He says this so matter-of-fact. He taps his phone several times and then holds it out to me.
At first I think I’m watching amateur porn. Then I realize it’s Mitchell, having sex.
Not with me. With a blonde woman I recognize from all those tedious lawyer gatherings. Kelly, his boss’s wife. The video goes on and on and cuts from one scene to the next like a perverted mix tape. The light keeps changing outside the window as do the clothes discarded on the floor.
This wasn’t a one-time thing.
Rhys takes the phone back from me. “It’s better that you know.”
I try to fathom a way that Rhys could have faked those recordings, but that was Mitchell’s face and body. Mitchell’s bed. Mitchell’s voice. We never had sex like that. Deep down, didn’t I know that it was weird that my boyfriend didn’t want me to live with him after I’d moved all this way to be with him?
Rhys switches to another video and shows me the date stamp. It’s a live feed, and I can hear gentle snoring. Mitchell’s snoring.
“He doesn’t even know you’re gone. You called him to say you’d had another threatening letter and he just went to sleep.”
I grab the sheet and pull it over myself, tears filling my eyes. “How can you be so cruel?”
“You need me to be the bad guy for a bit longer? I can be your bad guy.” Rhys rips the sheet off me and pushes me onto my back.
“You are the bad guy! You’re insane. I hate you. I hate everything you—”
He spreads my legs open with his thighs and pushes two fingers into my still-wet pussy.
“You hate me, baby? You hate me?” Rhys’ expression is fierce as he slams his fingers into me. “You know who’s never loved anyone else but you? Me. You know who’s never stopped thinking about you for one fucking second of his entire life? Me.”
“I hate you.”
As I start to come, he clamps his hand around my throat, still fucking me with his fingers. I reach up to clutch his wrist and hold on for dear life. He’s putting so much pressure on my throat that all the blood is rushing to my head, but instead of pushing him away, I add to his weight, craving the blinding ecstasy of a Rhys-inflicted orgasm.
For a second, he releases me, and I take several gulping breaths.
“You’re not done,” he snarls, and he clamps his hand around my throat again. His fingers curl around my g-spot and he rubs it mercilessly until I’m coming again, body arched up off the bed, no breath in my lungs, but flying so high that I can only feel Rhys, think of Rhys, crave Rhys.
He releases me and braces both hands either side of my head. “I had to do this. You would have laughed in my face if I’d asked you on a date. You never thought I was serious about you. You thought I was ugly, you thought I was nothing, so you dated trash instead. You have terrible taste in men, Alaina.”
“I thought my stalker at least would think I’m perfect,” I shoot back.
“I don’t need you to be perfect. I just need you to be my woman.”
My heart sputters into life at the way he speaks. Am I so needy for love that I crave it from a man who’s completely insane? “You’ve had your way with me. Now leave me alone.”
I get up to leave the bed, but he grabs me and pulls me back down.
“I’m not letting you go anywhere. I didn’t set this up to be a one-time thing. I laid a trap for you, and while you sprang it a little early, that changes nothing. You’re mine.”
He wraps his body around me so we’re both laying on our sides on the bed, and he pulls the covers over us. It’s pitch black around the curtains still; morning is still hours away.
“Sleep, baby. You need your rest after everything you’ve been through.” Rhys’ voice rumbles in my ear. His breathing slows and steadies while I lay there with my eyes wide open, hyperconscious of his huge body against mine.
“I didn’t like scaring you, but it was the only way.” He runs his fingers through my hair. “The way you always needed me is real. Your desire for me is real. Those orgasms you had are real. We’ll start over now and forget the past few months. We’ll go back to how it always used to be, just Rhys and Alaina.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. Rhys and Alaina. My heart longs for the time it was just the two of us. He always knew how to make me feel so safe and cherished, even as the world was burning around me.
Rhys holds me like a lover in his arms. An hour goes by and his breathing has deepened enough to risk moving.
The pounding of my heart is loud in my ears as I ease myself out of his grip and off the bed. I watch him sleeping, this bear of a man with blue ink across his chest.
This can never happen again.
I scoop up my clothes and carefully extract the car keys—the real keys, I hope—from Rhys’ pants, and slip out the bedroom door into the living room.
I don’t bother putting anything on except for my underwear and T-shirt, and then I run out to the car carrying everything else. It unlocks and I slide into the driver’s seat. The gates grind open. I stare into the rearview mirror, nearly hyperventilating, expecting at any second for Rhys to come running out. As soon as the gate is open wide enough, I step on the accelerator and race down the road in a shower of gravel.
Only when I’m several miles from the cabin and in sight of a major road, do I pull over and put the rest of my clothes and shoes on.
I did it.
