Chapter Forty-Six
Rhys
She’s alive in a way you seldom see. Unashamed. Reckless. Vivid.
I chew slow, watching the way she melts into Benji. The way he feeds on her and feeds her, one cheese-dripping finger at a time. It’s obscene. Domestic. Intimate in a way that makes my teeth grind.
She’s not performing for him. That pisses me off.
He gets the unguarded version. Like he’s earned it. Like she’s decided, even if she doesn’t realize it, that she’s enough for him. As she is. No seduction, no chaos. Just her. That’s not lust. That’s magic. And magic’s dangerous in the wrong hands.
Jett’s watching too. Tight-lipped. Barely blinking. I wonder if he sees it. If he’s about to snap. He’s seconds from dragging her into his lap, claiming her in full view of the bar. And maybe that’s what she wants.
Same. God help me.
That ass. Those thighs. She was art tonight.
Is art. Something wild and holy and a little bit cursed.
I want to worship and wreck her in equal measure.
Her laugh bubbles over the table as she licks cheese off Benji’s finger and I take another shot, then chase it with beer because otherwise I will say something devastatingly unethical.
“Game of pool?” Jett asks.
I glance at the cues. At her. At the way she leans in, eyes sparkling like she knows exactly how close I am to breaking. “Sure,” I say. “I’m not that good.”
“Yay,” she says. Bouncing a little in Benji’s lap. “What are we betting?”
“Winner gets to bend you over the table,” Jett says. His voice is pure gravel. “I am that good.”
My cock twitches. I fucking hate him.
“What if I win?” she purrs.
“What do you want?” Benji asks, already smiling, sweet and soft like she didn’t just lick cheese off his hand like a porn star Juliet.
Of course my dick’s paying attention. Me, me, me. I want to growl. Claim. Undo my belt and show her what I mean when I say “clinical detachment.” I am one bad shot away from committing career suicide and letting her take me down in flames with her.
“If I beat you,” she says, coy like sin, “I get a kiss from all of you. Porn kiss. Not Sunday school pecks. Tongue. Hands. Filth.”
Benji practically whimpers. Jett’s eyes flash.
I should leave.
“Maybe we let Rhys be the one who plays,” Benji says. “Not that you have to win at pool. I’ll kiss you now. After you lose. Before. During.”
“Shut up,” Jett says. “But yeah. Let’s do this. She beats Rhys, she gets what she wants.”
“I’m not that good,” I repeat, throat dry.
“Yeah, doc, that’s the point,” Jett says, smirking. “You afraid of a girl?”
Yes. I am. She’s dangerous. And I’ve never wanted danger more.
I should’ve known. The second she wraps her hand around the cue stick like it’s a damn dildo, I should’ve just forfeited and prayed for death.
“You break, doc,” she says sweetly, leaning her hip against the table, grinning at me like the lamb who brought her own mint jelly.
I do. It’s decent. A ball or two rolls in.
I can breathe for maybe half a second. Then she bends.
Bends. Low over the table, ass tilted, feet on tiptoe, cue gliding between fingers that know exactly what they’re doing.
Her coat’s still on but it’s open, loose, barely clinging to her shoulders.
She’s not even pretending to hide the way her tits sway with every shot.
One ball drops. Then another. And another.
Benji’s leaned back in the booth, practically glowing. Proud. Aroused. A little smug.
Jett’s chewing his ice like it personally insulted him.
“Oh no,” she says, blinking up at me. “That was mine, wasn’t it?” She gives me a mock-apologetic smile and struts to the other side of the table like it was all just a happy accident. Her hips swing, trying to hypnotize me.
It’s working.
“You’re hustling me,” I say.
“I’m winning,” she sings. “Isn’t it beautiful, boys? I feel so empowered. I’m a feminist icon right now.”
Benji coughs. Jett’s shoulders shake. I want to grab her and bend her over the table anyway, winner be damned.
She finishes me in five minutes flat. Doesn’t even give me a mercy shot. By the end, I’m leaning against the cue stick like it might stop me from going down on her in front of God and bar patrons.
“Oops,” she says, licking her bottom lip as the last ball rolls in. “Guess I win.”
Benji claps. “Hell yeah, precious.”
“Poor doc,” Jett says with a shit-eating grin. “Better pucker up.”
