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Chapter Thirty Four

"Come and dance with me." Rhys is pulling on my arms, drunkenly grimacing down at my just as drunk face.

Even in his inebriated state, Rhys will undoubtedly kick my grooving butt with his dancing. Don't get me wrong, I'm not too bad on the dance floor, but Rhys, is well, Rhys—he'll out dance me any night of the week!

But after a few vodka shots and some crazy named cocktails, I'm right in the mood for a good old boogie!

Laughing, I eagerly accept his offer to dance. "I'm warning you, I am loose and limber." I joke, doing a silly little shimmy against him.

Keeping me close to his chest, Rhys winks. "Just how I like my girl to be."

I know I am slightly intoxicated, but Rhys makes my intoxication feel all the more euphoric. With our hands excitedly laced together, we head straight for the dance floor like nothing can touch how great we are feeling together. One sassy click at a time, me and my high heels walk proudly beside Rhys. The people that we pass all enthusiastically greet us and those who don't, all eye us with keen intrigue. It feels wonderful to no longer have to keep a public distance from Rhys. Without actually saying anything, tonight, we are telling everyone here that we are together—we are showing them that we are together. And I have to say, I'm just loving our very fun version of Show and Tell.

With the dance floor within toe-touching distance and a funky dance track being mixed in to seduce our bodies into moving to the beat of it, we let ourselves rhythmically free. Whether we are dancing sexily close or satisfyingly apart, we are together.

I don't know how long we laughed and danced for, but we did until we were hot and just a little bit sweaty and in need of another drink. Wrapping his sensual arm around my waist, Rhys walks us towards the bar. We are both still a little drunk on alcohol and quite possibly; each other. As we slowly manoeuvre our way through the many beautiful people who are here, we are boldly intercepted by some Latino babe; all breasts and long brown hair. "Well hello there, stranger." She purrs in her sexily thick accent.

Rhys stiffens against me, seemingly none too pleased to see whoever this woman is. "Gabriela." Her name rolls off his tongue like a bitter ball.

"I was so sorry to hear about your sister." She purrs on, her obscenely half-exposed, fake and full breasts, are very much being thrusted upwards for Rhys's benefit.

Pulling me possessively closer, Rhys is trying to assure me in his own silently sweet way that he's got this, that I am not to rise to the bitches bait. He obviously knows this audacious woman, I would even bet on it that they have previously slept together. The way she chooses to not even look in my direction, tells me that I am bang on about that assumption. "If you don't mind, Gabriela." Rhys doesn't even bother to be polite and thank her for the overly flirtatious condolence about Maci, he's just keen to get away from her.

As he tries to bypass her, she does something that literally nearly floors me. "Here's my number again, just in case you no longer have it." The cow tries to offer him her number on the back of a pristine business card.

I'm now the one to stiffen in anger; still firmly in Rhys's hold. I am just about to react to the fearless floozy, but he quickly stops me. "I'm too drunk to be polite, Gabriela." He scowls down at her, growing angrier by the second. "Instead of disrespecting my girlfriend, why don't you go and find someone else who might be stupidly interested in having some meaningless sex with you?"

Shocked to hear the caustic words that fly from out of Rhys's mouth, I am also very pleased to hear them at the same time. The cow totally deserves them all. Standing taller beside him, I feel like my honour has been truly defended. It's also the first time that the brazen bitch actually looks at me, like really looks at me. Humiliated and shamed, her dark eyes blink away her disdain for me before she plasters on a sneer to finally leave me with. 

Watching her teetering away in her ridiculously high platforms heels, she disappears in amongst the buzzing crowd. "I'm sorry about her, Clara." Rhys sounds horribly sorry, his face tattooed with regret and melancholy.

Wanting us to get back to how happily intoxicated we were just before Miss All Breasts and Hair snuck out from under her stone, I try to buoy up his darkening mood. "I'm fine, Rhys."

Pressing his lips together with doubt, he frowns hard. "I really am sorry. She's a long time from my past. I feel awful." Shaking his head, his chin lowers to his chest with depressed defeat.

He's slipping further from me, so I desperately try to get him back by cuddling him tight and reassuring him with a smile so genuinely put upon my face. "We both have a past, Rhys. I don't care about all of the Gabriela's that I might bump into along the way. I know that you love me now, I only care about that."

The unvarnished truth veils Rhys's regretful sage eyes. "I do love you, more than anyone or anything in this world."

Holding both his hands down by his side, I admiringly look back at him with strong and loving eye contact. "And I love you." With a little light flirtation, I then say. "Let's get those drinks."

Rhys smiles and nods. "Okay." But something had shifted within him. His carefree heart is once again weighted down with something that is invisible to the naked eye. His mood was regressing. Second by second, his contradictory feelings were returning. His emotions are being slaughtered from the inside out and it breaks my heart because I can't do anything to stop it.