Rhys
Gwen Roberts is a special kind of torment.
She’s always been a distraction, even from miles away across the valley.
But having her here in my home, sleeping in my bed through the night, then wearing a borrowed plaid shirt that dangles over her bare legs as she makes mugs of tea at the kitchen counter…
It’s a lot. A constant assault on my self control.
“No. Just milk.”
The spoon clinks against china, her bare toes curling against the chilled flagstones, and I can’t stop staring at the backs of her thighs. My eyes are going dry.
She’s so bright. Soft and warm and funny and sweet. Gwen Roberts is the walking version of a cuddle in the sunshine. And meanwhile here I am, surly and giant and twice her age. Rough and grumpy and wrecked by her every move.
“Here you go.” My mug thumps down on the scrubbed kitchen table. I blink at it stupidly, and Gwen’s bright light stutters just like that. She hovers over me, suddenly anxious. “Is that not how you like it? I could make you another one. Or, um, I could brew coffee—”
“It’s good.” I lift the mug, holding her gaze as I take a sip. Hot fluid fills my mouth and runs down the back of my throat in a perfect burn. I’m not faking it when I let out a pleased sigh. “Thank you.”
That smile. That sweet, nervous smile.
Without thinking, I tug Gwen Roberts back down onto my lap. Back where she belongs. Tea sloshes over the rim of her own mug, splattering against my gray shirt, and she puts it down quickly at a safe distance on the table.
“Sorry! Oh gosh, sorry.”
Even when it’s my fault, she apologizes. That won’t do.
Gwen quivers as I drag the tip of my nose along her shoulder, inhaling her warm morning scent. She smells like daisy meadows and blackberry bushes. Hazelnuts and laundry powder, and her weight is so perfect in my lap, I almost can’t stand it.
“Why are you sorry, cariad?” I cage her in my arms. “I’m the one who pulled you down.”
A blush starts at the base of her throat. Climbs slowly up towards her cheeks, and still I keep smelling her. Breathing her in like she’s the oxygen I need. “And you got splashed for your trouble.”
“Serves me right.”
“No it doesn’t.” Gwen tilts her head to the side, humming dreamily as I tuck an escaped blonde lock of hair behind her ear, the rest piled on her head in a magnificent mess. “Oh, I love it when you touch me, Rhys Evans.”
“That’s good.” My heart’s pounding so loud that surely she can hear it. Surely. “Because I love touching you. I’ve got work to finish today, but now all I want to do is sit here with you and slip my hands under your clothes.”
“Do it.” Gwen’s gripping the edge of the table, white knuckled. She’s balanced on my thigh, her feet tangling around my calves. “Oh my god, do it.”
My cheeks lift in a rare grin, my face aching from smiling so much in the last twenty four hours. I’m not used to this, damn it.
“I can’t. Later, maybe.”
Gwen’s groan is low and ragged. “You are a tease, Rhys Evans.”
Am I? I’ve certainly never acted like this before.
I’ve never been playful or lighthearted; I’ve never been so hungry for someone that it’s a physical ache.
But in the safe recesses of my brain, I can admit what I won’t say out loud: that I’m not teasing this girl.
I just know the sooner we start this, the sooner it will be over.
Pretty young women like Gwen Roberts don’t settle down with big old brutes like me. They just don’t. They might scratch an itch with us, might satisfy their curiosity, but it’s young lads like the Thomas boy who get the girl in the end.
“I need to work in the forge for a few hours. Do you need anything before I go?”
Gwen bites her lip, looking like she might say something… then shakes her head. A stray blonde curl tickles my neck.
“Okay.” Gut twisting, I brush a kiss against her shoulder. I hope she keeps my shirt on today. I want it to smell like her when she’s gone. “You know where to find me. Be good.”
Gwen hops up with a sigh, snatching up her tea then wandering from the room.
But I will not stare after her like a love-struck fool.
I will not pine for her when I was the one to cut our meeting short.
I will not let myself wonder.
I will not let myself want.
And I don’t know who I’m fooling. Certainly not myself.
* * *
Clang.
Clang.
Clang.
Clang.
There is relief to be found in a familiar rhythm. In the weight of a well-known tool in my hand. I pound away at my anvil, sparks flying and flames dancing, and the heat is so intense, I keep blinking streams of sweat from my eyes.
Normally I’d take breaks. Pace myself. But I’m coiled too tight today, my muscles edgy and twitching, and if I don’t work off some of this tension I’ll go mad.
So instead my mug of tea stands abandoned on the charred workbench, cool and half drunk, and I slam away with the hammer until my shoulder burns and my throat is dry as sand.
Better to wrap this work up soon. Lord knows I’ll be lucky to get paid in this valley at all, and things will only get worse for me here as long as Gwen stays at my forge.
“Fuck.” I grit my teeth, hammering away. I don’t care if this is all I ever get of her: stolen cuddles and mugs of tea. It’s worth it. She’s worth it. They could drive me away across the mountains and still I’d have no regrets.
Will they ease off me once she’s renting a room in the town?
Only if I stay away. And I’m not sure I can do that.
You’re a tease, Rhys Evans.
I adjust my grip on the hammer, my palm raw. Even with thick leather gloves, I’m scraping new blisters today. I’m pounding away so hard, the force rattles through my teeth.
Guess that’s why I don’t hear her. Gwen must shove the heavy oak door open from the kitchen, but I don’t hear the creak of hinges or her footsteps padding across the flagstones. I don’t realize she’s there at all until periwinkle blue eyes stare at me from one side.
I pause, chest heaving. Drag my forearm across my sweaty brow.
“You need something?” I rasp.
Gwen bites her bottom lip. “Kind of. Um. Yes.”
She’s still wearing my shirt, her bare legs bright in the firelight. She’ll get dirt on her feet, walking through here.
