His fingers tightened on her chin. “Why, Zoey?”
The words fell easily. “Because I feel safe with you.”
His voice turned rough, unhinged. “Why?”
For a year, she’d been caged in. So afraid to speak her truth, but not now. Not with him. “Because I trust you.” She rose and cupped his face, moving closer until there was no space between them. “Because I have never felt like this with anyone, and I don’t want to fight this. I’m sick of fighting the things I feel. Sick of refusing to believe good things can happen. I want you, Rhys. Not the fantasy. I want the man behind the mask.”
His jaw muscles clenched once as she reached back and unlaced his gold mask. She let it fall from her fingers to the ground with a clang. Following her lead, he reached back and removed hers. Then his lips met hers, and this kiss was different. Everything about him was different. Rhys was a man who wore many masks, but he was her favorite without one. He kissed her with a hunger she couldn’t catch up with. He kissed with meaning, with passion. But alongside all that, his kiss bled with pain. Loneliness. Neediness. Vulnerability. And those were things she understood.
Realizing she could give him exactly what he needed too, she quickly caught up with his intensity and kissed him back, climbing up his body until he had her in his arms, and he laid her out on the bed in the middle of the cabin. The bare tip of his cock touched her drenched folds. His kiss turned more urgent, his request loud even though he didn’t say a word. Phoenix rules were clear: all participants had to provide monthly medical records showing negative STI and AIDS tests, plus all women were required to be on birth control. She trusted him, and in those tests, as she shifted her hips, taking him inside her. His rough groan brushed against her ear, and she shuddered with the same euphoria.
He rocked into her slowly, intimately, his eyes holding hers with every thrust. She explored his body with her hands, feeling all the muscles and grooves that made up this man. Soon, she felt joined, not only physically but emotionally, every shift of his hips bringing them further together. Until she became lost in him, safe to let go and fall into the place he brought them. They might not make sense on paper, but their souls knew each other, somehow understood each other. She arched her back into the pleasure, her toes clenching as she climbed higher and higher, absolutely nothing between them now but this magical, unexplainable connection.
His thrusts grew faster, harder, until they moved together in a perfect rhythm. The musky scent of their sex swept through the air alongside Rhys’ woodsy aroma until it all became too much. Too impossible to hold onto. And when he came in a wild rush of deep groans and hard thrusts, he took her over the edge with him.
That’s where she stayed, in his arms, in his safety for many, many minutes.
When she finally returned to her body and reopened her eyes, she discovered him staring at her with a sweetness she’d never seen from him before. Nothing was between them anymore. Nothing had ever felt so real before. He saw her, all her faults included, and she saw him. The man behind the mask.
Gaze locked on her, he said roughly, “You said you wanted me.”
She nodded slowly, cupping his smooth face. “I did. I do.”
He shut his eyes for a moment and breathed in deeply before looking at her again. “There has been no one for a long time. No one I have let in since I lost someone dear to me.” Her heart broke, knowing he spoke of his late girlfriend, Katherine, and realizing for the first time that she wasn’t the only one with some serious hang-ups. He leaned into her touch and added, “For you, Zoey, there is no pain I wouldn’t endure for more time with you.”
Every spike in her heart, every lock on it, exploded. “Rhys,” she whispered, beginning to wonder what this meant for them now. “I—”
His kiss promptly cut her off, ending a conversation she knew neither of them was ready for.
Chapter 11
The following morning, Rhys was riding a high. The sun was shining brightly outside his office window on Phoenix’s main floor. The sky was as clear as the eye could see. Last night had made him…happy. A feeling he had not felt in a long time. He hadn’t touched a woman on such an intimate level since Katherine, and he’d crossed that line with Zoey last night. It made him remember how good it felt, having a woman at his side. It opened something warm, a closed-off space in his heart. The part of him that had once wanted a wife, a family, and he could see him having those things with Zoey. Going to bed with her every night, waking up next to her in the morning, sharing adventures together. As he continued to stare out the window, he couldn’t ignore the truth anymore. He’d crossed the emotional line.
Damn.
“Is this a bad time?”
Rhys blinked and swiveled in his chair away from the window, aware he wasn’t alone in his office. Archer stood in the doorway. Rhys waved him in. “Not a bad time at all. What’s up?”
Tension creased the corners of Archer’s eyes. When he fully entered the office, Rhys understood why. Behind him, Hilary Du Pont, a Phoenix member, made her way through the door. She was the daughter of Gregory Du Pont, the CEO of one of the top tech companies in New York City, and Rhys quickly put two and two together. “Good morning, Hilary.”
“Hey,” she said in a small voice Rhys had never heard from her before.
Archer gestured to the client chair. After she sat, she bowed her head to her wringing hands. Archer gave Rhys a knowing look and a nod as he took the seat next to her. “Hilary has something she’d like to tell you.”
She had yet to look up, so Rhys said as gently as he could, “Hilary, I hope you know you’re safe here. Anything you say now will not leave this room.”
“I know I’m safe here,” she finally said. “It’s just really hard for me to say this aloud.” She drew in a long, deep breath then looked at Rhys, tears in her eyes. “Jake Grant assaulted me.”
Rhys had to control his temper at the brokenness in Hilary’s gaze. “When did this happen?”
“Six months ago, at a party,” she explained with a shaky voice. “I only had one drink there, but obviously, it was drugged. I woke up in his bed the next day, and he acted like nothing was wrong. I don’t remember what happened between us, but I was sore in intimate areas that morning, so something happened.”
Sickness roiled through Rhys’ gut. He had to keep his feet planted on the ground to ensure he didn’t do something stupid and go to Jake’s house. The last thing Zoey and Hilary needed were reporters or the police digging into the reason Rhys attacked Jake. “Did you report the incident?” he asked.
A tear slid down her pale cheek. “I told my mother the morning it happened. She took me to the hospital, but my father talked me out of the rape kit.”
Rhys restrained his curses, stretching out his fingers atop his desk not to tighten them into fists. Hilary’s shoulders curled, and at that, Rhys rose and moved to the fridge. He offered her a bottle of water. “I’m sorry your father failed you.”