Page 32 of Crown of Thorns
“What?” I ask, still confused by his words.
“I told you”—he chuckles—“that it was a waste of your time to put on those night clothes when I was only going to strip you out of them and fuck you until you can’t think.”
And that’s exactly what he does, because my stupid brain doesn’t seem to care about anything other than the high of the orgasm I’m chasing. And when it washes over me, Rhys following me into bliss, I close my eyes and let sleep take me, no longer worried about a wedding or awful families and obligations.
I just sleep.
And it is beautiful.
Too bad I have to wake up the next day.
Chapter 11
I’ll Take It
The thing about dreams is you always wake up. Good or bad. Sweet dreams or night terrors. You always wake up. I was in the middle of a sweet dream for twenty years… then I woke up.
For a minute when I wake up, I think I’m back in my small apartment with Rhys when he was simply a businessman and I was just a shop girl. My heart feels light and I’m happy.
And then Leo’s soft “Merow” echoes throughout the quiet room and the illusion all comes crashing down around me.
I feel Rhys’s corded arm tighten around my waist as he feels the change in my body. “I know you’re awake now, hen.”
I try to keep my breathing even and my eyes closed even though I know it won’t work. I feel a staccatobeat pick up in my temple as the events of last night flash behind my eyes. I wonder if Rhys would notice if I put the pillow over my head and pretend I was never here.
His soft chuckle sounds as his chest rumbles behind me. “You can ignore me, but we both know you can’t ignore your sweet lad,” he says. “Besides, we have the wedding of the century to plan today.”
“You can’t be serious?” I snap as I sit up and clutch the sheets to my bare chest.
“There she is,” he replies and the sides of his eyes crinkle.
“Don’t smile at me like this is all grand fun.”
“You’re always fun, hen, and of course I’m serious about a wedding. It’s the only thing keeping us safe right now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask as my heart beats as fast as the pounding in my brain.
He looks up at me from where his fingers tease the edge of the sheet that I’m still clutching. “Are you in or out, hen?”
“Does it even matter?” I snap. “You’ve already decided we’re getting married.”
“Aye,” he says cooly. “It does matter and you’re right, we’re getting married no matter what because you’re mine and I plan to keep ye. But whether or not you know my secrets and the details of how I protect what’s mine are not your concern unless you’re decidedly in.”
“This again? Can’t we just let it go? This is my life you’re playing with, and I have a right to know.”
“That is where you are wrong, hen,” he says before throwing back the covers and swinging his legs out of bed. Even as frustrated as I am with him, with the turn of events my life has taken, with everything, I still watch as Rhys struts his naked ass through the bedroom to the bathroom.
I stay still with the sheets clutched to my breast even when I hear the water flip on in the shower. Part of me wants to go in there and watch him, another part wants to join him and table our argument for more delicious past times, but the rest of me is still too mad.
This man has taken away all of my choices and tied me to him in as many ways as he could. He says he’s marrying me no matter what, not only for my safety but because he wants to, because I’m his, but he won’t tell me why this makes me safer when from everything I’ve seen so far. Staying here and marrying Rhys makes me the least safe I’ve ever been and I once begged to go on a plane that eventually crashed, killing all those onboard.
“Argh!” I growl and flop back to the bed, pulling the covers up to my neck and holding the pillow over my head. I want to close my eyes and scream but what good will it do me?
I still have no answers when the water turns off and I hear Rhys strut from the bathroom, through the bedroom and into the large closet where his clothes havebeen happily cohabitating with mine. Not that these are my clothes, these are the designer threads that Maeve procured for me, not the jeans, torn at the knee, and my favorite sweatshirt from college. Those have been missing since she unpacked for me again after I returned from the hospital.
I hear him pad back into the bedroom and I try to wait him out, pretending to have fallen back asleep. I just have to stay still a little longer and then he’ll leave me alone and I can find somewhere to hide for the rest of the day.
He’s decided that we’re getting married.
