Chapter 25
Mine, Rhys’s blood hummed as he kissed Vivi, pulling her up the stairs, her mouth warm and soft and wet, her body pliant beneath his hands. Finally, fucking finally mine.
They tripped and stumbled, laughed against each other’s mouths, until they were on the second floor.
Rhys stopped in front of the bedroom door, and Vivi, still twining around him like a vine, pushed even closer, her lips against his neck. “What is it?”
“Ah. Right.”
Gently reaching up to pull her hand from his hair, he looked down at her, at those swollen, damp lips and hazy eyes. “Before we go in here, there’s something you should know.”
Some of the haze faded. “Kind of an alarming thing to hear right before you get naked with someone.”
“It’s nothing serious, I promise,” he told her, leaning in to brush his lips against her forehead only to get distracted by how close her mouth was, and then he was kissing her again, turning so that she was up against the door, her thighs opening for his hips, a soft sound of need escaping her lips as he rocked against her.
“It’s the bedroom,” he murmured between kisses.
“What about it?”
“Well, you know how the rest of the house is—”
“A Gothic nightmare, yes.”
Rhys huffed out a laugh that quickly turned into a groan as she wrapped a leg around his, pulling him in even closer. “Right, well . . . the bedroom is probably the pinnacle of that aesthetic, as it were. And as impressive as your skills were downstairs, I have no intention of waiting for you to magically redecorate the entire room before I shag you, so . . .”
Vivienne pulled back slightly, looking up at him with a sort of unholy light in her eyes that should’ve made him very, very afraid.
“Rhys,” she said as a grin slowly spread across her face, “are you telling me we’re going to have sex in Dracula’s bedroom?”
“It is . . . a little Dracula, yes,” he admitted, and she laughed, tipping her head back against the door. “Does it have a canopy bed? Please tell me it has a canopy bed.”
It not only had a canopy bed, but said bed was up on a platform.
Not that Rhys was going to tell her that. She was just moments away from finding it out for herself, after all.
So reaching behind her, keeping a grip on her waist so she wouldn’t stumble, he turned the doorknob.
Rhys’s kisses were so drugging, so distracting, that for a minute, Vivi didn’t even notice the room they were in. They could’ve been anywhere, in some blank space where only they existed. That’s how he made her feel. How he’d always made her feel.
And then she saw all the red satin.
“Ohhhhhh my god,” she breathed, and Rhys groaned, his knees bending so that his forehead was against her collarbone.
“You were supposed to say that because of me.”
Giggling, Vivi pulled out of his embrace to fully explore the chamber in which she found herself.
And “chamber” really was the right word because this room was bananas.
There was a chandelier overhead that appeared to be made of some kind of black crystal, sparkling darkly in the low light, and the bed . . .
“Rhys,” Vivi said, pressing one hand to her mouth. “Have you been sleeping in this every night?”
Sighing, Rhys stepped back, leaning against the wall. “I’ve spent a few nights on the couch just because I cannot deal with this room,” he admitted, and Vivi could not blame him.
The carpet underfoot was thick and heavy, and there was a fireplace against the far wall, a fur rug slumped on the floor, plus more sconces than any one room should contain and a particularly graphic painting of Circe seducing Odysseus over the bed.
The bed in question was set high up on a platform, so high that the edge hit her right at her waist, and thick black-and-red curtains draped the massive mattress, which was covered in . . .
Vivi peeked underneath the damask bedspread.
“Black satin?” she asked, her voice going high on the last syllable, and Rhys tipped his head back, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“I warned you.”
Still smiling, Vivi turned to face him, her hands reaching up for the buttons of her blouse.
“Why didn’t you bring me here before?”
“Why didn’t I bring you to the terrifyingly creepy sex dungeon I sleep in?” he asked, his hands behind his back even as his eyes wandered over her in a way that made her blood feel hotter. “Can’t imagine.”
“Maybe I would’ve liked it,” Vivi said, shucking her blouse and loving the way his gaze darkened as he took in her absolutely least sexy bra, the faded pink one with the sagging bow in the middle, the one she never would’ve worn if she’d thought she’d end up here, stripping down in front of him.
Rhys’s gaze somehow got even more molten. “How did I ever give you up?” he murmured. Vivi took a deep breath unzipping her skirt and letting it fall to the floor, giving exactly zero fucks that her underwear was one of her older pairs, the one with lemons and oranges dancing across the fabric, not even remotely matching her bra.
He was across the room in a few strides, pulling her up hard against him, kissing her breathless. “Tell me what you want,” he breathed against her lips, one of the most appealing offers Vivi had ever heard.
“You know what I like,” she answered, desire pooling between her thighs, and he smiled at her, shaking his head.
