Chap­ter 16: Brid­get

WAS IT POSSIBLE TO DIE OF HUMILIATION?

Forty-eight hours ago, I would’ve said no, but as I ate break­fast across the table from Rhys, I found myself firm­ly in the yes camp. I would either explode from how red my face was or melt into a pud­dle of mor­ti­fi­ca­tion, whichev­er came first.

“More bacon?” He pushed the plate in my direc­tion.

I shook my head, unable to meet his eye.

I woke up that morn­ing with a pound­ing headache, throb­bing heat between my legs, and a hor­rif­i­cal­ly clear mem­o­ry of the things I’d done—and said—last night.

Fuck me the way you just promised.

Four, have an orgasm I didn’t give myself. It’s been a while.

I choked on my toast and broke into a cough­ing fit.

Rhys’s eye­brows rose. “You okay?” He’d been cool and calm all morn­ing, like noth­ing had hap­pened, and I wasn’t sure whether I was relieved or offend­ed.

“Yes,” I gasped. I grabbed my water and downed half of it until the coughs sub­sided.

“You should eat more carbs,” he said mild­ly. “Might help with the hang­over.”

“How do you know I have a hang­over?”

“You had five shots last night, all con­tain­ing dif­fer­ent liquors. It’s a safe guess.”

His acknowl­edg­ment that any part of last night hap­pened only inten­si­fied my embar­rass­ment. I wished I could wipe all the events post-Bor­gia from both our minds.

Since I couldn’t, I was tempt­ed to play it off and pre­tend I didn’t remem­ber what hap­pened, but I did remem­ber, and if I didn’t address it, it would haunt me for­ev­er.

“Lis­ten. About last night…” I forced myself to look at Rhys. “I was drunk and not think­ing clear­ly, and I said some things I shouldn’t have said. I’m sor­ry if it made you uncom­fort­able.”

Some­thing akin to dis­ap­point­ment flick­ered across Rhys’s face before it dis­ap­peared. “So did I,” he said. “Call it even.”

I don’t want to kiss or make love to you. I want to fuck you. I want to pun­ish you for mouthing off and let­ting anoth­er man put his hands on you. I want to yank up that tiny fuck­ing dress of yours and pound into you so hard you won’t be able to walk for days.

A bead of sweat popped out on my brow. I shift­ed on my stool, try­ing to ease the throb­bing in my clit, but it only made things worse.

I shouldn’t have said the things I’d said, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t meant them. When Rhys had me bent over the dress­er with his cock pressed against me…

I gulped down the rest of my water to ease the heat flam­ing across my skin.

“In that case, the best path for­ward is to pre­tend last night didn’t hap­pen and nev­er speak of it again.”

I real­ly need­ed more water. And air con­di­tion­ing. And pos­si­bly an ice bath.

“Fine by me.” Rhys leaned against the counter and rest­ed one hand on the coun­ter­top while sip­ping cof­fee from the mug in his oth­er hand. It was a casu­al, every­day move­ment that had no busi­ness being as hot as it was. “Except for one thing.”

Oh, God. “And that would be…?”

“Your buck­et list.” Those gun­metal eyes drilled into me. “You real­ly want to do all those things before going back to Eldor­ra?”

Not what I’d expect­ed him to say.

I breathed a sigh of relief before I remem­bered buck­et list num­ber four and blushed all over again. “Yes, but most of it prob­a­bly isn’t pos­si­ble.”

It was more a fan­ta­sy list than a buck­et list. I knew that when I came up with the items, but a girl could hope.

“What if I told you they were?” Rhys placed his mug in the sink before turn­ing to face me again.