Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
DANI
He smells delicious—of dampness and summer, vanilla and spice. Like clichéd heaven. Or the finest version of perdition. My skin is on fire, blood burning from the feel of him beneath my fingers. All that huge warmth, so eager.
Ready to be savored.
Rhys rocks tight against me, trailing soft kisses down my throat. “I’ll lie on my back,” he murmurs. “You sit on top of me. Better me than you to get a splinter.”
He unties and shucks off his shorts. Little by little, I process the erotic onslaught. Standing tall and proud, he satisfies all of my curiosity. Rhys is beautifully endowed, from shaft to glistening crown. But on his face, wet with the slow, steady rain, a question lingers.
How reckless are we to sixty-nine in the middle of an electrical storm on a raft rocking tenuously on metal oil cans?
Too late now.
The wild waiting for me is right here—the danger is in leaving.
Rhys sinks his fingers into my biceps and pulls me down with him. His dark irises flare as he gazes at me with outrageous want. “Can I take your bikini off?”
“Yes,” I whisper back.
His hands reach around me, fingers fumbling to untie the knot. I can hear his breath catch when the weight of my breasts tumbles free. He holds them in both hands, running his thumbs over the swollen nipples.
His breath reduces to a hitch. “Dani. You are perfect.”
I’m not immune to him either. And it’s downright shameful how my eyes scour every inch of him.
“We chose the right guy for a rosé of the gods.”
He smiles and closes his mouth over a nipple, sucking it as waves of rapture shudder through me. I gasp, arching my back, face upturned to draw air into my quaking lungs. Raindrops ping against my flesh like a hundred fingertips coaxing my arousal from the inside out.
It's impossible to think beyond this moment.
My body screams for his.
Rhys frees my nipple and helps me shimmy out of my bottoms. It takes a bit to get us situated. The raft is slick and cold from the rain, but his warm hands are everywhere, running down the length of my body before they settle on my hips. He tilts them just so,exposing all of my quivering pink privates to the heavens.
His soft hands trace the curves of my ass and slide lower.
The warmth between my legs slowly turns into a desperate throbbing.
Slowly, like he’s unwrapping a gift, he spreads my wet folds.
I can’t speak. I can barely register the fathomless lake stretching out in front of me. It’s so different in the dark. And it feels like something magic is about to happen. Something more powerful than the storm. And then he drags his tongue south to north along my seam in a single sensuous stroke, decimating me with a cascade of pleasure that floods through me like a tsunami.
I see stars. The moon. Fucking Pluto. Then nothing but the blackness of annihilation.
“Jesus,” I breathe.
He kisses and nips my trembling thighs, and I press back to encourage more.
“Don’t forget about me,” he mumbles as his teeth skate over my barbell in a wrathful tease.
I wrap my hand around his satin skin, and his groan vibrates through every inch of him. I can smell the spike of his need curling up from his thicket of blond hair. Angling properly to engulf him, I draw his impossibly lovely sex into the warmth and willingness of my mouth. And when I suck the crown of him, he whimpers and writhes beneath me.
“Yes,” he groans. “Take all of me.”
Buffeted by wind and waves, the raft rocks and rolls, aiding my rhythm, but I lose my will to do anything but moan as he circles my clit and starts sucking. It’s paralyzing how good it feels.
And then another blinding flash of ultra-white turns night into day. Breath lodges deep in my throat as charged air ripples over my skin, nipples tightening in response. The air is damp and smells of ozone, the sky thick with swirling clouds. My toes clench with excitement, and I grin myself stupid.
The threat, the thrill. Surrounded by the crack and sizzle of lightning. Honest-to-God destruction this close, and we both know it.
Is that why Rhys surges as if struck by lightning? He pushes his tongue into me all the way, an equilibrium of force and singlemindedness that evaporates any remaining shred of my misgivings. A cry escapes my throat, the rain turns into sideways end-of-the-world damnation sleet, and I blink through the rivulets of water pouring down my forehead as Rhys tortures me with his mouth and fingers, easily familiar in my innermost spaces. He makes tight, hungry sounds, growling like the thunder.
No man has eaten me out like this.
Commanding. Determined. Invading my secret center with insatiable intensity.
It’s too much, too soon, and I’m panting please, please, please .
But his momentum never wavers.
His pace quickens, and I spiral higher as the rapture builds. He’s taking me to a place of animalistic need, all of it black and smothering. In the part of my brain that rules primal instinct, I suddenly understand the storm, the beat of its rhythm. A ribbon of release curls tighter and tighter, funneling lower until it snaps, and I can’t hold the ache back any longer. Pleasure and pain, equally composed, surge within me, and I time the gap between the next blast of light and sound to scream his name into the thunder's roar. For a moment, I feel as weightless as the rain I can no longer feel on my skin.
In the hands of forces bigger than myself.
Bliss for fucking ever.
