“Why are you here?” Henry has shed all politeness. His voice is ice.
“I saw the news.” Her pretty blue eyes—Henry’s eyes, I now realize; at least the same shape as his—shift to gaze over to her late husband’s body. “And I wanted to pay my respects.”
“Go ahead then. He’s right there.” Henry’s arm curls tightly around my waist. He starts walking away and I have no choice but to follow, struggling to keep up with his pace.
“Slow down!” I mutter, my ankle shifting in these heels. Henry keeps me from falling and adjusts his stride once we’re out of the hall. But he doesn’t stop, leading me toward the front doors. “Shouldn’t we stay?” The crowds have dwindled, but there is still a good number of people standing idly in circles, chatting.
“Scott can handle things.”
The limo is already waiting for us outside. Henry doesn’t wait for the driver, opening the door and ushering me in.
I settle into the seat and kick off my shoes, moaning with relief as I stretch my toes.
“Home to drop Abbi off and then to work,” he directs the driver, sliding in to sit across from me. He shrugs off his suit jacket and tosses it to the seat beside him. Then, unfastening his cuffs and loosening his tie, he pours himself a drink from the minibar at the side.
Tension radiates off him.
“Do you want to talk about—”
“No!” he barks, and I instinctively shrink into my seat.
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “What did she mean when she said she didn’t catch your name earlier?”
I tell him about our exchange in the service station. “It was literally a minute, tops. I had no idea who she was.” Now, playing back the short conversation, I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out. “I guess I didn’t expect her to be there today.”
Henry sinks into his seat and leans his head back to rest against the glass partition that separates us from the driver. “Why the hell did she come?”
“Maybe it’s like she said, to pay her respects?”
His answering laugh is full of scorn. “Bullshit. What respect? She had no respect for us when she abandoned us twenty years ago. Why the fuck would I want it now?”
His tone is sharp, but I know him well enough to know that it’s not directed at me. He’s angry and hurting. And my chest aches for him. As domineering and narrow-minded—and hateful, sometimes—as my mother can be, and as difficult as she’s made my life of late, there has never been any doubt that she loves me fiercely. That she would rather die than pack up her things and walk out of my life.
Henry’s mother leaving him—abandoning him—the way she did has left gruesome scars.
“Maybe at least talking to her would help you move on, and get some closure,” I say as gently as I can. “Help you open up.”
“I’m fucking open!”
This is not the time to tackle this conversation. I climb over to Henry’s side to curl up next to him, resting my head on his shoulder while our car navigates Manhattan’s gridlock and he broods silently.
“Why don’t you just come home with me now,” I finally suggest, smoothing my hand over his hard chest affectionately. “We can sit outside and stare at the sky.”
“It’s going to storm tonight.”
“Fine. Sit inside and watch the storm. I’ll make dinner.” I’m far from the best cook, but I do know how to make a few dishes and well. But Henry wouldn’t know that because I’ve never actually cooked for him. We always have our meals delivered from the hotel’s kitchen, or we go out.
“I have too much work to do, Abbi.”
Working day and night. That’s what Crystal—Henry’s mother—said when she asked how he was doing. She said it was just a hunch, but now I know that’s not true. She knew because Henry is like his father, and obviously she thought William Wolf was a workaholic.
“You can’t take a break, for just a few hours? Just one night?” My palm slides over his abdomen, a washboard of muscles, and further down, past his belt, to begin rubbing him.
His hand presses down on mine, stalling the movements. “It’s not a good time for this.”
“I’m sorry. I just—” I hesitate, letting my nose skim over his neck, inhaling the delicious smell of his musky cologne and soap. “I miss feeling you inside me.” We’ve shared a bed for days and yet I feel like he’s worlds away. Understandably so, but still.
Despite his words, there’s movement against my hand. He’s growing, hardening.
I manage to free my fingers from his grasp enough to curl around his impressive length.
“Is that what you want?”
I press my body into him in answer, sliding my thigh up and over his lap. I skate my lips against his neck. “Only if you want it.” I know I’m being selfish for asking, given where we just left, but if there’s one thing that puts Henry in a better mood, it’s sex.
Henry reaches up to press the intercom button. “How much longer?”
“Three or four minutes,” comes the response over the speaker.
“Thank you,” Henry says curtly.
“We can go upstairs and….” My words drift as Henry flicks the lock to the divider window and adjusts the volume of the music up with ease. He slides my leg off his lap and then, unfastening his belt and dress pants, he unceremoniously pushes them along with his boxer briefs down to his knees, leaving him sitting in the limo with his dick standing erect.
And even though this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, heat begins to pool between my thighs at the sight, all the same.
“Take your dress off,” he demands, lazily stroking himself.
It takes me a moment to slide my dress over my head and shimmy out of my panties.
“That too.” He nods toward my bra.
