by A C Warneke
That was an odd statement, especially when it was evident that Vaughn had Melanie’s complete and utter devotion. Rhys turned his head and looked down at her with a smile, all trace of the seriousness of a moment before completely gone. “Did you know that they are not very discreet when they are having sex? I have had to back out of a room more than a few times.”
The absurd statement made her pause a moment before she let out a horrified chuckle that turned into a full belly laugh as Rhys waggled his eyebrows and leaned closer, lowering his voice, “They look so normal now but when they think they’re alone they’re insatiable. It can be very distracting when I’m trying to watch something on the television and they forget they’re not alone.”
Jenna put her hand over her mouth as laughter spilled out, although she could have done without hearing about Melanie’s sex habits from Rhys. By the time they caught up to the others, her stomach hurt from laughing so hard. Rhys had kept up a stream of comments, telling her the average number of brain cells a man loses every time a pretty woman smiles at him or the length of time it takes for a coherent thought to travel through his mind when she says, ‘hello:’ twenty three minutes, give or take a day or two.
Several hours later she was still laughing, though there had been that brief moment of terror when an ice sculpture nearly crashed on top of Melanie. Luckily, the drunk who had knocked over the carving managed to knock her out of the way when he fell. And Melanie didn’t seem any worse for wear after the shock had worn off and she came out of her dazed trance. She clung to Vaughn and Ferris for the rest of the evening, leaving Jenna alone with Rhys for the most part.
Even after her mild reprimand for swearing in front of Ferris, Rhys continued to focus all of his attention on her, making her laugh and making her burn. He made her forget all of her worries and fears and doubts; he was good for her spirit, her soul. Her libido.
Rhys stood behind her with his arms around her waist as they got ready to watch the fireworks that would signal the end of the festival. His beguiling voice whispered in her ear as she leaned back against him. “What are you thinking right now?”
“How exceptionally wonderful this evening has been,” she murmured dreamily, leaning further back into his embrace. “And that Melanie was wrong; you’re just as gorgeous as Vaughn.”
“Only just?” he asked softly, his hold tightening in a mock threat.
“Oh, all right,” she sighed, her eyes sparkling with laughter. “You’re a little bit more gorgeous but you can’t tell Melanie I told you that; she’d throw a fit.”
He chuckled, the sound going straight to her heart. Tomorrow she would lock the stupid organ away again but for tonight… For tonight it could have its fun. “Are you cold?”
She smiled at the familiar question; he had asked that at least dozen times and each time she had answered that she was a hardy Minnesotan; she didn’t get cold until the wind chill dropped to twenty below. This time she murmured, “A little.”
“Come here, you,” he growled, unwrapping his arms from around her and opening his jacket. With a cautious look over her shoulders, she stepped back into his arms as he folded the coat around them both. Heat infused her body and she was pretty sure it was all coming from Rhys. It was unutterably delightful to be held in his arms, in his jacket. And as she got comfortable, he buttoned her in. Since she still wore her bulky jacket, they probably looked ridiculous but she didn’t care; she was toasty warm and pressed up against Rhys’s hard body.
Pressing his lips against her ear, he whispered, “Better?”
She had forgotten how wonderful it felt just to be held in a pair of strong arms. The only thing that could have made it better was if there had been fewer layers of clothes between them. With a little hum of approval, she sighed, “Much.”
“You’re still shivering,” he whispered. “Turn around and put your arms around me.”
Curious, a little nervous, she did as he asked, wrapping her arms around his trim waist and bringing her body flush against his. And laughing as her jacket prevented her from getting too close. “I feel like a giant marshmallow smooshed between two graham crackers.”
“Unzip your jacket,” he murmured, rubbing his hands up and down her back through the layers of their jackets. “You’ll warm up faster if your skin is next to mine.”
“Rhys,” she protested feebly, her heart beating furiously against her ribs as she maneuvered her arms from around his waist and unzipped the jacket. “Are you trying to seduce me?”
