Rein In (Willow Bay Stables #3)(32)

Walking to the window, I stood in front of him, running my hands up his chest.

“Do you think they liked me?” he asked hesitantly.

My fingers tugged gently at the knot on his tie. “I think they want to,” I answered him with honesty.

The large palms of his hands settled on the sides of my waist. “Yah.”

“Give them time,” I urged.

In truth, we were both pleased with my family’s reaction to the introduction, but I understood why Rhys wanted more reassurance. If the roles were reversed, feeling the way I do about him, I would want the people he loved to love me, too.

But it wasn’t every day a Daniels daughter brought home a man like Rhys. He was hard to get to know, and the way his past hung a shadow over his head made it hard for people who didn’t understand him to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Grant’s words, his acceptance, had been insurmountable.

I wanted that for Rhys, more than I wanted it for myself. He’d never known a male role model, not once in his life. Grant was becoming that influence he’d never had, and I hoped with time that my father could become that for him, as well.

The men in my life were some of the best in the world, even if from time to time they could be somewhat thick in the head.

“For what it’s worth”—he leaned his head down to allow me to pull the tie over his head—“I liked them.”

My smile reached my eyes as I discarded the silk onto the ground beside us.

Love.

That was the word Grant had used.

“The two of you in love are about as subtle as a freight train”

His words ran on a loop parallel to the beat of my heart.

Love.

I was sure that in this life and the next, I would never feel the same way about another person as I did about Rhys.

“Thank you for meeting them.” My head tipped backward to look up at his handsome face. “It meant a lot to me.”

His hands at my waist tightened, and the light in his eyes burned brighter.

“I would do anything for you,” he vowed.

It was a vow, pure in every way, and I believed him with my whole heart.

My hands slid back up his chest, my fingers starting with the buttons of his dress shirt at the base of his throat.

“What are you doing?” he asked, and I could feel his body tensing around me.

Standing up on my tiptoes, I let my lips hover just a breath from his. “I want to be closer to you.”

His chest strained against his shirt as his breathing became more erratic. “Are you sure?” he whispered back.

“I’m sure, Rhys,” I promised him, our lips still not touching. “Take me away.”

His mouth closed the distance between us, and like every time we kissed, I felt the world around us disappear.

We kissed like star-crossed lovers in an old fairy tale with nothing left to give but each other.

I opened his dress shirt and his hands came off my body only long enough for me to slide it down his shoulders.

My heart felt magic in the room, not the kind that you wished on, but the kind that made you believe in something more than just this life because how, how could one lifetime of kissing Rhys be enough?

I would always want more.

His hands shook as they trailed up the exposed back of my dress and paused at the nape of my neck. The silent hesitation was his way of asking for permission, and so I broke our kiss to tell him, “Yes.”

There was the faintest sound of a clasp being released before I could feel the fabric of my dress graze over my skin as it fell to the floor, leaving behind it a shiver as the night air took its place around me.

I watched him watching me, and even my heart, the one so fond of conquering, took a second to regain its composure.

“You’re beautiful, Aurora,” he breathed as his hands caressed slowly down each of my sides, leaving a ripple of curiosity in their wake.

My cheeks blushed crimson in his praise.

His hands at the nape of my neck now threaded in my hair, trembling as each wrestled with the clips that held my hair in place on top of my head.

He was nervous.

“Do you want me to?” I found my voice to be somewhat unrecognizable.

He smiled. “Please.”

I lifted my arms above my head and pulled the pins out one by one until finally the length of my hair fell down around my face.

“There she is.” He stole my heart with the look on his face. “My angel.”

He guided me backward toward the bed, his lips on mine, then mine on his, and I could feel the cool of the sheets on my skin as he lay me down.

It had never felt this way, two souls as one.

Rhys kissed the edge of my jaw, and my body quivered underneath him. “I think I’m in love with you,” he confessed, and my soul took refuge, clinging to the bars of my heart.

There had never been a moment more beautiful than this one, not in any memory would I ever feel this way.

My fingers threaded into his hair, and I promised him in return, “I am in love with you, Rhys White.”

His body shook over mine.

“Sometimes…” His heated eyes lifted from the hollow of my throat to stare in my eyes. “I think I love you so much it hurts.”

Tears stung and I swallowed against the lump in my throat. “I know,” I told him.