“I’m an asshole.” I may as well lead with the apology she deserves. “You were right. I shouldn’t have just shown up like this. I compromised your professionalism. It wasn’t a good look, and I’m sorry.”
“Rhyson, we just started.”
Her voice wavers. She better not cry. Fuck me if she cries. She has no idea that her tears are a weapon of mass destruction that would take me out in seconds.
“I don’t want to be fighting with you already over my job.” She looks up at me, her mouth and eyes unsmiling. “Just like you have a job to do, so do I. I need you to let me do this.”
“Okay.”
I capture her hand, bringing it to my lips for a kiss. I couldn’t care less who’s looking or taking pictures. They can Snapchat it for all I care.
“Are you leaving?” she asks.
She steps closer, and the fact that she still smells like pears and cinnamon comforts me. Under all the makeup, the false eyelashes, red talons, the elevator heels, she’s still my girl who wants to make her mother’s soap. Who bakes the best biscuits I’ve ever tasted. Who makes me want to be the best man I can be. For her.
“Yeah, if I stay I might strangle someone. Luke would definitely die.” My laugh is a short bark. “And I need to swing by Wood. Supposed to be helping someone with a track. Not sure how long that’ll take.”
“Can I see you tonight?”
Her voice is so soft I barely hear it. Did she really just ask me that? I can’t help it. I have to touch her. I palm the smooth, bare curve of her waist, and she doesn’t stop me. She doesn’t pull away, even with the weight of all these eyes on us. I lean down until my lips brush her ear.
“Text Gep when you’re done, and he’ll bring you to the house.”
“Kai, we need to do this now,” Dub says sharply from a few feet away.
I turn a glare on Dub that should level him, but he just stares right back at me. Reckless bastard.
“Does he always talk that way to you?” I demand.
“Only when I’m being unprofessional and cuddling with my boyfriend instead of doing my job.”
“We can cuddle when you get home.” I bury my nose in the hair by her ear. “After we fuck, of course.”
I pull back just so I can see her cheeks bloom pink.
“You actually blush.” I laugh into the sweet smell of her neck. “That’s adorable.”
The glare she angles up at me doesn’t carry much fire with her mouth fighting a grin.
“I need to work, Rhyson. They’re almost ready.”
“Okay, don’t forget to text Gep when you’re done.”
“Can I swim?”
“You can redecorate the whole house for all I care, as long as you’re there when I get home.”
“You won’t be there?” She pulls that kissable mouth into a pout.
“Like I said, I gotta get to the studio. I’ll be late getting in.”
“I’ll see you when you get home.”
Home. Hearing her say it makes me realize how much I want my home and her home to be one and the same. Is this really happening? Me, notorious commitment-phobe, wanting a girl in my house all the time? After one night together? The irony is that if I said this out loud, she’d be the one freaked out. So I’ll keep it to myself and give her the time and space Grady keeps saying she probably needs.
I’ll ask her . . . what? Like next week?
EVERY INCH OF MY BODY ACHES, but I slice through the warm water lap after lap until my arms and legs burn with exertion. Today I got another taste of what I’m meant to do. Just the tip of a glorious iceberg that is my destiny, but it was addictive. The lights. The cameras. The music. Even though I wasn’t the star. The dance moves challenging me to the edges of my ability and discipline.
The dance wasn’t as salacious as Rhyson assumed it would be. It was sensual, but not trashy. I think once the video is finished, it will be something I can be proud of. Dub thinks it will definitely get me noticed and booked for other jobs. Maybe I can quit The Note soon. I wouldn’t even be able to entertain the thought if Rhyson hadn’t paid off my mother’s medical bills.
In retrospect, I overreacted about that. I jeopardized our relationship holding onto my fears and insecurities about the past. Rhyson is not my father. I am not my mother. I want to depend on him, and I want him to depend on me. I can trust him. We can trust each other.
Our argument on set today did nothing to calm my other concerns about our career paths clashing and the speculation from others about his involvement in my career.
I reach the pool wall, ready to collapse. My arms tremble when I pull myself up, resting my elbows on the lip of the pool, heaving harsh breaths in through burning lungs.
A long body slices up through the water behind me, muscled forearms bracketing my shoulders. A warm, hard chest flattens to my back. Panic grips me for a second, accelerating my already-rapid heartbeat. Then firm lips skitter down the back of my neck, leaving a familiar tingle I’ve only felt with one person. There’s only one match that lights me like this.
“Rhyson?” I whisper, even though we are the only ones in the backyard, with its towering wall protecting us from prying eyes.
“Better not be anyone else,” he laughs, his breath heating my neck.
I lean into him, tipping my head back until I can look into his eyes upside down, barely illuminated by the lights rimming the pool.
“You’re home.” My smile melts under the heat of the look he’s giving me.
He nods, his fingers working at my back, undoing the clasp on my bikini top. His hands slip beneath the cups, and he brushes his palms over my nipples, sending desire spearing down my middle and tightening at my core. My breath comes fast and shallow. Underwater, my knees liquefy, barely holding me up. Rhyson slides one hand down my side, slipping beneath the band of spandex sheathing my hip. He slides the bikini bottoms down my legs.
“Rhyson, the cameras,” I pant, my eyes picking out the shiny glass lenses I noticed when I came out earlier to swim while I waited for him to come home.
“I turned them off.”
He presses into my back, hard and naked. Stiff and erect, he nudges between the exposed cheeks of my butt.
“Well, look at you thinking ahead.” I can barely speak. I can barely stand. I can barely think. The need to have him buried to the hilt possesses me. I push back against him, feeling him slick and ready.
“Are you wearing a condom?” A startled laugh breaks past my lips, swollen and trembling waiting for his kiss.
“I knew I couldn’t wait.” He sucks at my shoulder and slips his fingers between my legs, squeezing my clit and penetrating me with his middle finger. My hips thrust in time with the cadence of one finger, two fingers, three buried inside of me, his thumb occupied with caressing the button of flesh where all my pleasure has centered.
“I could barely concentrate in that session thinking about your ass in that non-existent outfit on set,” he says, and I go limp against him. “I’ve been hard all day.”
His fingers leave me, and the void left behind draws a tortured moan from my lips. He cups my butt, one cheek in each hand, lifting me until my feet leave the pool floor. He bends me over the edge, my elbows supporting me, giving me leverage. He squeezes and separates my cheeks, making room for him to slide in, like hot steel. We both gasp at the tight fit. At the perfect friction.
“Where has this been all my life?” Rhyson groans into the curve of my shoulder.
He pumps into me from behind, every thrust rasping my bare stomach against the smooth edge of the pool. My head drops back, the pleasure too much. One hand comes around, toying with my nipple while he slams into me, hitting a secret passage no one’s ever found, over and over until the sky above is spinning. The stars blur, melding into one bright celestial ceiling overhead. I slide my hand up and into his hair, gripping, holding on, and tethering myself to this world when everything inside me would spiral out of control.