by Ellen Lane
My breath caught in my throat as my rational mind warred with my emotions. This hadn’t been in the plan. I told myself that I was giving Rhett up a long time ago - that what I was doing now was mere dalliance. A means to an end.
But now he was looking at me the same way he had all those years ago - when he’d sneak up to my window every night to knock and ask me to come stargaze with him. He never cared that we had school early in the morning, or that Jeb was always trying to catch us. He’d always come for me.
The first boy to ever tell me he loved me.
“Rhett...I’m so sorry.” I could barely whisper the words. Somehow, I wished I could make it all better. Span those twelve years of time in an instant and fix everything that was broken. No child deserved to live in fear. “If I had known...if I could have done something-”
“Don’t beat yourself up.” He cut me off softly, cupping my face with a warm, gentle hand. “You did more than you can imagine.”
I couldn’t speak. I was tongue-tied more than usual around Rhett, but just then, there was nothing more I could say.
All at once, I wished I had gone with him. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like - how much courage it took to uproot yourself and start over somewhere new. Certainly, he’d escaped his hellish childhood home, but he’d taken that step into the unknown completely alone.
And I let him.
My hands framed his face as I drew his forehead against mine, my eyes sliding closed. I promised myself that when it came to Rhett, my heart was made of stone. We were over and I had moved on a long time ago.
So why the hell was I crying?
To my merit, I wasn’t sobbing noisily or throwing myself into his arms - but deep down, in the pit of my stomach, I felt I had done Rhett a terrible disservice. I’d been completely and totally ignorant of his needs, and even if I’d only been fourteen, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I shouldn’t have sent him off to California so blindly. I thought I’d been selfless.
Really, I was totally clueless.
“Hey. Hey.” If I’d had the presence of mind, I might have been embarrassed. Instead, I didn’t realize Rhett was talking to me until he’d been trying to get my attention for a full minute. “If this is a bid at trying to win me over, I’ll have you know I’m not good with women and tears.”
His small, reproachful smile had me laughing through my tears as I pushed him away gently. “Not funny.”
“But you’re laughing.”
“Rhett, none of this is funny,” I managed, even as I tried to stifle my giggles. “We were having a serious moment.”
“And now the moment’s over. I hate pity parties.” In one sweep of his arm, he shoved the remainder of our dinner to the floor and I inhaled sharply as china I was sure cost more than I’d made in my life went crashing to the floor.
“Rhett!” Before I could protest any further, the man was hauling me onto the now bare table, pulling me flush against him. “Jesus, what are you-”
“We’re never talking about the past again, alright?” He cut me off in a low murmur against my mouth. “It’s over. I promised myself I’d rise above it, and I did. Further than I ever dreamed...so that’s that.” Any argument I might have had was forgotten the moment he kissed me.
Rhett had never kissed me like this. He was always the slow seductor - exploiting my body in ways I had never believed possible and making sure I slowly lost my mind in the process. Now, his mouth moved against mine desperately. His hands were almost bruising at my waist and there was barely a scant inch of space between our bodies anywhere.
The discussion was over. This time I was here to help him forget - and I wouldn’t let the opportunity pass me by. My fingers threaded through his hair as my tongue tangled with his and I let him hold me as tightly as he needed. My leg hip ached where I’d fallen off the horse earlier that week, and I could hardly breathe, but none of that mattered.
Rhett needed me.
He all but ripped my long johns down the front in an effort to free my breasts, and I gasped as he immediately took a nipple into the heat of his mouth to bite and suck feverishly. He was rough - far rougher than he’d ever been. Something about the frantic, blind need in his mouth and hands sent my temperature through the roof.
I yanked at the hem of his shirt before ripping the garment up and over his head. He was wearing an undershirt beneath that and I clutched it tightly, drawing him even closer against me so I could create a line of dark marks down his throat and over his shoulder. When Rhett all but slammed me back against the table, sending a spike of discomfort up my spine, I gasped.
The look in his eyes was positively feral. The man handling me was about as far from the Rhett I knew as it was humanly possible to be...and I wanted him.
His fingers curled into my hips, jerking me down the length of his table and against the ridge of his erection through his pants. In an instant, I was reaching for the zipper, simultaneously careful and reckless. Rhett, meanwhile, yanked my long johns down my legs to drop them on the floor a moment before he surged forward, pinning my wrists above my head in the same instant that he shoved inside me.
I gasped his name in shocked pleasure, struggling only slightly before he bent over me, his body dwarfing mine.
“Let me.” His low growl sent a shiver of acute awareness through me. This would not be an encounter I could control. It wouldn’t be slow and tender, but it would certainly be breathtaking - as long as I let Rhett have me.
As if I could have denied him.
What followed wasn’t as much lovemaking or even remotely sensual. It was raw and animalistic. Rhett fucked me into the tabletop until my back was raw from the wood. My toes curled and my thighs wrapped around him desperately. I gasped. I moaned. I was pretty sure I screamed. But in the moment, none of that mattered. All that mattered was the electric, raw sexual energy coursing through me.
