Chapter Twenty-Eight
“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.”
