Lessons in Letting Go (Study Abroad Book 3) Page 20

  “Fine,” I grind out. “How many bottles should I bring?”

  Chapter 23

  Rhys

  Later that night

  Olivier’s flat is packed with the usuals: the lads, our managers, WAGs. A few Spanish celebrities are sprinkled in, and rumor has it Olivier’s favorite pop star is on her way from London in his private jet. I’d be jealous if I didn’t have Laura here with me. Screw the singers and the supermodels. I have Laura, and I am hands down the luckiest man in this room.

  I sip on a glass of the champagne I brought—gah, the stuff is sweet, why did I ever pretend to like it?—my eyes glued to Laura across the flat. She’s standing in a little circle with her friends, all of them smiling, drinking. She looks fucking amazing, relaxed and happy and a little tipsy.

  God, this girl. She turns her head, just a little, and meets my eyes. One side of her pretty mouth curves into a grin.

  I can’t breathe. I love seeing her so happy, so joyfully in her element even when she’s surrounded by all the ridiculous people who inhabit my world. You are so lovely, I want to tell her. You mean everything to me.

  I give the crotch of my slacks a discreet tug. I have got to eat that cunt, stat, or I am literally going to explode. Best get the introductions over with so I can find a room with a lock on the door where Laura and I can take care of business.

  Beside me, Fred nervously leans back on his heels. Poor chap. You’d think being a professional footballer—and one of the best in the world at that—would cure him of his terror of the female sex. He doesn’t talk about it much, but from what I understand, he grew up a bit chubby, a bit awkward, and was teased relentlessly because of it. I think he’s still traumatized by it all. Olivier and I also think he’s still a virgin, but neither of us has the stones to ask him outright. No self-respecting twenty-two year old guy wants to be called out for that.

  I clap him on the shoulder. “Ready to go say hello? Laura’s friends are lovely girls.”

  “They are pretty.” Fred takes a deep breath. “Really, really pretty. Forget it. I changed my mind. I can’t go talk to them, not right now.”

  He tries to step away, but I use the hand on his shoulder to steer him back on course. “Listen, mate, if you can’t talk to girls after winning our most epic match yet, there’s something seriously wrong with you. C’mon.”

  I drag Fred across the flat. When we reach the girls, Laura stands on her tip-toes and presses a kiss onto my cheek.

  “Hi,” she says.

  I smile. “Feeling all right?”

  “Yes.” She smiles, too, turning to Fred. “Fred! I’m so glad you came over. The girls have been dying to meet you. This is my friend Vivian, and this is Rachel, she really loves, uh, sports…”

  I watch Laura work our little circle. She’s radiating this friendly, kind, confident energy. I can’t get enough of it. I can’t get enough of her. I reach down, twine my fingers with hers. She moves closer, filling the small space between us with the girly scent of her shampoo. The wash of heat between my legs burns hotter.

  I am going to fucking lose my mind if I don’t have her in the next five minutes.

  Fred and Rachel are talking now—hallelujah!—and Vivian and Maddie have disappeared onto the terrace off the kitchen.

  I don’t waste another second.

  “Come on,” I say, giving her hand a tug.

  “You think Rachel’s okay with him?” she asks, nodding at Fred.

  “Fred may be a bit awkward, but he is a gentleman. They look like they’re hitting it off.”

  “How amazing would that be, the two of them ending up together?” Laura murmurs, eyes still on Fred and Rachel. Fred is blushing, hard; Rachel smiles up at him, eyes twinkling with interest.

  “Not as amazing as the things I’m about to do to you,” I say.

  “Nice line. And by nice, I mean awful.” She giggles as she trips into line behind me.

  “I think it will do the trick.”

  “Where are we going?” she whispers conspiratorially as I cut a path through the crush of people. The crowd thins as we make our way to the back of the flat, where the bedrooms are. It’s much quieter back here.

  I push through the door at far end of the hall—I think this is Olivier’s bedroom—and I move past the bed into the bathroom.

  Yes. Finally.

  I lock the door behind us. Laura marvels at bathroom-slash-rainforest-slash-spa-retreat that we’re standing in. To our right, a thin sheet of water courses down a black marble slab, filling the tall-ceilinged room with the sound of splashing water.

