He’d never allowed a woman to take control. Now, as Rowan lay sprawled over him, he realized he hadn’t been able to stop it. Not with her. There were a great many things he hadn’t been able to stop with her.

He turned his face into her hair and wondered what would come next. Only seconds later, when she spoke, he knew.

“I love you, Liam.” She said it quietly, with her lips over his heart. “I love you.”

He called the panic that sprang up inside him sense, responsibility. “Rowan—”

“You don’t have to love me back. I just can’t stand not telling you anymore. I was afraid to tell you before.” She shifted, looked at him. “I don’t think I’ll be afraid of anything ever again. So I love you, Liam.”

He sat up beside her. “You don’t know all there is to know, so you can’t know what you think or what you feel. Or what you’ll want,” he added on a huff of breath. “I have things to explain, things to show you. We’ll do better at my cabin.”

“All right.” She made her smile easy, even as a dread filled her heart that the magic of that day was over.

Chapter 12

What else could he tell her that would shock or surprise? Rowan asked herself. He’d told her he was a witch, then proved it and somehow made her accept it. He’d wiped out twenty-seven years of her simple beliefs about herself by telling her she was a witch as well. Had proved it. She had not only accepted it, but had embraced it.

How much more could there be?

She wished he would speak. But he said nothing as they walked through moonlight from her cabin to his. She’d known him long enough to understand that when he fell into this kind of silence he would tell her nothing until he was ready.

By the time they reached his cabin and stepped inside, her nerves were strung tight.

What she didn’t think about, refused to consider, was the fact that he’d withdrawn into that silence after she’d told him she loved him.

“Is it so serious?” She tried for a light tone, but the words came out uneven, and very close to a plea.

“For me, yes. You’ll decide what it means to you.”

He moved into the bedroom and, running his fingers over the wall beside the fireplace, opened a door she hadn’t known was there into a room she’d have sworn didn’t exist.

A soft light glowed from it, as pale and cool as the moonlight.

“A secret room?”

“Not secret,” he corrected. “Private. Come in, Rowan.”