Page 77 of Rhodes

"You sure?” I ask.

"Don't break it with ridiculous questions," she pants. "Rhodes. Move."

So I do. I lose the last of it there, the control, the weeks, the wall, all of it gone in the dark with her under me and around me. She meets every stroke, hands and mouth and that filthy broken sound, telling me harder, telling me there, telling me not to stop.

I get maybe a dozen strokes into it before I understand I’m not going to be the one who lasts here. Every week of holding this thing down takes me apart in under a minute, and I go with my mouth open on her shoulder and her name coming out of me like a pathetic virgin.

She laughs at me, breathless and delighted, with her hand flat on my chest. I’ve never once in my life been happier to be laughed at.

"Don't get smug," I tell her, and I get my hand back between her legs before she can answer. "I'm nowhere near done with you."

She stops laughing, tilting her head back, and I lick her throat while she comes on my fingers.

TWENTY

Tilly

Concealed Work: Some of the finest craftsmanship in an old New Orleans house sits where no one was ever meant to look: the back of a mantel, the underside of a stair, the inside face of a shutter. The man doing it knew that. He did it anyway.

I surface from sleep the way I usually do when the bed's too soft and the light's coming from the wrong side. This is how it goes when I'm not quite ready to wake, but the world is pulling me out anyway.

For three seconds I don't know where I am. I stare at a foreign white ceiling, notice the warm air, and a sheet that isn't mine.

Then it all catches up.

Rhodes is beside me, on his stomach, one arm thrown over the pillow. His face is turned toward me. My dress is in a dark puddle on the floor next to his shirt. My black thong is somewhere I can't see.

I slept with Rhodes.

Oh, my God. I had sex with Rhodes, and then I didn't go back to my villa, where Libba's probably awake already and wondering.

A pang of fear rushes through me, but as I lie still and wait for the regret to hit, it doesn't. It would make sense. We shook hands on this exact thing not being a thing. He's Coop's best friend, and this could never be a thing we do out in the open.

Right?

The whole family's scattered across this property in their own villas, and not one of them is far enough away to pretend this one away.

I can't blame him because I was the one who leaned in on that bench. I initiated this, even if I could read all over his face all weekend that he was thinking it, too. I wanted it, and lying here I still don't want to hand it back.

His face is doing nothing, slack, the delicious stubble coming in dark on his jaw. I've known this face my whole life. I've seen it laughing at Coop, and I've seen it go serious in a way that makes me want to throw things. I've never seen it three inches away from my face on a pillow.

His eyes open slowly, catching me staring, and I don't try to look away or act like I wasn't. Blinking away the sleep, those long, dark lashes splayed on his cheek every time his eyes close, he smiles gently.

"Hey," he says, his voice rough and extra sexy.

"Hey."

"You snored again."

"I did not snore."

"You do this little wheeze thing right at the end of your exhale. It's adorable." He rolls onto his side to face his entire body toward me.

"Were you watching me, or something? That's creepy."

"As a matter of fact, I was. I couldn't help myself. You're beautiful when you sleep."

I nudge his shoulder. "Am I a troll when I'm awake?"