ABBY
I HAD A glass of wine poured before I set my bag down or kicked off my shoes, but now even with my generous pour and half the glass gone I still haven’t caught my breath.
My apartment isn’t big enough. I’ve been storming from one end to the other for twenty-five minutes and with each pass, my need to strangle Hank Wagner is only getting worse. Kitchen, living room, bedroom, living room, kitchen…
How dare he?
I have my phone out ready to call, but again I slap it down on the counter—I mean, gently, because it’s my new phone and I’ve started reading on it—and turn on my heel, ready to wear a hole through the living room floor when a knock at the door stops me in my tracks.
Eyes narrowed, I glare at the door.
It’s not Helen. I know her knock.
It’s not Wilson. He wouldn’t be back.
If Hank were any kind of normal person at all, it wouldn’t be him either. But he’s not. Not even close.
I stalk to the door, that powder keg of agitated hurt and frustration within me ready to blow.
“What, you didn’t bring Annie along?” I demand, yanking the door open, ready to lay into him. Only Hank is already striding past me.
“She was bored, so I took her home.” He scans the space behind me. “How about Wilson? He cowering in your bedroom, wrapped up in some pink shorty robe, maybe?”
I cough, unable to believe this guy’s nerve.
That’s it. Match, meet fuse.
“Yeah, but he’s not cowering. He’s resting up for round two, since he just did me against this door you’re about to walk out of.”
I don’t know what I was thinking saying it. Why I’d go there. But then I don’t know why Hank is here in the first place.
The only thing I do know is that this cocky piece of work doesn’t believe me for a second. Which is miraculously, even more insulting than everything else he’s pulled tonight.
“This door?” he asks, kicking it closed without a backward glance. He tugs me toward him and spins me around so my shoulders meet the panels of the door I just slandered.
“Yes,” I bite out.
“And not a hair out of place. Which would confirm just exactly the kind of ho-hum performance I’d expect from Wilson. In fact, I might even feel sorry for you if I thought there was a chance in hell it was true.”
“What makes you so sure it isn’t?”
Hank plants one hand above my head, his arm straight, jacket hanging open. “Reason one, because of that half-empty pint glass of Chardonnay.”
“It’s half-full and a Pinot.”
The look he gives me says, Ooh, burn.
He braces with his other arm, boxing me in. “Two”—he lets those hard eyes roam over me, slowly skimming down my body, leaving a tingling, sensitive path in his wake before coming back up—“I know exactly what you look like after getting screwed against a door. And this isn’t it.”
God, and now I’m thinking about that weekend his parents were out of town senior year when we had his house to ourselves. How we tore at each other’s clothes, panting and pulling, and then—
“And three”—he glares down into this small space he’s created for us, eyes blazing—“you don’t even want to know how many laws I broke to get back here fast enough to make sure he didn’t have a fucking chance.”
This from the man who’d been on a date with the world’s most recognizable woman?
“Then you’re a little late,” I bite back.
I can actually feel the breath stop moving in Hank’s chest, feel his muscles locking down one at a time.
He swallows.
“What do you mean?”
I close my eyes, my anger pushing to the surface again. “He was my friend, Hank. For years that’s all he was. And then one damn drink with you and suddenly he’s crossing all the lines. Because of you.”
Hank’s body goes rigid and his eyes turn to coal. “What lines?”
This is the voice of a man whose decisions change the world.
“The trying-to-kiss-me lines!”
I’m still backed against the door, with Hank’s body so close that, with every breath I take, my breasts make contact with the solid muscles of his chest.
“Trying?” His thumb brushes along my bottom lip, slow and soft, with just the barest hint of pressure. Just enough to make sure I’m aware of exactly what he’s doing.
Heat spills through my center and my breath shallows.
“I didn’t let him. It’s never been that way for me with Wilson. Just like I told you.” My voice is quiet, my reaction to this man making me forget everything except what it used to be like when he touched me.
Almost everything.
I plant my hand against the center of his chest and narrow my eyes. “What about your date?” I ask, finding the hard edge I thought lost just moments ago. “Did Annie let you kiss her?”
The challenge ought to be enough to push him away, put him off balance. But instead Hank seems to relax, the corner of his mouth curving. Like maybe he was waiting to see if I’d want to know.
“No. I took her to a hotel and didn’t even wait for her to get checked in.”
Now he’s just trying to sweet-talk me. “I bet she didn’t like that.”
I shouldn’t like that.
“No, she didn’t.” He pushes against my hand, leaning closer to run the bridge of his nose along the side of mine.
“Good.”
I can feel his breath over my mouth and jaw, the heat of his body seeping into me, and then that last bit of distance between us is gone. His lips meet mine in a bruising crush, so hot and hard that I’m opening beneath him on a greedy moan.
This is crazy. Nothing’s changed since that night at the lagoon, but all I can think about is how badly I want this man… The tight grip of his fingers sifting into my hair and clenched at my hip… The pull of my body against his…
How much it killed me to see him with someone else.
I clutch at his shoulders and his tongue pushes past my lips, stroking into my mouth like a slow claim. It’s one I shouldn’t let him make, but God, I don’t want this to stop.
I’m drowning in the feel of his arms around me, the hard press of his body against mine, and the ragged quality of our breath when he breaks away.
“I went nuts seeing you with him.”
His mouth is at my ear, the gravelly confession vibrating through my chest, my belly… lower.
“It wasn’t a date.” I slide my fingers into his hair, knotting in the dark strands I’ve always loved to touch. Tightening. “But yours was.”
