Rhett wasn’t taking it anymore. He reached out and smacked Jace in the back of the head, way harder than playful. “Cut it out, Jace. She’s had a rough night; would it kill you to be kind for three fucking seconds?”
A flicker of guilt crossed Jace’s handsome face, but then it hardened into hate once more. “Yeah, it probably would. She’s like a fucking shark, Rhett. One whiff of blood in the water and she’ll tear you to shreds.” His glare swung back to me. “What are you even doing up here? Are you suddenly too fucking good to share a room with the cleaning girls?”
My lips parted, shock holding my tongue for a moment. I was too tired for this shit. Giving a humorless laugh, I nodded. “You know what? I havenoidea why I’m here. Right now I’d rather sleep on the street than suffer your shitty attitude for even a minute longer.”
I spun on my heel, retreating back out of the penthouse and slamming the door after me. Rhett shouted my name, then Jace said something that sparked an argument, but I wasn’t going to hang around and listen. Fuck that. The elevator was right there, so I got in and pressed level eleven. Just as the doors slid shut, the penthouse opened again and Rhett came storming out like he planned to stop me.
Too late, hot stuff.
I silently let myself into Kristie’s room with the key Dora had given me earlier. The shower was running, so I just kicked off my shoes and wiggled out of my borrowed jeans. I had no other clothes, so I’d just sleep in Rhett’s top. Okay, fine, I would have slept in Rhett’s clothes even if I had other options. What no one knew couldn’t hurt me, right?
The evening’s events all caught up with me the moment my head hit the pillow. Either I needed to sleep before I could get worked up or let it all out in tears. I chose sleep.
I’d never been a particularly heavy sleeper, always too paranoid to really relax that fully, so it didn’t surprise me that Kristie’s voice roused me some time later. She was speaking quietly with someone, and my half-asleep brain told me it was none of my business. So I ignored her and went back to sleep.
When my mattress dipped with someone joining me, I startled awake with a gasp of fright. Rhett’s arms curled around me instantly, though, his low voice whispering reassurances in my ear as my heart raced with panic.
Normally a jolt like that would be enough to stop me from sleeping the rest of the night, but for some reason, as Rhett’s heat and that smoky, spicy scent settled around me, I found myself drifting right off to sleep again.
This time, though, it was the sort of solid sleep I hadn’t had in years.
There was no denying it, Rhett made me feel safe in a way that… well, fuck. The last time I’d felt this safe was when I’d fallen asleep between Jace and Angelo, just days before our lives went to shit.
The memories were too painful to dwell on for long, so I just breathed in the scent of my new guardian angel and let restful sleep take me away.
* * *
The blackout hotelroom curtains meant I would have slept the day away if not for the hand slowly tracing across my bare stomach. My shirt must have rode up during the night, and Rhett found the perfect spot to dance those calloused fingers across.
The moan escaped before I could stop it, the sensations too much in my half-awake state.
His hand paused, and I felt him press against my back as he cuddled into me. His lips caressed my shoulder, firing my body in a way that should have been impossible when I’d been dead asleep not two minutes ago. “Kristie?” I murmured, needing to not have a roommate right now.
“Gone,” he murmured back.
Thank fuck. His hands stroked lower, and I groaned his name.
His laugh was low and husky against me—he hadn’t moved his mouth from my skin, and I was hoping he’d decide to keep exploring as he was. In truth, if he didn’t move a little faster, I’d have to take matters into my own hands.
His fingers started to stroke patterns across my skin again, and I couldn’t be totally sure, but it felt a lot like he was strumming chords on my body. Using it as his own personal guitar. He was about to hear some freaking music if he kept it up. I might not be able to carry much of a tune, but I had the sense that I was about to scream his name like a goddamn opera singer.
“Rhett,” I breathed, more urgency in my tone as I started to wiggle against him. “You have myexplicitpermission to take those fingers to new body parts. Please.”
I’d always owned my sexuality growing up. It had taken a huge hit when my heart was ripped in two, but fuck… I was done waiting for life to happen to me. I was taking and embracingany and allmoments that came my way.
Wrapping his arms around me, Rhett pulled me back against him, and I moaned against his firm hold. “You went through a huge trauma last night,” he murmured, his husky tones sending goosebumps across my skin as I squirmed harder. Or at least attempted to. His hold was… yeah, it was doing all sorts of things to me. “Maybe we should wait a few days… give you some time to heal. I’m not going anywhere.”
Ah, my knight in shining leather.
The trauma from last night—Roger’s attempted assault—was definitely still there, buried amongst the many other shitty moments in my life, but I’d learned that it was these moments that pushed me to live my hardest. It was hardly the first time I’d had a scare like that, either. Right now, there was nothing I wanted more in this world than to lose myself in Rhett Silver.
As I wiggled around, he finally released me so I could turn and face him. Green eyes slammed into me, the color bright and the intensity of his focus enough that I almost lostmyfocus. Almost.
“I promise you that right now I’m not thinking about anything other than exploring this electric connection between us,” I murmured, gaze dipping lower to that ring in his lip that he worried at when he was deep in thought. Leaning in, I let my lips press to his, tongue swiping at the ring as I played with it for a beat.
A rumbling groan left Rhett’s chest. My good guy was still fighting with himself, but I didn’t hesitate to make myself perfectly clear. “Touch me, Rhett,” I commanded, my body arching at the very thought. “I have absolutely no doubts about what I want.”
Not. A. Single. One.
