Bad Boy Kiss Better

He picked up his whiskey and took a small sip. It’s too easy. Too controlled. I wanted to disturb him. I wanted to make him lose his flat fucking face. I wanted something tonight to be messy, unmanaged, not wrapped in family and money and shame.

“I’m not a good man, Maya,” he said quietly.

“I know. You introduced yourself clearly enough yesterday.”

“If you come with me, it has to be because you want to. Not because of my brother.”

Behind me, the club pulsed softly. In front of us, the bartender wiped a glass that had been clean for five minutes, clearly trying not to look alive. Outside, the ocean moved like a dark breath.

“I want to,” I said.

He went still.

I leaned closer, close enough to smell the whiskey on his breath. “And I hate how aware I am while saying that.”

His hand moved, his fingers resting on the bar near mine, less than an inch away, the distance suddenly feeling like a locked room.

“Say it again.”

I swallowed. “I want to go with you, Rhysand.”

His eyes went dark.

Then he stood, placed several bills on the bar, and looked at the bartender. “Water for her.”

My mouth opened immediately.

Rhysand turned to me. “Drink.”

“You should be on the pit of hell.”

“Not yet.”

I took the bottle of water from the bartender and drank it only because I refused to look like a woman who could not handle a challenge from a man with tattoos and family problems.

Rhysand watched until I finished.

“Now?” I asked.

“Now.”

We left the club.

The night air hit my skin, warm and salty. I walked beside him, my heels tapping against the wooden floor as we headed toward the resort’s private path. Neither of us spoke for the first few steps.

“I brought a car,” I said.

“You’re not driving.”

“I can drive.”

“I’m sure. You could also burn down my brother’s villa if someone handed you a match. That doesn’t mean you should.”

I looked at him. “Do you always control everyone?”

“Only people planning to make bad decisions with vehicles.”

“I’m flattered to be in a special category.”

“You have your own category.”

That should not have touched anything. But my body was stupid tonight.

Rhysand’s suite was in the quieter part of the resort, far from the family villas, hidden behind tropical gardens and a stone path. The elevator doors closed behind us with a soft sound. In that narrow space, I could see our reflection in the dark wall.

Me in a white dress too beautiful for tragedy, my hair a little messy, my lipstick still intact because that product was clearly more loyal than my fiancé. Rhysand beside me, dressed entirely in black, tall, calm, his jaw tight.

We looked like a mistake with a very good stylist.

The elevator rose.

I felt the back of my hand brush his.

Accidentally.

Maybe.

He did not move.

Neither did I.

The doors opened.

His suite was dark when he unlocked it, lit only by the distant city lights and a strip of moon over the ocean coming through the huge windows. The room was cool, spacious, neat, too masculine in a way that was not trying to show off and still managed to. An open suitcase sat near the sofa. A black jacket hung over a chair. His clean, warm scent was everywhere.

I stepped inside.

The door closed behind us.

That tiny click sounded very final.

He stood near the door, watching me like he was giving the last reasonable part of me a chance to run. “Last chance,”

I took off my earrings one by one and set them on the table by the door. My hands were not shaking anymore.

“Don’t be a good man now,” I said. “It ruins your bad-boy image.”

“I’m not a good man.”

“Good.”

“But I don’t take things from women who are broken.”

I looked at him for a long moment.

Then I walked closer until there was no distance left between us and my chest nearly touched his.

“I’m not broken,” I said quietly. “I’m angry.”

His eyes dropped to my mouth.

I continued, “I’m humiliated. I’m hurt. I want to slap your brother with a patio chair. But I am not broken.”

He didn’t smile.

I lifted my chin. “And I’m tired of everyone thinking my body is somewhere they’re allowed to leave their decisions. Their fears. Their needs. Their mistakes.”

My voice changed a little on the last sentence. I hated it. I hated the softness that slipped in there.

“Maya.”

“I want this because I want it,” I said. “Not because of your brother or because I need to prove anything.” I paused for a second. “Maybe a little because I want to do something no one can manage for me.”