He pulls back to look at me. “It was a mistake.” The apology he doesn’t owe me is there in his eyes. “I thought going out with her would get my mind off you. But we hadn’t even made it to my car before I realized I was wrong.”
“Why?”
He returns to my ear, brushing his lips against it. “Because thinking about you is the best part of my day, Abby.”
They’re words I want to hear more than I should, but they terrify me because where does that leave us?
Only then, he’s kissing down the line of my neck again, flicking his tongue and pulling at the sensitive skin with soft draws I feel deep between my legs.
“Hank.”
His answer comes hot against my ear. “It doesn’t matter whether I’m the guy I was ten years ago or the guy I am today. Neither one of us can let you go.”
HANK
ABBY’S SKIN IS like silk beneath my hands, and those desperate little noises she makes when I get close to all that heat between her legs are going to be the end of me. I want more. I want the sound of my name breaking on her lips as I make her come. I want the feel of her body, tight and wet and taking me deep, embedded in my memory banks. And the look in her eyes when I’m buried inside her, I want that too, right there too.
Her nails bite into my shoulders.
“Please, Hank. Touch me.”
The hand I’ve been keeping on that tight leash comes loose, crossing all the lines I’ve been painstakingly adhering to… and with greedy abandon.
I groan, finding her panties damp to the touch.
So hot.
I pet her through the fabric, not wanting to give it up and yet desperate to get inside. She whimpers again and I break, sliding my fingers beneath the panel and into a playground of slick, plumped flesh.
“So wet for me, baby.”
If I’d said that to Abby ten years ago, she would have slammed her knees shut and run away. Been too embarrassed to talk to me for three days. But now, I can feel her response coating my fingers, in the shock of breath at my ear, and the way she tilts her hips into my touch, looking for more.
It’s that last bit that gets me the most. The needy plea of her body that has me needing to get inside of her more than I need my next breath.
I tighten my hold on her hair and pull her head back. Fuck, I like the things her breath tells me.
Her lips are swollen from my kiss already, parted and waiting for more. And when I take it, sliding my tongue past them again, thrusting in and out, slow and firm… I find her slick opening and sink my finger into all that snug, wet heat.
Christ.
She’s moaning around my tongue, gripping my shoulders like she’s never going to let go. And I don’t want her to. Her tight walls cling and clench with every slow thrust I give her, her breath already coming in short bursts.
I’m going to have what I want soon.
“Hank,” she gasps, as I twist and stroke inside her, rocking my palm against the sweet spot between her legs. “I want— I need— Oh God— Please—”
Abby’s eyes are hazed with need, her hands between us as she tugs and pulls at my shirt and belt, opens my fly, and reaches—
“Abby!” I growl the second her sweet fingers curl around me. I lean into her fist, reveling in this fantasy come to life.
Because hell yes, there have been a lot of fantasies about this woman, and the novelty of having her fist wrapped around my shaft instead of mine as this one plays out—un-fucking-believable.
“Panties,” I order, rolling on the rubber I carry in my wallet.
She kicks out of them and I catch a glimpse of purple and orange stripes that get me impossibly harder. I want to eat her through those panties, but another time, because tonight, what’s driving me is base and primal.
I’m notched at her opening, the hot pulse of her sex against the head of my cock.
Our eyes meet and she whispers, “Just this once.”
I smile. “Not a chance, beautiful.”
My name is on her lips as I part her slick flesh, feeding her inch after inch until I feel the flutter of her tensing and releasing in response to my body stretching hers.
So good.
I want to hammer into her, but it’s been so long and she’s so tight. And more than that chest-thumping need to claim, I need to make her come.
Only that’s not all of it. What I really need is to make her come better than she can remember coming before. I want to set the gold standard for sex and be the guy behind every wistful sigh and faraway stare for the rest of her life. And I want it to be because of tonight.
So instead of pounding hard and fast, I slide back, savoring the way her body resists letting me go, how her lips part and she gasps my name again.
I pull out nearly to the tip and then rock my hips forward. Pushing into that wet, slick friction, I fill her as slowly and completely as her body will let me before retreating to do it again.
Her hands are at my shoulders, her hold on my open shirt tightening with every thrust of my hips. I need more. She needs more.
I press her harder into the door, taking her knee from my hip and opening her wider as I bottom out.
Eyes flashing to mine, her breath stops.
How did I forget? She loves that push beyond what I should give her. I rock again, nudging deeper at the barrier of her body, and that’s it, her climax is breaking all around me. Her inner walls pulsing and gripping.
She cries out my name and I know she’s going to regret it if she thinks her neighbors have heard her, so I cover her cries with my kiss, devouring every one.
Making them mine.
And then from some deeper, more primal place: She’s mine.
The tension gathering low in my spine concentrates and then it’s big-bang time and I’m riding the wave in a hot, pumping rush.
When it’s over, I give myself to the count of ten to hold her. To press my forehead against hers and feel the wash of her breath against my neck and jaw. To just be.
“Hank?”
“One second, baby. Let me handle the condom.”
She nods and when I get back from the bathroom, she’s straightened her dress but is still standing at the door. Her hands clutched together in a nervous hold that makes me ache after what we just shared.
“I was serious about what I said. Just this once.”
“I know.” And then before she gets any ideas, I wrap my arms around her and carry her into her bedroom. “I was serious too. Not a chance.”
Her eyes are wide and I marvel at how impossibly blue they are. At how much they reveal when she’s not actively trying to shut me out. And hell, even when she is.
Smoothing her hands over my shoulders, she asks, “But… you’re just talking about tonight, right?”
I lay her back on her bed and brace above her. “We can start there.”