Chapter 16 #2
And then he proceeds to alternate between bites for himself and bites for me, mixing carrots and potatoes, dipping the Yorkshire pudding into the sauces.
Something he would never do at a formal dinner, but he obviously enjoys in the privacy of his own space.
And now he’s sharing that with me while he peppers me with questions ranging from my education to my childhood before and after my parents died.
Afterward, Rhys sets me on my feet and leads me to the sofa where my favorite blanket is laid over the arm.
“Rest,” he says quietly as he tucks me into the corner of the sofa.
He kneels before the fireplace to start a fire in the hearth, then he stands and hands me the book I’ve been reading.
“Don’t get too far ahead,” he says before he walks back to the table, stacking our dishes onto the kitchen cart and then wheeling it to the door.
“I could have helped do that,” I tell him quietly, embarrassed for not helping.
“Aye, I know, but I didn’t want you to.”
“Okay,” I reply as he opens the door to push the kitchen cart through to be collected by household staff.
Rhys comes back into the sitting room and closes the main door behind him, flipping the lock as he does.
My heart rate skyrockets at knowing the moratorium on sex is being lifted. I know I’m physically well but emotionally, I’m not so sure. I feel conflicted about everything. But one thing is clear as a bell, I’m attracted to Rhys and I want him.
He scoops me up and lays us down on the wide chase lounge that easily accommodates both of us.
He lies behind me, brushing my hair from my shoulder and kissing the curve of my neck as he coasts his free hand up and down my side.
He lifts the sweater from my body, leaving me in my lounge pants and tank top, exposing my lack of a bra.
He scrapes the fabric covering my nipple with his fingernail and licks up the side of my neck.
I love it, but I’m still feeling unsettled.
He slides his hand down the front of my pants and instead of finding me wet and wanting, he realizes that I’m just not into it right now. Rhys rolls me to face him and looks at me, not in anger or upset, but tenderly. He traces my temple with a gentle fingertip.
“It’s okay,” he says to me. “If you need a little TLC tonight.”
And then he leans down and places a warm, wet kiss on my lips. I feel myself melting into him as he kisses me and then licks into my mouth. My body heats and begins to ache for him. Somehow, he knew the anxiety of being punished was getting to my head. I need to be loved gently tonight.
When he breaks our kiss, he rolls me to my back in the middle of the chaise and kisses his way down my body.
He rolls each of my nipples into his mouth, one by one, making me arch into him for more, before he begins his way down my belly and over my mound.
Rhys reaches for the hem of my pink pants and slowly rolls the soft cotton down my legs, exposing me, to the cool air and his heated gaze, before he throws my clothes somewhere behind him in the room.
He lifts each of my legs, draping them over his shoulders before he presses his mouth to my core.
All thoughts and doubts leave my head, at least for now.
He presses my thighs so wide that it’s almost painful as he places open mouthed kisses over my pussy, licking deep inside me over and over, driving me wild. I thrust my fingers into his hair, pulling tight and holding him to me as he eats me.
“Rhys,” I pant as he thrusts his tongue inside me. “Please. Don’t stop.”
“Hmhmm,” he rumbles against me. It feels so delicious combined with his other ministrations that I arch back and come.
Rhys licks me like an ice cream cone through all of the aftershocks of my orgasm.
When my body finally relaxes, he drags his mouth across my inner thigh, smearing my cum on my skin.
He pushes up onto his knees, unbuttoning his shirt and tossing it aside before he undoes his belt and unzips his slacks.
His thick cock springs free, cum beading at the tip.
He’s turned on from eating me and I want more as I watch him fist his length.
And then he covers my body with his, notching the broad head of him at my opening, and driving inside me, making me gasp in the best of ways.
I wrap my arms and legs around him as he slowly slides out to the tip and thrusts back inside.
Rhys leans down and pulls my nipple deep into his mouth, scraping the tip with his teeth before soothing the sting again with his tongue, sucking it deep into his mouth again all while he rides me.
