Rhys #2
I lowered her slowly, carefully, until her feet touched the tile. My hands stayed on her waist, steadying her, unwilling to let go completely. She swayed slightly, legs trembling from what we'd just done, and pride surged through me—dark and possessive and utterly wrong.
I'd wrecked her. Three times now. And I wanted to do it again.
But first—
I reached for the soap, working it between my palms until foam gathered.
She watched me, eyes still hazy, lips swollen from my kisses.
I started at her shoulders, hands gliding over slick skin, tracing the curve of her collarbone, the dip between her breasts.
Slow. Deliberate. Memorizing every inch.
She sighed, eyes fluttering closed, and leaned into my touch like it grounded her.
I washed her arms, her sides, her stomach. Turned her gently so I could drag soapy hands down her spine, over the swell of her hips, the backs of her thighs. She shivered under my palms despite the heat, and I felt it everywhere—that tremor of need, of trust, of surrender.
When I finished, she took the soap from me without a word.
Her hands were smaller, softer, but no less thorough. She started at my chest, fingers trailing through the foam, tracing muscle and bone like she was learning me by touch alone. Over my ribs. Down my abdomen. Lower, until I had to grit my teeth against the urge to pin her to the wall again.
She smiled—barely there, but I caught it. Knew she felt the effect she had on me.
Her hands moved to my back, nails scraping lightly as she worked the soap across my shoulders. I dropped my head forward, letting the water sluice over us both, and exhaled hard. This was dangerous. More dangerous than the sex, than the kissing, than any of it.
Because this felt like intimacy. Like something I couldn't walk away from.
She rinsed the soap from my skin with gentle hands, then stepped closer, wrapping her arms around my waist. Her cheek pressed against my chest, right over my heart. I froze, hands hovering uselessly at my sides before finally—carefully—settling around her.
We stood there under the spray, wrapped around each other, and I realized with sudden, brutal clarity: I was in so much trouble.
I turned off the water, silence rushing in to fill the space. My hand found a towel—threadbare, pale blue—and I wrapped it around her first. Didn't trust myself not to touch her again if I didn't create some barrier between us.
She took another towel and reached for me, patting my chest dry with careful movements. I stood there like stone, watching her concentrate on the task, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. When she stretched up to dry my shoulders, the towel slipped from her body.
My control snapped.
I placed her onto the sink counter in one smooth motion. She gasped, hands flying to my shoulders for balance, but I was already spreading her thighs, stepping between them. The mirror behind her reflected us both—her flushed and wanting, me hooded-eyes and barely restrained.
"Turn around," I growled.
She obeyed without hesitation, sliding off the counter and turning to face the mirror. I pressed between her shoulder blades, bending her forward until her palms flattened against the cool surface. Her eyes met mine in the reflection, wide and trusting and so fucking beautiful it hurt.
I gripped her hip with one hand, the other guiding myself to her entrance. Still slick. Still ready. I pushed inside slowly, watching her face in the mirror as I filled her. Her lips parted on a soft moan, her eyes fluttering but staying locked on mine.
"Look at us," I commanded, my voice rough. "Look at what I do to you."
She watched. Couldn't look away as I pulled back and drove in again, harder this time. Her reflection showed everything—the flush spreading down her neck, the way her mouth opened wider with each thrust, the need burning in her eyes.
I fucked her with deep, measured strokes, forcing her to watch every moment. My hand slid from her hip to her throat—not squeezing, just holding, claiming. Her pulse hammered against my palm.
"Who do you belong to?" The words came out before I could stop them, dark and possessive and utterly truthful.
"You," she gasped, her body clenching around me. "Rhys—"
I groaned, my control fracturing as I drove into her harder, faster. The mirror fogged at the edges from our breath, from the heat still clinging to our skin, but I could still see her face clearly. See the exact moment she broke.
Her orgasm hit like a wave, her body trembling as she cried out my name. I followed seconds later, my release tearing through me as I buried myself deep, my forehead dropping to her shoulder.
We stayed frozen like that, both panting, both wrecked.
And I knew—absolutely knew—I was never walking away from her.
At that moment, there was a knock.
The sound was sharp, unwelcome, slicing through the haze of heat still clinging to my skin. Possessiveness surged in me so quickly it almost made me dizzy.
“Are you expecting anyone?” I growled, already knowing the answer.
She shook her head, breath still uneven. “No.”
Then she reached for my shirt—my shirt—and pulled it over her head.
Watching it fall over her petite frame, swallowing her curves, marking her in a way nothing else ever had, sent another hard pulse straight through me.
And when she shifted, my gaze followed the trail of my release sliding down her thigh.
Mine.
Mine.
Mine.
I dragged on a pair of sweats, barely managing to tie them before following her to the door. Her steps were quiet, hesitant, and every instinct in me sharpened to a blade’s edge. Whoever thought they could show up now—after I’d had her, after she’d cried my name—was about to regret it.
She leaned toward the keyhole. And flinched.
My entire body went still.
I moved before thinking, bracing a hand on the wall beside her head, caging her in without touching her. “Who is it?” The words tore out of me rougher, darker than before.
She swallowed, eyes darting up to mine. “My father.”
A cold, lethal calm slid over me, the kind that always came right before violence. Her father. The man who’d hurt her, controlled her, twisted paternal obligation into chains he tried to wrap around her throat.
He was on the other side of this door. He had come here. To her.
“Step back,” I murmured, though it came out sounding more like a command than a suggestion. My pulse thudded with a dangerous, possessive rhythm. I could feel the shift inside me—the part that was teacher, protector, man—fusing into something far more primal.
He thought he could knock. He thought he could demand. He thought he could take.
Not anymore. Not after I’d had her like that. Not after she’d given herself to me with that soft, shaking sweetness. Not after the way she’d looked wearing my shirt, my marks, my touch all over her.
If her father wanted to talk to her, he’d have to go through me.
And God help him—I hoped he tried.