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Eden

R hys texts to say he’s finishing up a beer with his brother and he’ll be back in a few, so I spend some quality time with Eloise, who has recently discovered hide and seek but doesn’t yet understand that her body—not just her eyes—needs to be hidden.

Her favorite “hiding place” is lying on the couch in full view with a pillow over her face. It’s the cutest thing ever.

Eloise eventually has to go to bed, and she asks me to read her a bedtime story, which Hanna gives a nod to.

We sit in the rocker-glider in her cute red-and-white gingham room (“No pink,” Hanna says succinctly.

“Not my thing.”), and I read her Sandra Boynton’s Barnyard Dance!

and The Going to Bed Book . She insists I be the one to tuck her in, but when I kiss her good night, she panics and says, “Mommy.”

Hanna, who’s obviously been lurking right outside the door waiting for this moment, trades places with me, and I go back downstairs.

I’m still on the stairs when I hear the low rumble of Rhys’s voice, and something shifts and settles in my chest.

He was gone less than an hour, but it still scares me, how glad I am that he’s back. And it only gets more intense when I descend the last few stairs and see him—tall, dark, broad, sturdy, and absurdly, ridiculously beautiful.

His eyes find mine and the corner of his mouth turns up, and I swear my pulse clicks into the comfort gear. It’s like stepping back into your own place after coming home from vacation, and that’s—too soon and too much and all wrong.

But all I want is more of what happened last night. More of his hands and mouth on me, more of the two of us yielding to each other.

“You want to head out?” he asks.

“Probably makes sense.” I drop the words as nonchalantly as I can, given the pictures in my head.

I swear he winks at me, but that can’t be right; the broody, controlled lawyer doesn’t wink .

We say goodbye to his family, one by one. I’m enfolded in hug after hug, whispered to, “Anytime, you hear?” and “No matter what that idiot does, don’t be a stranger, right?” It’s too soon and too much and all wrong again—and I love every minute of it.

We head out to his car, and it’s silent between us, and even that feels right. Like we earned the privilege of not talking, all those hours in the car.

“Hey,” I say as we pull away from Hanna’s house. “I freaking love your family.”

“They’re not bad.” Contentment is thick in his voice, and I think about how different he sounds now, basking in the afterglow of their affection, than he did when he talked about being a shark. Two different men. But not. The same guy, maybe just denying himself what he wants a lot of the time.

And I’m a luxury he’s letting himself indulge in, and that feels unbelievably good.

“I want to show you something,” he says. “If you’ll let me.”

“Yeah,” I say.

We drive out of town and into the foothills. We get out of the car, and he pulls a couple of blankets from the trunk.

“You bring women up here often?” I tease him.

“Wouldn’t be convenient from my New York apartment,” he teases back. “But no. Never brought anyone here.”

“And yet you have blankets in your trunk.”

“Grabbed ’em from Hanna earlier,” he says. “I knew I wanted to bring you here.”

There’s a wide-open area—a meadow by day, I think—and he throws a blanket onto the grass. “Lie down.”

“Usually there’s some foreplay,” I tease, but I obey, and—“Holy shit, Rhys.”

The sky is spread out above us, black and shimmering with stars.

“Not a lot of light pollution out here.”

“It’s—beautiful.”

“I’ve always felt like if you lie still long enough, looking up, you can feel the earth spinning.”

I do as instructed, and I know what he means. Maybe it’s just dizziness from the hugeness of the dome above us—but it does feel like we’re in motion, the earth turning on its axis, whirling around the sun, swirling as part of the galaxy. I feel incredibly small and also huge, part of everything.

He rolls onto his side, and I do the same.

His mouth seeks mine, hot in the cool night.

We kiss tentatively at first, tasting and exploring, until I bite his lip and he goes suddenly feral, clutching my head to delve into me, slick and hungry.

He explores my mouth thoroughly, then moves his lips over the shell of my ear, sending shivers everywhere, down the sensitive line of my jaw, over my throat, to the throbbing pulse at the notch of my collarbones.

I’m warm, too warm, and I pull away from him, tug my shirt over my head, and he groans and resumes his travels, his lips and tongue playing over the upper curve of my breast, teasing along the lace line of my bra.

Rhys tugs one cup down and finds my nipple with his tongue, flicks gently over it, traces circles around it.

Then the other one, back and forth, while pleasure bites its own line inside me, right down to my core.

I’m moaning now, my hips seeking friction, and he pins one hip with his hand so I can’t move, and that’s exactly what I need—I’m half desperate.

He plays at my breasts until I’m wild with hunger, then continues downward, finding the button and zipper of my jeans, easing them down with my panties, breathing my scent and groaning his approval. “Jesus, Eden, you’re delicious. I can’t wait to taste you.”

After removing my jeans entirely, he grabs the other blanket and tugs it over both of us, disappearing from sight as his tongue finds my slit and I jerk against him. It feels so fucking good, the heat and slide of his tongue there, exploring everywhere at first, then homing in on my clit.

He experiments, listening for my moans and whimpers but also “listening” with his hands on my hips for the way I tilt up to get more of his mouth, “listening” with his tongue as my clit gets more swollen and I get wetter.

He listens, reads, like he’s known my body for years, and it responds with trust and pleasure, blooming wide open for him, so when he slides two fingers in, I’m all eager welcome.

I’ve pushed the blanket away again so I can watch him, so I can feel the hard bite of night cold on my nipples.

The pinch of that cold and the sight of him working me and the feel of his talented mouth and his curled fingers all conspire to wind me up fast, and the orgasm catches me completely off guard, tossing me into the sparkling black sky, and I come whining and begging.