Chapter 9
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“Darling,” Rhys purrs as rough fingers gently brush my hair back from my face. “Wake up, hen. I’m leaving.”
At that my eyes spring open.
“W-what?”
“Don’t get up,” he smiles gently at me. “I’m just about ready to go.”
“Where are you going?” I ask, feeling my heart beat faster and faster at the thought of being left alone in a castle full of killers. It’s like I’m on real life Traitors but I am going to end up for real dead.
“I won’t be far,” he says, evading the question. “But I will be away for a few days on business. Leo will be with you.”
“So soon?”
“Aye, hen,” he says gently, his eyes soft as they take me in and I know he’s going to let me down. “I have a nation to look after.”
And who could argue with that? I’m just one person; he’s got a whole country to look after and protect. Sometimes you have to sacrifice the queen to win the game, but then again, I’ve always just been a pawn.
“Okay.”
“You’ll be all right,” he says and it’s so heartfelt that I know I have to lie to him so that he can do what he needs to and not worry about me.
“Of course I will,” I whisper. “And I won’t miss you at all. I have lots of fancy things to do. Loads.”
“Aye,” he says, his smile widening. “You do. Don’t forget you have the animal shelter in your diary this week.”
“Yes, yes,” I reply. “I just might come home with all the animals.”
“Leo will be jealous,” he replies.
“Leo might enjoy a playmate or twelve.”
“But a dog that could protect you is something to think about,” he says.
“Or something small and obnoxious I could carry around in my bag like a posh lady,” I reply, my eyes wide and innocent.
“Aye,” he replies and his eyes crinkle in that delicious way at the sides when he smiles. “That too. Whatever makes you happy here, hen, I’m onboard with.”
“Okay.”
“Now be good while I’m gone.”
“Never.”
“Have fun with Dahlia,” he says. “Now give me a kiss goodbye.”
I sit up in bed and lean toward him, letting the covers pool at my hips, exposing my bare body, the way I was when I fell asleep last night in his arms. His eyes drop to where my breasts hang full and heavy and I watch as his stare grows heated and hungry.
“Fuck,” he bites out as he pulls at his tie. “I’m going to miss my flight.”
He crashes his lips against mine as he reaches for my breast, palming the weight of it in his large hand before pinching my nipple and making me gasp in his mouth.
He pulls away from me and tears at his clothes.
Pieces of his suit falling away as he pulls them from his body.
Then he yanks the covers back and I shiver, both from the cold and from my hunger for my husband.
Rhys covers me with his body, and I open my thighs for him as I fall back to the pillows just in time for his hand to find me. He flicks my clit roughly with the pad of his fingertip and I let out a low moan as he spears me with two fingers.
“Always so ready for me,” he growls as he replaces his hand with his cock and slowly slides deep.
“Yes,” I pant. I wrap my arms and legs around him as he begins to move inside me.
He presses open mouth kisses down the side of my neck, nipping at my collar bone as he pumps in and out of me. He pushes down on the space between my mound and my hip, making me feel him, fuller and deeper. He leans down and pulls my nipple into his mouth, sucking and biting as he drives me higher.
“Rhys,” I call out as I feel the root of him against my clit and the length of him against my g-spot, over and over and I don’t know how much more I can take. I dig my nails into his back. “Don’t stop.”
“Never,” he pants as he fucks me harder. “I’d gladly die here, inside your wet cunt, if I could.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” I chant as he drives into me harder and harder, my legs shaking around him with every thrust. “I-I need—”
“I know what you need,” he bites out roughly. “Because I need you too.”
“Yes, yes, need you so much,” I barely get it out while I hold tight to him and press my lips all over his face before my climax flashes through me and I come, clenching around his cock.
“Yes, fuck yes,” he groans as his thrusts become choppy. “I’ll never get enough of the way your tight cunt milks my cock… yes, just like that… fuck.”
And then he plunges deeper than ever before, one more time, and he jerks inside me, filling me with his cum.
Rhys holds me tight in his arms as his breath saws in and out of his lungs like he’s reluctant to let me go. I don’t want him to leave either but I’m going to have to get used to this life if I want to be with him. He’s right, there’s more at stake than just me and my tender feelings.
“I believe you said something about a plane to catch…”
Rhys huffs out a laugh and then presses a hard kiss to my lips. When he pulls back, he looks at me with a twinkle in his eye and says, “You’re a menace.”
“Me?” I gasp. “I was innocently sleeping when you happened along. I think you’re the menace.”
“Aye,” he chuckles. “I am and if it gets you in my bed and my cock inside you on a regular basis for the rest of my life, I’ll gladly commit the crimes.”
“Rhys—” I whisper.
“I love you, hen,” he says as he climbs out of bed and pulls the covers back over me. I laze on my back and watch his beautiful form as he begins to search for his clothes.
“I love you too.”
At my words, he looks up at me with a soft, sweet look on his face, then shakes his head and chucks his clothes back to the floor. “Fuck, this is a lost cause now. I’m going to have to find something else,” he says, as he marches off to the dressing room.
I, on the other hand, snuggle back into the pillows, the warmth from the blankets and the morning orgasm loosening my bones, and I drift off to sleep.
When I wake up, he’s gone.
· · ·
When I finally drag myself from bed, I shower and throw on some loungewear with plans to putter around the library with my cat. I’ve found no one spends any time in that amazing room and because of that, no one will look for me there. It’s a great place to hide.
I know that I can’t hide the entire time Rhys is gone, but I can take a day to shore up my courage before facing the house full of mercenaries without him.
Tomorrow, I go to Saint Gertrude’s Animal Rescue at the sea.
I already know it’s going to break my heart to see all of the cats and dogs with no homes and no one to love them.
I know exactly what that feels like. I have no home, no family, or I didn’t until now. For better or worse, Rhys is my family. He is my home.
I pick up the stick with the feathers and bells on the end and dangle it for Leo. I laugh as he jumps at it and stalks the cat toy. I made the right choice for how to spend my day. I feel lighter in my chest already.
“What do you think about a friend, Leo?”
“Merow,” he chirps as he swats at the toy.
This room of old books and trinkets, with my kitty, in this cold castle on the cliff—it’s not my home, but it could be, if I let it.