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I got on my knees, defiantly crossing my arms and snarling at him. “Why’s that, Rhys? Tell me why I’m here.”
“To fuck Rhys Peyton.”
His mood had shifted, his words were mean and unnecessary. I shoved at his chest and got off the bed, not willing to let him speak to me that way. I wasn’t there because I wanted to fuck Rhys Peyton, I was there because I wanted to fuck Rhys—‘my friend who I played soccer with and fucked.’
I got to the living room and grabbed my phone and bag, trying to pull up a rideshare app to take me home. Rhys was on my heels, though, and snatched the phone from my hand. “You get to assume I was cheating on my girlfriend and then act like I shouldn’t be upset?”
“You’re not going to act likethisand still get between my legs. I’m not here for your status Rhys, I’m here because I like spending time with you. I came because I figured why the hell not.”
I was yelling, irate. But I realized as I started backing away from him that I was mad at him for the same reason he was mad at me. We both voiced an assumption of the other one and we were both wrong. Not only were we wrong, but that assumption was a mark on each of our characters.
“I’m not a cheater,” he countered. He was in his jeans, barefoot and shirtless. His hair was a mess, his eyes were an inferno. “She left because I was going to ask her to marry me. She wasn’t ready, and Colin mentioned it during the game. She sent me a text telling me she heard him talking and I was crazy to think she would marry me.”
As he spoke, his voice got louder and louder. I knew he was angry with me, but I could tell that he was angrier with her. His defense of himself turned into a vent, and I nodded, telling him I could take it. If he wanted to keep venting, yelling, and getting it off his chest, I was there.
“I wanted to be a dad, and a husband, and I wanted it with her.” His voice was eerily quiet this time, but his face still projected the ire he had inside his veins. “I never would have cheated on her.”
Hell, I never even knew he was dating someone seriously enough to marry them. Not that I should have known, but he was all over the media. Surely it would have been mentioned. It made me think, for just a minute, that his story was fiction. Something he made up to keep me from knowing anything else about him.
But I didn’t dare project that opinion, or voice it in anger. That would just be another assumption. He was angry enough to have lived it, I just wondered how no one knew.
“She was my doctor,” he explained, like he could read my mind again. “We kept it between ourselves, out of the public, until I was no longer her patient.”
I stayed quiet and motionless. Hating myself for trying to find flaws in Rhys. My subconscious knew it would be easier to walk away from him if he was a cheating liar underneath all the smiles and charm.
“And I’m not here because you’re Rhys Peyton,” I finally reminded him. “And you know it.”
My words snapped him into motion, and in three steps, he was close enough to grab my neck and pull my lips to his. We had come to an understanding. No more talking, no more yelling. I wrapped my arms around his neck and let him lift me into the air. Instead of taking me to his bedroom, though, he took me up the round stairs and out to the rooftop.
Our lips were smothering each other, our moans were loud. I wasn’t in the right headspace to think about why he took me to the roof, but it didn’t matter. We went from wine and laughing, to yelling, then kissing. I was suffering from another Rhys Peyton whiplash and keeping my lips on his seemed like the best way to make it stop.
Rhys, on the other hand, had a different way.
ChapterTwenty-Four
Rhys
Icrossed the line, but so did she.
She assumed something about me because of who I was. In doing so, she hit a nerve and I snapped. I told her way more than I intended and the only way I knew to change the subject was to kiss her.
Instead of going back to my bedroom, I took her to the roof. We needed to start the night over and wash away the anger.
Without warning her, I jumped into the pool letting the water come between us and our lips parted.
“Rhys!” She screamed. The pool had been cooled again so she had to catch her breath from the unexpected plunge. Fight or flight kicked in and she tried pushing away from me but I held her tight, not letting her go.
“Let’s start over tonight,” I insisted.
“I was letting it go without the swim.”
“This was for me. I just took you with me.”
She was holding my neck, her legs once again squeezing my waist. I could feel her irritation starting to wane. Her eyes looked calmer as they flickered to my lips, wanting to kiss me again.
Instead, she took me by surprise with her words. “I’m sorry.”
“Fuck, me too, Ash. I didn’t mean what I said.”