“Who, me?” he asked innocently, smiling down at her with an unrepentant grin. “Nah; there are far too many people around. I’m just trying to warm you up. Besides, I just don’t have access with you being in my coat and my arms being outside of my coat.”
Needing something more, she shamelessly unbuttoned the front of his shirt and once more pressed her body against his. It was like lying out beneath the burning sun; the warmth from his skin seeped through her, warming her completely. As she squirmed closer, she felt the heavy length of his erection against her stomach and wanted to laugh in delight.
Resting her cheek against his chest, listening to the strong, steady rhythm of his heart, she was surprised to see the strange little man from the apartment building standing nearby and smiling at her. When she opened her mouth to ask Rhys about him, the little man put his fingers up to his lips and grinned, making Jenna grin back. Rubbing her cheek against Rhys’s hard and hot chest, she let out a little sigh of pleasure.
Sliding her hands into the waistband of his pants, she smiled when she realized he wasn’t wearing any underwear, something that she would have guessed had she thought about it. His muscles leapt beneath her touch and his arms tightened around her as he asked gruffly, “What are you doing?”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been so close to a man,” she purred, pushing past the barrier of his belt and curling her fingers into the flesh of his hard butt. Against her stomach she felt his penis thicken and grow even more.
His hips rolled but then he froze. “Damn it, Nod; what are you doing out here?”
“I just wanted to watch the fireworks,” a high pitched but surprisingly beautiful voice answered. Startled out of her revelry, Jenna looked over and saw that Rhys was talking to the man from the castle. Only, he didn’t look quite human: in the low light his skin was the wrong color and his hair was lavender. But when he looked at her with that impish grin, she couldn’t help but smile back.
“Nod,” Rhys sighed in exasperation, a smile on his lips as he shook his head. “You need to get back to the apartment building in case one of the residents want something.”
“Surely a few minutes can’t hurt,” Jenna murmured, strangely reluctant to see the strange little man leave. Rubbing her cheek against Rhys’s heart, kneading the hard muscles of his butt, she closed her eyes in contentment; she wanted to stay exactly like that for eternity.
Bending his head, Rhys pressed his nose against the curve of her throat and breathed in her scent. The move was so unexpectedly erotic that her eyes squeezed tightly shut and she inhaled sharply. The moist heat of his breath moved over her skin as he whispered, “I don’t want to take advantage of you, Jenna, and if he stays I’ll do something you’re not ready for.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she murmured, tilting her head back and meeting his chocolate eyes, her nose touching his. “He has no control over our actions.”
“You’d be surprised,” he muttered. “The little bastard thinks he’s Cupid and with the level of pheromones he releases I’m inclined to believe him.”
Jenna’s brows pulled together in confusion at the strange words. His gaze roamed over her face and she could feel it as if it were a physical touch. His body trembled against hers and she felt as if she were standing at the precipice of something new and terrifying and wonderful. Licking her lips, she met his gaze, “Nothing could make me do anything I don’t want to do.”
“Screw it, Jenna,” he breathed, his lips moving
against the shell of her ear. “We’ll make this work because I’m not giving you up.”
“Rhys,” she whispered, her heart suddenly racing in her chest at the heated promise of his words. But it was excitement laced with fear because the last man she loved to distraction was taken from her and she didn’t want to fall in love, not with someone like Rhys. She just wanted sex….
“Shh,” he murmured gently, pressing soft kisses against her neck, her temple as he tightened his hold on her. “Don’t be afraid, Jenna; I’m not going to abandon you.”
Smiling shakily, her eyes glistened with heartfelt tears. His voice was so tender and sincere, how could she not adore him, just a little bit? Pulling her hands out of his pants, she rested her palms against the bare skin of his chest. “You don’t know that.”
“I do know.” At her look of disbelief, he grinned, “There’s so much that you don’t know,” he lamented, hugging her closer. Resting his cheek against her head, brushing his thumb over the curve of her cheek, the heat of his skin leaving a trail of warmth in its wake, he sighed, “So much. It’s insane but I want to give you everything.”
