14. Rhett #2
Her father promises to brief her on what to expect before the carnival next week, and we leave, heading for the cinema room.
It’s impressive, with four large single seats at the front and two doubles at the back.
I flash the thought of how perfect she would feel curled up against me on those particular seats, but we both come around to the front.
Ana presses a button on the wall that begins to roll down a projector screen before she plucks the controller and tosses it to me.
“I get to pick?” I ask.
“We’ll be here until morning if I try,” she teases.
It’s strange that I enjoy that about her. Her indecisiveness. She has a wild side that’s caged in this life, just waiting to be set free. All she needs is the right encouragement.
“If you fall asleep you owe me,” I say, choosing a horror movie called “Insidious.”
“Owe you what?” she asks, flopping down after retrieving two blankets and throwing one at me.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“That is not how it works.”
“Do we have a deal?”
She rolls her eyes, getting comfortable, and she’s the most adorable sight I don’t want to tear my eyes from.
Ana looks beyond sexy in a dress. She’s breathtaking in her style for college, but this version of her in an off-the-shoulder oversize sweater, leggings, and fluffy socks, with her hair piled high messily, is so irresistible I have this pathetic desire to hold her.
“Fine, but if you fall asleep I’m blowing your salary for the month at the carnival.”
I chuckle. “Deal.”
About halfway through I win. When Ana’s eyes close for too long I turn down the volume of the movie. I knew she wouldn’t last the moment she sat down. Her fatigue was obvious. All the reading she did in her studies tonight finally caught up with her.
I sigh as I stand. She looks comfortable as hell, but I can’t leave her here, and those chairs are certainly not big enough for me to enjoy a decent rest like her. Scooping her up with the blanket, I make it up the second step before she moans in protest.
“I wasn’t sleeping,” she mumbles.
“You’re still sleeping,” I counter with a smile.
She peels her eyes open then. “I want to stay. The movie isn’t finished.”
I pause next to the two-person seats, debating. I really shouldn’t. My guilt aside, she’s the probable president’s daughter—a job. I’m a lie to her, and I’ve already crossed a few boundaries I swore I wouldn’t.
“Rhett, please.” She pouts.
Internally groaning, I cross the small space and set her down, but she doesn’t let me go.
“You’re very comfortable despite looking like a boulder.”
“A boulder?”
“A nice one.”
Ana scoots up the deep couch before patting the space next to her. “I won’t scandalize you. Promise.” She smirks at my hesitation.
It’s official. Anastasia Kinsley is going to be the fucking death of me.
I stretch out beside her, and this position is far more comfortable than the single seat.
I keep a gap between us, but Ana makes that difficult when her head angles down toward me while she curls up.
A little while later, I can’t help but notice her subtly drawing the blanket to her eyes every time the music turns suspenseful.
I smile stupidly to myself, and before she can do it again I decide to be cruel and snatch the blanket from her.
Ana gasps, shooting upright, and her fright turns to a scowl as I hold the blanket out of reach. She tries again, planting a hand to my chest as I remain reclining, but my arm is too long for her reach. When she straddles me, not giving up in her defiance, I realize my error in provoking her.
My hand holding the blanket slackens. The other grips her hip as if she might lose balance as she all but presses her whole body to mine to snatch it back. With her victory our position seems to crash us back into reality. She looks down and our faces come so close.
I can’t stop the compulsion that steals me in that second.
The drug I’ve become so silently and unwittingly addicted to that now it’s right in front of me, how am I to fucking resist?
There’s no willpower in the world that can stop the hand I slip over her jaw, bringing her head to mine in a collision that’s as euphoric as it is a lashing of punishment. For wanting her. For caving to her.
Ana moans in the back of her throat and I turn wild for her, deepening the kiss to taste more. Her slender fingers on my chest clench my shirt, and I explode with the need she has for me too.
There’s nothing searching or tender in the kiss that’s unleashed between us.