Unclasping the back, I toss it to the opposite bench. And now I’m completely naked in the back of this limo and we’re driving down a busy street with cars edging past us on either side. I glance at the windows warily, though I know they can’t see us through the tinted glass.
“You heard him. Three or four minutes.”
While this colder side of Henry isn’t completely foreign to me, it’s been a while since I’ve seen it. I gingerly climb onto his lap, fully aware that there’s a man sitting just on the other side of that glass.
Normally, Henry would touch me first. He’d check to make sure that I’m wet enough. Now though, he simply lines up the end of his swollen cock, seizes my hips, and pulls me down.
I gasp with the sudden intrusion.
“I thought you missed feeling me inside you,” he whispers, his eyes at least showing a flare of heat now as they focus on my breasts, as he adjusts his hips.
“I do.”
He closes his eyes and lets his head fall back. “Well then, here I am, inside you. So, let’s fuck.”
This isn’t my Henry, but this is the Henry I get right now—one that’s hurting over the death of his father and the surprise visit by his mother. The closed-off Henry.
But I want to bring my Henry back to me.
Forgetting the oblivious world outside us, I settle my hands on either side of his chiseled face and lean in to place a tender kiss against his lips. I begin rocking my pelvis back and forth.
His mouth is unresponsive to me at first, but I don’t relent, sliding the tip of my tongue against his seam as my body naturally opens up and he slides in deeper. “Look at me. Please, Henry,” I plead softly.
After a few beats, eyes the color of a deep blue sea peer up at me. Into me. The veil normally over them is gone, showing me so much pain.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
I press my lips against his mouth again. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.” His arms wrap around my naked body and he pulls me tight to him, his mouth working against mine now, in that slow, tantalizing way he has of kissing that makes me forget everyone and everything.
I’m barely aware that we’ve pulled up in front of Wolf Towers when Henry hits the lock on the doors and tells the driver through the intercom that we’ll be out in a few minutes.
My hair was pulled back in a tidy ponytail for the visitation. Henry works the elastic out with nimble fingers, giving him access to my thick mane of red hair. His hand weaves through it to seize the back of my head. “Have I ever told you how much I love your hair?” he whispers against my lips. “And your mouth. And your neck. And these….” He dips his head to gently clasp one of my hard nipples between his teeth. I gasp as he sucks, and grind my hips against him harder. After standing in heels for so long today, my legs are already tired. I can’t help the sigh of relief when Henry lifts me off him to set me down on the opposite bench.
I glance to the window, where Wolf Tower’s doormen stand just outside, primed to open the limo door and greet the building’s owner. “They’re definitely locked this time, right?” The last time we were caught in a compromising position in a vehicle, it was in the parking lot of the seedy Billy Bob’s because Henry mistakenly unlocked the doors. I have no interest in repeating that night.
Henry kneels in front of me and hoists my legs up onto his shoulders. “Yes. And they know better.” His heated gaze burns over my flesh as he studies first my breasts and then the space between my legs. He runs a finger through my slit a few times, teasing me. “Will you always get this wet for me?”
“Always.”
He lines himself up and then thrusts into me so hard that I can’t help cry out, more in surprise than anything.
One of the doormen’s head jumps toward the window, and then he discreetly takes several steps back.
I bite my bottom lip to keep quiet as Henry starts pumping into me at a hard and fast tempo, so hard that the Scotch in the bottle sloshes around. I can’t keep up with him, so I simply watch his beautiful face as it strains with concentration. Barely thirty seconds later, he lets out a deep groan and I feel hot liquid spurting into me.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it.” He kisses the inside of one of my knees as he pulls out. I move to pull my legs down and get dressed, but he seizes the backs of my thighs and holds my legs up, pulling them farther apart.
Studying the view intensely as the sound of his ragged breaths complete with the music over the limo’s speakers.
“What?” I finally ask, feeling a touch self-conscious.
“I was just thinking about Margo’s tongue on you. About what that looked like.” He says it so casually.
Blood flows toward my clit at the memory of the grotto beneath the French chateau we left. I still can’t believe I agreed to that. I know I’m straight, and yet Margo Lauren is one of those sexual beings who could entice anyone to experiment.
And she wanted me.
“Did you like watching that?” I ask softly, daring to reach down and run a finger through my slit, now slick from Henry’s seed.
“Yes.” A devious smile touches Henry’s lips, but it drifts off just as quickly. “Do you want it to happen again?”
“I’d much rather have your mouth on me,” I answer truthfully. In the heat of the moment—like right now, as Henry holds my legs apart and I trail my finger over my wet, swollen clit—I’d probably agree to it again. That’s how Henry gets me to agree to most things, when I’m too wound up to care. “But what do you want?”
“I want you to experience enough to know what you want. So you never have any regrets later in life.”