“That,” he said lowly, “I can believe.”

I smiled faintly. “Finally. Honesty wins the night.”

His hand rose to my face.

Just one touch. His thumb brushed the line of my jaw, very slowly, like he was testing whether I would pull away.

I did not.

I caught his wrist and pressed his palm more fully against my cheek.

“Don’t hold back too long,” I whispered. “I might change my mind and become wise.”

“You couldn’t.”

“Asshole.”

“Beautiful.”

I froze for half a second.

Damn. I must have been very drunk.

I kissed him first.

Because of course.....

I still had dignity, but tonight she was wearing heels and carrying a knife.

Rhysand held back from my kiss for one second. One second long enough for me to nearly pull away and curse at him. Then his hands moved to my waist, pulling me close, and the whole room seemed to lose its shape.

I kissed him back with all the anger that had no address, all the humiliation that refused to cry, every part of me that wanted to feel alive instead of merely ruined with good makeup.

My back hit the wall.

His hand stopped at my waist before moving any further, holding himself back again, and I almost bit him because this man’s restraint was starting to feel like a personal insult.

I pulled my mouth from his. My breathing was not neat. “If you stop every five seconds to be honorable, I’m going to be disappointed.”

His eyes were hot. “I’m trying not to make you regret this.”

“I almost married Ricky. My standards for regret are very flexible.”

He let out a short laugh, then kissed me again.

Deeper this time.

Less patient.

I felt his body press against mine, hard and warm, but his hands still had a control that made me lose mine even faster.

He did not seem like a man being swept away by the current. He seemed like the current itself, and with all my expensive intelligence, I had just stepped into it wearing a dress.

When his mouth moved down to my neck, I closed my eyes.

My body reacted before my brain had time to make a sarcastic comment.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Rhys,” I whispered.

He stopped immediately. He looked at me with eyes that made the room feel smaller. “What?”

There were many ways to say this. An elegant way. A light way. A way that made me sound less like a twenty-two-year-old woman who had just found her future husband in someone else’s bed and was now standing in his older brother’s suite in a white dress with ruined breathing.

I chose the most Maya way.

“If you make a pity face, I’ll kick you.”

Rhysand did not move. “Why would I pity you?”

I looked at him.

He understood before I said it.

His whole body went still.

“He never did it to you?” he asked.

I looked away. “Don’t sound so surprised. It’s insulting.”

“Maya.”

“No,” I said sharply.

His jaw hardened. “He blamed you,” he said quietly, “because he never touched you.”

I laughed once, without humor. “Bernadi family poetry is very complex.”

He closed his eyes for a moment.

When he opened them again, something inside them had changed. Still hot. Still dark. But deeper now. More careful.

“I can stop,” he said.

I looked at him, then placed my hand on his chest. His heart was beating hard beneath my palm.

“I’m not asking you to stop.”

“Maya.”

“I’m asking you not to make me feel like something fragile.”

He lowered his head, his mouth almost touching mine. “You’re not fragile.”

“Good.”

“You’re dangerous.”

I smiled faintly. “Finally, a man in this family who pays attention.”

He kissed me again.

Still hot. Still enough to make my knees consider resigning. But there were small pauses between his movements. There were questions without words. There was room for me to breathe, to choose, to pull him back every time he gave me space.

And I pulled him back.

Again and again.

Because this night, in Rhysand Bernadi’s suite, with the Hawaiian ocean crashing against the shore below the windows and my phone dead inside my bag, I didn’t want to be the abandoned bride.

I didn’t want to be the woman who was too cold in Ricky’s version of the story. I didn’t want to be the elegant victim who sat prettily while rich families decided the shape of her destruction.

I wanted to be my own body.

My own anger.

My own mistake.

Rhysand lifted me, and I wrapped my legs around his waist without thinking about whether the world would burn tomorrow.

Tomorrow could take care of itself.

Now, for the first time since everyone started watching me, following me, managing me, touching my life without permission, I felt like the door was locked from the inside.

And the key was in my hand.