Rolling her eyes at his romantic foolishness, she kissed his thumb as it passed by her lips, “You haven’t even kissed me. At least, not on the lips.”
“Allow me to rectify that most egregious of mistakes.” He bent his head and she could feel his smile against her cool lips and it made her want to smile. Rhys made her smile. When he spoke, his breath twined its way into her mouth and even that made her smile, “You have the most kissable lips, Jenna.”
“Then shut up and kiss them,” she murmured, curling her fingers into the lapels of his opened shirt and pulling his body closer to hers, wanting to feel the length of him against her.
“Mommy!”
Hearing her name in Ferris’s sweet voice brought her crashing back to reality and she lurched away from Rhys, her face burning with mortification. But she had momentarily forgotten the fact that she was buttoned into Rhys’s coat and she had to wait while he set her free.
Smoothing her hands over the knit hat on her head, she met her sister’s laughing eyes as Melanie strode over with Ferris, Vaughn right next to her. With her face in flames, she zipped up her jacket and mumbled, “I was cold and he was warming me up.”
“It is awfully cold out here,” Lenni grinned, winking at Jenna. “We didn’t mean to interrupt but the fireworks were over and we thought you might be ready to head home.”
Jenna looked over her shoulder and frowned; while there were a few people milling around, most were starting to head towards to their cars, eager to get out of the cold, even the strange little man was gone. Surrounded by Rhys’s heat she hadn’t even noticed how much further the temperature had dropped.
Crossing her arms over her breasts, she looked at Rhys and knew exactly what he was thinking as he stared at the region of her breasts, a slight flush coloring his cheekbones. She had to bite her lips when she realized his chest was completely exposed to the cold winter air. “You’re chest… we should go.”
“Yeah, I think we’re ready,” he said, lifting his eyes and meeting her gaze. Desire burned brightly in the melted chocolate depths and if they had been alone she would have unzipped her jacket and stepped into his arms, pressing her breasts against his chest as she offered him her body. Leisurely, he buttoned up the coat, leaving his shirt opened beneath.
A shiver rippled through her body at the thought; there was some seriously explosive chemistry between the Nosuntres brothers and the Jacobs sisters if it made them all act so rashly, one might say foolishly. Jenna was a grown woman, the mother of a precocious almost six year old, and she was standing outside wanting to seduce a man she hadn’t even known a few hours before. There was something seriously wrong with her. Maybe she was finally going insane and this was how it was going to present itself: trying to seduce a gorgeous man on a cold winter’s night whose hair was far pettier than hers
Definitely insane.
“Mr. Rhys?” Ferris asked, looking up at him with her large blue-green eyes.
With an indulgent smile, he squatted down to her level, “What is it, sweetie?”
“I was wondering if you could carry me,” she asked bashfully, which Jenna knew to be an act; there wasn’t a bashful bone in Ferris’s body when it came to people she adored and Jenna knew Ferris adored Rhys. If she was honest she would admit that she adored Rhys a little bit, too. “You see, I’ve been standing and walking around all day and my legs are awfully tired and it would be so nice if someone could carry me and since Mr. Vaughn has been nice enough to carry me here I thought it would be okay if you carried me back?”
His eyes twinkled with laughter but he kept his expression appropriately serious as he nodded his head in agreement, “I think something can be arranged.”
Grabbing her around the waist, he stood up and swung her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Ferris let out a squeal of laughter and Jenna’s heart skipped a beat; she hadn’t thought a heart could skip a beat when faced with something so beautiful. She was struck dumb as he spun around and pretended to be concerned, “Oh, no! Where has that little moppet gone? One moment she was here and then the next… Poof! Gone, just like a fairy princess.”
“Mr. Rhys!” she cried out between belly laughs. “I’m right here!”
Rhys spun around, making Ferris laugh harder and Jenna’s heart thump even more erratically. It was ridiculous; she had stopped believing in fairy tales and happy endings when Jeremy was taken from her. Rhys was just a gorgeous guy who could make her laugh and illustrate to her that she was a woman who had needs and appetites, that she wasn’t just a mom or an accountant or an almost-widow. He was reminding her of who she used to be before her world collapsed in on itself and sucked her in.