“I already know what I want. You. Only you, Henry. Always.” My hand stills as I try to convey my feelings through our locked gazes, hoping he can see what’s inside my heart—utter adoration for him.
His eyelids shut with his deep sigh, as if suddenly too heavy to keep open. “Come for me.”
I slide my fingers over myself again. Ever aware of the people outside.
“Abbi….”
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder.”
Even though he just came, his cock is still fully erect. “I need your help,” I challenge in a playful voice.
With a smile, he shifts forward, close enough to lay his length against me, his tip reaching my clit. “Go ahead. Use it.”
This is new. I grasp his cock with my fist and begin rubbing him against me.
He hisses, stalling my hand.
“No, keep going,” he says through gritted teeth, unbuttoning the bottom of his dress shirt and pushing it out of the way.
So I do, reveling in the feel of his velvety smooth skin beneath my fingertips, trying to be gentle while I use his cock in place of my fingers to pleasure myself, keeping all my attention on Henry—and his plump pink lips that have touched every inch of my body, on his searing eyes that send shivers through me with every look, on his strong hands that grip my thighs almost to the point of bruising but not quite.
It’s not long before that familiar tingle begins running down my spine. My breathing is coming in short pants and I feel the urge to stretch my hips as wide as they can go.
“Now?” he whispers.
“Yes.”
“Thank fucking God.” Henry pushes my hand away and thrusts his cock into me once again, letting me ride out my orgasm with him inside. Not five seconds later, he’s releasing inside me again.
“Christ, Abbi,” he mutters, his chest heaving. “What have you turned into?”
I smile. “Don’t make me wait so long next time.”
With a heavy sigh, he leans down to press a hard kiss on my lips that lasts five seconds. And then he’s pulling out and reaching for the tissue box. He quickly cleans himself and me off before tossing the balled-up paper into the trash. “You’re the one who told me to give Miles some time before he quits on me.” He begins buttoning his shirt.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
He chuckles. “Don’t ever apologize for needing that. And you got my mind off things for a bit.” With his words, that deep brooding look settles onto his face again.
I hesitate. “Has she tried to reconnect with you before?”
His jaw tenses, and for a moment I think I’ve ruined things by prodding. “Once, about ten years ago, around the time I got my trust fund.”
“So you think she’s after money?”
“I don’t know. It could have just been a coincidence. She got a huge settlement in the divorce.” He loops his tie around his collar and begins fussing with it.
I reach for my dress—because I need to get dressed—but I move slowly, hoping to get more out of him. “Did she ever give you a reason for leaving?”
“Does it matter? What kind of mother abandons her kids like that?”
“A horrible one,” I agree. “I’m just wondering if there’s more to the story. Maybe something that happened between your parents. Did your father ever say anything about why she left?”
“Because she wasn’t happy.” He yanks first his briefs on, then his pants. “Because she was a selfish woman who expected to be the center of attention all the time. And when he didn’t give that to her, she started looking elsewhere for it.”
“So she had an affair?”
“At least one.” His fingers fumble with his belt. “And now my dad’s gone and she’s hovering. It’s rather convenient, with the inheritance ready to be doled out. I don’t know exactly what my father gave her in the divorce settlement. He refused to talk about it. The family businesses were out of reach; the prenup made sure of that. But I know she was taken care of.” He sighs. “He may not have been the most loving man, or able to give her everything she wanted, but he did love her in his way, and she broke his heart. He never remarried after that.”
I reach for him, to straighten his tie, but really just to touch him. “She didn’t just break his heart, did she?”
His throat bobs with a hard swallow.
“I don’t mean to push, Henry, but it’s time you faced her and let go of all this anger you’ve kept bottled up for her. I think it’ll go a long way in you moving on from the pain she’s caused you.”
He regards me for a moment, his gaze unreadable. “Maybe you’re right.”
I offer him the smallest smile. Inside, my relief is exploding that he might listen to me.
He tugs at my dress, still in my hands. “I really need to get back to work, given I’m losing most of tomorrow, too.”
Right. Tomorrow is the funeral.
I pull on my bra and dress quickly. I reach for my panties but Henry seizes them. He bunches them up in his fist, and then sticks them in his pocket.
I giggle. “What are you doing?”
“Reminding myself what’s important.”
“My underwear is important?”
“No. You. You’re important,” he murmurs, smoothing my hair off my face. “Giving you what you need is important. Keeping you happy.”
My heart swells. “I’m happy as long as you’re in my life, Henry.” I love you. It’s on the tip of my tongue and I’m so damn scared to say it.
“I’ll see you tonight.” He hits the button to unlock the door.
The doorman must have been waiting for the sound because he immediately reaches for the handle.
I stand on the sidewalk for a moment to watch the limo pull away, ignoring the knowing looks.
My heart brims with adoration for that man.
