Chapter 4
Forgive Me
Two weeks later…
I’ve been moping. Truthfully, I’ve been resting.
I was told to lay low and relax while the bruises faded and healed before reentering society and showing the world that Rhys’s future queen was hale and hearty.
But I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been hiding—from everyone including Rhys.
Sure, he comes to bed every night and I pretend to be asleep.
And sure he doesn’t try anything, I’m injured after all, but he does turn into me every night, covering my back with his strong body, and holding me protectively in his loving embrace all night long.
I can also tell that he’s getting restless.
He wants to put this incident behind us and move on in every way imaginable.
I’m going to have to face the music sooner or later and while the cuts and bruises have all mostly healed, the damage to my heart has not.
The organ itself is fine and pumping blood to all of the important parts of my body, but the part that blindly loved Rhys, trusted him unfailingly, lays in the morgue with Harris, awaiting burial.
I have not minded hiding from Saoirse or Taylor.
I trust neither of them and know they don’t trust me either.
Nor do they want me here. I’m sure they’ve been just as pleased with my absence as I have been from theirs.
Now they’re free to plot and plan their machinations that would see Rhys married to someone more fitting from their social class.
Someone who won’t pull the plug on Saoirse’s power trip and Taylor’s excessive spending and reckless partying.
Maybe they’ll have orgies anywhere and everywhere once I’m safely back in the states.
I have missed Rhys’s sister, Dahlia. We had formed a tentative friendship before I left, and I believe she needs a friend.
Other than the screaming crush she has on Leo, her brothers who are never around, a dead dad, and a hateful cow of a mother, she has no one.
I didn’t think about that when I ran. I selfishly thought of only myself and my own feelings, wants, and needs—not anyone else.
But perhaps she needs an escape as much as I do.
I wiggle my toes a bit beneath the blankets and suppose it’s time to get up.
Usually, I sleep late, getting up long after Rhys has left for his offices to do whatever it is he does for long hours of the day.
Avoiding him has been the name of my game for two weeks now and I’m going to keep at it until time runs out.
As long as we’re alone, I should be fine.
I’m not up to testing my self-control over my hormones before I’m ready.
My defenses have been weakened by the accident but I’m more sure than ever that I can’t let Rhys back into my heart or my body.
I wiggle back a bit, still looking for a comfy spot in case I wanted to doze some more.
I don’t keep any schedule these days. When I back into a very hard body that definitely shouldn’t be here, Rhys pushes his hand up the front of my tank to cup my breast and thumb my nipple as he tips his face into the crook of my neck and groans.
“Fuck but I’ve missed you, hen,” he says as his other hand dips into the front of my pajama shorts and cups me between my legs, plunging his fingers in to spread the moisture I wish he didn’t find there, up and around my clit.
Oh God, what have I done?
“Rhys—” I beg. I need him to stop, to give me more time so that I can fortify my defenses because as he plays with my body so skillfully, I just need him.
I need his fingers, his mouth, his cock far too much and I know part of me will never be content without him.
Sex has never been just that for me, not with him, not when he’s all I’ve ever known.
I’d fallen for him long before he took my virginity.
“No, hen,” he says, pushing me gently to my belly and pulling my knees up underneath me to press my hips up into the air. “It’s time for you to forgive me.”
And then he nudges my thighs farther apart.
He makes this choice for me, his hands heavy on my backside as he parts my center with his thumbs before he puts his mouth on me, licking me, tasting me, spearing me with his tongue as he alternates his attention between my clit and my opening.
Rhys works me into a frenzy as he fucks me with his tongue, and I grip the bedding in my hands as I rock my hips back to get more of him. I’m so weak where he’s concerned.
“Please,” I whine as he pulls away, leaving my impending orgasm hanging in the air.
And then I feel him climb up on the bed to kneel between my legs and the broad head of him presses against my pussy. Rhys grabs my hips hard in his hands and drives deep inside of me.
“Fuck, but it feels like you were made for me,” he groans as he plants himself deep.
“Yes,” I pant as he leisurely glides in and out of me. He’s giving me just enough to keep me aroused but not enough to send me over the edge.
“Your cunt was made just for my cock,” he says. “Look at the way that you take me. All of me.”
“Yes,” I whimper but I need more, so much more. “Please, Rhys!”
“Poor hen needs a good fucking, doesn’t she?”
“Please!”
And then he covers my back with his hard body, sliding his arms underneath me to absorb his weight on his forearms. He moves one hand up so that his palm rests between my breasts over my heart, and the other he moves down to cover my mound and strum my clit with his fingers as he pumps into me from behind.
“Yes,” I chant as he moves his fingers over me while his cock moves inside of me, driving me toward the climax that I want so desperately. Rhys seems to want it with just as much desperation as I do because his thrusts become hard and fast, and he takes me rougher than he originally started to.
He pushes his hand at my breast up farther to collar my throat, not squeezing, but just holding me steady as he plunges into me over and over.
“Tell me,” he growls. “Tell me you forgive me, and I’ll make you come.”
Shit. I can’t not. He’s worked my body into such a frenzy that I have to, I need to come but my heart isn’t ready to give in. I don’t want to forgive him, and I don’t think I’ll ever want to, so I do the only thing I can to achieve my present goal. I lie. “Yes,” I pant. “Please make me come.”
“Tell me that you’re mine,” he commands as he drives deeper and deeper, his fingers flicking my clit in a way that keeps me on edge, never letting me fall.
“Tell me you won’t run again because you know that I’ll chase you down and bring you back.
Tell me you know you belong here with me, at my side and in my bed—on my cock. ”
“Goddammit!” I shout. I’ve lost all fight. I’ll say anything he wants. I won’t mean it, but I cannot let him leave me in this state. “I’ll agree to anything if you just let me come.”
“Gladly, hen,” he purrs. “I was just waiting for you.”
And then he pumps harder into me—faster—his fingers moving with intent over my heated flesh.
I grab onto the bedding, not sure if I’m trying to crawl away or push back to be absorbed by him.
I just don’t know which and then it rolls over me.
Rhys tips my face back to him with the hand at my throat and swallows my screams and cries with his mouth to mine as I come.
He lets go of me to let me press my face into the mattress as he pounds into me once, twice, a third time before he plants himself deep and shouts my name as he comes.
He drops down to cover me, pressing my body into the mattress with his, keeping us connected in the most intimate of ways.
I can feel his heart beating hard and fast, his chest against my back.
My own is moving similarly and I wonder if this is how I’m going to die, until I realize the promises he wrung out of me in the heat of the moment.
“That wasn’t fair,” I tell him.
“All’s fair in love and war, hen,” he says without an ounce of contrition. “It was time for you to forgive me and I was done waiting.”
“That’s rude.”
“That’s nothing compared to the rude things I want to do to you to make up for lost time,” he says. “I’ve had two weeks of nothing but time to imagine and cold showers while stroking my cock and thinking of you.”
“Gross.”
“Not gross,” he says as he thickens inside of me. “I needed you. I still need you.”
He slides out of me and turns me to my back to face him.
“And now?” I ask.
“Now, hen, I need you most of all,” he says as he pushes my thighs wide and slides inside.
I let out a gasp, feeling him thick and hard inside of me again, and arch my back to connect with him deeper.
Rhys grabs my hands in his as draws them up to either side of my head, twining his fingers with mine and then he drops his head to press his mouth to mine, leisurely licking in as he slowly moves in and out of me, aided by my arousal now and our cum from earlier.
I sink into all that he makes me feel and decide to worry about my future another day.
Right now, I can think about nothing but Rhys and me and how he makes me feel as he makes love to me.