I crave this. Crave his punishment. If I’m the witch he’s put on trial, he’s the fire set underneath me. And I’m happy to burn.
I cry out when the orgasm overtakes me. It’s as brutal and unforgiving as his thrusts. And all I can do is gasp and hold on to him as it does what it wants with me.
He shoves his face into my neck, his hips hammering between my thighs. Until suddenly his entire body goes rigid and he buries himself deep.
The anger seems to fade out of him. And then it’s just the two of us, exhaling fast as we try to recover our breath.
He’s way fitter than me, but I get to the part where I can speak again faster than he does.
“So you’re just going to stay mad at me forever?” I ask. My voice is half-wry and half-tired.
He rolls off of me. Lies there, still breathing hard. But not hard due to physical exertion I suspect. He’d always been a little commanding in bed. But he’d never been this rough. I think he surprised himself even more than he did me.
“My revenge is my revenge and I don’t really care how unhinged it makes me appear. I won’t apologize. For anything,” he says, his voice firm and resolute. But then he pulls me close, and says, “However, I am trying…I’m trying to figure out how to simply forgive you and let go of this.”
I think about his words. Think about the emotions swirling in my chest. The ones that make me feel weak like I’m on the brink of heart failure when I give them too much attention.
Then I put on my easiest breeziest tone to say, “Okay…I hope you figure it out. But if you don’t, I guess that’s okay too. It’s nice keeping company with another adult who was born in the 20th century. And messed up as it is, I gotta say that punishment sex is off the chain.”
He makes a sound between a laugh and a grunt.
Then he gives me a surprisingly tender kiss on the forehead.
Chapter Sixteen
“Rhys!” I yell from inside the house a couple days later. “Could you come out here?”
“What is it?” he calls back from outside. He’s been working outside at the picnic table since, like Day 3 of our quarantine. Apparently being inside with me is too much of a distraction from whatever work he’s doing on his laptop. And going somewhere, anywhere gives him a sense of normalcy.
“I’ll tell you when you come in.”
“Could you tell me now. I’m in the middle of something important and unless it’s an emergency—”
“Okay, it’s an emergency,” I yell back. “It’s a total emergency. Like, a matter of life or death.”
Several beats. Then: “I don’t believe you’re telling the truth.”
“I guess there’s only one way to find out.”
More beats of silence. And I wonder if I’ll have to go out there and physically pull him inside.
But then he suddenly comes crashing through the door. “I swear to Christ, Cynda, if this is your idea of a joke—”
He stops short when he sees me on the couch…sitting in front of a TV filled with computer-animated men in cricket uniforms.
He looks from me to the TV. “Is that…is that Cricket 19?”
“Sure is,” I answer, holding out one of the game controllers. “It took me half the morning to set this up even with A giving me step-by-step directions over the phone. Happy Birthday, Dr. Prince. You ready to play this life or death cricket game with me?”
There’s not even a beat of hesitation this time. Rhys practically leaps on to the couch, and we spend the rest of the afternoon playing video game cricket.
It’s more fun than I’m expecting it to be, especially considering how steep my learning curve is. Rhys wallops me at most of the games, but by the time my usual cooking hour rolls around, I think I’ve got the rules of the game figured out.
At least enough to talk trash over the special fish and chips I make him for dinner.
“Give me til the end of this mini-quarantine. I bet I’ll beat you! You’ll be on the phone crying about how an American totally kicked your ass.”
He laughs. “I highly doubt that. But I look forward to you trying. I haven’t allowed myself a whole afternoon of gaming since I was in boarding school. Thank you, Cynda. It was delightful. And these fish and chips are delicious.”
“You like them?” I ask, weirdly pleased. “The recipe promised this was super authentic to England. But I wasn’t sure I got it right….”
“These are honestly the best fish and chips I’ve ever had.”
“Not better than your mom’s though, right?” I remember Rhys telling me once that his mother was a fantastic cook and that she used to make him a special meal whenever he came home from boarding school.