she held her ground.
She knew it would just hurt later that much more. She knew she had to let him go.
“I… didn’t know you’d be here,” she admitted.
“I wasn’t. I had to see you,” he said, unmoving, as though he was afraid the slightest motion on his part would scare her away.
She looked past him to the door, then back at him, mentally mapping her escape route. He must have noticed.
“Please don’t go,” he said, seeing where her thoughts were going.
“I shouldn’t be here.”
“You’re wrong,” he said, and she shuddered at the accusation. “You shouldn’t be anywhere else. Here is the one place you should be. You and Harley. Come home, baby,” he implored.
She shook her head trying to blink back the tears from her eyes. “I can’t do this. I have to go.”
She went to rush past him, but he grabbed hold of her, taking her in his arms and pulling her in close to him.
She struggled against him, though part of her – a very significant part of her – wanted nothing more than to melt into him and let him hold her until all the pain went away.
“Let me go, Rogan. Please, let me go.”
He tightened his arms around her. “No, Farren. No! I’ll never let you go. I need you in my life, in our life. You can push me away all you want, but there’s nothing you could ever do to make me leave you! Don’t you get that?”
At his words, she stopped struggling. She’d been waiting her whole life to hear someone say that to her.
He knew it was now or never.
TWENTY TWO
“Farren, I know what you’re thinking-” Rogan began.
“You have no clue what I’m thinking,” Farren interjected with anger. She recoiled from within his embrace and stiffened, balling her hands into fists in frustration.
He paused and started again. “I know what it looks like… but please hear me out.”
He waited, looking down into her eyes until she gave him permission to proceed. She gave him an almost imperceptible nod, so he did.
“Eleven years ago, I was a different man. I was young, unfocused, I had nobody, and I had a chip on my shoulder the size of Texas.
“Then I met Craigan, and he related to me in a way no one else had. We became brothers. His family was my family, but that wasn’t enough. We were rough guys. We were angry. Thought we could prove ourselves by joining a motorcycle club. That’s when we were introduced to BACA.”
Farren scoffed. “What is that, some kind of gang?”
“Bikers Against Child Abuse. You could say it was our redemption. It was a cause we believed in for good reasons.”
He waited until she nodded her understanding.
“We’d been watching a guy named Tommy the Tank… Months we had watched him, suspected he was knocking around his little girl.”
Rogan gestured his head to her and squeezed his arms tighter around her.
Farren thought back to that time in her life, remembering the beatings she took from her father. He’d knocked her around, all right, but she would often stand up to him, too. The last time, though, had been the worst, she remembered, right before he’d left for good.
She let Rogan finish explaining what had happened that night, from Tom shooting Craigan, to Craigan dying before Rogan’s eyes, and finally, how he’d come back for her to make sure she was okay.
“I never realized,” she finally said, letting him wipe the tears from her eyes.
“But I do owe you an apology,” he told her.
She looked questioningly up at him as he loosened his hold around her slightly.
“For what?”
Her heart sank, afraid of what he might confess now.
“About Edith.”
Her eyes fell. He raised one hand to gently lift her chin and held it.
“Baby, nothing happened with Edith.”
“Nothing?” she asked, disbelieving.
“Oh, she tried,” he began, and he watched Farren’s eyebrows furrow. “But she got nowhere. Baby, there was a reason I needed to go to New York, and more importantly, why you couldn’t go with me.”
She was afraid to ask. “Why?”
He reached into his blazer pocket and pulled out a small, Tiffany-blue box. He held it out to her and dropped it in her outstretched hand.
Curious, she looked to him, and he nodded.
She opened the box and let the lid drop to the floor. She tipped the remainder of it upside down so the smaller, black box inside fell out into her other hand. Handing him the remainder of the blue box, she shifted all her focus on the black cube before her. She pried it open.
She felt her heart stop, like everything froze, and for a moment she was suspended in a moment in time. With awe, she looked at the beautiful, platinum, diamond ring she held in her hand.
Then her heart started again, as though it were trying to catch up for the beats it had missed, at hyper speed. She looked back to Rogan and saw the love and hope in his eyes as he watched her.
“Is this what I think it is?”
He tossed the box he held, and she let him take her hands in his.
“Farren Greer Fields, I didn’t know that you were that little girl I tried to save that day eleven years ago, but it was you who saved me that day, in ways you may never know.”
