I couldn’t bring myself to speak, but I managed a small nod.
The heaviness of the air caressed me like a bold lover’s touch, and I knew, deep in my gut, I stood on a dangerous precipice. The slightest movement from me, and I would fall.
The question was whether I wanted to save myself, or if the pleasure would be worth the eventual pain.
“Perhaps…” Rhys’s touch skimmed down my neck and over the curve of my shoulder. I shivered, my skin blossoming with a thousand more goosebumps. “I was always meant to find my way to you.”
Oh, God.
Every ounce of oxygen disappeared from my lungs.
“You should go into your room, princess.” His voice was full of gravel, dark and rough. “Go into your room and lock the door.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to.”
Whatever was happening, it was different from Costa Rica. We didn’t have a bucket list or excuses to fall back on. It was just him and me, making a choice that had been a long time coming.
Rhys groaned, and with that one sound, I knew he’d made his choice.
Breathe. Even when there was no oxygen, no air, nothing but him. Breathe.
He dipped his head, but instead of kissing my mouth, he kissed the hollow of my throat. It was so soft it was more a whisper of breath than a kiss, but it was enough to make my knees weaken.
I was a lightning rod, and Rhys was the strike that lit me up from the inside out.
I closed my eyes and stifled a moan as he dragged his mouth up my neck, inch by inch. Just as the lazy possessiveness of his touch lulled me into a semi-stupor, he yanked me toward him with one hand and sank his teeth into the curve between my neck and shoulder. Hard. Almost as hard as the thick arousal pressing against my stomach and causing my core to throb with need. Rhys’s other hand clamped over my mouth, muffling my surprised yelp.
“Tell me.” His voice lowered. “What would your boyfriend think about this?”
Boyfriend? It took a minute before it clicked. Steffan.
We’d gone on two dates. Hardly enough to be considered my boyfriend, no matter what the press said.
But I had a feeling that argument wouldn’t hold sway with Rhys, who loosened his hand enough for me to gasp out, “Steffan’s not my boyfriend.”
The air thickened with danger.
“I don’t like hearing his name on your lips.” Lethally soft words, each one delivered with the precision of a guided missile. “But you went on dates with him. You kissed him.” Rhys’s voice darkened further, and he pressed me further against the wall while wrapping one hand around my throat. “Did you do that to bait me, princess? Hmm?”
“N-no.” I was soaking wet. The darkness of the hall, the roughness of Rhys’s voice, it all went straight to the heat pulsing between my legs. “I had to date someone after the ball. And I didn’t think you cared.”
“I care about everything you do. Even when I shouldn’t.” Rhys’s grip tightened on my throat. “One last chance, princess. Tell me to stop.”
“No.”
I was all too aware that Elin, Mikaela, and the rest of the group slumbered behind the doors on either side of us. It would only take one late-night bathroom break, one light sleeper to hear us and blow the situation to hell.
But somehow, the danger only intensified the thrill running through my veins. Whatever this was between us, it had been building since the moment Rhys stepped out of his car outside my house at Thayer, and I couldn’t stop it even if I wanted to.
Rhys hissed out a breath and released my throat, only to curl his hand around the back of my neck. He yanked me to him again, crushing my mouth to his, and my world imploded.
Tongues, teeth, hands. We devoured each other like the world would end and this was our last chance to feel something. Perhaps it was. But I wouldn’t think about that now, not when our bodies pressed so tight against each other we might as well be one, and I was falling, falling into an abyss I never wanted to get out of.
Mikaela had been right. You could tell everything from a kiss.
I tugged on Rhys’s hair, desperate for more. More of his touch, his taste, his scent. I wanted to fill every inch of my soul with this man.
He drew my bottom lip between his teeth and tugged. I gasped, so aroused I could feel my wetness slicking my thighs.
“Quiet,” he rasped. “Or someone will hear.” He swept his palm up my inner thigh to my core and let out a low groan when he discovered how wet I was. “You’re killing me, princess.”
He rubbed his thumb over my clit through my drenched panties, and I fought back a moan as I arched into his hand. He slid my panties to the side, and—
A bed creaked behind the door next to mine.
Rhys and I froze in unison, our breathing harsh.
We’d gotten so wrapped up in what we were doing we’d forgotten all about the people sleeping just a few feet away.
We heard another creak, followed by the shuffle of someone getting out of bed. Henrik, if the direction of the sound was any indication.
Rhys cursed under his breath and pulled his hand away. It was the smart thing to do, but I still wanted to weep at the loss of contact.
He opened the door to my room behind me and gently pushed me inside. “Tomorrow night. Gazebo,” he said in a low voice. “We’ll go together.”
There was a gazebo behind an abandoned farm, about a fifteen-minute walk from our inn. We’d passed by it on our way into town.
“And princess…don’t bother wearing any underwear.”
The throbbing between my legs intensified.
Rhys closed my door right as Henrik’s opened. Their voices filtered through wood as I tiptoed to my bed and climbed in, my head spinning from the events of the past hour.
Would the pleasure be worth the eventual pain?
I only had to listen to the frantic beats of my heart to know the answer.
28
Rhys
I’d tried to resist. I really had.
Perhaps I would’ve succeeded had Bridget been beautiful and nothing else. Beauty, on its own, meant nothing to me. My mother had been beautiful, until she wasn’t—and I don’t mean physically.
But that was the problem. Bridget wasn’t beautiful and nothing else. She was everything. Warmth, strength, compassion, humor. I saw it in the way she laughed, in her empathy as she listened to people’s problems and her composure as they railed to her about everything they thought was wrong with the country.
I’d known she was more than a pretty face long before this trip, but something inside me snapped last night. Maybe it was the way she’d looked at me, like she thought I was everything too when I was nothing, or maybe it was the knowledge she could be ripped away from me at any moment. She could get engaged next week and I would lose even the possibility of her forever.
Whatever it was, it erased every bit of remaining self-control I had. Costa Rica had been a crack, but this? This was full-on obliteration.
The grass rustled as Bridget and I made our way through the fields toward the gazebo. We’d snuck out after everyone had gone to sleep, and even though it was late, the moon shone bright enough we didn’t need the lights from our phones to guide the way.
Was what we were doing—what we were about to do—a bad idea? Fuck yes. Ours was a story destined for a tragic ending, but when you were already on a train headed off the cliff, all you could do was hold on tight and make every second count.