“I looked at you like you were the one woman I couldn’t have and therefore wouldn’t let myself want.”
I thought the kiss in the backyard was intense, but this is something else entirely. Fierce and primal. Rhys’s mouth claims and devours, and I’m barely able to keep up with the pace he sets. He seals his mouth over mine, his tongue seeking entrance, and I open to him willingly. We kiss and kiss, until I can feel my heartbeat setting the pace for my hips to rock against the hard bulge in his jeans.
I reach for his hand and bring it back to my breast. He lets out a grunt of satisfaction, his thumb brushing over the tight peak of my nipple, sending silver threads of need straight to my clit.
I can’t stop grinding into him. I can’t pull away from the touch of his fingers.
“Rhys.”
“What do you need?”
As soon as he asks, I know. “You, too. I want you to come, too.”
He shakes his head. “Tonight’s about you. Just you.”
I still my hips, and he makes a raw, dark sound, like it hurts him that I stopped. “Don’t stop,” he pleads.
“You, too,” I repeat.
He’s still hesitating. I shift my position so I can rock over the thickest part of his thigh, a hot, hard tree trunk of muscle against my over-sensitized flesh. I reach for his zipper.
His fingers intercept mine, anchor them. And I know if I’m going to get what I want, I’m going to have to tell him why I want it. And I’m hot enough that the words come easily, the confession slipping through bruised, swollen lips into the safe space between us:
“You looked at me like you hated me. You were this big, broody, restrained, ultra-serious lawyer, and nothing got to you. You were going to do your job, and I was nothing. Just this…nuisance in the conference room and the courtroom, something to brush away like a mosquito buzzing around you. And I want—I want—I need—you to fall apart. I need you to make a mess of me.”
He groans, a harsh sound yanked from deep in his chest, and his head falls to my shoulder, and he doesn’t try again to stop me as I work his button free, his zipper down. As I reach into his jeans and free him from the constraints of his briefs. In my hand, his cock is gratifyingly big and thick and so, so hard, the skin pulled taut over the pretty head. He makes another rough, wrecked sound, and God, I hope he’s close, because I’m so fucking close, knowing I can do that to him.
Then he’s kissing me again, deep and thorough, hungry, one hand on my hip, guiding my movements, the other still teasing the taut bead of my nipple. Heat and need curl and flare through my belly and thighs, pulling all the pleasure into a twisting, winding spiral that gathers everything with it. My thighs tighten around his, my core clenches around its own hunger, the bright pleasure in my chest tightens harder and deeper down, and then I’m coming, licking my pleasure into his mouth as he kisses his name and my cries off my lips. And then he’s shouting—shouting!—his body rigid under me, his face split with pleasure, as he falls apart under my touch.
32
Rhys
When I come to my senses, Eden is collapsed against my chest, her cheek pressed to my shoulder, one hand wrapped around my arm, holding tight.
I don’t want to move, but—“Jesus,” I say. “I really did make a mess, huh?”
I can feel her smile. “Uh-huh. Thank you.”
“Well. Thank you right back.”
Her smile gets bigger.
“Let me clean us up.”
She slowly loosens her iron grip on my bicep, and I gently lift her and set her down on the couch, where she leans back and closes her eyes. She’s beautiful like this, boneless and wrecked, her face smooth and relaxed.
I go to the bathroom and come back with a washcloth, which I use to clean her hand—every finger gently in turn, while she purrs at the warmth and sensation—and then myself. Then I sit back down next to her and say, “You have a dirty streak I wasn’t expecting. And obviously, I love the fuck out of it.”
Eyes still closed, she says, “I’ve never said anything like that before. I’ve neverthoughtanything like that before. But something about this”—she gestures at the two of us—“makes me really want to be honest with you. It makes no sense that I would trust you. But I do.”
I want—I need—you to fall apart. I need you to make a mess of me.
She got what she wanted, and it was only half because of her small, warm hand fisted over the taut skin of my cock. The rest of it was because I wanted that, too. To fall apart for her. For us to fall apart for each other.
“God. Eden. You fucking destroy me.”
Her mouth curves into a smile. “Good.”
