Rend (Riven 2)

After a moment I had to look away from those sharp blue eyes. The air between us bubbled with promise, and my thighs clenched in anticipation. I downed my drink and shoved my hands in my coat pockets, ready to move on to what we both clearly wanted.

I shot him a glance under my lashes that said I was ready to leave whenever he was.

“Which is better, do you think: breakfast for dinner or dinner for breakfast?” he mused, taking a slow sip of his beer, elbows on the bar. He was the picture of casual confidence.

“Uh. What?”

He leaned in and tapped my book with a thick finger. “Breakfast for dinner or dinner for breakfast?”

What the hell kind of bizarrely normal question was that to ask a stranger you were picking up in a bar?

“Are you a Boy Scout leader or something?” I asked.

His eyes got wide and sincere.

“Well, I was a Boy Scout. ‘Be prepared.’” He winked. “So?”

I sighed. I didn’t have the energy for a Boy Scout role-play at the moment, so I hoped this was just idle conversation.

“Honestly, I could eat mac and cheese for any meal, and I don’t really care,” I said. My exhaustion was back full force. “Why do you ask?”

“I just feel like all breakfast foods are good at dinner, but only very specific dinner foods work for breakfast,” he mused. “Like pizza? Great breakfast food. Grilled cheese, spaghetti—okay. Even pad thai, maybe. But fish? Pea soup? Meatloaf? I don’t think I could face those first thing in the morning, you know? But in lots of places fish for breakfast is totally normal.” He shrugged. “Culture, man. It controls us.”

There was a moment of silence in which I forced myself to realize that this hot guy who’d bought me a drink was just . . . chatting with me.

Memories of years of dry meatloaf clotted with ketchup and served next to a limp pile of mushy green beans on Tuesday evenings made my stomach roil.

“I hate meatloaf,” I said.

“Yeah. Pretty sure the word loaf isn’t great when applied to anything but bread.”

“Amen.”

This time the silence was comfortable, and a strange thought dropped into my head unbidden. The thought of waking up next to this man and eating cold pizza for breakfast together, his blond hair mussed and his sleepy blue eyes on me. I shook my head to dismiss it. I never stayed for breakfast.

“Rhys,” he was saying, and I zoned back in to his outstretched hand.

“Huh? Oh, I’m Matt.”

His hand enveloped mine, big and warm and callused, and for just a moment his touch cut through everything.

“Want to go somewhere with me, Matt?” Rhys asked, still holding on to my hand. There it was.

“Your place?” I nodded and stood up.

He smiled and shook his head. I shrugged. Whatever. A motel room was fine with me, as long as he was paying.

Rhys leaned over the bar. “Later, Huey,” he said to the bartender, who was huge and bald, with intense, unsmiling eyes. “I’ll check back in with you.” The bartender just nodded, a barely there dip of his chin and shift of muscular shoulders, eyes moving to me for a second, and then away.

When he unfolded from the bar and shrugged on his coat, I realized how big Rhys really was—tall and broad and thick with muscle, all held with the posture of a lazy prince. He guided me out the door with his hand a heated brand on my shoulder, and I shivered at the thought of what he could do with all that power.

We walked in silence for a few blocks, and I snuck glances at him out of the corner of my eye. I was hunched in my coat against the December night, but he strode along like even the cold had no power over him. I couldn’t wait to feel his hands on my skin, couldn’t wait for that muscular body to drive everything else from my mind.

I didn’t want to think about how I had no one who cared if I lived or died. No one to talk to even, since Grin had left town. Didn’t want to think about how I was scared every day that I wasn’t doing enough, that I didn’t know what I should do. I didn’t want to think about how things were better than they’d been a few months ago, but likely as good as they were ever going to get.

Yeah, I couldn’t wait to have all of that fear and uncertainty and cringing exhaustion pushed out of my head as this man pushed inside me. I hoped he’d hold me down, his powerful arms—

I tripped into Rhys as he stopped to open the door. But it wasn’t the door of a hotel or an apartment building; it wasn’t even a seedy club.