I lost myself in the carnality of it. I arched against him, wanting him deeper, needing him harder, wanting to be utterly consumed by him. Later, I would discover that what we’d done made my injuries from the previous day look like bug-bites. I’d gaze at them in the mirror, horrified and thrilled all at once.
Wanting more.
But then - right then - I let him have me the way he needed me. Until I was coming so hard that I pulled him over the edge with me and he shouted my name into the dim room, the sound echoing in my ears for long after.
Afterward, he sagged atop me, finally releasing wrists that had almost lost feeling. I draped my arms over him, rubbing slowly over the length of his spine as I tried to catch my breath. Neither of us said a word and, in all honesty, I was a bit scared of myself.
A few weeks ago, I hadn’t even known I could get off during sex and now I was rutting like an animal and enjoying it. Rhett was taking every preconception I’ve ever had about men and sex and turning it on its head...but then, he’d always been an overachiever. Raising my head slightly, I kissed his brow, his cheek and then his mouth, lingeringly. In this moment, I could be vulnerable. I could be soft. I could be whatever he needed me to be.
For now.
The next morning, I found myself infinitely grateful that we were in a cold weather country. I would have had a hell of a time explaining the profusion of love bites, scratches and bruises on my skin otherwise. Rhett was surprisingly quiet all morning, and I figured he was probably embarrassed about the previous night. What should have been an interview had turned into something cathartic, frenetic and unforgettable...but it was also intimidating as hell.
Ultimately, the silence in the hotel room was stifling and I had to say something. “Rhett.” I came up behind him as he was working on his laptop, trying for a casual tone. “About last night…” He stopped typing immediately, and I could all but feel him tense. “Whenever you need that kind of thing...to forget...I’m here.”
I don’t know what made me say it. I’d never been so bold in my entire life -and especially not with a man of Rhett’s caliber. But if w
e weren’t meant to be, I was alright with us sharing that one bit of intimacy - that one reminder of what could have been.
For a long beat, Rhett didn’t respond, and I was worried I’d overstepped my boundaries. Every man had his pride, after all - and Rhett’s was bound to have taken some hits. Then, however, he surprised me by yanking me into his lap and almost displacing his computer. I grabbed it before it could meet the same fate as last night’s dinner dishes. “Jesus, I know you’re loaded, but you can’t afford to break stuff constantly-”
“You know I’m keeping you in this hotel room all day, don’t you?” At the prospect, my eyes widened. I found him grinning at me like a cat in cream and quickly scrabbled out of his arms.
“Don’t you dare. Isn’t this our last day?”
Rhett chuckled, his dark mood seeming to have dissipated. “You’re telling me you have a better idea for how to ring out Nepal?”
I sighed, crossing my arms over my chest. I was careful to keep my distance. If I wasn’t careful, Rhett would just grab me and that would be that. “I thought we were supposed to go adventuring. Everything we’ve done so far has been pretty tame.”
In hindsight, that definitely came out far cockier than I meant it to. I’d come a long way from the time Rhett had suggested our motorcycle ride through the Nepalese countryside. To be honest, I now saw each new day as a challenge. A way to step further out of my comfort zone for what would probably be the first and last time in my life. After all, when was I ever going to come to a place like Nepal again. I’d be too busy moving up in the world.
At least, that was the idea.
With that idea, I’d thrown caution to the wind as much as I dared. Ziplining, rickshaw rides, exploring the unknown - it was all fair game. Once I adjusted to the idea of simply throwing myself into everything, the excitement swept me away. I had the time of life.
But in the grand scheme of some of the greater stunts that Rhett had pulled in his adult life - the ones that got him the front page in adventure capitalist magazines - what we did in Kathmandu was relatively tame. If I was still going with the interviews - with Rhett’s everyday life and the crazy risks he took - I’d need something bigger than what we’d been doing.
At least, that’s what I thought.
“‘Tame’, she says.” Rhett’s grin as positively evil as he leaned back in his chair confidently. “Luckily for you, I’ve planned the most exciting jaunt for this afternoon. I only hope you can handle it.”
I should have known better than to press my luck.
“Bring it on.”
Approximately four hours later, I was eating my words, staring out the window of a small plane as we took off from a minute airport outside the city. Even though I’d been listening at the class we just finished and I was wearing a flight suit with more zips and hooks than I’d known were possible on one garment, I still couldn’t believe what I was doing.
Sky-diving.
Of course, when Rhett actually revealed where we were going, I had a whole laundry list of arguments. I’d never jumped out of a plane in my life. Hell, I hardly rode planes. There was no way I was qualified to do something so crazy.
Rhett countered with one simple fact: He was - and I’d be strapped to him.
Somehow, I was torn between nausea and a strange sort of anticipation. Of course, I was also scared shitless. That, I felt, was the most appropriate frame of thought to be in considering what was about to happen in roughly half an hour. I was clutching the seat beneath me so tightly I was surprised my fingernails didn’t rend the leather. The small craft we were taking up to twelve thousand five hundred feet wasn’t as smooth a ride as Rhett’s jet. It bounced all over the place and did nothing to assuage my nervousness.
“You alright?” His hand curled warmly about my shoulder and I jumped, turning to face him. I wanted to demand that we return to the ground. Either that or tell him that he was jumping alone. But, somehow, I couldn’t.
