Chapter 8
SEVERIN
Rhys’s road schedule was conspiring against us.
As grouchy as that made me, it was probably a good thing.
If I had regular, easy access to that man’s body, I’d fall in love with him so quickly.
I’d enjoyed hooking up in the past and had been worried that wanting to be in a relationship meant giving up some of the passion.
That didn’t seem to be the case with Rhys. At all.
I opened my texts and shook my head. He’d landed weird on his ankle in the game with Dallas—the result of a dirty no-call that had me screaming at my phone in the freezer at work.
Rhys: This game took it out of me.
Rhys: Don’t think I have it in me to do more than cuddle. Totally understand if you’d rather not.
Me: I don’t think you understand how cuddlovable you are.
Me: Get your fine ass over here, and I’ll be your big spoon.
Rhys:
Shit. Had I really just used the word “cuddlovable”? I might be worse off than I thought. That made me smile all the way through my shift, and I was still smiling when Rhys knocked on my door.
He brightened when he saw me and pushed his way inside, kissing me with everything he had. When we finally resurfaced for oxygen, I cupped his cheek.
“Should we sit? Let you rest your ankle?”
He shrugged. “I just wanna get into bed with you.”
I led him by the hand to the bedroom, then reached for his T-shirt, revealing his perfect chest.
“You always smell so good after a game.”
“That’s because I take two showers—one at the facility and one at home. Don’t want to make my—” He flushed and redirected. “Make you gag.”
I touched my finger to my ear. “What was that you were going to say? Make your…”
He went even redder, ignoring me in favor of toeing off his shoes and disrobing.
I bit back a smile as I joined him on the bed.
Given his size, it’d become our custom to have him lie back against the massive wall of pillows while I wrapped myself around his rib cage, warmed by the pleasing heft of his arm as he draped it over my back.
Despite the early evening hour, neither of us had gotten much rest the last few days, and a heavy sleepiness blanketed me. I took off my processor to enjoy the silence and the cuddles, but then I couldn’t help myself.
“I nearly broke my phone when I saw what that Dallas—flanker, right?—did to you.”
His body shimmied with laughter and he flipped the bird, then combined it with the “okay” gesture.
“Did you just sign ‘fucking asshole’?”
Yes.
“Of course you know the bad words.”
Wait, he signed. You see g-a-m-e?
“Yep,” I replied, yawning. “Paid extra for the app and everything.”
He pulled me up into another dizzying kiss, and I had to wonder if it was a rugby thing, or a big guy thing, or, more likely, if it was simply a Rhys thing. Either way, it was a good thing.
Er, it had been a good thing until I yawned into his mouth.
“Shit, sorry!”
Maybe I bad kiss.
“No! I’m just… I haven’t been sleeping well.”
Same. N-a-p?
“Fuck, that sounds awesome.”
His chest rose rapidly, and I looked up to find him in the middle of a big yawn. We dropped off quickly, clinging to each other.
I woke up a few hours later to the bed being jostled. Reaching over, I grabbed my processor, sticking it to my head.
“Baby?” I asked. “I’ve got my ear on.”
“Sorry, gotta go to the bathroom.”
“Mmkay. You gonna be hungry anytime soon?”
He turned and sent me a lascivious smile. “I’ll be hungry for something.”
“Would you happen to be hungry for my ass?”
“You want that?”
“Of course. You know I’m vers, right?”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t sure…”
“Sweetheart, I can handle your massive cock.”
“It’s not massive,” he said, pink tipping his ears. “It’s proportional.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Okay, it might be a tiny bit massive.” He bit his lip, looking unsure.
“Spit it out.”
“When I top, I like to get rough. Not that I have to,” he quickly added. “But when I look at your ass, I kinda want to tear it up.”
“Baby, I like it rough. I mean… we can slow it down if your ankle still hurts.”
Shaking his head, Rhys rolled his ankle, popping it. “I’ve played with cracked ribs before. A little sore ankle is not going to stop me from fucking you into the mattress.”
When he was done in the bathroom, I took some extra time to prep, knowing that he’d practically be at my back teeth with that thing.
We met in bed and I asked, “Mind if I add a layer?”
“What kind of a layer?”
I playfully pushed him off me and took off my processor. “If you fuck me from behind, I can’t see or hear you, and I really kind of…”
“Yes. Fuck yes,” he said.
At least, I was pretty sure that’s what he’d said. Any residual noise in my world settled to the background, a barely-there hum.
We made out until our cocks were weeping, then he flipped me—nice and rough—onto my hands and knees and was not shy or quick about lubing and stretching my hole.
