Page 48 of Arden and the Girl Downstairs

“Because Rhys took the longest to warm up to Yasmin. Yasmin kind of blew into our lives and knocked everyone off kilter. It was instalove for Chase and Yasmin, and once we found out about their history, it kind of made sense. But Rhys was still standoffish. It wasn’t until shit went down that he finally came around and accepted Yas into the group. Rhys has his own issues he’s dealing with, so it was sort of a mess.” I give the short version of the story. One day, we’ll tell her the full version of events.

“You mean the whole ‘engaged to Ashley but secretly being in love with Ally’ thing?”

“How did you know about that?”

“Rhys told me.”

“Did you blackmail him?” I ask curiously.

Rhys rarely opens up to anyone. Hell, it took him years to tell us about his feelings for Ally, and that was only because Yasmin forced his hand.

“No, he told me one day while we were...” Her hesitation makes me suspicious.

“While you were what?”

“Talking. While we were talking,” she rushes out. She’s cute when she’s scrambling.

“I don’t believe you. What were you doing? If you lie to me, I won’t touch you for the entire weekend.” It would kill me to uphold that threat, but I don’t want her keeping secrets from me.

“You wouldn’t...”

“I made you wait six weeks while you recovered. A weekend will be a walk in the park.”

Okay, it won’t. It will be fucking hard to keep my hands off her, but I’ll do it. Maybe.

“Fine,” she huffs. “He told me while I was cutting up your bow ties.”

I laugh. “I was convinced it was Ralph giving you intel and letting you in. I didn’t expect Rhys.”

“Well, at the start it was Ralph, but Rhys caught me one day. He helped me, and I made him talk. Apparently, I have a way of making people open up.”

“You aren’t wrong. I’d go so far as to say it’s your superpower.” I tilt her head up so I can place a soft kiss on her lips. “As much as I want to stay like this with you, we are about to arrive and should probably get dressed. The others are still a few hours away.”

She pouts briefly, then a devious look appears on her face. “Does that mean we have time for round two?”

“And round three, if you’re lucky.” I wink and turn to get dressed, grinning the entire time.

Ella

The warm water is helping with the aches. My wounds are fine—it’s my muscles that are sore. Apparently not having sex in over twelve months means my body forgets what it’s like. And muscles I haven’t used in aloooongtime hurt.

I’m not complaining, though.

Arden is everything I have never had.

I feel this need to submit to him.

In the bedroom anyway.

There is no way I could submit to him in our day-to-day life. It’s not in my nature. Besides, he enjoys the banter—probably a little too much—and so do I.

But in bed . . . he can have his wicked way with me.

I always knew I liked it rough—I just hadn’t been with anyone I could fully trust.

I trust Arden. Even if we haven’t known each other for long. He really stepped up and helped me, even though I wasn’t prepared to ask him or anyone else for help.

A tender touch to my shoulder breaks me from my thoughts. Arden softly caresses the side of my neck, then eases my head back to wet my hair under the spray of water.

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