Wild Side (Rose Hill, #3)(57)

“Rhys,” I whisper, dragging the tip of my nose over his cheek while my fingers tangle in his mussed hair. “We should…”

He peppers kisses over the column of my throat with a reverence that makes my chest ache and my hips swivel. Pressure coils behind my hip bones as a familiar heat races up my spine.

“What should we do, Tabby?”

Tabby.

God, I almost purr at the way my name rumbles in his throat.

“We should… You should—”

His fingers slide down the column of my spine with firm, even pressure, and my ability to form words evaporates.

“Make you come before you leave for girls’ night?” I hear the taunt in his tone and feel the rasp of his stubbled cheek, no doubt hitching up into a smirk against my chest. “Tell me you’re on birth control so I can dream about fucking you bare, Tabby.”

“I am. Yesss.” I hiss the word, eyes fluttering shut as I imagine how it would feel to have him slide between my legs. To ride him. To have him fill me the way I’m sure only he can.

God, it would be heaven.

I grind down on him, lost to the fantasy.

“Fuck yes,” he groans, lifting his hips to match my fervor. He sends me into a delirious haze, dry fucking me while he sears me with another kiss that promises so damn much.

We claw at each other frantically. I’m drunk on him, and I want more. I want it all. His big hands. His deep moans. The smell of his skin all around me. Him moving inside of me, pushing me higher with every thrust.

My skin sizzles, and I feel ready to rip my clothes off just to feel more of him.

I can barely breathe. One sharp breath in and one slow exhale. My complicated feelings about Rhys and where we began have me twisted up beyond comprehension.

That’s why I don’t want to let this fantasy become reality.

But I don’t want him to stop either. I want this to go on forever.

His palm roams over the curve of my ass, fingers edging lower. When I drop my gaze to meet his, I’m met with pure heat, and what looks an awful lot like…vulnerability.

Like he can read my mind, he says, “Tell me I should stop, Tabby. Tell me I should stop, and I will.”

His thumb circles against my jeans as he waits.

I breathe him in, and he breathes me out, both of us toeing the edge of what could be a disastrous fall.

And I realize it might not just be disastrous for Milo. It could be disastrous for me and for Rhys. Because kissing him to make myself feel better when he’s looking at me like I hung the moon feels dangerous.

Dangerous, because when he looks at me like that, my heart beats harder and my brain starts asking questions that I don’t especially know how to cope with. Questions like…

You’re sure you want this marriage to be fake?

All at once, I’m struck by the gravity of the situation. We aren’t just two people anymore. There’s a legal element, a co-parenting element. His fortune. My restaurant. The ways this could go bad are…bad.

So I pull back. For his protection and for mine.

I fumble around like an awkward mess as I try to extricate myself from him while avoiding falling down the stairs. “Listen,” I mutter as I look over my shoulder to place my foot safely. “I don’t really want you to stop. But that’s why we should.”

When I sneak a peek back down at him, his features have twisted into an expression that is the perfect blend of amused and confused. “It’s a bad idea.”

His lips quirk, and he regards me calmly—save for the massive ridge in his pants. There’s nothing calm about the way his dick is standing at attention right now. “Is that so?”

My eyes roll. Is that so? He says that all the time. “Yeah. Milo.”

His head tilts in question. Like Milo isn’t a good enough reason for me to back out of whatever just happened.

“And you. And me. Just…complicated.”

He nods, lips twitching with amusement but never breaking into a smile. “Making my wife come is a bad idea because…complicated. Did I get that right?”

I prop my hands on my hips. “Listen, I can tell you’re mocking me, but you know I’m right. If you were thinking with your head and not your massive dick, you’d agree.”

Fuck my life. Why did I have to compliment the size of his dick again? He’s never going to let me live this down. I’m practically spoon-feeding him.

I need to get away, so I head up the stairs, stepping over his shoulder and focusing on making it to the door. If I don’t, his adorable fucking smirk may annoy me enough that I drop down and enjoy his offer.

“Sorry,” I say. “I lost my head there for a second. If it’s any consolation, in another lifetime, I’d climb you like a tree, and not think twice.”

He lets out a beleaguered sigh as I reach the top of the stairs, and his voice comes out more tortured than I expected, his parting words hitting me right in the chest. “That’s no consolation at all, Tabby.”



“Why are your cheeks all flushed?” Rosie eyes me suspiciously over the rim of her drink.

I swallow and look away, pretending to take in the decor here at the Reach. “They’re not. I was in a rush and put on too much blush. It’s very grade ten of me.” It’s a lie. All my blush rubbed off on Rhys’s stubble, and my cheeks are flushed because I can’t stop thinking about how it felt when he held me down on his dick.