How long has it been since we ate breakfast? Two hours? Three? “If you’re hungry, there a fresh loaf of bread and some jam—”
“I’m not hungry.” A pink, pointed tongue wets her bottom lip. “Not like that, anyway.”
And the next part… it’s like I’m in a dream.
In one of my daydreams, except even in the depths of my head, I’d never have the audacity to imagine Gwen Roberts stepping in front of my chest and flicking open my shirt buttons one by one.
She frowns at the bare skin she reveals, covered with dark hair and slick with sweat, and once she reaches the bottom of my shirt, she holds the two sides open.
“Gwen,” I plead, a broken man. Does she like what she sees? Has she changed her mind already? What is going on?
She’s so still, staring at my bare chest in the firelight. Then, so quick I don’t even have time to tense, she leans forward and licks a stripe beside one nipple.
Fuck.
“Salty,” Gwen murmurs, shooting me a mischievous smile. God, if I have a heart attack out here, no one will come to help. “You’re just like I thought you’d be.”
“Sweaty?”
“Hairy. Big. Delicious.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I watch in silence as Gwen runs her palms up and down my body.
Tracing over the swell of thick muscle around my middle; the brown discs of my nipples; the place where my heart slams against my rib cage.
She lingers there, her vivid blue eyes flashing up to mine. “You’ve been working hard.”
Yes, but that’s not it. That’s not why my heart is racing.
“Gwen,” I repeat, still helpless under her scorching touch.
It should shame me, watching her sink to her knees.
Those poor bare knees against the hard floor, so dirty and cold when she deserves so much more.
But lord help me, I don’t stop her. Not even when she tugs at my belt.
Not even when she draws my cock out into the heated air, so hard since she sat in my lap this morning, rubbing the bead of moisture over the head with her thumb.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Gwen tells me. Her face is so serious. “But I want to make it good for you. So tell me if I’m going wrong, okay?”
Impossible. Such a thing is impossible, but I nod, because I’m beyond words now and I’m enough of a monster not to stop her.
Fuck. She’s half my age.
I should be so ashamed. I am so ashamed. But I still groan in pure bliss as her tongue swirls around the head of my cock.
“You don’t need to do this.” Finally, I dredge up the words from somewhere. It needs to be said, even if I punctuate it with a hiss through my teeth. Already I’m rocking toward her, nudging toward her lips, her grip so light on my shaft. “You don’t owe me anything, Gwen.”
“I know. But I want this. Don’t you want this?”
“Yes.” More than I want my next breath. “Fuck. Squeeze me harder, cariad. Yes. Like that.”
Her efforts are clumsy and unpracticed, but since I’m clearly deranged, that only makes the blood pound hotter through my veins. She’s mine, for this moment if not for any longer, and she’s never done this before. She’s exploring this side of herself, and she’s doing it with me.
Has a man ever been luckier? A lightning bolt could strike me and I’d go down with a grin. “Ah, Christ. Gwen. Suck it down, sweetheart. See how deep you can go.”
She’s a natural. I don’t say that out loud, because there’s a million ways it could sound wrong, but she’s good at this.
Eager and sexy and so focused on her task.
Gwen’s sucking on my cock like it’s the only thing that exists in the world, humming at the taste, pumping her fist, the nails of her spare hand digging into my thigh.
The heat of her. The slip and slide of her tongue, the suction pulling all the way down to my balls, the shy glance she shoots me from beneath her lashes—it’s too much. I clench my jaw, tension twisting low in my belly until it hurts.
My hips rock forward faster. Losing my battle with myself, I plunge my hands into her hair. Her messy bun flops to one side, uprooted by my thick fingers, and I’m getting soot on her again, but I don’t fucking care.
I want my hand prints on her. I want to sign my goddamn name on her ass. After all, she as good as owns mine, and she’s moaning in approval, only getting louder when I tug on her hair.
“Fuck. Yeah, that’s it. Such a good girl.
Ah, fuck.” I barely have time to pull her hair in warning, but Gwen shakes her head, holding my gaze as she sucks me deeper.
Holds me inside. And there’s nowhere I’d rather be, no fight left in me, so I twitch in her mouth, pulsing on and on, sparks zipping up and down my spine as I empty myself between her plump, perfect lips. Coming in with a tortured groan.
“Gwen.” I sound winded, still fucking into her mouth. “Cariad. Gwen.”
I come back to myself slowly, ears ringing.
Somehow I stumbled forward half a step, bracing one hand on my anvil, and Gwen’s smirking up at me like the Cheshire cat.
I tuck myself away with shaking fingers then reach down and pluck her off the floor, setting her down on the workbench with a surprised squeak.
“You’ve dirtied your knees.”
“Mhm.” Gwen kicks her heels, unrepentant as I scrub at her sooty kneecaps with the tails of my shirt. There are two pink circles from being on the hard floor, and I fight the urge to bend down and kiss them. “Did you like that, Rhys Evans?”
All the air empties out of me. How can she ask me that? Doesn’t she know that she ruined me a long time ago? That I’d already die for her to touch me again?
But first there are more pressing concerns. Like the fact that she’s kissed my cock before she’s kissed my lips.
“Gwen.” I cradle the sides of her face, careful with my rough hands. “Listen to me. That was everything. I’ll be thinking about what you just did until the day I die.” Even now, I still lower my face slowly. Give her a chance to shake her head or move away.
Our lips touch so gently. Her fingertips graze my beard, and when she sucks in a sharp breath, I groan and crowd closer, the flames dancing in the furnace at our sides.
I kiss her long and hard, like I should have done days ago. I can taste myself on her tongue. And if there’s a countdown ticking now in the back of my skull… well.
This has to end some time.
I can’t run from it forever.