She walks straight to me first. Not to Jett, not to Benji. To me. Her fingers hook into my belt like she’s done it a thousand times.
“You gonna keep your promise, Rhys?” she asks, looking up through her lashes. “Porn kisses, remember? Unless you need a refresher on what that means.”
I’m done. Sanity’s gone.
My hand fists in her coat as I yank her flush.
I grab her by the waist, haul her up, and set her on the pool table. She lets out the filthiest little giggle as her thighs fall open around me, coat slipping back to reveal nothing but skin and temptation.
I step between her legs, press close, chest to chest, her bare thighs squeezing my hips. My hands find her ass and I pull her against me, grind her into the edge of the table.
She’s hot. Already wet. Already needy. I groan into her mouth the second she kisses me, because she isn’t playing fair. Tongue, teeth, filthy fucking moan as she rocks against my cock and grabs two handfuls of my shirt.
I slide one hand into her hair and tug, hard enough to make her gasp. My other hand is under her ass, fingers digging in. We grind together, obscene and desperate.
She kisses like she lives, aggressive, messy, needy.
Our mouths crash, collide, devour. She bites my lip, and I bite her right back.
I swallow her sounds, her laugh, her groan when I angle her hips and grind just right.
I feel the exact second she tries to chase it, a little shiver, a clutch of her thighs.
“Oh, fuck, Rhys,” she pants, dragging her mouth to my jaw, my throat, biting just under my ear.
And she’s grinding on me, in front of everyone, legs locked, hips rolling, coat open and my hand on bare ass, and not one part of me wants to stop.
There are catcalls. Someone gasps.
I don’t give a single fuck.
There’s no air. No world. Just this consuming kiss that tastes like whiskey and danger and whatever the fuck this is between us.
Someone whistles. A chair scrapes. There’s a burst of laughter from a nearby table.
We don’t stop. I don’t even slow down.
She breaks the kiss for half a breath and bites my bottom lip, eyes glazed.
I push her hair back, forehead pressed to hers. My voice is ruined when I speak. “You’re going to destroy me.”
“Promise,” she says, and kisses me again.
Harder this time. Her hands under my shirt, nails dragging across my stomach. I groan. She tastes like whiskey and sin and the reason I’m going to lose my license.
The room is spinning and I barely register the cheering, the hoots, the goddamn applause. It’s too much. She’s too much. I break the kiss, barely. Just enough to breathe, to pant out, “Not here… not like this…”
She leans in, glowing from it and whispers against my ear like. “Tuesday?”
Fuck.
“Do you have a gag so I don’t make your secretary blush?”
My cock throbs so hard it might burst through my zipper. Jett whistles behind her. Benji groans. I whimper. She just smiles, sliding off the table like I didn’t just black out from dirty talk in a bar full of witnesses.
She moves like sin in motion, those legs of hers too short to make it graceful and too smug to care.
“I did win,” she says sweetly, flashing Jett a wicked grin. “You owe me.”
Jett doesn’t move. He’s all coiled tension and clenched jaw.
She climbs right into his lap, knees bracketing his thighs, hands sliding into his hair, and takes her kiss. It’s not soft. There’s no easing into it. She kisses him like she’s trying to ignite a fire behind his teeth. Open-mouthed. Hungry. Dirty.
The bar goes silent for a second.
Jett growls something low, and his hand fists her hair. Her fingers dig into his thigh.
When she pulls back, Jett looks like a man who’s had something taken from him.
Benji doesn’t even wait for the signal. He’s already standing, arms wide, grinning like he’s about to win the lottery and walk into traffic at the same time.
“Benji,” she says, breathless and sweet, like he’s her reward.
“Yes ma’am,” he breathes, and she launches herself into his arms. He catches her, lifts her like she weighs nothing, and kisses her like she’s everything.
This one’s different. Softer at first. Tender. But it spirals fast, hands in hair, her thighs around his waist, his big hand under her ass to hold her up while he devours her.
There’s a cheer somewhere. Someone whistles. I’m gripping the edge of the table so hard my knuckles hurt.
I don’t know if I’m jealous or turned on. If I want to fuck her, fight them, or thank God they love her too.
She lets Benji set her down, breathless and glowing.
She turns back to me. “Your turn again on Tuesday.”
I forget how to breathe.