"You," she gasped, her body clenching around me. "Rhys?—"
I groaned, my control fracturing as I drove into her harder, faster. The mirror fogged at the edges from our breath, from the heat still clinging to our skin, but I could still see her face clearly. See the exact moment she broke.
Her orgasm hit like a wave, her body trembling as she cried out my name. I followed seconds later, my release tearing through me as I buried myself deep, my forehead dropping to her shoulder.
We stayed frozen like that, both panting, both wrecked.
And I knew—absolutely knew—I was never walking away from her.
At that moment, there was a knock.
The sound was sharp, unwelcome, slicing through the haze of heat still clinging to my skin. Possessiveness surged in me so quickly it almost made me dizzy.
“Are you expecting anyone?” I growled, already knowing the answer.
She shook her head, breath still uneven. “No.”
Then she reached for my shirt—my shirt—and pulled it over her head. Watching it fall over her petite frame, swallowing her curves, marking her in a way nothing else ever had, sent another hard pulse straight through me. And when she shifted, my gaze followed the trail of my release sliding down her thigh.
Mine.
Mine.
Mine.
I dragged on a pair of sweats, barely managing to tie them before following her to the door. Her steps were quiet, hesitant, and every instinct in me sharpened to a blade’s edge. Whoever thought they could show up now—after I’d had her, after she’d cried my name—was about to regret it.
She leaned toward the keyhole. And flinched.
My entire body went still.
I moved before thinking, bracing a hand on the wall beside her head, caging her in without touching her. “Who is it?” The words tore out of me rougher, darker than before.
She swallowed, eyes darting up to mine. “My father.”
A cold, lethal calm slid over me, the kind that always came right before violence. Her father. The man who’d hurt her, controlled her, twisted paternal obligation into chains he tried to wrap around her throat.
He was on the other side of this door. He had come here. To her.
“Step back,” I murmured, though it came out sounding more like a command than a suggestion. My pulse thudded with a dangerous, possessive rhythm. I could feel the shift inside me—the part that was teacher, protector, man—fusing into something far more primal.
He thought he could knock. He thought he could demand. He thought he could take.
Not anymore. Not after I’d had her like that. Not after she’d given herself to me with that soft, shaking sweetness. Not after the way she’d looked wearing my shirt, my marks, my touch all over her.
If her father wanted to talk to her, he’d have to go through me.
And God help him—I hoped he tried.
Chapter 25
Olivia
My hand trembled on the doorknob. I felt Rhys behind me—solid, protective, a wall of contained violence—but it didn't stop the ice spreading through my veins.
I opened the door.
And there he was.
