Chapter 46 On the Edge

Chapter 46 On the Edge

RHYDIAN

The water felt freezing when we first got in.

Ana sucked in a breath beside me and laughed under it when the cold climbed higher than expected, one hand grabbing my shoulder as she adjusted to it. I laughed too, mostly because her expression caught me off guard. She looked younger when she laughed like that. Less careful.

A few minutes later neither of us seemed to notice the temperature anymore.

Her legs stayed around my waist beneath the surface while I held her against me, my hands moving over wet skin that still felt warm somehow despite the water. Moonlight spread across the pool in shifting pieces. It caught against her shoulders whenever she moved and turned her hair almost blue-black where it clung to her neck.

She kissed my throat slowly at first.

Then less slowly.

I tilted my head back against the stone edge behind me and closed my eyes for half a second because I was reaching the point where thinking required actual effort.

Ana’s fingers slid through my locs, patient and curious with it in the way she always touched things she liked. Her mouth brushed my jaw, then the corner of my mouth, then finally my lips properly, and I kissed her back hard enough to make her breathe out against me.

The sound of the water kept folding around us softly while the rest of the garden stayed quiet.

I lost track of time somewhere after that.

The moon climbed higher overhead. The ivy walls turned silver at the edges. Ana kept reacting to me in small ways she probably thought I wasn’t noticing. Her breath catching. Her shoulders tightening. The way her fingers dug into me whenever I touched a particular spot at the base of her spine.

I noticed all of it.

At one point she bit down on her lip again to stop another sound from slipping out and I pulled back just enough to look at her.

“Ana,” I said quietly.

She blinked at me.

“Don’t do that.”

A faint crease appeared between her brows like she genuinely didn’t understand what I meant.

I brushed my thumb against her mouth.

“You keep trying not to make noise.”

The look she gave me after that nearly finished me on the spot.

Dark eyes. Wet skin. Mouth parted slightly while she tried and failed to hide how affected she was.

“Oh,” she murmured.

Then she stopped hiding it.

The difference after that nearly wrecked me.

Every breath she let out reached straight through me. Every soft sound she made against my mouth or throat made my grip tighten instinctively at her waist. I kissed her harder after that. She answered immediately, pressing closer until there wasn’t really space left between us anymore.

Eventually I guided us toward the far side of the pool where the stone widened beside the hedge.

I lifted her onto it carefully and she sat there with water streaming down her legs while I stayed between her knees. Her hair was soaked completely now, dark against her skin, little droplets still sliding slowly down the line of her throat.

For a second neither of us said anything.

We just looked at each other.

Ana’s breathing had already changed. Slower when she exhaled. Less even when she inhaled again. Her hands rested loosely on my shoulders while she watched me with that same intent focus she carried into everything.

Like she wanted to understand me properly.

I leaned in and kissed beneath her jaw first.

Then lower.

Her fingers slid back into my hair almost immediately.

I took my time after that because rushing felt impossible. The garden felt sealed away from the rest of the world entirely. Warm night air. Water glimmering beside us. The scent of ivy and wet stone everywhere around us.

Ana tipped her head back quietly when I kissed lower along her throat and chest. Her hand tightened in my hair hard enough to sting a little and I liked it far more than I should have.

“Rhys,” she breathed.

The way she said my name nearly undid me.

When I looked back up at her she grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me into a kiss that started rough and turned softer halfway through, like she changed her mind in the middle of it and wanted something different suddenly.

I kissed her until both of us were breathing unevenly.

Then she pushed me backward toward the old stone bench near the edge of the garden.

I let her.

The bench was cold beneath my back. Ana climbed over me slowly, water still cooling on her skin, and paused for a second with her hands resting lightly against my chest.

The moon sat behind her.

God.

I don’t think she realised what she looked like in that moment. Open in a way she rarely allowed herself to be. Not guarded. Not calculating every reaction before it happened.

Just her.

Something in my chest pulled painfully tight before she moved against me and wiped every coherent thought straight out of my head.

She started slowly.

Tentative for all of ten seconds.

Then she found a rhythm she liked and stayed there, watching my face the entire time like she was collecting reactions from me one by one. I let my hands settle at her hips and tried to keep my breathing under some kind of dignity.

It did not go well.

Ana noticed immediately too.

That small smile appeared at the corner of her mouth and disappeared again just as quickly when she moved a little differently and had to catch her own breath against my shoulder.