Because a part of me wanted to do it.
“I’ll be better once we’re on the ground.”
Rhett chuckled, taking advantage of my stiffness to nip my neck softly. “Only way we’re getting down now is to jump.”
Like he had to remind me.
I took a deep breath to steady myself as the plane climbed higher and higher.
What the hell was I doing. I was supposed to be writing an article, for God’s sake. I didn’t know if I could ever recall anything getting so convoluted, so fast, in my entire life. I was all but shoved into this arrangement with Rhett, then it suddenly became hands on, then I was supposed to be hands on, and now I was halfway across the world about to jump out of a plane.
“Cece, look at me.” Somehow, I managed, even with the plane threatening World War III beneath us. Rhett took my hand, rubbing over the back warmly as my heart jangled against my ribs. “You’re going to love it. I promise I won’t let anything happen to you. I’ll never let anything happen to you.”
I searched his blue gaze for a long time, but all I found there was calm reassurance. There was no way he wasn’t half in panic mode too. No matter how many times you jumped out of a plane I could never imagine something like that being “normal” ...but none of that nervous energy showed on the outside. He contained it...for me.
“I’m fucking terrified,” I finally managed, my grin shaky.
“Of course, you are,” he chuckled. “You’re human.”
The plane reached jump altitude about five minutes later, and I found my legs were so wobbly that Rhett had to help me up. Two technicians onboard strapped us together and made sure that we were secure a moment before we passed through a clutch of clouds and emerged into a startlingly blue stretch of sky.
The view took my breath away.
We were about forty miles from Mount Everest, and the mountain loomed large ahead of us. It took up almost the whole horizon, eventually petering out to rolling hills and valleys below us. Though I’d never been the type to get sentimental over landscapes, this one was worth the one or two cold tears I shed.
And then, we were flying.
Chapter Twelve
~ Rhett
I wasn’t surprised when Cece slept most of the plane trip home. The schedule I’d set for us in Nepal was pretty vigorous, and I never imagined that she’d actually do everything I suggested. But she had.
From riding through freezing temperatures on a motorbike to literally putting her life in my hands and tumbling from twelve thousand feet, Cece had done it all - bravely and boldly.
And she had comforted me in a way I never imagined she would.
I let her sleep. I should have sat up front to try and make a dent in the work I neglected, but, instead, I lay beside her on the bed, my computer untouched in my lap.
She had been absolutely breathtaking after we came down. Her face glowed, her hair was a mess, and she was simultaneously laughing and gasping in elation. During the jump, she hadn’t even screamed. She was probably too surprised - but the most amazing thing was that, during the fall, slowly, the tension had leeched from her body. The wind whistled in our ears as we free fell towards the ground and Cece faced the experience head-on.
She even suggested she might do it again one day.
Though Nepal had always been one of my favorite places to explore, it gained new meaning for me this trip. I was bound and determined to bring Cece back in short order- even if she didn’t know it yet. In fact, I found myself making a plethora of new goals on our flight back to the States.
I wanted Cece in my life. Yes, I travelled for most of the year. I was a busy man running half the world and my life was complicated as hell, but things never seemed so simple as when Cece was by my side.
I had always dreaded opening up to her. I hoped she would always see me as the boy who had just been with her. I didn’t want to be pitied or seem like some sort of charity case. I got what I wanted in life - and while some of the old wounds still hurt, they were just as big a part of me as my success was.
But Cece didn’t linger on the negative. She gave me what I needed, when I needed it.
Christ, just thinking about that night made my stomach tighten in a potent mixture of guilt and arousal. Cece had always been special to me, and when we were together physically, I vowed to make everything about her. It was my inherent duty to make up for all the pleasure idiotic partners had denied her.
But that night in the hotel hadn’t been about her pleasure. Fuck, I’d been blind to everything except how good she felt in my arms - how hot and tight she was around me. I’d treated Cece like I treated women who I knew only wanted one thing...but being with Cece was different.
She didn’t ask for me to fuck her. To scratch her, to kiss her till her lips were swollen and to stay inside her until she went hoarse from screaming. But she gave it all the same. She gave to me and took everything I gave her in return.
When was the last time a woman had done that for me? Physicality was one thing, but Cece had looked the ugly parts of my life in the face without judging me - without reducing me to the sum of so many tragic parts. She had no idea how much I appreciated that.
How much I craved it.
After staring at my laptop for a good two hours without actually writing anything, I finally set it aside to look over at the woman sleeping next to me. Cece probably needed to sleep for a week. She’d had more excitement than many people encountered in a lifetime.
And the longer she slept, the longer I could be near her without wondering when she was going to walk out of my life again. Reaching out, I caught a strand of her dark hair, sifting it between my fingertips. She’d let me wash it for her last night before we checked out of the hotel, and, even wet, it felt like silk.
She had no idea what a remarkable woman she’d grown into. For all that Cece told me she always knew I was destined for great things, I’d been equally sure she was meant for greatness - and here she was. She was braver than any woman I’d ever met - brave enough to call me on my bullshit and accompany me where few others ever dared go. It was enough to reinforce the idea that I should never really have left her.