  “I feel like I’m in Scarface,” Laura says.

  “Told you it was ridiculous.”

  “Yeah, but until you see a bathroom waterfall in the flesh…” She shakes her head, turning to me. “Congrats on your win tonight, Rhys. You looked like you were having fun out there.”

  “You looked like you were having fun, too.”

  “I was.” She grins. “How did you find out where I was sitting? I bought those tickets online.”

  I shrug. “I have my ways. Did you like it better than the box?”

  “I did. It was freaking cold, though. And loud. So, so loud, especially when they were cheering for you.” She meets my eyes. “I’m happy for you, Rhys.”

  A beat of heated silence passes between us. There is so much I want to say. So much I have to tell her, and ask her. Where the hell do I start? I’m nervous, suddenly, more nervous than I was a few hours ago, when the lads and I were waiting to come out onto the pitch before the match.

  “Laura,” I say, taking a step closer.

  “Yeah?” She falls back against the vanity, oblivious to my distress, and clutches the edge of the marble countertop.

  I clear my throat, try again. “Laura.” My heart is pounding. My palms are clammy; I’m starting to sweat. Fuck me for life. I’ve got to grow a pair.

  I’ve got to tell her.

  I meet her eyes. “I want you to stay. Laura, I want you to stay with me in Madrid for another semester. I know I’ve asked you before, but this time, it’s different. You’re different. I am, too. I don’t want to keep this—us—casual anymore. You mean so much more to me than that. Laura, I think I’m in lo—”

  “Don’t.” The heat in her eyes has morphed into panic. She turns her head away from me. “Please, Rhys, don’t.”

  Her voice breaks, and in that moment I think my heart will, too.

  “I won’t say it if you tell me you don’t feel it too,” I say. My own voice is shaking now. I slide my hands onto her neck. Her pulse jumps against my palm, skittish and hard. “Tell me you don’t feel for me what you know I feel for you, and I’ll leave you alone. The girl you were trying to be before—the perfect one—I’ll be honest, I didn’t fall for her. But I am falling for you, the real you, love. And isn’t that what you want? To be adored for who you really are?”

  Her face contracts. She starts to cry, her throat working against my hands as she swallows.

  “Fuck.” I catch a few tears with my thumb. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “I’m leaving.” She closes her eyes. “Rhys, in less than two weeks, I’m leaving, and I’m not coming back to Spain. I have all of next semester planned out at Meryton. I’m finally doing so well with my bucket list here, and I put together a whole new one for next semester. I’m taking on a new minor, I got an awesome TA position with this really famous professor…I’ve got a lot I want to do on my own, Rhys. This—the timing—it isn’t going to work. I’m not ready—”

  “You’re doing it again.”

  She opens her eyes. “Doing what?”

  “Trying to be perfect. You’re waiting for the perfect time to fall for the perfect guy when you’re perfectly ready.” I lean in. “The timing sucks for me, too, love. I’m certainly not perfect, and Christ knows if I’ll ever be ready to take on something as big and breakable as this. I’m risking everything, Laura. But you’re fucking delusional if you think I’ll let you go without
a fight.”

  Laura touches her forehead to mine. “Rhys.”

  “I like who I am with you, Laura. I’m spontaneous, I’m fun, I’m happy.”

  “I’m all those things with you, too,” she whispers. “It’s just—just you, us—you’re overwhelming, Rhys. The things I feel for you are completely overwhelming. And I kinda love it, which scares me to death.”

  I press my lips to her mouth. She rises to meet my caress, her body coming alive beneath my hands. The need that floods the space between my skin and bones is sharp, enormous. I pull her to me. She can never be close enough, I can never have enough of her. The more she gives me, the more of her I want.

  I will do anything, anything, to keep Laura in my arms.

  “Tell me what you want.” I trail my mouth down the slope of her jaw. “Ask me for anything, Laura, and you’ll get it, as long as you stay. Please, please stay.”

  Stay forever, I plead silently.

