Chapter Twenty-Nine
The temperature had been slowly dropping for hours, but I hadn’t felt it.
Wrapped in Rhys’s arms, slow dancing in the moonlight, the cool night air had been incapable of chilling me.
We moved in slow circles, swaying against each other, oblivious to the change in tempo when the music got livelier.
We probably looked ridiculous slow dancing when everyone around us was doing the Macarena, but we didn’t care.
Even when the music had been silenced and the dancing had ended, Rhys still held me close.
I was tucked into a me-shaped space at his side as we chatted with Mel’s neighbours.
When Jackson regaled everyone with an amusing story about his wedding planner, Rhys’s hand had been palmed against my hip.
When Steve thanked him for his help with the barbecue, Rhys’s thumb had traced lazy circles against my pulse point, sending it into overdrive.
Wherever Rhys touched me, my skin felt warmed.
If I lived with him, I’d probably never have to pay a single heating bill for the rest of my life.
That thought pulled me out of a dangerous fantasy I could easily have spiralled into.
My brain was racing ahead into territory it had no business visiting.
No one was talking about living together – we weren’t even dating.
And as for ‘forever’, well that felt about as distant as the Milky Way.
We said our goodbyes to my friends with a round of hugs, kisses, and handshakes.
‘Definitely a keeper,’ Mel whispered into my ear as she pulled me in and squeezed me tightly against her. It was something I really hoped we wouldn’t be able to do for very much longer.
I pulled away just far enough to let my eyes ask the question that had been on my mind all evening.
She grinned and silently mouthed my two new favourite words in the entire English language.
‘False negative.’
I was still beaming when Jackson enveloped me in a hug. His comment, unsurprisingly, was more earthy than Mel’s had been. ‘Don’t fuck this one up, Harker.’
We fell into step as we walked back to his car, Rhys’s arm looped casually around my shoulders.
It felt so easy, so natural, as though we had walked like this, laughed and danced together, a thousand times before.
It made no sense, but then nothing about us ever had.
We felt right, meant to be, in a way I’d never experienced or comprehended before.
Was this how Henry had felt when he’d first met Bee?
If so, I could better understand the lingering sadness I saw in his eyes.
The thought of losing someone who made you feel this way was almost too awful to contemplate.
‘Do you think I passed the meet the parents test?’ Rhys asked, slipping into the driver’s seat beside me.
‘With flying colours.’ I turned towards him with a grin. ‘In fact, I think they like you even more than they do me.’
His soft chuckle resonated around the car.
‘Only because I flip a mean burger.’
I smiled in the green glow of the dashboard lights.
‘Well, that definitely helped, but it was more than that. My friends really like you. I knew they would.’
We were paused at a set of traffic lights on red. It wasn’t the place or the time that I’d envisaged dropping my guard, but sometimes you don’t pick the moment. The moment picks you.
An amber light clicked on beneath the red.
‘I like you too,’ I said.
His smile could have melted polar ice caps. It certainly dissolved away the last of my hesitation.
The lights turned green, but Rhys was still looking at me and not the road.
‘A lot,’ I added softly.
‘That’s good to know, because I’ve more-than-liked-you a lot for a long time now.’
It was a special moment, or it would have been if it hadn’t been pierced by the strident blare of a car horn from the driver behind us.
Rhys swore softly, put the car in gear, and pulled away with a raised hand of apology.
He didn’t return it to the steering wheel but captured mine within his grip.
We were probably breaking innumerable Highway Code rules as he drove one-handed through the surprisingly busy late-night traffic.
I knew the ball was still firmly in my court.
He’d given me the power weeks ago to set the pace and the direction of where we were going, and it felt like tonight we’d reached an important fork in the road.
Cars were flashing past us on both sides. His concentration was on the traffic. I probably should have waited, but the words were right there in the back of my throat. I had to set them free or risk losing my nerve.
‘I don’t want to go slowly.’
His eyes dropped to the speedometer. ‘I’m already on the limit for this road.’
‘I’m not talking about driving. I mean us.’
He took his eyes off the highway briefly, and I really hoped my face was saying all the things that my voice seemed incapable of doing.
