When I slipped between the sheets, his arm shot out, circling my waist and dragging me across the bed as I yelped and laughed. “Right here,” he growled into my neck. “This is where you’re allowed to be. Nowhere else. First and last warning. Don’t test me, young lady.”
I was about seven months older than Henry. That didn’t figure into his use ofyoung lady. I acted like I didn’t mind. It secretly tickled me to no end.
“That sounds extreme,” I said as I burrowed into his big, warm body.
“It’s not.” Another growl. I couldn’t believe how much I loved that sound. Even more when it was delivered directly to my skin. “What’s this? I didn’t tell you to put clothes on.” He pushed up on an elbow to inspect me, his midnight eyes bleary and his hair a wild mess. “Never take this off. Ever.”
“That was a pretty quick change of heart, don’t you think?”
“I reevaluated the situation based on emerging data,” he said through a yawn. “The data being you’re hot as fuck in my shirt.”
He thumbed open the buttons, kissing his way down my torso as he went. It was like a tiny path of fire, and by the time he reached my belly button I could barely hold still. I wanted to pull him over me to feel his weight pinning me down, to drag my fingers through his hair when I couldn’t take it anymore, to whisper and beg for all the things he already knew I wanted.
He shifted away from the pillow, running both hands over my breasts and down, down between my legs. Parting my thighs as he bent over me, he said, “Now, be quiet. I have work to do.”
The first swipe of his tongue was nearly enough to do me in. That was appalling on multiple levels and I almost told him tostop so I could get a hold of myself, but then he did it again and the thoughts poured right out of my mind.
He ran his fingers down my seam as he licked me and it was a gentle, almost absentminded touch. It was like he was aware of the heat and the wet, and he was in no rush to attend to either when he could suck on my clit until I lost my entire vocabulary.
Leaning back, he stared between my legs as he stroked me. “Aren’t you pretty?”
A noise came out of me then, a sigh garbled around a plea for more and a murmur ofoh my god. Henry must’ve understood this noise because he bowed his head with a chuckle. The next passes of his tongue were more determined than anything that’d come before. He was working for it now, chasing me down one lick after another like he could burn out all memory of previous tongues in this territory if he put everything into it.
And the problem was that I wanted him to burn out those memories. I wanted to remember the scrape of his beard on the inside of my thigh and the way I could feel his jaw working me over. I wanted this, and I wanted it so much I could barely bring myself to form those words.
Rather than doing anything dangerous like letting myself imagine that we could be more than a few wild nights, I slapped a hand across my mouth while I shook and convulsed.
When I was wrung out and panting, and Henry was certain he’d melted every bone in my body, he settled between my legs and pushed inside me with one long, fluid thrust. “Do you know,” he started, moving in me like we had all the time in the world, “how long I’ve wanted to do this? To wake up with you? To roll over and find you there, just warm and sleepy and waiting for me to fuck you?”
I locked my arms around his neck, ran my hands over his shoulders, urged him down to meet my lips,closer closer closer. “No,” I whispered. “How long?”
He hooked an arm behind my knee as he sank deeper. A rough, perfect rumble sounded in his throat when my inner muscles started pulsing around his cock. He rocked into me hard, like he had a mind to plow me straight through this bed, through the floor, through the earth itself.
“Always,” he said.
We wentto breakfast at a small café near Boston Common and sat outside, soaking up the best of the bright October sun. When I had coffee in hand, Henry scooped up my legs and set them on his lap with a smile that saidthis is how we do things now.
I didn’t have any problem with that.
With a hand locked around my ankle, he asked, “So, how long until you completely panic?”
“I amnotgoing to panic.”
I dropped my gaze to his fingers which quickly led me to his forearms, bare and rippling thanks to a t-shirt withSunnyside Tahoeacross the front. I was suddenly very resentful that winter would inevitably arrive and I wouldn’t get to ogle those arms unless he rolled up his sleeves. Or when he was in scrubs. Or when he was naked. Naked was…it was great.
“Yeah, that’s not the face I associate with panic.” He stroked his fingers up my leggings, over the back of my calf, and I almost purred. Out loud. “It’s good seeing you like this. When you’re not so stressed and serious.”
No more purring for me. “Even though I was very unserious when you met me, I’m a serious person. That’s not about to change. If you don’t like it, you need to walk away right now.”
He leaned forward, his hand on the back of my knee. “I’m not going anywhere, Whit.”
“Well, in that case,” I said, “we should set some new ground rules. Assuming you haven’t gotten this out of your system yet.”
“I’ve told you, that’s not how it works.” He laughed, shaking his head like I was a real piece of work as he reached for his coffee. “Let’s hear it. Give me these ground rules.”
“Even if you’re not reporting to me anymore, we still work together. I think we should agree to be mature and civil when we decide to end things.”
“When we—no. That’s not happening.” He arched a brow and gave me the same arrogant look that he’d had this morning when he braced my hands on the bathroom sink and took me from behind. “What else do you have?”
