It seems unfair of me to think he’d be anything short of a gentleman. Small-town cowboy, rough around the edges, with a womanizing reputation, and he treats me better than any man ever has. Than any person has.
I sigh sleepily when he wraps the towel around my shoulders. But he doesn’t leave it at that. He gently dries me. My hair, my neck, my back. He kneels beside me and dries my legs with so much care. I think he dries me better than I usually dry myself.
But he does place a gentle nip on the cheek of my ass before he stands back up, a boyish grin on his face and a devilish glint in his eye. “Go lie down.” He points at the bed, and where I’d usually give him lip, I just go.
Because I want to. Because I don’t have to fight him anymore. Because I don’t want to fight him anymore.
When I get to the bed, I flop face down, feeling like I could fall asleep in place, on top of the bed, wrapped in a towel. I let my eyes shut, but after a few beats, they flutter open.
The towel is pulled off me. I hear the squeeze of lotion and the rasp of Rhett’s palms rubbing together.
Those warm, calloused hands slide up over my bare back, and I moan because it feels good, but mostly because I can’t get enough of Rhett touching me the way he does.
“I feel like I should be the one massaging you.”
“I feel like you’re wrong,” he husks. And I melt into the bed, soaking up this side of him I didn’t even know existed. Sweet, and tender, and swoony.
Somehow, the fact he looks so rough and tumble makes the swoon more intense. He doesn’t look like a soft man, one to pull out pretty words or take you on lavish dates.
He is nothing like any man I’ve been with.
And that’s a blessing.
“I love your freckles,” he murmurs from behind me, the pad of his finger tracing lines across the expanse of my back. “They remind me of all the constellations. Like I could draw lines between them, and pictures would appear.”
It’s such an oddly worshipful thing to say. I wiggle my toes, hum softly, and tip my cheek against the bed to gaze back at him.
“Right here, there are two so close together they almost look like one.”
“Like binary stars,” I murmur.
“What are binary stars?” His finger tenderly swipes across the spot he’s talking about.
“It’s two stars that look like one to us when we see them in the sky. But really, they’re two. Stuck together by a gravitational pull, always orbiting one another.”
“Kind of like the two of us, stuck together,” he muses.
It’s that thought of us stuck together tumbling through my fading consciousness that leads into the sound of my phone buzzing on the bedside table.
Which leads to Rhett taking his hands off me.
Which leads to my stomach dropping, because what Rhett says next is, “It says Rob calling.”
I push up on my elbows and look over my shoulder at Rhett.
“Why is he calling you?”
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. However, if I had to guess, it would be something to do with Rhett winking at me before and after his ride tonight. Tonight’s event was broadcast, which means it’s feasible that someone would have seen that. That someone being Rob, who used to give me tummy flutters when he called. But right now, regarding the lit screen of my phone in Rhett’s hand, all I feel is dread.
“I don’t want to talk to him,” I say, flipping over and sitting up, pulling my towel back around myself. It opens up a jar of worms I’m not ready to show Rhett yet. I need to figure out where this is going before I go down that path and expose everything.
Rhett pushes the phone at me, his face hard and unreadable. “Answer it.”
I quirk a brow at him, wondering if he can truly handle this. Based on the way he flew off the handle over Emmett, my guess is no. But I’m not in the mood to argue, so I push myself up to the top of the bed to lean against the headboard and take the phone from Rhett’s hand. Without looking him in the eye, I swipe the screen to answer. “Hello?”
Rhett flops down on the bed beside me.
“Summer?” Rob asks, his voice polished and smooth. It doesn’t make my hair stand on end at all. It doesn’t sound rough and sexy, like tires crunching on gravel.
“Yeah.” Obviously. Who the hell else would it be? “What’s up? Is something wrong?”
“Why does something always have to be wrong for me to call you?”
My face pinches and my eyes roll. A year ago, that might have sounded sweet to me, now it just sounds stupid.
“You shouldn’t be calling me at all.”
Rhett’s head turns in my direction, and I feel his gaze on me like a touch.
