Twisted Games (Twisted, #2)(93)

“Bridget.” Firmer this time, more commanding. “Look at me.”

I resisted for another minute, but the need to save myself from further heartache paled compared to my need to soak in every last bit of Rhys Larsen I could.

I looked at him.

Gray thunderstorms stared back at me, crackling with turmoil.

“The mess with the pictures, we’ll figure it out.” He grasped my chin and rubbed his thumb over my bottom lip, his expression fierce. “I told you, you’re mine, and I’m not letting you go. I don’t care if the entire Eldorran military tries to drag me away.”

I wished it were that easy and I could sink into his faith, letting it sweep me away.

But our problems went way beyond the pictures now.

“You don’t get it. There is no happily ever after for us.” We weren’t a fairytale. We were a forbidden love letter, tucked into the back of a drawer and retrieved only in the darkness of night. We were the chapter of bliss before the climax hit and everything crumbled into ash. We were a story that was always meant to end. “This is it.”

My mother died giving birth to me.

My father died on his way back from buying something I’d asked him to get.

My grandfather almost died because I’d refused to give up the one thing that ever made me happy.

That was what I got for being selfish, for wanting something for me. Future queens didn’t live for themselves, they lived for their country. That was the price of power.

No matter how much I tried to change reality, it remained the truth, and it was time I grew up and faced it.

Rhys’s grip on my chin tightened. “I don’t need a happily ever after. I need to be by your side. I need you happy and healthy and safe. Goddammit Bridget, I need you. In any way I can have you.” His voice broke for the first time in all my years with him, and my heart cracked in response. “If you think I’m leaving you to deal with this bullshit alone, you don’t know me at all.”

Trouble was, I did know him, and I knew the one thing that would make him snap, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it right now.

One last selfish thing.

“Kiss me,” I whispered.

Rhys didn’t question the sudden shift in my tone. Instead, he curled his hand around the back of my neck and crushed his lips to mine. Deep, hard, and possessive, like nothing had changed between us.

He always knew what I needed without me saying it.

I drank up every drop of him I could. His taste, his touch, his scent…I wished I could bottle it all up so I had something to keep me warm in the nights and years to come.

Rhys picked me up and carried me to the couch, where he pulled my skirt up and my panties down and sank into me with exquisite, deliberate slowness. Stretching me. Filling me. Breaking me into a thousand pieces and putting me back together, over and over again.

Even if my heart ached, my body responded to him the way it always had: eager, willing, and desperate for more.

Rhys palmed my breast and swiped his thumb over my nipple, playing with the sensitized nub until a fresh wave of heat crested in my stomach. All the while he pumped into me, the slow, leisurely slides of his cock hitting a spot that made me see stars.

“Rhys, please.”

“What do you want, princess?” He pinched my nipple, the sudden roughness of the action causing my mouth to fall open with a gasp.

You. Forever.

Since I couldn’t say that, I settled for a panted, “Faster. Harder.”

He lowered his head and replaced his hand with his mouth, swirling and licking while he picked up the pace. My nails dug into his back, and just as I teetered over the precipice, he slowed down again.

I nearly screamed with frustration.

Faster. Slower. Faster. Slower.

Rhys seemed to intuit the precise second I was about to come, and he varied his speed, edging me until I was a dripping, whimpering mess. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he groaned and slammed into me, his mouth claiming mine in a bruising kiss as he fucked into me so hard the couch inched across the floor with a squeak.

Lights exploded behind my eyes. I arched up, my cry swallowed by his kiss as another orgasm tore through me and left me drained.

Rhys came right after me with a silent shudder, and we sank into each other’s arms, our heavy breaths mingling as one.

I loved sex with him, but I loved the quiet moments afterward even more.

“Again.” I wrapped my limbs around him, not ready to break free of our cocoon yet. Just a little more time.

“Insatiable,” he whispered, running the tip of his nose up my neck and along my jawline.

I smiled at the reminder of our afternoon at the hotel. Our last truly happy time together before everything went to hell.

“You love it,” I said.

“Yeah princess, I do.”

We spent the next hour like that, climbing high and crashing down together.

It was perfect, as were all our stolen moments together. We fucked hard and fast and made love sweet and slow. We pretended this was our life, not just a snapshot in time, and I pretended like my heart still beat in my chest when the pieces lay scattered at our feet.

“There’s no other way, Your Highness.” Elin’s eyes flickered with sympathy for a second before it vanished and her expression hardened again. “It has to be done.”

“No.” I shook my head, denial digging its claws deep into my skin. “It’s too soon. He’s fine. The doctors said—”