25. Next Stop Hell
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
NEXT STOP: HELL
RHYS
That was neat.
Lo’s words from the night before ricocheted through my head over and over. And each time, I got angrier. Not at her. She was doing her job.
I was pissed at myself for losing control.
I was the one who’d made the kiss more than it needed to be. I’d gotten a taste of her fuckable lips, and my brain shot right down to my dick.
Christ, she’d tasted good. She’d felt even better with her soft curves pressed to me. It was a good thing she’d ended the kiss when she had because I wouldn’t have been able to. Not till I had her beneath me.
And wouldn’t that make a clusterfuck of a clusterfuck?
Especially since there was a chance she would rip my dick off for trying to take things further.
My animosity toward myself wasn’t helped by the fact that Lo was clearly unaffected.
She’d strolled in for her shift like it was an ordinary day.
Like the kiss never happened. Like it hadn’t been the best damn kiss of my entire life.
I’d spent the night and the morning replaying it—each time with my dick in my hand—but she didn’t seem to give one single iota of a fuck.
She hadn’t avoided me when she’d arrived. Instead, she’d thrown me attitude about my car being over the yellow line. There’d been no blush. No sneaking glances. No change at all.
And I’d been watching for one. For anything. During the meeting, but also right then on the security camera behind the bar.
She was getting ready to open with Harlow, moving without a care in the world. Smiling. Laughing. Swaying those hips as she worked. I had no clue what she was saying because MayCo had extended my no-microphone request from the break room to my bar.
Something I would have them fix ASA-fuckin’-P.
For safety. That was all.
In the meantime, I would return to my original plan.
Ignore her as much as possible.
Easy.
Luna
That was neat.
Who the fuck says that after a groundbreakingly good kiss?
Every time I let my guard down, that thought weaseled its way to the front of my brain.
It was permanently seared there. It would be the embarrassing story I shared after too many drinks.
It would be the thing that haunted me just as I was falling asleep.
It would be there when I was on my deathbed, waiting to follow me into the afterlife if I was sent to Hell.
An eternity of that moment, played over and over to torture me.
I pushed the thought down as I worked hard to control my features—something that was crucial right then.
I was spreading the awkward outward, and I was dragging Harlow down with me.
“Can I ask you something?” I whispered quietly to her.
Piper had claimed the Hyde men were the gossipy ones, but I didn’t understand how that was possible.
Because at that innocent question, she abandoned the bottle she was opening and eagerly moved closer. “Yes. Of course. Anything.”
“You mentioned Rhys has, um, kinks.”
With each word I spoke, Harlow made three things abundantly clear.
One, she’d been sincere when she said I could trust her.
Two, I knew it for a fact because she had zero poker face and would last all of thirty seconds undercover.
And three, she was seriously misreading my question.
I rectified that last one before she could start planning the wedding I was never interested in having. “Whoa, I’m not asking for myself.”
Liar.
I kept talking over my treacherous brain. “If I’m going to be believable as his girlfriend, I need to know.”
Her face fell even as she nodded. “That’s true. Okay.” She drummed her fingers on the bar. “Kink might be the wrong word. And this is all hearsay, so who knows, you know?”
I didn’t, but I nodded anyway.
“Either way, he’s dominant.”
“Yeah, I’d gathered that.”
“As in, very dominant. All the guys in our circle are bossy and overbearing.” She held up a finger and rushed on, “In a good way. A way we like and welcome and consent to. But Rhys takes it to another level.”
Again, I’d gathered that from what Daisy had said and what I’d observed with my own two eyes.
“I’m not doing a good job explaining this.” She took a second. “Okay, you know the guys who say they like to be in control, but they really just mean they want to be selfish?”
I knew of them, but that wasn’t the kind of disappointment I attracted.
I got the guys who wanted me in charge. Sometimes, I was cool with that, but a little give-and-take would’ve been nice.
At my nod, she continued. “That’s not Rhys.
He’s not pretending. It isn’t playtime. It’s who he is, and he’s insanely strict even though it’s only for one night.
And he’s extra stringent about that part.
He keeps himself, um, detached.” She made a yikes expression before rushing to clarify.
“I’m totally messing this up and making him sound like a user manwhore.
He’s not. He’s upfront and blunt about his preferences, and he cuts things off before they even begin if he senses she wants more than that.
Usually, the women are happy with whatever they can get because he, uhhh, delivers. ”
I wanted to say that the feeling that filled me was disgust at his manwhore sex life, but I didn’t judge what—or who—single people did so long as it was legal and consenting. Instead, it was jealousy that knotted my stomach.
That and stupid curiosity.
I went with the disgust instead. “That’s got to be a lot of women.”
“You’d think so, but no.” Her brows lowered, and she tilted her head. “I actually don’t remember the last time there was anyone.”
“You don’t technically work here anymore,” I pointed out. “He could have a new woman every night.”
“Then I’d definitely know of at least one of them. Word always gets around in our group. That’s how I know that for the limited time he’s with a woman, she does what he says, when he says.”
Nope. No disgust to be found.
That pounding heart rate—and the reaction farther south—from the night before returned.
Tenfold.
The visual of kneeling in front of Rhys, totally vulnerable and at his whim, filled my head. His tattooed hand teasing my skin. His fingers in my hair again, forcing my mouth open so he could fill it with something other than his tongue.
Then when I was done, I would tell him that was neat.
My lusty mood crashed around me.
And then it plummeted to Hell to wait for me when Harlow added, “And he expects her to call him Sir the entire time.”
Rhys
I’d wanted a reaction.
I fuckin’ got one.
Just not the kind I’d been hoping for.
On the surface, Lo seemed fine as she worked alongside me through chaos. Even with staggering entries from the line outside, Saturday night made Friday look like a ghost town.
She kept her cool, working hard—both with orders and to fuckin’ avoid interacting with me.
When she did deign to look my way, there was no brightness in her pretty brown eyes.
Her smile was forced, but only when it was aimed at me.
Everyone else got that easy one I wouldn’t have expected from the serious detective.
The worst part, though?
Her attitude was suddenly gone. There was no snark. No eye rolls.
Something had changed between her arrival and right then.
I just had no idea what.
During a lull—or as much of one as we were gonna get—I cornered Harlow at the far end of the bar where no one could hear. “Question for you.”
“Lucky for you, I’m filled with answers today. What’s up?”
“Does Lo seem off to you?”
“No. Why?”
“She’s dodging me.”
Her gaze darted to the side, then back to me before she cringed. “That’s probably my fault. She was asking about your relationship, umm, preferences. For believability. She’s probably figuring out how to pivot to that. Or maybe she’s already jumped in with the quiet, submissive thing.”
The thought of Lo submitting to me hit me in the gut and dick, but I knew that was right up there with all my other unrealistic fantasies of her.
I would settle for her acting the role like Harlow suggested, but that wasn’t what was happening.
If it was, Lo wouldn’t be racing away as soon as I got close.
She wouldn’t be discreetly shifting to avoid my touches. She wouldn’t be so damn blank.
Christ.
The way I liked things wasn’t a secret because I’d never been ashamed of it. She’d already heard some from Daisy and was smart enough to piece together a general idea. But I knew how it could make me look.
Well, that fuckin’ answers that, doesn’t it?