  Laura pulls back. She opens her eyes. They are wet and clear, very green in the soft light, and they burn. They burn right through me. My dick hardens in one, two heartbeats.

  “I want you to fuck me,” she says, gaze flicking over my suit. “Mess up your hair and your fancy clothes. I want it messy, Rhys. I want it to leave a mark.”

  I don’t think. I don’t hesitate. I grab her hair and spin her around so her ass is pressed against my dick and bend her over the vanity.

  We fucked this way once, on the night we met. I thought it was good for her then, but now I know it wasn’t.

  I’m going to make it good for her tonight if it’s the last bloody thing I do.

  Chapter 24

  Laura

  It all happens so quickly I don’t have time to catch my breath. One second I’m in Rhys’s arms, totally vulnerable, totally aroused, and the next I’m bent over Olivier Seydoux’s sink and Rhys is pushing my shirt up my back and grinding his dick against my ass.

  I don’t want to feel the things I do for Rhys, but it’s happening, we’re happening, and I can’t help but feel I’ll regret it if I don’t give us—this, whatever this is—a chance to bloom. He makes me feel. And isn’t that the whole point of my bucket list/self-compassion exercise? To eat and experience and feel? To be totally present in each and every moment, and feel everything, the joy and the hurt?

  Not so long ago, I used to think Rhys and his bougie ways were bad for me. But now that he’s allowed me to see past all that bullshit—now that we’re both digging a little deeper into ourselves, and into each other—I’m starting to think he’s a big part of why I’ve been feeling so great about myself lately. He’s sacrificed his sense of pride to tackle my bucket list with me. He makes me feel important, and wanted. He makes me feel beautiful, despite the fact that I’m not a size two anymore.

  Without Rhys, there’s no way I’d be so far along, and in so short a time, on the way to treating myself better. To feeling better.

  I want to be happy, healthy. Rhys wants to win. It’s unbearably sweet to think we could both get what we’re looking for together.

  Tears, the happy kind, well behind my closed eyes. He almost said the L word. And I was almost tempted to say it back.

  My body throbs. I’m wound tight, confused and bursting with equal parts happiness and angst. I need relief, the kind only Rhys and his rock-hard footballer body can give me.

  He reaches around and cups the crotch of my jeans.

  “Christ,” he grunts, his middle finger sliding along the raised center seam. “You’re already warm. Hot.”

  “I may not be into your cars and your watches and all that stuff,” I pant. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t get all hot and bothered watching you play. When you took your shirt off…”

  His stubble scrapes against the nape of my neck as his lips move into a grin. “I thought you might like that.”

  “Like it?” My breath catches when he thumbs open the button on my jeans. “I almost came on the spot, just like every other red-blooded woman in Spain.”

  He grunts again when he unzips my fly and digs two fingers inside my underwear. I’m soaking wet; I’ve been turned on like this for hours now. So turned on it almost hurts when the pad of his finger grazes my slick center.

  “Rhys,” I say.

  “Naked,” he says. “I need you naked. Now.”

  I glance up at the lights above the vanity. A beat of apprehension moves through me. While the lights themselves are low, there are mirrors everywhere in this ridiculous drug lord fantasy of a bathroom. Rhys will be able to see me from literally every angle.

  But then he’s drawing my sweater over my head and trailing kisses down my naked back and working the fingers of his other hand underneath my bra cup, wiggling them playfully against my nipple. He surrounds me, the warmth from his body seeping into mine. He holds me gently, tightly; he’s struggling to hold back, I can tell by the pained sounds he makes and the quiet desperation of his touch. There is an urgency, a tenderness there I’ve never picked up on before. He touches me adoringly, like I am a real, precious person.

  He touches me like he loves me.

  The apprehension retreats. Warmth and desire and confidence flood through me in its place. I am beautiful, and I am going to look fucking great in those mirrors, just like I did that night in my dorm room.

  I’m holding myself up with my arms, my palms planted on the counter. They start to tremble, I don’t know why, I was feeling so strong two seconds ago, but Rhys is there to catch me, curling an enormous arm around my waist.

  “You all right?” he asks, nipping at the edge of my shoulder. He pays a lot of attention to my shoulders. It’s the one part of my body I’ve always liked. I guess he likes it, too.