He dropped down to one knee in front of her, holding her hands like a life line.
“And I didn’t know when you walked into my office a year ago wanting a job that you would have such a profound and imminent effect on
my life. But so help me, I never want to live a day without you for as long as I live.”
A laugh escaped through her tears as his words filled her heart with such overwhelming hope, joy, love… and faith.
“Please, Farren, you’re already my world. There’s not a woman on this earth who could measure up to your place in my heart. Your quiet sincerity, your unparalleled intelligence, and the uncanny ability you seem to have at driving me crazy like no one else can. Because I care about you like I care about no one else. Please, Farren, say you’ll be mine for the rest of our days. Say you’ll come home with me tonight and every night.” He paused for a moment, letting his words sink in. “I want you to be my wife.”
It was a question that loomed in his brilliant, blue eyes with the weight of a million worlds behind it.
Between the lump in her throat and the tears streaming down her cheeks, she couldn’t get the word out, Yes! So she nodded profusely and wrapped her arms around his neck, sobbing into his shoulder as he wrapped his strong, masculine arms around her, rose to stand, and hugged her tightly into him.
He lifted her up and spun her around. Then he set her feet on the floor before him. He cradled her face tenderly in his hands and she reciprocated with her soft fingers grazing the faint scar just below his bottom lip.
She loved this smile that showed the crinkles at the edge of his eyes through his glasses.
He took the ring box she still clutched in her hand, then plucked the ring from its cradle and slipped it on her left hand. He brought her face to his and kissed her so deeply, so passionately, that she melted into him.
When they finally stopped for air, she stroked her fingers down the overgrown stubble of his cheek.
At that moment, Shea emerged through the bedroom door wearing an enormous smile.
“I think I’m just going to go.” She pointed her thumbs toward the door behind her. “You two look like you have some making up to do.”
Farren looked to her best friend and back to Rogan. “I’ll walk you out,” she offered, and Shea nodded.
Rogan followed behind them and Shea made her way to the door to leave. She stopped and hugged Farren.
“Take care of your heart, Fair Child,” she said in parting words before disappearing out the door.
When Farren closed the door behind Shea, she turned to see Rogan with fire in his eyes.
“Where’s Harley?” he asked, inching closer to her.
“He’s at Gramma’s,” she answered, just as he pinned her against the wall.
“So, we’re alone?”
She nodded.
TWENTY THREE
Rogan pressed Farren up against the door. His hands gripped fistfuls of her hair and hers clawed at the buttons of his shirt as his mouth claimed hers so deeply.
“Bed?” he mouthed against her lips.
She shook her head frantically. She couldn’t wait that long.
In one swift motion, he pulled her sweater up and over her head, then slipped out of his blazer before his hands were back on the bare flesh of her body. She reveled in the feel of his fiery touch on her tender skin, and her fingers worked to unbuckle his belt.
He grabbed the back of her thighs and lifted her, and she wrapped her legs around him. She wanted to be closer to him, so much closer. His hands wrapped around her, unhooking her bra as he moved her into the kitchen and onto the counter top of the island. He removed his glasses and tossed them aside and out of his way.
She unhooked the last button of his shirt and pushed it from his shoulders, then delved to make quick work getting his pants off while his lips grazed hungrily over her chin, neck, and collar bone.
When his fingers hooked beneath her loosened bra and he grazed his thumbs over the tightened nipples, she moaned in pleasure.
He wrapped his large hands around her hips and guided her down from the counter, sliding her jeans down the curves of her thighs, and she rushed to step out of them. Then he lifted her around him once more and carried her to the living room, dropping her gently onto the soft cushions of the sofa.
She reached for his boxer briefs as he climbed atop her, tugging them down as far as she could to free his hardened cock and using her legs to work them further his when her fingers would no longer reach.
Settling between her legs, he took his length in his hand and lined the thick, throbbing head with her opening. He rubbed the tip over her, feeling her wetness as she mewled in anticipation.
Seeing she was ready for him, he sank into her and pressed the weight of his body onto hers, burying his head in the crook of her neck.
She clawed her fingers down his back and rocked her hips into him, desperate to take him deeper. Her hands pressed into the flesh of his lower back, pulling him in even further, and he began to pump into her as though hovering on the edge of his self-control.
“Please, Rogan,” she cried into his ear. Her chest heaved with her labored breaths, and she clawed into him once more.