Shudders rip through me, my eyes struggling to see straight, to see anything. My brain is an irretrievable mess, my heart near bursting, but Rhys and his body, his need, calls to me and draws me back in. Under the rationed light of dusk, I take him deep, as far as I can. His moan becomes one with the howling wind and the thrum of it sends a shockwave through my being, burning through me to the curling toes of both feet. I intensify my efforts, using one hand in tandem with my mouth to wrap around his dick.
“Christ, Dani!” he cries.
I feel the clench of his body beneath my still spasming one, bearing the final savage thrusting of his hips. Then he groans, his salted warmth spilling deep into my mouth, and I savor the taste of his sweet surrender.
I dreamed of this—two celestial beings under a blanket of stars.But in all my fantasies, Rhys and I swung together in his hammock overlooking the Ionian Sea during a golden sunset. We are not two drenched rats on a raft in Osoyoos bathed in moonlight, the air still and heavy. Undone by orgasms so violent, our breaths remain shallow and labored.
Hearts thundering.
Beneath the weight of my head, his chest rises and falls. Rhys runs his hand through the matted mess of my hair, pressing a kiss against my forehead.
“That was mind-blowing,” he says. “Thank you.”
Weaving my fingers into his, I bring our joined hands to meet my lips. “I think we guilt-tripped the storm into leaving. Try and match our force, sucker.”
I feel his smile spread against the back of my head. “But what we did was crazy.”
“I tried not to think about that.”
“That was a thinking-optional moment,” he concurs, snugging me closer, needier, like he wants me to be inside of him. Such a gentle soul.
I feel utterly euphoric, brain flying on equal parts adrenaline and dopamine. Danger thwarted and aglow with triumph. I don't question for a single second that he feels less impacted than me.
“Have you ever been to Greece?” Rhys asks.
My body stills, lungs not far behind. I feel the finely sculpted muscles of his chest tense in response. I breathe into the darkness, allowing the intention of his question to reverberate through me.
“I’m embarrassed to admit that my biggest globe-trotting adventure is an all-inclusive in Mazatlán.”
Rhys chuckles, the sound rumbling deep in his chest. “We can easily change that.”
My heart contracts with a feeling so intense, I’m almost afraid of it.
We?
He shifts beneath me, eyes tracking over my face, searching with a focused awareness.
“What do you think?”
I swallow—or try to. My throat has thickened to the point of closure. But me in his gilded world? Hanging out with the social media elite and European trust-fund sucklings? Would they view me as another disposable fan girl? Would he?
I speak up to not evade the subject. “I’d like to visit.”
Rhys tips my chin higher with his index finger. He drags it back and forth over my lips, waiting, smiling. It’s a small, tender move that makes my heart flip, but for reasons I can’t explain, I think of him alone on Corfu, separated from his family by miles and years. His easy charm and affability are virtually trademarked, but how can someone be estranged from their family and not have it affect them?
And he should have a million girlfriends and doesn’t. Or none that I know of. Why me, of all people? And I hate it that my self-sabotage creeps in. That it feels impossible for Rhys to like me when I'm here with him, moonlight dancing on our skin after he made magic between my legs.
Charmingly assertive and deliciously insistent, he kisses me, one hand cupping my naked breast. All at once, that giddy feeling is back, swelling so fast in me, I feel like my body might explode. When we’re connected, nothing else matters. I lose myself a little.
He pulls off my mouth with a deep, contended-sounding sigh. I rest against his fast-beating heart and let the gentle rocking of the raft quiet my racing mind. Visions of me in Greece set alight. The thrill leaves me feeling like the whole world is in sync with my excitement.
“By the way,” he says, his foot nudging mine, “you have great feet.”
“Are you joking?” My quivering body tightens with utter disbelief. “I hate my feet.”
“Why?” He strokes the top of one with his buttery sole. “They’re wide and well-formed. Straight toes. Not arched and wiry like mine.”
I twist my face up to his and register he is, in fact, not joking. “I’m sorry, but your feet are perfect. This is coming from the daughter of a podiatrist. Trust me, I’ve seen some gnarly feet.”
“Is that what your dad does?”
“Did,” I correct. “He retired last year. He and my mom are on this wild South American adventure.”
“That sounds cool.” He wipes a slick band of hair off my forehead and smiles a little tentatively. “I’d love to travel with you.” He kisses the crown of my head with such tenderness, I feel an ache in my chest. In the darkness, the sense of intimacy only increases, and a silence descends, heavier than before. “But only if you're up for it,” he adds, his quietest words so far.
I don’t trust myself to say anything. The gamble of blurting out something impulsive seems too great. I’d revealed too much in my office. Or not enough? Perhaps the right amount. We had wandered off track, but bonded. If this is the diversion, I'll happily wander down the path to see where it leads.
Spent but sated, I curl into his warmth. I don’t know how late it is. Don’t really care. At some point, we will make our way back. So I lie crooked in the safety of his arms, where I feel the most incredible sense of belonging, being exactly where I’m supposed to be, content to bask under the sky thick with stars for just a while longer.