His hands came up to cup her face, thumbs rubbing soft circles against her jaw, and Vivi found her own hands resting low on his waist, opening her mouth under his, sighing as his tongue stroked along hers.
“The taste of you,” he muttered when they parted, his mouth dropping to her neck as Vivi closed her eyes and tilted her head back. “Can’t get enough of it. Never fucking well could.”
Another memory. That first night at the Solstice Revel, tangled together in his tent. Vivi had never gone to bed with anyone so fast, had always gone through what felt like the appropriate number of dates for each stage. Kiss on the second, little further on the third and so on. She’d only had sex with one other guy before Rhys, and that had been after a solid year of dating.
But within two hours of meeting Rhys, he’d had his mouth on her, her thigh draped over one shoulder as he’d kissed and licked and sucked and driven her completely out of her mind, telling her over and over again how good she tasted, how gorgeous she was, and she’d felt gorgeous. Powerful, even, unashamed, uninhibited.
Sometimes she thought what she’d really fallen in love with that summer was the version of herself she was when she was with him.
But as lovely as that memory was, she didn’t want to think about the past when the present was right here in front of her, hands skating over her sides, fingertips brushing the skin just above the waist of her jeans.
“Vivienne, if you’ll allow me to make you come tonight, I’d consider myself the most fortunate of men.”
The words were muttered against the place where her neck met her shoulder, and Vivi felt her entire body clench in response.
Suddenly, there was nothing more she wanted in the world than to let Rhys Penhallow make her come in the back room of this store, and she didn’t want to look too closely at it, didn’t want to think about all the reasons she shouldn’t.
It had been a long night, she was feeling powerful and good, and a handsome man wanted to give her an orgasm.
Why shouldn’t she have that?
Her hands clasped around the back of his neck, Vivi leaned in to kiss him again, letting her tongue stroke along his, loving the low sound that came from his throat as she did.
“Please,” she whispered against his mouth, and then they were stumbling back against the ancient velvet settee by the fire. Some distant part of Vivi’s brain reminded her that it had belonged to some famous witch, that Aunt Elaine was really fond of it as a result, but she couldn’t think about that now, couldn’t think about anything except Rhys and his hands on her.
They fell back onto the couch, Rhys reaching out to make sure the full weight of his body didn’t land on her, and Vivi cuffed a hand around the back of his neck as he nuzzled her jaw, her neck.
Rhys was tugging her shirt out of her jeans, shoving it up over her breasts, and when his mouth closed over her nipple through the lace of her bra, Vivi gasped, fingers tightening in his hair.
His tongue made lazy circles, the drag of the fabric plus the wet heat of his mouth making her writhe underneath him, needing, pleading.
The rasp of her zipper sounded very loud in the quiet room, and Rhys looked at her again, his eyes meeting hers, pupils blown wide with desire. “All right?” he asked, and she nodded, almost frantically, as she clutched the back of his neck, bringing his mouth to hers.
“Better than all right,” she panted, and then his hand was there, sliding over the cotton of her panties, and she was lifting her hips off the couch in a silent entreaty.
For a moment, he paused, rearing over her, his hair over his brow, his lips parted with the force of his breath, and it could’ve been that first night all over again. There in his tent at the Solstice Revel, looking down at her, that same pendant winking against his chest.
“Christ Jesus, you’re lovely,” he said, his voice a wreck, accent thicker, and Vivi almost could’ve come from that alone. From the look in his eyes, as fond as it was heated, and not for the first time, she thought how much easier it would’ve been if they hadn’t liked each other so much. If it had just been sex and heat and desire, and not this warmth, too.