Mark it in his memory. Christ. “Stud?”
“You know you’re a stud. Abigail announced it to St. Barts, remember?” Jules picked her way up the stone path. “If I’d imagined where you’d live, it would have looked like this.”
He unlocked the door and let her in then put his keys on the hook by the door. He didn’t care about the house and wanted to know exactly which thing with his tongue she was talking about.
She examined the living room, taking a slow lap around its perimeter and studying every part of it as though she were absorbing information about him. “You have a lot of space.”
“Clyde needs his room to romp.”
Her gaze swept over the leather couches and sturdy end tables, which an interior designer had once promised would say “masculine yet not bachelor.” “I like your style.”
“I haven’t thought of the décor since the day I paid the lady Vivian told me to use.” He’d needed function and comfort. Check and check. His home existed solely to recharge his batteries and to have friends over. Until now, he’d never considered what they might think. Now, he wondered what she thought.
“It’s unexpected.” She bit her lip. “Sometimes, it feels like I don’t know you at all. Then it feels like I know you more than anyone else.”
Maybe she hadn’t known Rhys owned a dog or a truck or had an interior designer furnish his place, but they knew each other—mostly. He took her into the large kitchen and lifted her onto the island counter, stepping between her legs and hiking her thighs around him.
Her head tilted, and the long drape of her hair fell over her shoulder. Her dark-green eyes danced, scrutinizing his face. “How long do I get to stay here?”
“As long as you want.” He squeezed her hips and brought her to the counter’s edge.
A shy smile toyed on her lips. He’d never seen anything like it—hesitation and hope wrapped into uncertainty. “What does that mean?”
Every fiber of his existence vibrated with the need to keep her here, in his house and in his bed. To possess her, to claim her. It was an unfamiliar sensation, but one he didn’t want to ignore.
He licked his bottom lip as he took shallow breaths that made his chest ache. “Simple. I want you here. You call the shots. If you have to go—”Whenshe had to go. “Then you go.”
But they were in this la-la fantasy land where he could pretend she was his woman, and his home was where she stayed. Fucking her last night had fundamentally rewired his brain. Tasting her had remapped his nervous system. Rhys had blinked and fallen for her. He was all in.
“Will you go back to California with me?” she asked.
“If you need me to, then yeah, I’m there.”
“You’re talking about work,” she said.
He flexed his fingers into her waist. Everything was a tangle. Them. Work. What they’d faked to the world. What they’d found when they were alone. He didn’t have the words for what he actually meant. So he gave her the only answer he could and slanted his mouth over hers.
If he could taste her, touch her, he’d explain everything that needed to be shared.
Jules couldn’t foresee the future. When Rhys slid his tongue into her mouth and down her neck, she stopped needing to.
He tugged off her shirt and buried his face in the valley between her breasts. The scruff on his cheeks rasped over the soft lace of her bra. The pebbled tips of her nipples reached for him, and he licked over the fabric. She squirmed, unfastening the bra and making her breasts spill for his attention.
Bracing her palms on the counter, she dropped her head back. He moved from one mound to the other, massaging what he didn’t nip and lick. Her core tightened, arousal pooling.
“Lean back. Lift up.” Rhys scooted her ass back.
“I—”
He pushed her farther onto the island. “Lift your ass, baby.”
“Don’t you have a bed?”
The sexy smirk on his lips sent goose bumps rocketing down her spine. “No better place to eat than in a kitchen.”
An instant blush tore into her cheeks. “That mouth is going to give me a heart attack.”
He laughed, his broad shoulders shaking. “That’s not all it’s going to give you. Lift your sweet ass up and slide these down.” He tugged on her shorts. “Before I tear them off you.”