I scrape my nails down his back and beg him, “Please, Rhys,”
“What do you need, hen?” he asks as he rocks into me again and again.
“Deeper,” I pant. “I want to feel you deeper.”
“Aye,” he says as he plunges deeper and deeper. He lets go of my nipple and moves to the other and I never want him to stop.
“Yes,” I pant. “Just like that. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
“Aye,” he says when he lets go over my other breast and tucks his face into the crook of my neck. “That’s a good girl. That’s my good girl. You’re going to come all over my cock, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I call out as he moves over me and inside of me, faster and faster. “Yes, just like that. You feel so good, Rhys. So good.”
“Aye,” he rumbles in my ear. “I can feel how tight your cunt grips me, milking me. Your sweet pussy is heaven.”
“Rhys—” I start as he thrusts harder and faster still.
“That’s it. Fuck, you’re so sweet, I need you to come,” he growls. “Come for me, my good girl.”
“Yes, yes… oh God,” I gasp, and my whole body seizes as I come.
Rhys plants himself deep inside me and calls out my name as he comes too.
Afterward, he removes the rest of our clothes and carries me into the bedroom where he lays me down on the bed and covers my body with his one more time.
He holds me in his arms, his eyes watching me intently and I know he wants to say something, though I don’t know what.
If it’s I love yous, I’m not sure how I’ll feel.
He often tries to tell me that our feelings are real, have always been real, but it’s hard to believe when I know the true origin of our relationship.
He was never simply the guy who caught me when I fell off a ladder and then swept me off my feet.
Rhys has always been the man who orchestrated everything because his father told him to do so and then promptly died, leaving me in the middle of a mess.
But he doesn’t say I love you, instead, I see determination sweep over his features before he opens his mouth and says to me, “There’s something else I need from you, hen.”
“What’s that?”
“Before I tell you what that is, I’m asking you to trust me when I tell you that what I’m about to ask you is for your safety and my peace of mind.”
“You’re scaring me,” I whisper.
“Good,” he replies, still holding me tightly. “You should be scared. There are dangerous people here right now, more so than usual. I’m doing my best to keep you safe, but the number of people I trust is low, so low that I feel like I’m the only one who can keep you alive right now.”
“Then you should send me home,” I tell him. “Keeping me here, knowing that it could get me killed, is cruel no matter how we might feel about each other.”
“Have you ever thought that if you do no’ marry me and become the queen of this country, you have a right to your uncle’s throne?
” he asks, shaking the last of the foundation that was under my feet.
“And if you threaten his tenure, you become dangerous to him. Do you know what men like your uncle do to people who threaten his reign?”
“No,” I whisper.
“He removes the threat,” Rhys says. “Just ask your parents…”
“No.”
“Aye,” he says. “I wish I did no’ have to tell you so but your parents’ crash was no accident… It was murder, plain and simple.
After a moment, not speaking, not breathing, because I have to let the pain lash through me before I can move on, I just allow myself to feel the heartache that comes with knowing they were taken from me on purpose.
When I can breathe again, I open my eyes and look into his and say, “You did that on purpose.”
“Aye.”
“You hurt me on purpose.”
“Aye.”
“You said you’d never do that,” I shriek, trying to pull away from him but he holds me captive, bound by his strong arms.
“I had to, hen, you know that,” he says. “I need you to see that what I am about to ask of you is no’ done lightly.”
“And what is it that you want from me now?” I snap, so close to losing it.
“I want to insert a tracker into you so I can always find you and be sure that you’re safe,” he says.
All the air leave my lungs. If he can track me, I can never leave. I’ll be stuck here forever, until one of his enemies—or worse, his family—finally kills me.
“If you can track me,” I start gently, “Then you’ll always be able to find me.”
“That’s the idea, hen.”
“Then I’ll never be free,” I whisper. “You’ll always find me.”
“Even withou’ the tracker, I will always find you,” he vows.
“But why?”
