Chapter Nineteen
RHYS
Walking Bristol to the front door of the house she shares with another man feels like cruel and unusual punishment. Especially after the things I’ve witnessed tonight. She doesn’t belong here. She belongs anywhere but here.
She lives in a swanky neighborhood in Bloomfield, a home way too expensive for my taste and my pockets.
We walk up her steps in silence, bathed in the darkness of the evening, the only light coming from the full moon above us.
The tension stretches between us, pulling taut.
My heart races behind my ribcage, a relentless ache, like my chest is trying to stretch itself around a feeling it was never meant to hold.
I’ve never wanted something or someone as much as I want her, and I don’t deserve her at all.
Everything in my body is telling me this is wrong, to haul her over my shoulder like a caveman and drive us back to the clubhouse, where I know she can be safe. If that’s how Blake talks to her in public, how does he talk to her behind closed doors?
I refuse to take away her choices, I refuse to make decisions for her when she’s perfectly capable of making them herself. Even if it’s slowly killing me.
Bristol unlocks her door slowly, like she’s just as reluctant to say our goodbyes. When she turns around, my knees nearly buckle at how she’s looking up at me. Big, beautiful hazel eyes, the caramel barely catching in the moonlight, are silently pleading.
I can’t make these decisions for her. She’s got to want them all on her own.
I know she feels this between us, but that doesn’t take away from the messiness of her situation.
I’d do anything to uncomplicate it for her.
If I had it my way, it’d be by putting that fucker six feet underground. Preferably in a box. Alive.
“Rhys?” she says, biting that full bottom lip.
“Yeah, baby?”
“Stay?”
The breath that leaves my lungs is audible. A sigh of relief, of gratitude. “Anything for you, my love.”
I follow Bristol inside, her gown trailing behind her. She looks so fucking beautiful dressed up like this, but my favorite version of her is dressed in her work scrubs with her long hair pulled back. Natural face, happy. She glows when she’s happy.
Fuck, I love this woman.
Fuck everything standing in our way.
Not able to control myself a moment longer, my fingers lightly circle her wrist, tugging her backward.
Bristol turns, and I take a single step in her direction, putting us chest to chest just inside the doorway, without actually touching.
My thumb swipes back and forth across the pulse point at her wrist, feeling the rapid and steady thump of her heart rate picking up.
I love how she reacts to me.
Her eyes dart between my eyes, her chest rising and falling harder now, the swell of her breasts spilling from her ball gown as she waits for me to respond. To say anything.
God, she’s everything.
My endgame.
My future wife.
My old lady.
My queen.
I know I shouldn’t, I know it’s wrong, but fuck it. My head dips down, only a shred of space between us, our breaths mingling as I whisper my next words.
“Sin with me, Bristol.”
Her breath hitches, a quick intake of air as her eyes become more heavily lidded.
“Rhys . . . I shouldn’t . . .” Shouldn’t.
But not can’t. It wasn’t a no. My fingers thread slowly through her black hair, the strands slipping through my touch like soft-spun silk.
I angle her head back, tilting it to the side as I close the space between us, gently running my nose against each side of hers, our breaths mingling, uneven and shallow.
“Shh, let me give you something good to remember when the days are hard,” I whisper, my voice low, but I know she can hear the desperation, the plea.
My fingers rub gently against her scalp, her hands reaching up to grasp around my forearms. She doesn’t push me away, no, she grips me like she’s holding me in place, like she’s just as desperate, just as needy as I am.
My eyes trace over every inch of her beautiful face, memorizing this moment, memorizing her features, her expression, the feeling.
I’m a man who prides himself on being in control, for thinking clearly and logically, but with Bristol?
I’m reduced to a man who would burn the world down for his woman only because she said so.
There are no lengths I wouldn’t go to see her smile, to hear her voice, her laugh, and know that she’s breathing and happy.
Everything I’ve ever known is whisked away on the wind as I practically beg at her feet, here in the entryway of the house she shares with another man, desperate enough to cross the line I told myself time and time again I wouldn’t cross.
If it means I can have just a taste of her, fuck it all. I’ll reconcile my sins with the devil himself when he comes back for me.
“Tell me I can kiss you, my love, tell me I can pretend for just a moment.”
“Kiss me, Rhys.”
I’ve never heard sweeter fucking words.
I dip my head lower, my lips brushing against hers in a featherlight touch, watching as her breathing hitches and her eyes flutter closed. She’s so incredibly beautiful, so seductive without even trying.
Everything around us softens, noise, movement, even the air itself feels like it’s holding its breath as I erase the remaining space between us. I couldn’t hold back another moment if a gun was to my head.
My lips finally press against the plush fullness of hers, my eyes falling closed as we mold together. It feels like the world finally exhales, like everything that had been off balance in my life, everything I’ve been searching for, has been righted and found.
I’ve been dreaming of this moment since the very first second our eyes met, so I kiss her slowly, gently, but there’s no question about whether this is right or wrong. Kissing Bristol is a reckoning, a sign from the divine that everything is finally as it should be.
Sinning never tasted so sweet.
Our bodies pull tighter, her voluptuous breasts pressing harder against my chest, erasing all space between us.
My fingers tangle gently in her hair, turning her head so I can deepen the kiss just as she surprises the hell out of me.