I closed my eyes, loving the noise deprivation after a long week of overstimulation. He kissed along my shoulders, his lips moving in time with his soft breaths, as though he were whispering secrets into my skin. I loved it.
Even though I felt him shift behind me and knew what was coming, I still startled when he pushed through the tight ring of muscle.
Fucking hell. Rhys had a decent length on him, but it was his girth that was doing me in.
I squeezed my eyes shut and bore down, wondering if I was making him grunt and groan like the last time we were together.
We’d agreed that he could tap my shoulder and I’d give him a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to keep going, so when he touched my shoulder, I eagerly gave him the thumbs-up.
He leaned down to kiss the back of my neck, and his smile against my skin sent shivers down my spine.
He knelt back, grabbing one shoulder with a meaty hand as the other gripped my hip. With that, we were off to the races. I was stretched and wrecked, and he was hammering into me like it was his job.
On top of that, the near silence heightened everything, as did the sweat dripping onto my back.
I had no idea what kind of noises were coming out of my mouth, but I knew I wasn’t exactly being quiet when he slapped a palm across my mouth.
Still stroking into me like a fucking champ, he pointed to the wall I shared with a neighbor and made a gesture like someone knocking on the door.
Oops.
With his hand still clamped across my mouth, he drew me against his chest as he sat back on his fucking glorious haunches.
While violently lifting and rolling his hips, he draped his other hand across my neck.
He didn’t apply pressure, but the hot presence of his fingers wrapped around my neck was enough to make my eyes roll back.
I needed more, so I licked his palm until he pulled it away.
“Choke me.”
His hand on my throat didn’t move, so I turned back.
“Choke me,” I repeated, looking into his eyes.
Sure? he signed.
“Yes.”
He repeated himself. Sure?
I nodded. “Please.”
It was the please that did it, and his hand immediately tightened on my neck. I dropped the back of my head to his shoulder, loving how fuzzy I was going around the edges.
Did I know this man well enough to ask him to choke me?
Probably not, but I knew I could trust Rhys Dawie with my life, and I wasn’t going to question that.
After a few seconds, he released the pressure, sending me through the stratosphere.
My blood cells splintered into two factions: head and cock.
The rush to each created the kind of dizzying orgasm I’d only ever read in smutty romance novels.
Ahem. Not that I ever read those.
He clamped his hand over my mouth as I came, the cum arcing away from my body.
His gorgeous muscles tensed behind me and his hips canted off at an angle, and I knew he was teed up and ready to fly. He pushed us forward, flattening me into the bed as he rutted the last of his orgasm into me. The burst of heat from his cum filled me, and I knew I’d want it again and again.
I didn’t even mind that he shoved me into the wet spot I’d created. I wanted to be leaking from him for days, and the rise and fall of his big chest above me while pinned to the bed made my poor, spent cock twitch.
He rolled his hips from side to side, as if enjoying the tail end of ecstasy, before kissing the back of my neck and then slowly pulling away from me.
You, he signed as he flipped me. M-e-s-s.
I looked down and laughed. Cum plastered the hair against my belly and chest. He grabbed my hand and pulled me from the bed.
I wobbled, come-drunk and leaking, so he supported me as we walked into the bathroom.
After letting the shower heat up, he pulled us in together and bathed me so sweetly and gently that emotion clogged my throat.
Slow it down, Sev.
I don’t think I can.
We stayed under the water, clinging to each other, kissing like the world was gonna end any moment. Being with Rhys blew away my excuses and fears like cobwebs after a spring cleaning. I knew—the way you just know—that whatever this was, it was serious, and it would be serious for a long time.
We kissed until the shower ran cold, then toweled off and raced back into the bedroom, damp and happy.
Where, he signed, s-h-e-e-t-s?
Grateful that my shorn hair dried quickly, I reached for my processor, stuck it to the side of my head, and answered, “In the closet top shelf.”
“And you can hear me now?” he asked, smiling as he reached for them.
I thought briefly of the fact that I would never get to hear his voice without the sort of demon robot effect of the implant. I could hear, however, the bass notes, the concern, the affection in his voice. Even better, I had those things with or without the processor.
It was also clear from the number of words he was signing that he’d been refreshing his signed vocabulary. Sure, his grammar was shit, but then again, so was mine. I knew he would continue to work on it, and that meant I had to as well.
Finding someone who was willing to meet me at my level of try was like finding a unicorn. Yet, here Rhys was, this sweet, almost shy, rugby bro, and he was meeting me where I was at.
I couldn’t wait to see where we would go next.