“Come on…. Pick up, pick up, pick up.” I’ve had the hotel dispatch put me through three times already, but no one’s answering. No one can tell me if he’s checked out yet.
Please still be there.
I rush down the quiet hall, nodding at the room service guy on my past, to the very end, to hammer on the door with my fist.
Henry opens the door, holding a towel around his waist, beads of water still dripping from his body, a confused look on his face. “What happened? Did something happen?”
I step forward, forcing him back inside. The door shuts with a noisy bang. “Dr. Eisenhower. Did you fly him in?”
He frowns. “I called in a favor, yeah. Why? Is your father okay?”
“Yeah. He’s fine. He’s….” My eyes drag over this man as my chest swells with an overwhelming amount of emotion.
Of love.
I no longer care what he put me through, or how badly he hurt me, or how badly I hurt him.
I dive for him, for his mouth.
He pulls away, his jaw cording with tension. “Abbi—”
“No. Don’t. It is not too late for us. We can’t go back, but we can go forward, and we can do it better. I know we can. It is not too late for us so don’t you dare say that. I know you still feel something for me.”
He tips his head back as if to find an answer in the ceiling. I so badly want to drag my tongue over his throat, but I restrain myself, and instead let my fingers settle on his chest, reveling in the beads of water and his nipples, pebbled from the cold, the gooseflesh covering his hard muscles, even as his breaths become ragged.
Beneath my fingers, I feel his heart beating hard and fast.
“Abbi, I can’t. I’m—”
“Then end it!” The thought that Henry may be—probably is—involved with another woman crossed my mind in the cab on the way here, and I quickly decided I wouldn’t accept that excuse. “Tell her you’re sorry, but you never should have started anything because your heart has always been with me. End it now because I need you right now.” My hands slide down to grip the top of his towel. It would be nothing to uncover him, a quick tug.
“Oh, fuck me.” He closes his eyes and heaves a sigh. “I’m not seeing anyone, Abbi. I just…. I can’t do this again. Not with you.”
I step in to him, pressing myself against him. “Give me one good reason why not.”
He finally drops his gaze, and it’s a pensive one. “Because it hurt. It hurt you.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “And that nearly killed me. I can’t….” He’s shaking his head, some internal dilemma going on inside his mind. He’s struggling though, I can see that much. Because I can feel him hard under the towel.
“Look at me.”
It’s a moment before he does, the fire burning within his cold blue eyes enough to make my knees wobble. “Don’t make me beg, Henry.” I lift up onto my tiptoes, letting my lips float over his. I drag the tip of my tongue over the seam of his lips, so slowly. I give his towel a yank, releasing it to drop to the floor. “I will, but please don’t make me.” Without shame, I reach between us to wrap my fist around his length and stroke it, a loud moan escaping my lips. I don’t know what it is about Henry’s cock, but no one else’s compares.
He’s like a bull released from his gate.
Strong hands seize my head, his fingers weaving through my hair to get a good hold as his mouth attacks mine, his tongue plunging into my mouth, claiming it with aggressive, almost angry swirls. He leads me backward toward the bedroom, stumbling and bumping into tables and a wall on the way, not breaking free of me even once.
The backs of my legs hit the bed and I’m suddenly being pushed backward, with Henry’s naked form crawling on top of me, overwhelming me with his size, his hands on my shirt, tugging it over my head, and then on my jeans, unfastening the buckle and yanking them and my panties off in one fell swoop.
He’s pulling down the front of my bra, making my breasts spring free even before he has the back unfastened.
In a matter of seconds, I’m naked and straddling Henry’s lap, my arms cradling his head as I savor the sight and feel of his mouth clamped over my nipple, his tongue teasing me mercilessly.
Unable to wait, I reach down between us and guide his cock into me. I’m so wet, I offer him little resistance as he slides into me, dragging out a deep moan from my lips.
He hands seize my hips, holding me still. “You’ve been smart? Safe?” He doesn’t look at me when he asks that, but his jaw tenses, like he knows exactly what I’ve been doing since he left Alaska.
And maybe he does.
“Yes.” I hesitate. “You?”
“Yes.” Now he finally peers up at me, letting me see the plain truth.
Oh my God. “You haven’t been with anyone else.”
A pause, and then he shakes his head.
I drop my forehead against his and beg, “Kiss me, please. I need you to kiss me right now.” Because I need him to tell me it’s okay, that what I did wasn’t wrong. That he won’t hold it against me now, or ever.
He flips us over to put me on my back. Dominating me with his body, he pins my hands above my head by my wrists with one strong hand.
And simply stares down at me.
“Please don’t be mad. I kept seeing pictures of you with these women, and it made me feel horrible. Ronan and Connor helped—” I cry out as Henry thrusts into me, spearing me with how hard and long he is.
“I am fucking mad.” He seethes, pulling out and then thrusting once again, earning another cry from me. “This is mine and no one gets to fuck you unless I say they can.” Stilling his hips, he leans down and kisses me deeply. “But I’m not mad at you. I let you go. You had every right to want someone else.”
I break free of his grip, working one hand out to grasp his jaw, to force his eyes to me. “I don’t want anyone else but you. Ever.” I grind my pelvis into his and he groans. Hooking one leg up over his arm, his hips start moving in that languid, slow, but forceful way he has, pumping in and out of me, each stroke pure ecstasy.
No one can fill me the way Henry does.
No one can make me feel this all-consuming level of lust as Henry does.
And I can say that based on a modicum of experience now.