Bristol opens her mouth, her tongue seeking mine.
My tongue slides against hers, coaxing, tempting, until she melts in my arms, a soft little mewl escaping her lips.
Everything before this moment disappears. My entire world is reduced to this single moment, this woman in my arms, and I’ve never felt fuller and more fulfilled. My life begins and ends with her.
I kiss her like I mean it, like I never want it to end, throwing all the feelings running through my veins into it, wanting her to feel every uninhibited desire to make her mine, to have this to hold onto, to think about as a reminder that she’s loved, that she’s wanted, and desired.
That there’s someone out there who loves her more than anything in the world.
Our tongues caress against one another, slowly, methodically, without urgency or a rush, and I’ve never been more turned-on.
Her hands slide up my forearms before dropping to my chest. She explores me, fingertips running along my pecs before dipping lower, gliding along each of my abs through the thin fabric of my dress shirt.
Her touch ignites a wave of goosebumps, arousal following in its wake.
She tastes of the champagne she was sipping all night, sweet and intoxicating, her tongue smooth against mine as we pull each other closer, our bodies completely flush now. I swallow down her sweet gasp as she feels the proof of just how she affects me on a physical level.
But fuck, if it’s not so much more than that.
I slowly break away, peppering a few lingering kisses to her lips, resting my forehead against hers. She’s panting, clinging to me like she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she lets go.
“Tell me what you need, my love, and I’ll do it.”
“Take me away. From here, from all of it. Just . . . I need to escape for a little while longer. Help me escape.”
That I can do.
Grabbing her hand, we leave the house that neither of us belongs in and rush back outside.
Bristol kicks off her dress shoes as we go, leaving them discarded on the steps of the house.
I quickly open the passenger door of my truck, scooping her up and setting her back in the seat.
Her smile is infectious, like she’s excited about the future for the first time in a long time.
After I get her buckled, I close her door and jog around to the front. I know exactly where I’m taking her.
Bristol rolls down her window, so I follow suit, the wind whipping her long hair around her face.
She hikes up her dress to her thighs, pulling her legs into the seat.
My knuckles turn white with the strength I’m squeezing the steering wheel with.
Long, bare legs sit just inches from me, and her cute red-painted toes that I want to kiss.
She sticks her arm out the truck window, head lolled off to the side as she looks at the night passing by.
We don’t exchange words, nothing but the wild wind whipping through the truck cabin and the soft melody of Elvis on my playlist coming through the speakers.
When we arrive at our destination, Bristol sits up straighter, looking around as I pull off onto the side of the road at a mile marker.
We’re on an empty road in the middle of nowhere that stretches between Amberwood and Aspen Ridge.
I can’t fight the smile that fills my face as she looks around with confusion.
“Come on, I want to show you something.” I jump out of my truck, walking around to the other side to get her door just as she’s opening it.
I help her down, but not before I take my fill of her gorgeous legs.
They’re thick, and that slight jiggle when she slides out of the seat before her dress falls down over her legs makes my mouth water and my fingers ache.
Taking a deep breath to control my physical reaction to her and her body, I grab her hand, then scoop her up in my arms.
“Rhys! I know how to walk, in case you don’t remember?”
“Is this okay? We have a little trek through the woods, and you don’t have shoes on.”
“Oh, yes. This is okay,” she says, giving in and making me so happy in the process. Any excuse to have this woman close to me is one I want to take advantage of. Plus, I’d hate for her to hurt her feet stumbling around the forest at night.
Bristol holds my phone flashlight for me, lighting our way as I walk through a small, man-made trail that I could do with my eyes closed.
She looks all around us, taking in everything as far as her eyes can see.
After a few minutes, we arrive at the edge of the woods, the tree line coming to an end and opening up to a gorgeous meadow at the top of a hill that looks out over more forest.
I gently set her down onto the grass, grabbing her hand once more and leading her farther into the meadow. Massive Sitka spruce trees surround us in a large perimeter, wild lupines growing tall; if only she could see the pink, purple, and blue hues. But nighttime is the best, anyway.
I usher her forward to the center of the meadow, loving how willingly she follows me, how trusting she is.
“In the daylight, you can see the mountains surrounding us and the wild lupines in the meadow.
But nighttime . . . I take a seat on the grass, gently pulling her hand to join me.
I lean back, putting my free hand under my head to gaze up.
Bristol lies next to me, our hands clasped tightly between our bodies.
“Nighttime is when the world really shines.”
“I’ve never seen the sky so clear, Rhys, look at all those stars!”
“I’ve been coming here since I was barely a teenager.
Stumbled on it one day. Actually, wrecked my first bike at that mile marker and was so pissed off.
I had no reception and started trekking through the woods to get to higher ground.
Then the woods opened up to this. It became a refuge of sorts.
Somewhere for me to be alone with my thoughts. ”
“It’s so beautiful, Rhys. The universe must have known you needed a place that was just for you to breathe.”
“It did, and now you have it, too.”
Bristol leans her head into my shoulder as we lie there and watch the night sky. I listen to the soft cadence of her breath, my thumb rubbing slow circles on the top of her hand, and I know I would give up everything just to stay right here with her.
I hope she knows without my words how much I love her.