No matter how much she loved her daughter and her family, she had been living on auto-pilot for almost seven years and had forgotten how to be Jenna. Watching Rhys interact with Ferris, the sparkle of life in his eyes, a vivacity that infused his entire being, she realized she wanted that spark back. And she wanted to explore whatever this thing was with Rhys because she had a feeling that he was going to change her life in significant ways. She’d never be allowed to go back to sleepwalking through life with him around. She might never go back to sleep.
Plus, he adored Ferris and, more importantly, she adored him.
“Isn’t he just the best?” Melanie asked, drawing her arm through Jenna’s.
Unable to tear her eyes away from the exuberant man spinning around with her daughter on his shoulder, she nodded, “He’s not bad.”
Melanie playfully swatted at her, “Oh, please; he’s perfect.”
“Nobody’s perfect,” Jenna replied automatically, trying to figure out if Rhys had any flaws, other than a propensity to say and do outrageous things. But she considered that a feature rather than a defect. Of course, she just met the man; it was easy to camouflage even serious flaws for a short period of time. Hell, he probably thought she was as adventurous and fun as he was and maybe once upon a time he would have been right. He didn’t know how… mind-numbingly monotonous her life actually was. The only joys were her daughter and her family; her job… well, her job was a paycheck. It allowed her to feel like a responsible adult even though she still lived at home with her parents.
When Ferris was born it had been a luxury to be at home, having Melanie there to help out. After a few years it simply became easier to stay, knowing Ferris was safe. Even though she paid rent and lived in an apartment over the garage, she spent most of her time at the main house, with her family. The tradeoff of independence for security was one she struggled with on a daily basis but she hadn’t known what she could do about it.
Melanie’s sudden decision to move out had shaken her to the core and caused her to wake up out of the stupor she had fallen in. Automatically, her gaze went to Melanie, who was hugging Vaughn as if it had been days since she had seen him instead of moments. Lenni’s smile was dazzlin
g and full of love and Jenna wanted that with Rhys.
She was moving too fast, maybe….
“Shall we?” With one arm holding a brilliantly smiling Ferris, Rhys held out his elbow out for her to take, jolting her out of her ruminations. She looked up into his warm laughing eyes and felt as if she could drown; seeing him with Ferris made her sink a little further. Not wanting to think about it too much, she offered him a smile and looped her arm through his.
“You’re a natural, Rhys,” she murmured, reaching up and brushing a strand of Ferris’s hair from her cheek. She was about to ask him if he wanted lots of children but bit her tongue; that was way too personal, way too soon. Besides, it was nice just walking next to him, breathing in the scent of leather and Rhys and the cold winter air.
A short while later, the small group was standing next to Jenna’s running car and saying their goodbyes, the ambient lights of the city allowing them to see clearly. Ferris’s eyes were heavy and her head was resting on Rhys’s shoulder as she mumbled sleepily, “Can I stay with Aunt Mellie and the gargoyles, mama?”
“No, sweetie,” Jenna grinned, gently stroking her daughter’s smooth cheek. “I promised your grandparents that we would have brunch with them tomorrow and then we need to get some laundry done so you’ll have clean clothes next week.”
She made a little grumbly sound but didn’t protest when Rhys strapped her into the back seat. Rubbing her eyes, she drowsily smiled up at the auburn haired man, “Good night, Mr. Rhys.”
“Goodnight, sweetie,” he murmured, pressing a tender kiss to her forehead. Jenna had to press her hand against her chest to keep her stupid heart from galloping towards Rhys.
After Melanie and Vaughn said their goodnights, it was just Jenna and Rhys beneath the clear winter night and strangely she was incredibly nervous. Leaning against the driver’s side door, she looked up at him as he boxed her in, his heat touching the coldest parts of her soul, “I had a really good time tonight.”