“Anything you want, I’ll do anything,” he responded, quickening his pace.
“Yes, yes, just like that,” she moaned, meetings his thrusts as her hips ground further and further into him.
He grabbed another fistful of her hair and tugged gently.
“Ohhh.” A low moan escaped her throat once again.
He pounded into her, needing her, needing to give her everything he could give her, and she soaked him in, taking everything he had, still wanting more.
“I’m so close” she panted, “Oh, God, yes, I’m going to come.”
Knowing what she needed, he lifted up his torso and squeezed both nipples between his fingers, giving one more hard thrust, so deep inside her and holding it there.
He could feel her shattering around him, even without the string of cries as his name rolled from her lips while she rode wave after glorious wave of sensational pleasure.
When he sensed her coming back down, he gripped her body and pulled her up to straddle him. She sank down onto him and he snaked one arm around her back, one arm between them, and pressed his thumb to her ultra-sensitive and swollen clit.
It was so responsive to the pressure he applied, she almost came undone again right then and there. She wrapped her arms around him, pressing her body to his. She needed to feel him, needed him closer to her. She rode him hard, grinding into him until both of their cries melded together in synchronized release.
She kept her forehead pressed to his as their breathing slowed to a normal rate. Sweat glistened off each of their bodies, and Rogan slid a feather-soft caress down both of her arms, sending chills across her skin.
“I love you,” he told her, and it filled her heart with exactly what she needed. “Don’t ever doubt that.”
“I love you, too, so much.”
He pressed a soft kiss to her reddened lips that were swollen from the intensity he had shown just minutes before.
He took her left hand that still wore his ring, then looked up at her and smiled.
“Are you ready to let the world know you’re mine?”
TWENTY FOUR
Walking into the lounge at Rayner Technologies the following morning, Farren was surprised to see Rita unboxing a new, industrial-sized coffee machine.
“Wow, we actually got one?” Farren asked, walking past Cameron and Edith to get to the existing coffee pot to pour herself a cup.
Even though she and Rogan had been up half the night ‘making up,’ she had still gotten the best night of sleep she’d had in months. The thought entered her mind that maybe Gramma would be willing to keep Harley one night a month or something, just to give her a little respite to recharge once in a while. She hadn’t realized how much she’d needed it and especially how much she had needed the time with Rogan.
“Sugar, there ain’t much that boss of ours won’t deliver on if you know how to ask,” Rita said, winking, as a wide smile played across her face.
Edith scoffed under her breath, scowling, but said nothing as she sat leaned back in a chair
with one leg crossed over the other. The arm that wasn’t holding her own cup of coffee was crossed over her chest.
Farren didn’t bother faking a friendly look this time like she normally would. She just rolled her eyes for Edith’s benefit and ignored her.
“I hope it makes as good of a cup as this old thing. Maybe it’s just that I always need it so bad that it tastes so good, though,” Farren laughed, taking a sip. Then she set her cup down and crouched down to help Rita with the large contraption.
When Rita caught sight of Farren’s left hand, she froze, dropping everything she was doing and grabbed it. “Holy Blessed Mother of Jesus, would you look at that?” she breathed in a conspicuous show. Her eyes were the size of saucers and she slapped her free hand over her mouth and pulled Farren’s hand in close to get a good look at the beautiful engagement ring Farren now sported.
Farren beamed, feeling an overwhelming sense of contentment and happiness. The ring was so beautiful and so… her. Only a man who truly got her would know to get something so perfect. She couldn’t contain a delighted giggle.
“Oh, you noticed,” she replied, sheepishly.
“Does this mean what I think it means?” Rita asked, peeling her eyes from the ring to look at Farren.
When Farren nodded her affirmation, Rita squealed with excitement. Cameron came over and joined them, reaching to get a good look as well.
“Oh my freaking goodness, Farren, this is gorgeous. Congratulations!” Cameron gushed.
Farren’s cheeks reddened with all the attention. “Thank you, guys. But please, don’t say anything. It’s not a big secret, but we want to keep things professional here in the office.”
Edith’s lack of response was not lost on Farren, nor the others in the room for that matter, and Farren noticed Edith’s jaw tick with a look of disdain.
Rogan walked in, and Cameron moved back to where she had sat prior to coming to gawk at the shiny object, but Rita made no move to go anywhere.
Boss Unavowed: A Love On the Rocks Romance (The Boss Series Book 2) Page 9