“Because you’re mine,” he says darkly.
Tears well up in my eyes and I don’t care if he sees them or not. I feel broken, he’s won. But then again, he was always going to. He had already claimed checkmate, my defeat was inevitable, it’s time to surrender.
“When will you do it?” I ask.
“Now.”
“Now?”
“Aye, I have the device here now,” he says gently, at least he doesn’t rub my nose in his victory. If he was an ungracious victor, I’d probably lose it.
“Fine. Just do it. Get it over with, Rhys.”
“This isn’t an excuse to pull away from me,” he says. “This is just for safety, your safety.”
“You’ve already won,” I remind him. “Just do it.”
“You have a way of telling me that I’ve won, hen, and then making me feel like I’ve lost everything. Why is that?”
“You tell me?” I shrug.
“You’ll be the death of me,” he mutters as he climbs off the bed and retrieves what looks like a men’s shaving kit. “Roll over onto your belly.”
I do as he asks, fine with not having him watch my every expression. He hasn’t earned my vulnerability even if he’s won me.
He climbs back onto the bed and straddles my thighs, anchoring me to the mattress. The time for running is over, at least for now.
“It’s going to hurt a bit,” he says. My muscles tighten, ready to spring if he gives me the opportunity to bolt. Instead, Rhys settles more of his weight to my thighs so I can’t even wiggle. “I am sorry about that. Truly. Now I need you to hold still so I don’t accidentally hurt you more.”
“Wait—” I start to panic, but he stops me.
“No, hen. You agreed and this is happening. I need to know you’re safe,” he says.
I try to arch my back and dig my palms into the soft bed coverings for purchase. It’s no use. Rhys is faster than me.
Sensing the change in my body language or maybe even just knowing I’m about to spiral and run, he grips the back of my neck in his large hand and pushes the rest of my body into the bed.
“Please,” I beg as I feel the coolness of an antiseptic wipe on my rump. “Don’t do this.”
“I have to,” he says before he reaches into the dop kit with his free hand and grabs a rather large syringe.
“No—” I gasp as I watch him out of the corner of my eye.
He bites down on the needle cover and pulls the syringe away from his mouth before piercing my skin with it and pressing down on the plunger.
Tears burn across my face and soak into the mattress and my tangled hair. I don’t fight. I don’t scream. My body is limp, having given up.
He did it. He put a tracker in my backside. He chipped me like a rescue dog.
“Stella,” he says. His voice is pained but I don’t care. He built this prison for us both and he can rot in it with me. “Please understand.”
“I think I hate you,” I whisper.
“You don’t.”
“I do.”
“I’ll show you,” he says as he covers my back with his body and slides his hand underneath me, stroking me, heating my body.
No matter how cruel he is, he knows how to use my body, to manipulate me into compliance. I’m just a hostage to his lust and wants, my body happily following along, and I turn my face into the mattress and groan as he works my tender flesh faster and faster.
Before long, my orgasm rolls through me.
But then again, that has never been a problem with Rhys.
He always makes me come, unless I’m being punished, of course.
But this isn’t a punishment, this is an entrapment.
This is a reminder that we’re good together, at least in the bedroom if not dangerously toxic elsewhere.
I guess he’s my blue-ringed octopus: beautiful but deadly.
“That’s my good girl,” he croons as he lines up the tip of his cock to my drenched opening, thrusting deep inside of me. “So beautiful as you take my cock. You were made for me.”
“Yes,” I cry out.
It feels so good to be loved by him, even for a moment. And he’s not wrong, it feels like I was made just for him, for this. Maybe we were always meant to crash together, whether he found me intentionally or accidentally. I’ll never know, but in moments like this, I’m not sure it matters.
He makes love to me thoroughly, before turning me into his arms again, to hold me while we drift off to sleep.
It’s been the most beautiful night of my life, one where I felt cherished and safe and maybe even… loved.
It’s unfortunate that tomorrow will throw us to the wolves again.