Page 92 of Most Eligible
Slowly, he walks me backward until the backs of my knees brush the bed. He reaches over and pushes the pillows to the floor with a sweep of his arm, then guides me onto my back. He shuts off the light and grabs a condom from the bowl on the shelf. “It’s just a regular one, is that okay?”
“They don’t have a cowboy special?”
Laughing, he climbs over me, one leg between mine, hands framing my face. He drops a kiss on my nose, my jaw, then whispers in my ear, “You said your favorite was missionary, right?”
I press my face to his neck, laughing weakly. “I was hoping everyone would forget about that.”
“Not a chance,” he says, leaning back slightly to put on the condom. “But I can’t argue with you—it’s a classic after all.”
His grin stretches across his face and makes my chest heat. “A classic,” I repeat.
“A classic,” he says. “Something you can’t get enough of. Kind of like you.”
He drops his mouth to mine and skates his tongue across my bottom lip as he reaches down to guide himself into me. I wrap my legs around his back, digging my fingers into his skin to pull him as close as possible.
Rhett fucks the way he sings. Slow, commanding, and devastatingly good. It’s mesmerizing, like moving through a soundscape with my eyes closed.
He pushes deeper, slow at first, then picking up speed. The cottage is quiet except for our breath, the slap of my palm on his back, the giddy scrape of his stubble on my neck.
“I think my favorite is just—with you,” I gasp.
Rhett shudders and presses into me one last time before he goes still. He pulls back, forehead shining with sweat, and even in the dark I can see the beautiful, earnest expression in his green eyes.
“Remember back in LA,” he breathes, “when I said I didn’t want it like that?”
I nod, still gasping for air, and train my eyes on his face. His words come back to me like a kick to the stomach.No… Not like that.
He bows his head and rests it on my sweaty chest. His whole body shakes with a long, gasping breath before he speaks.
“I meant like this.”
He falls asleep curled against my back between the petal-soft sheets. I listen to the ocean rushing outside, and as I close my eyes, I pretend I’m back in my apartment with him. His eyes were ringed with purple from exhaustion, and I lay awake forhours listening to him breathe. When I finally drifted off to sleep, I thought when I woke up, he’d still be there. Maybe he’d make me coffee and we’d chat over pancakes. Maybe he’d come with me to the animal shelter to help me find another cat. That would be a cute official first date, right? At least until I realized that as a celebrity, he probably wasn’t into elder cat care or making women coffee.
As it was, I woke up and he was gone, like I should have known he would be. I made myself coffee and snapped his records in two. Then I drove to the animal shelter and adopted the toothless Ringo, who died six months later.
Rhett snores lightly, and I press into him, his warmth wrapping around me like a handmade quilt.
In sleep, his fingers reach toward me, and I cover his hand with my own. I bring the pad of my pinky finger to his and press them gently together.
This isn’t like last time. This time, somehow, I’ll get to keep him.
Inside sources reveal that last year, “Six Packs and Six Strings” singer Rhett Auburn was arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct. And really, is there anything more poetic than cowboy karma?
—“Rhett Auburn’s Past: Revealed,”TMZ, today
Chapter Thirty-One
I wake up to early morning sunlight seeping through the windows. Even through the gauzy curtains, the sea is bright enough to match the smile on my face.
But when I turn over, my lips go slack.
Rhett isn’t next to me. His spot on the bed is still indented, still warm from his body heat, but he’s not there. I sit up, frantic, and search the little cottage, but he’s not hiding behind the couch, not in the tiny bathroom, not outside taking a shower.
The initial hollow feeling at his absence, the wondering if I’d imagined everything, feels sickeningly similar to that morning last year. But it can’t be, right? There must be some explanation, some reason he’d leave before I woke up.
This can’t be like last time. It can’t.
I search for my clothes and pull on my shirt, but stop cold at the sight of my palazzo pants. Lying on top, glistening in the morning sun, is the new burner phone from Serena. On the tiny front screen, there’s a short message from her.
