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Placing my champagne on the table, I inhaled a steady breath and took a risk in reaching for Rhys. As if expecting my movement, he set his glass next to mine. My palms spread against his chest, warmed by the rapid beat of his heart just beneath my touch, and all I wanted was to connect with him.
“I have a confession,” I murmured, pressing against him in the fervent hope we would melt into one.
His smooth fingertips trailed my jaw, gliding along my neck, fists melting around my shoulders. “What is it, Mia?”
Our dinner was getting cold, the champagne flattening, but neither of us could move.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” I admitted, staring into his dark eyes that widened with my words. “I despised you when I met you, but you’re not who I thought you were, and I’m thinking I’m not who I thought I was either.”
“My turn?” His lips curled into a grin, his gaze soft against mine. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since the airport.”
“When you kissed me,” I added, feeling my cheeks blush.
“You’re beautiful, Mia,” Rhys whispered, his grasp tightening around my shoulders. His heart pounded against mine, beating with longing in harmony. “May I kiss you again? Because you haven’t left my thoughts since Lon—” On my tiptoes, I reached for his face, twisting my fingers around his hair as his mouth lowered to mine, silencing him perfectly.
Rhys turned us, pressing my back against the window, tormented between the heat of his body and chill of the glass. Holding my head with his left hand, Rhys grazed my curves with his right, gliding along the sequins of my dress before curling around my ear.
“I like your dress,” he whispered, pausing between words to kiss me. When our eyes met, I wanted to capture his expression, to remember the beautiful gaze of lust and hesitance simply because of its purity, and the fact Rhys’s eyes alone were enough to melt away every sense of reality.
“It’s,” I shivered, “not really me.”
“Then let’s get it off and see the real you,” he whispered against my throat, his lips burning every inch of skin they lightly nipped.
His touch overwhelmed me in London, unwarranted and too much, but now it was what warmed me. Without it consuming my skin, I felt exposed and desperate for more. My pulse raced as the cool window met my skin with every inch of zipper Rhys slid down my back.
“I’m sorry, Mia,” he muttered. His hands held the straps of my dress that draped loosely along my shoulders as Rhys softly pressed his forehead against mine. “You let me kiss you and, honestly, through all the lenses I’ve used to capture the essence of beauty, there’s nothing that rivals you, your touch, how stunning you are.”
“Kiss me again, Rhys,” I quietly ordered, lowering my palms to his waist.
The fabric of his sweater nearly dissolved in my grasp as I lifted it over his toned stomach, Rhys quick to help me take it off while his hips contained me against the window. In the blur of passion, my dress pooled at my feet and my weakening resolve took me back to something he’d told me after our first date.
“Why do you want to be with me?” Tracing my fingertips against his jaw, they tickled with his frantic pulse beneath my touch as I lowered my palms to his bare chest. Rhys took his hands from cupping my jaw, his eyes bright, gazing at me like I’d frozen before him.
“Why wouldn’t I want to?” He replied, tugging his thumb against my bottom lip. “You deserve to be in control, Mia. I asked to kiss you. I didn’t ask for permission for more. I need you to tell me what you want because, right now, I’m yours and I’ll do anything you want me to do.”
I let myself fall against him, cocooned in the warmth of his powerful arms around my bare back.
Breathing his addictive scent, my reply slipped. “I want you.”
Weakened beneath the pressure of his chest against mine, I thought of his words. Control. I wanted it but, in the same breath, I knew I was losing it. Maybe that’s what control was, the awareness and acceptance of what we desired and being mature enough to handle whatever happened next.
But I couldn’t think beyond that moment. Rhys’s fingers knotted in my hair, giving him strength to move my mouth wherever it needed to meet his. Our tongues intertwined, addicted already. Rhys wrapped his right arm around my lower back, spreading his fingers over my skin. He spun us around so gracefully that I couldn’t feel us land on the couch. I only felt him; around me, over me.
His lips trailed kisses along my chest, to my navel, before the stubble on his jaw caused me to shiver and he lifted his head. Rhys’s mouth parted, twisting into a beautiful smirk, as we both laughed and that innocent moment made me want him more.
Two timesmore, as a matter of fact. As we clung to each other hours later, our breath and hearts settling between the heat of our bodies, I felt more in control than ever. The fire had long since died, but the remnants of its glow spread out to us while we lay on the plush rug, twisted beneath a blanket that once lay lifelessly over Rhys’s couch.
“Thank you, Mia,” Rhys murmured into my ear as he gently combed hair from my face. “Again,” he grinned, nuzzling his nose to mine, “and again.” I lifted my lips to his, quickly kissing Rhys before he lowered his head to his folded arm.
I’d describe myself as empowered, but I couldn’t think of anything else and I didn’t want to because listening to Rhys’s voice was all I wanted to do. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to lull me to sleep or if his own walls tumbled down, meeting mine on the way as they crashed somewhere far from our inhibitions.
Letting my fingertips spin circles on his muscular chest, I caught up with my butterflies. “This doesn’t have to change things,” I quietly offered.
“It changes everything,” he objected, his tone playful. “A gorgeous and intelligent woman is here, in my arms, after giving the world the middle finger and sleeping with me.”
“Twice,” I interjected, burrowing my face against his bicep to hide my laughter.
“Twice,” Rhys repeated, kissing the top of my head. “That alone changes everything. But like I told you before, Mia, you’re in control.”
