Vivienne pulled back slightly, looking up at him with a sort of unholy light in her eyes that should’ve made him very, very afraid.
“Rhys,” she said as a grin slowly spread across her face, “are you telling me we’re going to have sex in Dracula’s bedroom?”
“It is . . . a little Dracula, yes,” he admitted, and she laughed, tipping her head back against the door. “Does it have a canopy bed? Please tell me it has a canopy bed.”
It not only had a canopy bed, but said bed was up on a platform.
Not that Rhys was going to tell her that. She was just moments away from finding it out for herself, after all.
So reaching behind her, keeping a grip on her waist so she wouldn’t stumble, he turned the doorknob.
Rhys’s kisses were so drugging, so distracting, that for a minute, Vivi didn’t even notice the room they were in. They could’ve been anywhere, in some blank space where only they existed. That’s how he made her feel. How he’d always made her feel.
And then she saw all the red satin.
“Ohhhhhh my god,” she breathed, and Rhys groaned, his knees bending so that his forehead was against her collarbone.
“You were supposed to say that because of me.”
Giggling, Vivi pulled out of his embrace to fully explore the chamber in which she found herself.
And “chamber” really was the right word because this room was bananas.
There was a chandelier overhead that appeared to be made of some kind of black crystal, sparkling darkly in the low light, and the bed . . .
“Rhys,” Vivi said, pressing one hand to her mouth. “Have you been sleeping in this every night?”
Sighing, Rhys stepped back, leaning against the wall. “I’ve spent a few nights on the couch just because I cannot deal with this room,” he admitted, and Vivi could not blame him.
The carpet underfoot was thick and heavy, and there was a fireplace against the far wall, a fur rug slumped on the floor, plus more sconces than any one room should contain and a particularly graphic painting of Circe seducing Odysseus over the bed.
The bed in question was set high up on a platform, so high that the edge hit her right at her waist, and thick black-and-red curtains draped the massive mattress, which was covered in . . .
Vivi peeked underneath the damask bedspread.
“Black satin?” she asked, her voice going high on the last syllable, and Rhys tipped his head back, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“I warned you.”
Still smiling, Vivi turned to face him, her hands reaching up for the buttons of her blouse.
“Why didn’t you bring me here before?”
“Why didn’t I bring you to the terrifyingly creepy sex dungeon I sleep in?” he asked, his hands behind his back even as his eyes wandered over her in a way that made her blood feel hotter. “Can’t imagine.”
“Maybe I would’ve liked it,” Vivi said, shucking her blouse and loving the way his gaze darkened as he took in her absolutely least sexy bra, the faded pink one with the sagging bow in the middle, the one she never would’ve worn if she’d thought she’d end up here, stripping down in front of him.
Rhys’s gaze somehow got even more molten. “How did I ever give you up?” he murmured. Vivi took a deep breath unzipping her skirt and letting it fall to the floor, giving exactly zero fucks that her underwear was one of her older pairs, the one with lemons and oranges dancing across the fabric, not even remotely matching her bra.
He was across the room in a few strides, pulling her up hard against him, kissing her breathless. “Tell me what you want,” he breathed against her lips, one of the most appealing offers Vivi had ever heard.