Page 25 of A Matter of Fact

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea right now.”

“Why not?” Rhys chuckled. There was that smug arrogance that he’d exuded on Sunday. With the door between them, Rhys clearly felt like he was in control again. Even with the door between them, Beckett felt anything but.

“I might let you in,” he answered.

“You already told me no to that.”

Beckett opened the door. The movement swung the air around; the sharp and spicy smell he’d already come to associate with Rhys burned in his nostrils. He was fucked for this man. What a mistake. What a disaster.

“What, then?” he rasped.

“That was abrupt.” Rhys tipped his face down, then gazed down at him through the dark fan of his lashes. It was delicious and dangerous, and Beckett knew exactly what he was doing.

“I didn’t want to do something regrettable.”

“Am I regrettable?”

“Probably,” he admitted. “At least right now.”

Rhys licked his lips, slowly. He nodded and schooled his expression, smoothing a hand down the front of his shirt. “Until next time, then.”

Rhys stepped backward, backward, backward again, then turned on his heel and headed back to the elevator without another word. He stabbed at the call button, looking right at the doors and not back at Beckett. But Beckett couldn’t look away, he couldn’t go back inside, and he couldn’t close the door. His interest in saying no withered by the second, and the elevator dinged.

The doors slid open.

And Rhys turned toward him, as if to say,One more chance. This is your last chance.

Beckett’s heart slammed against his ribs, his entire body churning with an unexplainable need to lick the pride and arrogance right out of Rhys St. George’s mouth.

“Wait,” he croaked.

The doors closed, and Rhys waited, body facing the elevator, but head swiveled toward Beckett.

“Yes?”

Beckett swallowed, and Rhys pressed the elevator button again, stare locked on Beckett’s face. They moved from his eyes down to his mouth, and without thinking, Beckett licked his lips to wet them. When had they gotten so dry? Had he forgotten to breathe? When did he have water last? What was drinking?

Oh.

Drinking was a five hundred dollar bottle of wine over a spontaneous Saturday lunch because, to Rhys, that was nothing and to Beckett that was everything.

It was everything.

“No goodbye kiss?” he managed, offering a crooked shrug which he’d meant to make himself look super cool and unaffected, when in reality it did the absolute opposite.

Rhys’s nostrils flared and his entire body turned. He stalked back down the hall—there was no other word for it. Halfway there, he tugged on the cuffs of his shirt to straighten them, then elongated his spine with a sense of purpose unlike anything Beckett had ever seen before.

God, to have that kind of confidence, that kind of drive and focus. What must it…

Every thought in his brain evaporated the second Rhys kissed him. In a smooth motion, one of Rhys’s arms slid around his waist and dragged him forward. Beckett’s arms moved, reaching out. His fingers curled around Rhys’s biceps, and their lips slanted together like they’d been kissing each other their entire lives.

Beckett’s mouth opened on a gasp, and Rhys’s tongue filled the open space. He kissed with the same kind of purpose that he had done everything else in their brief time together, and Beckett melted under him. Rhys’s fingers flexed against the small of Beckett’s back, and he turned his head to deepen the kiss.

Rhys walked him back until his shoulders hit the wall. The breath left his lungs, and Beckett moved his hands up Rhys’s arms to his face. With his fingers in Rhys’s hair and his thumbs dusting over Rhys’s cheekbones, Beckett was well aware of how quickly all the blood in his body settled between his legs. He was immediately and almost painfully hard, his arousal pressing into Rhys’s hip. He tried to adjust his weight, but it only made his erection more evident.

Rhys smiled against him, pulling back enough for them to both breathe. He dragged his arm out from behind Beckett and quickly shoved his hands into his pockets.

“I would spend every cent in my bank account if it meant I’d get to kiss you like that just one more time,” Rhys whispered.