  “You’re always asking me that,” I say.

  “I want to know what you’re feeling,” he says. His breath is warm on my skin. “You kept so much of yourself from me before. I want to know you, Laura. All of you.”

  I swallow. Close my eyes.

  And then I toe off my booties and stand up, leaning against Rhys. I start to pull off my jeans. He covers my hands with his, and then he helps me pull them off my feet. The jeans take my socks with them.

  I don’t wait for Rhys to take my bra off. I reach around and unhook it. It lands with a small, metallic ping in the bowl of the sink.

  Behind me, Rhys draws a pained breath.

  “Laura.” He brushes my hair over my shoulder and uses his hands to tilt my head, pressing his lips to my bared neck. “Oh, Laura.”

  I lean forward over the vanity, crying out when my nipples meet with the cold marble. The searing heat between my legs sharpens.

  I hear a small flutter—Rhys taking off his shirt—and then he’s pressing his naked front to my back, skin on skin on skin. I shiver. His mouth is working its way along my jaw. I turn my head and he covers my mouth with his. He drinks me in deeply, kissing me, kissing me, kissing me so well and so hard I feel myself coming apart beneath his ardent caresses.

  Rhys slips a finger beneath the lacy strap of my thong. I press my ass against his crotch, egging him on, asking him to go further. He does. That finger moves lower on my ass, tracing the curve of my butt cheek.

  He hooks his finger around the strap and tugs it aside. My pussy clenches in anticipation. He guides my legs apart, gently, slowly, with his knee, and I bite my lip at the rush of cold air that meets with my swollen sex.

  And then that finger slips between the lips of my pussy from the back, coming to a stop right where he knows I like it.

  Oh my God. He strokes my clit once, just a small, quick circle, and my entire body spasms against his hold on me. He slips his finger a bit further back, and it sinks into my core.

  “You’re close,” Rhys says. His voice is gravelly, strained. “Hold yourself up, love.”

  I lean my weight back onto my palms. What the hell—

  I glance at a mirror across the room and watch as Rhys grasps the backs of my thighs in his hands and spreads them further apart an
d sinks onto his knees. Placing his palm on the small of my back, he presses me down. My arms are shaking again.

  I know what he’s doing. And despite all my bucket list blunder about self-love and acceptance, I still feel incredibly self-conscious about his mouth on my vagina.

  “Rhys,” I pant. “Rhys, wait, please wait—”

  “You smell so fucking lovely.” Rhys presses a kiss onto the very inside of my thigh, gliding his hands down the length of my torso to rest on my hips. “Relax, love. I want to make you come. Let me.”

  I take a deep breath. I try to ignore the impulse that rises up in me whenever this happens with a guy—the impulse to close my legs and pretend I’m not interested and change the focus to him and his orgasm.

  It felt so good last time, coming with Rhys. Letting him make me come.

  I want to come with him again. It could be the last time.

  So I close my eyes and I take another deep breath and I arch my back, curling my ass closer to his face.

  He noses the lips of my pussy apart, gliding up my slit as he inhales. I feel like I’m going to faint.

  “You’re delicious,” he murmurs. “So. Bloody. Delicious.”

  He presses the flat of his tongue to my clit. Sensation bolts through me. He licks, strokes, taking his time, taking all the time in the world.

  My nipples prickle to renewed life against the cold marble, a searing contrast to the heat that pulses between my legs.

  I learn further over the sink, seeking relief. But there’s only more tightness, more need.

  Rhys circles the tip of his tongue around my clit. He slides a hand lower, slips two fingers inside me. A familiar swell gathers inside me, making my legs tremble, clearing my head of any coherent thought except more. I need more or I am going to….I don’t even know what. Explode. Die. Melt into a puddle of goo.

  He kisses the top of my pussy, an ardent tongue kiss, and I come apart, a burst of painful relief. My orgasm pounds through me. I think I’m dying it’s so good, it hurts so damn much. Rhys pulls his fingers out of me but keeps them pressed against my slit, his breath hot and noisy as I come, and keep coming, holy fuck I am coming.