‘I know it’s late, but I don’t want tonight to end yet.’
I saw in silhouette the way he swallowed at that.
‘Are you sure, Ellie? We don’t need to rush things if you’re not ready.’
‘Oh God, I’m so ready,’ I said on a shaky laugh.
It was good to see him smile even while he was shaking his head in slight disbelief.
‘You had to tell me at a time when I can’t pull you into my arms and show you exactly how much I’ve been waiting and dreaming of hearing you say that.’
‘Sorry,’ I said, not sorry at all because anticipation was fizzing through me more potently than one hundred per cent proof alcohol.
‘Should I be driving towards your place or mine?’ he asked. We were at the point in the road where we had to decide which way to go, in more ways than one.
‘Yours. It’s closer,’ I said decisively.
My legs felt as though someone had replaced the bones with rubber.
And there was a kaleidoscope of butterflies in my stomach, frantically swirling around as though caught in a tornado.
This was far from being my first time. I shouldn’t be this jittery.
I knew what turned-on felt like, but this excitement was raw and primal and unlike anything I’d experienced before.
Outwardly Rhys appeared as calm and controlled as ever as he took my hand and led me across the residents’ car park towards his home.
But he’d had to jog back to the car to switch off the headlights he’d accidentally left on and had needed three attempts to key in the correct passcode to access the building.
‘I’ve never been this nervous,’ Rhys confessed as we waited for the lift to join us in the foyer. ‘Not even back when I didn’t know what I was doing.’
‘It feels different,’ I said, so quietly I wasn’t even sure he had heard me.
His eyes met mine and there was a fire burning in them that made the breath catch in my throat.
We held out longer than I thought we would.
We waited until the doors of the lift had slid to a close before we let the flames consume us.
We came together like magnets and his mouth hungrily sought mine, his tongue searching and finding its mate.
I pressed up against him, moulding my body to his as his hands gripped my hips, holding me against him in a way that told me exactly how much he wanted me.
He stole the gasp I gave, smuggling it into his mouth as though it was treasure that was his for the taking. Which it was. All of me was.
There was too much of everything. Too many floors to reach his flat, too many steps from the lift to his front door.
Too many items to be discarded: his keys, my bag, our shoes.
And there were way too many clothes on his body and too many fiddly clasps on mine.
I groaned as he kissed me, greedy and impatient for the feel of his skin on mine.
‘We should slow this down,’ Rhys said, his voice a feral growl.
‘No,’ I said as my fingers released the second and then the third button of his shirt. ‘We can do slow later.’ I pressed a kiss on every inch of chest that I exposed, revelling when I felt the pounding of his heart beneath my lips.
He shuddered when I trailed the tip of my tongue down his torso and tried to stop me from going lower, but I resisted the tug as he tried to bring me back to his mouth. Instead, I allowed my knees to do what they’d been in danger of doing since the moment we’d arrived and buckle beneath me.
‘Ellie,’ Rhys ground out, his voice half warning me to stop, half urging me onwards. His fingers threaded through my hair. Was he holding me there, or hanging on for dear life? I was beyond knowing or caring.
We hadn’t made it to his bedroom and were still only in the hallway. The light was dim, coming from a single table lamp he’d left burning, but it was bright enough for me to see the look on his face as my hands went to his zip.
I looked up at him and could no longer tell if the trembling I felt came from him or me. It didn’t matter because we were just moments away from being one, and nothing had ever felt so good, so right.
The sound of the zip sliding down was lost beneath his moan. He tightened his fingers in the long strands of my hair, winding the auburn curls around them. He said my name like it was a prayer and it was all I could do not to cry.
‘You said you wouldn’t take me to bed even if I was down on my knees begging you,’ I reminded him, my voice a husky replica of the one I usually used. ‘Well, I’m on my knees now. And I’m begging you. I really hope you’ve changed your mind. Please, Rhys, let me do this.’
His silent nod was all the permission I needed.
Later he would take the lead – I knew that, and I didn’t doubt for a minute that he would show me a whole new level of pleasure.
But this was him at his most vulnerable, most open, allowing me to take control.
And as my lips found him and he pressed into me, I knew beyond all doubt that I was ruined for anyone else.