It’s more than I’ve fantasized about, and if this is what she’s giving now, holy fuck, I won’t survive having all of her.
But she’s mine. Even if I can never fully have her, Ana is mine.
It’s a twisted contradiction, but I don’t fucking care.
I’ll taste her now and find the damn will later to resist.
Her hips grind against me, and I know if I don’t stop her I’ll be too far gone in a few minutes. Just. A little. More. My cock is fucking aching, and Ana becomes breathy, chasing her pleasure against me.
“You can use me,” I say huskily, removing my hands from her hair to plant them on her hips and press her tighter to my erection. She whimpers, her brow pinching in desire, and she’s so damn exquisite.
I can give her this. It will be enough just to watch her climax against me. I already have my place staked in hell, and she’s worth damnation.
“Rhett.”
Fuck. The little breathy moan of my name nearly makes me come in my pants like a teen.
This isn’t for me. This is for her.
“Just like that, baby,” I whisper across her exposed collarbone before planting my lips there. Then my teeth.
She cries out, and I have to lift a hand to her mouth to suppress it.
“Shh,” I say, returning to her neck now I’ve found a favorite spot. “If you can’t do this quietly I’ll have to punish you.”
Her hands tighten in my hair as her movements turn more desperate. “Please,” she begs. The most perfect sound.
“Please, what?”
“I need it.”
“Then take it, baby. It’s yours.”
I suck on her neck and she bites down on my hand, which only drives me to the brink as well.
Her hold is as painful as her bite, and I love this wild unleashing of her.
She moves those hips like a damn goddess, finding the spot that knocks her sensitive clit just right each time.
Her rhythm is mesmerizing. I resist the urge to slip my hand down to her pussy.
No—she began chasing her pleasure against me, and now she’s going to work for it.
“You can do better,” I whisper against her neck. “You can take it harder.”
I aid the press of her against me, delirious with the wave of her movements under my palms.
“Oh god,” she rasps.
“You’re using my cock, Ana, not his. Say my fucking name.”
“I’m going to— Rhett! ”
“Good girl,” I praise, circling an arm around her as she begins to tremble, and I claim her mouth against the shattering cry of her climax.
Maybe there is a god to pray to, since Ana’s orgasm is as close to a religious experience as I’ll ever come.
Ana catches her breath with her head buried in my neck. This small, tender moment in the aftermath I want to hold suspended in time.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
My fucking heart.
“You are perfect,” I whisper. Even though it makes me sick with resentment for myself that I’d think this of another woman.
There was once something perfect in my life, a person who was mine, and she’s dead because of me.
Above my guilt that I feel anything but glacial vengeance and grief, I’m unexpectedly terrified for Ana.
I shouldn’t have let this happen. But I don’t regret a damn thing when it brought her this pleasure. I can give her that. Nothing more.
“Can I take you to bed now, little bird?”
She nods, not removing her arms from my neck, nor her legs from around me.
So that’s how I lift her, keeping the blanket wrapped around her.
She’s so fucking precious in my arms. I hope her parents have gone to bed, because this looks highly inappropriate for an agent and their daughter, even if she does appear to be sleeping with her cheek pressed into my shoulder.
No one spots us, and I take her right to her bed, where she finally lets go.
“No regrets?” I ask, wary of how uncomfortable she’s starting to look.
“I feel like I should be asking you that,” she answers quietly.
She deserves an answer, but I don’t have one.
I’m already harboring too many lies from her, so I could at least be open about my damn feelings.
But I don’t want to feel anything. The past three years have passed angry and numb and vengeful.
Now there’s a warmth threatening the promise I made all that time ago, that I would never allow myself to find happiness again.
Especially not while Alistair Lanshall lives.
“Good night, Ana,” I say, straightening away from her—but as I turn I don’t miss the drop of disappointment on her face. It lodges like a bullet in me.
Good. I want it to fucking hurt. One day I’ll get to explain everything to her—who I am, what I’ve done—and she’ll be glad she was spared from falling for a monster.