Page 74

Rhys
I’d tried to resist.I really had.
Perhaps I would’ve succeeded had Bridget been beautiful and nothing else. Beauty, on its own, meant nothing to me. My mother had been beautiful, until she wasn’t—and I don’t mean physically.
But that was the problem. Bridget wasn’t beautiful and nothing else. She was everything. Warmth, strength, compassion, humor. I saw it in the way she laughed, in her empathy as she listened to people’s problems and her composure as they railed to her about everything they thought was wrong with the country.
I’d known she was more than a pretty face long before this trip, but something inside me snapped last night. Maybe it was the way she’d looked at me, like she thought I was everything too when I was nothing, or maybe it was the knowledge she could be ripped away from me at any moment. She could get engaged next week and I would lose even the possibility of her forever.
Whatever it was, it erased every bit of remaining self-control I had. Costa Rica had been a crack, but this? This was full-on obliteration.
The grass rustled as Bridget and I made our way through the fields toward the gazebo. We’d snuck out after everyone had gone to sleep, and even though it was late, the moon shone bright enough we didn’t need the lights from our phones to guide the way.
Was what we were doing—what we were about to do—a bad idea? Fuck yes. Ours was a story destined for a tragic ending, but when you were already on a train headed off the cliff, all you could do was hold on tight and make every second count.
We stayed silent until we reached the gazebo, where she walked to the middle and took it all in. Besides the chipped paint, it’d withstood the test of time surprisingly well.
“No one comes here?” she asked.
“Not a soul.” I’d done my research. The town had a small population, but it sprawled across vast acres of farms. The inn was the nearest inhabited building, and everyone there was asleep. I’d made sure of that before I texted Bridget to meet me in the lobby.
“Good.” Her response came out slightly breathless.
Southern Eldorra was far warmer than Athenberg, and we could get away with not wearing jackets even at night. I’d donned my usual uniform of T-shirt, combat pants, and boots, while Bridget wore a purple dress that swirled around her thighs.
I drank her in, not missing a single detail. The wisps of hair curling around her face, the nervous anticipation in her eyes, the way her chest rose and fell in time with my own uneven breaths.
Part of me wanted to march over, hike up her skirt, and fuck her right then and there. Another part of me wanted to savor the moment—the last wild, beating seconds before we destroyed whatever was left of our boundaries.
I was a rule follower by nature. It was how I’d survived most of my life. But for Bridget, I would break every rule in the book.
It only took six weeks of being apart from her and another six of fucking agony for me to accept the truth, but now that I had, there was no going back.
“So.” Bridget tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her hand trembling. “Now that we’re here, what do you have planned, Mr. Larsen?”
I smiled, slow and wicked, and a small, visible shiver rippled through her body.
“I have lots of plans for you, princess, and every single one ends with my fingers, tongue, or cock inside your sweet little cunt.”
I didn’t waste time beating around the bush. This had been two years in the making, ever since I stepped onto her driveway and saw her staring back at me with those big, blue eyes.
Bridget von Ascheberg was mine and mine alone. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t mine to take. I was taking her anyway, and if I could tattoo myself onto her skin, bury myself into her heart, and etch myself onto her soul, I would.
Her eyes widened, but before she could respond, I closed the distance between us and grasped her chin with my hand.
“But first, I want to make one thing clear. From this point on, you’re mine. No other man touches you. If they do…” My fingers dug into her skin. “I know seventy-nine ways to kill a man, and I can make seventy of them look like an accident. Understand?”
She nodded, her chest rising and falling more rapidly than usual.
“I mean it, princess.”
“I understand.” Definitely breathless.
“Good.” I swiped my thumb over her bottom lip. “I want to hear you say it. Who do you belong to?”
“You,” she whispered. I could smell her arousal already, sweet and heady, and I couldn’t hold back any longer.
“That’s right,” I growled. “Me.”
I grabbed the back of her neck, pulled her close, and crushed my lips to hers. She wrapped her arms around my neck, her body warm and pliant against mine as I plundered her mouth. She tasted like mint and strawberries, and I wanted more. Needed more.
My heart was a loud drum in my chest, beating in time with the throbbing in my cock. All of my senses sharpened to near-painful clarity—the taste of her on my tongue, the feel of her skin beneath my hands, the smell of her perfume and the sounds of her little whimpers as she clung to me like we were drowning and I was her last lifeline.
I backed Bridget up against one of the wooden beams, shoved her dress up around her hips, and parted her thighs with my knee. I reached between her legs and hummed in approval when I found her slick and bare for me.
“No underwear. Good girl,” I purred. “Because if you’d disobeyed my order…” I nipped her bottom lip and thrust a finger into her tight, wet heat, smiling when I heard her gasp. “I’d have to punish you.”
Her hips bucked up when I pushed another finger inside her. I worked them in and out, slowly at first, then speeding up until I was knuckles deep inside her and the filthy sounds of my fingers fucking in and out of her mingled with her moans.
Bridget’s eyes were half-closed, her mouth half-open. Her head fell back against the beam, exposing the slender length of her throat, and her entire body trembled as she neared orgasm. I slowed my pace at the last minute, earning myself a frustrated groan.
“Please.” She clutched at my arms, her nails digging tiny crescents into my skin.
“Please what?” I thrust my fingers into her again, hard, until her body bowed and she let out a tiny yelp. “Please what?” I repeated.
Sweat beaded my skin, and my cock strained at my pants, so hard it could pound nails. I was fucking dying, desperate to get inside her, but I could also watch her like this all night. No fake smiles, no inhibitions, just pleasure and wild abandonment as her pussy convulsed around my fingers and coated them with her juices.
So fucking beautiful. So fucking mine.
“Fuck me,” she gasped. Her nails dug harder into my biceps until a tiny bead of blood welled on my skin. “Please fuck me.”
“Such a dirty mouth for a princess.” I worked my cock out of my pants and slid on a condom using my free hand before I yanked my fingers out, lifted her up, and hooked her legs around my waist. “You know there’s no going back after this.”
“I know.” Bridget’s eyes were wide and trusting and glazed with lust.
My chest clenched. I didn’t deserve her, but fuck it, I was beyond caring.No one ever said I was a good man, anyway.