“I know what you liked,” he said. “I want to hear what you want now.”
She felt almost dizzy with want, overwhelmed, and it made her brave. Made her bold.
“Taste me,” she whispered, and his pupils somehow got even wider, even darker.
“Ah, cariad, there is nothing I want more.”
She let him push her back against the mattress, hopping up because it was so high, and when she lifted her hips, he eased her panties down her legs, kissing her thigh, her knee, her ankle.
She fell back against the bed, eyes fixed on the canopy overhead, and suddenly it didn’t seem so silly, so over-the-top. It seemed . . . romantic.
But maybe that’s just because Rhys’s lips were there, exactly where she wanted them, and her body was bowing up underneath him, fingers tight in his hair as he completely unraveled her with his mouth.
The orgasm snuck up on her, and she clutched his hair, her body curling up on itself as she panted his name, shaking and sweating.
He pulled back, his mouth wet, and then he fumbled in the nightstand.
“More?”
She knew what he was asking, and nodded as he gave a relieved sigh, pulling a condom out of the drawer.
There were spells, Vivi knew, that were supposed to act as protection, but Elaine had drilled it into both Vivi and Gwyn that when it came to their bodies, they should always trust science over magic, and she was grateful Rhys was prepared.
Sitting up a little, Vivi reached behind her, unhooking her bra, and Rhys groaned, surging up her body to cup one breast in his hand, his lips closing over her nipple as Vivi gasped, leaning back on her hands.
“I’ve dreamed about this,” he murmured against her skin. “How soft you are. How beautiful.” He muttered something else, something in Welsh, and even though Vivi didn’t understand it, her body did. Whatever he’d said, it was filthy, and even though she’d just come, she found herself reaching for him, her hands greedy.
There was something decadent about being naked, splayed out before him while he was fully dressed, but now she needed more. Needed to see him, feel him.
Rhys clearly understood because he stood up, his hands pulling his sweater over his head, then falling to the button of his jeans.
Vivi propped herself up on her elbows, watching him with avid eyes. The hair on his chest wasn’t thick, curling around his nipples, narrowing as it reached his waistband.
She sat up so that she could trace that line of hair with her fingernail, loving the way his eyes briefly closed, the shuddery breath he gave as she pulled his zipper down, sliding her hand inside to palm his cock.
He was hard, thick against her hand, and Vivi thought she might die if she didn’t feel him inside her.
“Now, Rhys, now, please.”
He didn’t need to hear it twice. Vivi heard the foil wrapper tear, felt his hand between them, and then he was there, pushing inside her.
It had been a while, and she tensed briefly, but he took his time with shallow thrusts, his breath hot against her ear. “Make it good for you, Vivienne.”
Rhys only needed the barest push to his shoulder to roll to his back, and Vivi went easily with him, bracing her hands on his chest as she rose above him, adjusting the angle, feeling him deep within her, her head falling back, hair brushing her back.
And then his hand was there, at the place where their bodies met, fingers working cleverly, and Vivi could feel herself coming again, her inner walls grasping him as he groaned and thrust up, meeting every roll of her hips.
She fell over the edge almost in an instant, her mouth opening in a silent cry, and Rhys sat up beneath her, clutching her back, fingers flexing on her skin, her name spilling from his lips as he came.
She collapsed against him as he fell back to the mattress, still holding her tight, still buried inside her, and as she tried to catch her breath, Vivi realized she hadn’t compared this to the other times they’d had sex, not even once.
There had been no memories, no past. Just this. Just the present.
Just him.
Groaning, Rhys tipped her to the side, sliding out of her even as his palm skimmed her thigh, like he couldn’t stop touching her, and Vivi knew it was probably stupid to feel this happy when things were going this wrong, but that was the peril of multiple orgasms.
She laughed a little to herself, staring up at the canopy of Rhys’s truly ridiculous bed, and next to her, he flopped onto his back, turning his head to look at her.
“That giggle had better not be about my prowess,” he said, still out of breath.
“Never,” she assured him with a solid headshake. “It’s all for your furniture.”
“Ah,” he replied, turning his attention back to the canopy. “In that case, have at it. This is a profoundly silly bedroom for a grown man to have.”
“Do all of the bedrooms in your dad’s houses look like this?” Vivi asked, rolling on her side now, and Rhys looked over at her, narrowing his eyes slightly.
“Is this you trying to figure out if I grew up with a canopy bed?”
Vivi held her thumb and finger a tiny distance apart. “Little bit.”
He smiled then, the expression, as always, making him look younger and softer, and Vivi wished she didn’t like him so much, wished nineteen-year-old Vivi hadn’t seen him standing there in that field and given her whole heart away with both hands.
But that wasn’t true.
And she knew it.