“Careful,” I muttered, voice rough.

She laughed softly.

“You’re the one struggling.”

I stared up at her for a second.

Then I rolled my hips upward once in answer.

Her mouth fell open.

The laugh vanished instantly.

“Rhys—”

“That’s what I thought.”

She hit my shoulder weakly for that and then buried her face briefly against my neck because she was trying not to laugh while also trying not to lose her mind entirely.

A few minutes later she stopped trying to do either.

When she came apart the first time her whole body tightened above me and both her hands flattened hard against my chest like she needed something to hold onto. Her eyes widened slightly, unfocused for a second, and she looked so startled by the force of it that I almost laughed if I hadn’t been too busy trying not to completely lose myself with her.

I held her while she shook against me.

Afterward she dropped her forehead to mine, breathing hard, and then suddenly laughed under her breath.

Not polished. Not restrained.

Just real.

I kissed her cheek because I didn’t trust myself to say anything useful.

Ana pulled back enough to look at me then.

Her face was flushed. Her hair was sticking to her shoulders. Her lips were swollen from kissing me for the better part of an hour.

“Again,” she said softly.

I laughed immediately.

“You’re serious?”

She nodded once.

Very serious.

Then she moved again before I could recover properly and I swore quietly under my breath while she smiled against my jaw like she enjoyed catching me off guard.

The second time felt slower somehow. Less frantic. We already knew what worked now. Knew where to touch and how to move together without thinking too hard about it.

The garden stayed quiet around us.

Water lapped softly against the edge of the pool. Somewhere farther off a night insect buzzed briefly and disappeared again. Ana’s hands rested over my chest while I traced my palms slowly up and down her back, feeling the warmth beneath her skin deepen every time she got closer to falling apart again.

And underneath all of that was the magic.

I felt it every time we touched for too long.

Something warm moving beneath her skin and into mine in slow waves. Old. Intimate. Familiar enough now that my body recognised it before my mind did.

Ana buried her face against my shoulder when another breath escaped her too loudly.

I smiled against her hair.

“You’re impossible,” she muttered.

“You’re loud.”

She bit my shoulder for that.

Not hard enough to hurt.

Just enough to make me laugh.

A few moments later she lost the argument with herself entirely.

The sound that escaped her that time was louder, broken at the edges, and her hand flew straight to her mouth afterward while her eyes widened in horror.

I looked up at her.

Slowly raised both eyebrows.

Ana looked absolutely mortified.

We both listened instinctively.

The garden answered with moving water and rustling ivy.

Nothing else.

She exhaled hard through her nose and dropped forward against me while I rubbed slow circles along her back, grinning into her hair despite myself.

“Don’t laugh,” she muttered against my shoulder.

“I’m trying very hard.”

“You’re failing.”

“A little.”

She made a quiet sound that might have been annoyance except she was smiling too.

After a while she lifted her head again and kissed me softly this time. No urgency behind it anymore. Just warmth. Her fingers brushing slowly through my hair while we stayed tangled together on the bench beneath the moonlight.

Neither of us spoke.

The night felt too fragile for conversation.

Then the ivy shifted nearby.

Not wind.

Someone moving too suddenly.

Every part of me tightened instantly.

Ana turned toward the sound at the same moment I did.

A breath caught somewhere beyond the hedge.

Then another.

The second one broke halfway through and turned into quiet crying that lasted all of three seconds before it split wide open completely.

The hedge parted.

Vessa stood there staring at us.

For one awful second nobody moved.

Moonlight spilled across her face and showed everything she usually kept hidden behind composure. Hurt. Fury. Humiliation. Grief sharp enough to hollow a person out from the inside.

Her eyes moved over the scene in front of her.

Me.

Ana.

The bench.

The soaked clothes near the pool.

Ana still half in my lap.

The sound Vessa made then tore through the garden hard enough that my chest physically tightened around it.

Not anger.

Something worse.

Something wounded.

She had spent months trying to convince herself this wasn’t happening. Months swallowing suspicion every time she looked at us too long. And now she was standing in front of proof so undeniable that it stripped every layer off her all at once.

Tears ran freely down her face.

She didn’t wipe them away.

Ana had gone completely still against me.

And Vessa just stood there beneath the moonlight looking at us like the world had split open right in front of her feet.