Chapter 6 #4
It’ll never be enough. I could overdose on him and still want more, still need more. God help us both, but this isn’t the kind of obsession that fades or dies or diminishes. It’ll keep growing until it consumes us both or destroys us both. Heaven or hell. Those are the only ways out of this one.
Please be heaven, I pray. Please.
Rhys is all over me as he fucks me, kissing me, consuming me. He sets me ablaze again and again. I go up like kindling beneath him, setting him to burn with me. Sweat rolls in rivulets down his abdomen and dampens his hair. He’s a work of art above me, one made just for me.
“Rhys!” I cry, nearly catapulting off the ottoman when he slips his hand between us to play with my clit. My entire body clenches, pleasure washing over me in waves.
“Stop fighting it, songbird.”
I push him away and pull him closer at the same time, trying to deny the truth. I am fighting it. I don’t want this to end.
“Stop fighting it, goddammit,” he growls, grinding his thumb against my clit. “Stop fighting me and give me what I want.”
I sob his name…and give in. My muscles clamp down on him, fluttering as the orgasm takes me. I shout his name, wailing it into the room. The orgasm hits me like a wall. I forget to breathe, forget my own name as it rips me apart, vicious in its intensity.
Rhys roars my name and goes wild above me. He slams into me without rhythm. Once. Twice. A third time. And then he stills. A long, low groan ripples through the room as he shudders, and then he’s coming too. He spills into me in hot splashes, filling me full of him.
* * *
“This is nice,” I whisper, cuddling up against his chest in the whirlpool bathtub an hour later. He carried me in here as soon as he could move, insisting I soak. He said it’d help. I think he’s worried he was too rough with me. He wasn’t. I don’t regret a second of what we did.
“Yeah?” he asks, trailing his fingers down my back.
“Mmhmm. No one has ever bathed me before.”
“I certainly fucking hope not.”
I laugh quietly. I love this jealous, possessive side of Rhys. Maybe I shouldn’t encourage it, but I love knowing that he doesn’t want to share me. I love knowing that he hates the thought of me with anyone else. Thinking about him with other women used to drive me crazy.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Anything,” he says immediately.
“You said it’s been years since you were with anyone,” I say hesitantly. “How many years?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh.” I pause. “More than three?”
His hand stills on my back.
My stomach churns.
“Never mind,” I whisper, suddenly not so sure I want to hear his answer. “Let’s just pretend I didn’t ask that question. It’s none of my business.”
“Raven, look at me.”
I stare at the bubbles instead. I shouldn’t have asked. Of course, he’s been with other women since he met me. Why wouldn’t he be? We weren’t together. He wasn’t mine.
Liar, my mind whispers.
It’s not wrong. I hate the thought of him with someone else. I hate that he could be with someone else while claiming that I was his.
He curses beneath his breath and then hooks his finger under my chin, gently forcing me to look at him. I try to resist, but he’s implacable. He’s a big bully is what he is.
“What?” I say, glaring at him.
“I haven’t even thought about touching another woman since the day I met you,” he says, holding my gaze. “My goddamn dick hadn’t taken much interest in anything for years until you. Then I got one look at you, and he decided it was you or nothing, Raven.”
“Oh.” I swallow hard.
“Even knowing I couldn’t have you, I was faithful to you.”
“Rhys,” I whisper, feeling about two inches tall. Smaller.
“I don’t share and I won’t be shared. Does that answer your question?”
I nod.
“You done being mad now?”
I nod again.
He scrutinizes my expression and then shakes his head and chuckles. “Brant always said you were stubborn as all hell,” he mutters, tucking me back up against his chest. “Not like he could talk since he was stubborn as shit. But he loved to bitch about how recalcitrant you were.”
I smile at that. He did like to complain about me being stubborn.
As if I didn’t get it from him. He was as hard-headed as they come.
No one told him no or got in his way when he wanted something.
He’d give you the shirt off his back, but if pushed far enough, he’d dig in his heels out of sheer spite.
He’d be furious if he knew about me and Rhys.
I sigh sadly, deflating like a balloon at the thought.
Guilt pricks at me, but I push it away. It’s too late to take it back now.
I’m not even sure I would if I could. My dad was my hero, but he’s gone.
No amount of wishing will change that or bring him back.
But Rhys and I are still here. And we have to pick up the pieces the best we can.
Maybe he wouldn’t approve of us being together.
But I know he would want us to be happy.
Rhys makes me happy. Somehow, that has to be enough.
It’s all I have to offer because I can’t live my life for him. I have to live it for me.
I don’t want to end up like Marnie, angry at the world and pushing everyone away.
If I don’t find a way to make peace with my dad’s death, that’s exactly how I’ll end up.
I have so much anger inside me over it, so many unanswered questions.
But Rhys grounds me. He brings me comfort and happiness.
With him, I finally feel like I’m living again.
It has to be enough.
“What are you thinking about, songbird?” Rhys asks.
“Marnie. My dad.” I sigh, swirling my hand through the water. “You never did tell me what happened with her the other day.”
“We talked. We came to an agreement. The end.”
I snort, pretty sure he’s editing out a whole lot. “Is she doing okay? Does she look…happy?”
“She’s Marnie,” he says. “She looks beautiful. Your dad would love to see her carrying his kid.”
“Yeah,” I whisper.
“She claimed she canceled your cards to help you,” he says after a minute. “In her mind, maybe she actually thinks that. Who the fuck knows with her?”
“She was right.”
He grunts.
“She was,” I say softly.
“She wasn’t right about the tuition. She said you lied about that.”
“I did not!” I gasp.
“I know.”
“I don’t understand her. What did I ever do to her to make her hate me so much?” I scowl at the water, genuinely perplexed. “I’ve never been anything less than nice to her.”
“You exist, songbird,” he says, rubbing my back. “That’s enough for her.”
I crane my head back to look at him, surprised by the venom in his voice. “You don’t like her, do you?”
“Nope,” he says without hesitation.
“Why not?”
“She hurt you.”
He’s not lying, but he’s not telling me the whole truth either. It’s another secret. I see it in his eyes. The silent acknowledgment that this goes deeper, that there are entire volumes he isn’t saying. That I’m missing entire chapters of subtext. That worries me.
What is he hiding?
What does he know?
More importantly…what does Marnie have to do with my dad’s death? Because for the first time, I’m suddenly sure that she’s involved. And I think Rhys knows it too.