“I know,” Rob says. Though I barely hear him over the rush of awareness Rhett’s spurring on in me.
“Okay, so—” I stifle a squeal as Rhett suddenly reaches over and lifts me on top of him. My towel falls away, and I’m straddling Rhett Eaton, buck naked, his hands gripping my hips while he looks over my body like it might be his next snack.
“Sorry,” I breathe, trying to not sound as shocked as I feel. “I, uh, dropped my phone.” Rhett quirks a brow and then holds one finger up over his lips in the universal sign for shh.
I’m momentarily confused.
And then his hands push up on my hips, right as he pushes himself down the bed, lining his face up with my . . .
“Oh, God,” I murmur, staring down into Rhett’s honeyed irises. All trouble and promise. I widen my eyes at him, as if to say, Are you fucking kidding me right now?
But Rhett’s mouth twists in a devilish smile.
“Everything okay?” Rob asks, which is right when Rhett’s hands take hold of my hips, as though they’re handles, and pulls my pussy down onto his stubbled face.
I suck in a breath and let my eyes go wide in their sockets as Rhett spears me with his tongue. I can’t look away. “Yeah, yeah. Sorry, just, uh, clumsy.”
I think Rob laughs, but I’m not really listening. I’m too busy watching the bad boy between my legs do something very, very bad.
“Where are you right now?”
My brain stutters as Rhett sucks at my core. “In my hotel room.” It’s not my room, it’s Rhett’s. But I feel like I belong here, and based on the look in Rhett’s eye, he likes the sound of it too.
“So, listen, I wanted to talk to you. Just check on you,” Rob prattles on awkwardly, and it should be awkward for him, even if he doesn’t know what’s going on right now.
“Hm,” I hum and let my eyes shutter when Rhett drags the pointed tip of his tongue over my clit.
“I saw you at the hospital the other day. With that bull rider.”
“Rhett,” I try to say his name, but it truly sounds like more of a moan. His strong hands grip my ass as he grinds me down onto his face.
“Yeah. Whatever.” Rob sounds vaguely annoyed by the mention of his name, which kind of pisses me off. So, I swivel my hips onto Rhett’s face, getting off on the way he groans happily when I do.
Fuck Rob for never doing this for me. He had no issue with me taking him in my mouth, and I’m not sure why I never saw the inequity in that. But I see it loud and fucking clear now.
“You need to be careful with men like that.”
My body coils, that line up my inner thigh pulling tight as Rhett’s hands trace my torso with so much desire. I could just melt onto him and stay here forever.
“Men like what, Rob?” I bite out, my voice thick. I raise off Rhett’s face, suddenly worried I might suffocate him, but when I stare down, all I see is victory in his eyes and my wetness shining on his beard as he licks at his lips.
It’s lewd.
And I love it. So, I sit back down, tangling a hand in Rhett’s hair and tugging at the roots.
“You know, Summer. Not like us.” Has he always been such a pretentious prick? “Uneducated. Unruly. Just a different breed.”
A protective streak lurches up in me. Rob thinks he can treat me the way he has and then insult Rhett? Continue to make it impossible for me to carry on with my life?
Fuck him.
“You know what he is, Rob?” I’m panting now, and I’m not entirely sure how he hasn’t figured out that I’m not just sitting politely in my hotel room alone.
Guess you can be a doctor and still be stupid.
Rhett’s tongue and lips work furiously between my legs, and he has me barreling toward release. And I’m not even resisting. I’m chasing it now.
“He’s the breed that’s man enough to eat pussy.”
“Excuse me?” Rob sputters on the other end of the line, but it’s Rhett’s wide eyes I’m looking down into as I ride his face. And when his teeth graze my clit, I explode.
“Ahh! Rhett!” I click the side of the phone to hang up as I toss it and collapse forward on to the bed, bowled over by what feels like a tidal wave of scalding hot water covering me. My body trembles and shakes. I fall apart and love every second of my undoing.
All I can hear is the two of us panting for a few beats until Rhett breaks the silence.