I don’t wait for him to tell me to; I reach between us and begin working my clit with my finger, stroking it hard and fast, not wanting to miss the opportunity to come with him.
“Fuck,” he curses, finally climbing to his knees and hoisting my hips up. He drives into me at a ruthless rate, his eyes locked on my fingers stroking myself.
Henry’s mine, again.
This man…. The sight of him alone, straining and glistening with sweat as he fucks me mercilessly, it’s enough to set me off, tearing an orgasm from me as I buck wildly against him. He follows closely after, his fact contorting with pleasure as he grunts. I open myself up completely to him, reveling in the feel of him pulsing inside me, filling me with him.
~ ~ ~
“Your mother?”
I set my phone on the side table. “No, Ronan. They wanted an update.”
Henry’s hard swallow carries through the room.
“Don’t fire them.”
He pauses, and then chuckles. “Or what? Are you going to try and blackmail me again?”
I curl into his chest, draping my naked body over his, hoping I can keep him here forever. “No, I’m asking you. Please don’t fire them. They’re just friends, and they mean a lot to me. They—”
“I won’t fire them, even though I want to. And I didn’t fire Michael, either. Even though he deserved it.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“I gave the asshole a promotion. And a raise. He’s a manager in Aspen now. The deal was he packed his shit, got on a ferry, and didn’t say a word to you or anyone about it.”
“But you let me think—”
“Because I’m an asshole.” He hesitates. “I wasn’t going to let you come back here, where your mother would make your life hell and you’d end up miserable and back with your ex, but there was no way I was letting anything serious start between you and Michael.”
I prop myself up on my elbow to peer down at Henry’s handsome face. “Truce?”
A wry smirk touches his lips, pink and puffy from kissing me so much. It falls off with a groan as he glances at the clock. “I need to get going. The crew has been waiting for two hours.” He plants a quick kiss on my lips and then rolls me off him and climbs out of bed.
I admire his muscular naked body as he strolls toward his dresser to pull on his boxers and jeans. “I wish I could go back with you.”
“Yeah. You’re not going anywhere for a while, from the sounds of it.”
“I know. I don’t know what I’m going to do about school in the fall.” Defer a year, maybe? Mama’s going to need me.
A thought crosses my mind and I smile. “I’m no longer a Wolf Hotel employee.”
“Well, you haven’t handed in your resignation. Or been fired.”
“Yeah, but either way, there’s no more workplace conflict.”
His hands pause on his zipper, his gaze drifting out the window to the cityscape. “We lead very different lives, Abbi.”
My heart sinks with his words. Stupid me. What did I think was going to happen? Just because we reconciled between the sheets doesn’t mean we’re all of a sudden “together.” I’m going back to Greenbank, Pennsylvania—population five thousand—to farm my family’s land and take care of my parents, while Henry jets around the world, opening hotels and ski hills. Our worlds are even farther apart now than when I was bringing his coffee to him in Alaska.
That’s what the old Abbi would have accepted, anyway.
Henry just dropped everything, flew me across the continent, and basically saved my father. He cares for me, even now. And he was telling me the truth before. We do have something special.
“Yeah, I guess we do lead very different lives. I fight for what I want, while you just roll over and give up.”
His head snaps back from the window to lock on me, his eyes flashing with surprise. “What did you just say?”
I climb to my knees and let him take my naked form in for a long moment. “You heard me.”
Leaving the window, he wanders over to stop in front of me. “That sounded like a challenge.”
“Maybe it was.”
His gaze drops down to my chest, and I feel my nipples pebbling just with the touch of his eyes. “I’m difficult, and quick-tempered, and demanding. I’ve already caused you a lot of pain.”
“And I wouldn’t trade any of that for anything.”
He heaves a frustrated sigh. “What’s going on with fuckhead?”
“He broke up with Cammie and is apparently going to try to win me back.” I roll my eyes.
“And you’re not at all interesting in reconciling with him?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“And is that because you were with”—his jaw clenches—“the other two?”
The idea of Ronan and Connor is really bothering him. But, like Ronan said when I asked him what would happen if his ex ever took him back, Henry’s got to want me for who I am now, not who I was before he left me. “No. It’s because Jed is in the past and I’m not the same girl I was.”
He chuckles, reaching up to run the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip. “No, you definitely aren’t.”
I take the opportunity to pull his thumb all the way into my mouth, sucking it hard before I release it with a pop.
He steps in closer, forcing my head to tilt back to keep his gaze. “What happens when I fly in to see you?”
“I’ll be waiting for you.”
“And what about when I can’t make the time but I need you. What if I’m in New York and I want you there with me? What if I send for you?”
“Then I’ll come running.”
His brow spikes. “Your mother will never approve.”
“No. She won’t.” Bernadette Mitchell is going to fight this every step of the way. “But I can live with that, if you can.”
His fingertips skate over my bare skin, over my breasts and down my stomach, reaching down to plunge deep into me, where his cum is still spilling out. I lean back on my haunches and spread my thighs to give him better access.
“I can live with it. Actually, this could be fun.” He kneels in front of me, trapping my nipples with his teeth, earning my hiss. “You sure this is what you want?”
I lean down to catch his mouth with mine, trying to convey exactly how much this is what I want with my tongue.
Henry’s eyes are hooded when I pull away, and my body buzzes with adrenaline because poor Jack is going to be waiting another hour, at least. “Okay then. It’s official.” A wicked smirk touches his lips. “You’re fired.”
