Chapter Eight
Ailish stared out the window of their cabin, willing Henrik’s truck to appear. Having been allowed to take another walk this morning, she felt far less stir-crazy, but as eleven o’clock came and went, her nerves began to whir, anxiousness taking up residence in her stomach. Had Henrik met her father? Oh God, she hoped not. Nothing good could come from an association with Caine. Only pain and loss.
With a heaved breath, Ailish turned from the window to find Erin and Connor facing off across the bed, much like she’d done with Henrik yesterday afternoon, before he’d left. It appeared her two temporary protectors were equally ready for Henrik to return so they could be alone.
Yes, sexual frustration was alive and well in cabin nine.
Ever since Ailish and Erin had returned from their walk last night, Connor had been pacing, splitting his glowering attention between the cabin’s perimeter and his smiling girlfriend. Knowing a thing or two about teasing men, Ailish could see the effect of Erin leaving Connor unfulfilled. This was different, though. Her own teasing had never ended in the men touching Ailish, merely with Ailish touching herself. She’d seen Henrik with the same starved expression just yesterday when she’d been beneath him on the bed, his mouth doing wicked things to her body. Actually, she couldn’t stop seeing it.
This unrelenting yearn to feel Henrik’s weight press her down into the bed again had combined with her fear he wouldn’t return…and created resolution. No more teasing, no more trying to get away. She had to trust her gut where Henrik was concerned. If he would only—
Wheels crunched along the dirt outside and Ailish rushed back to the window. Behind her, Connor muttered halle-fucking-lujah and Erin laughed, but after that Ailish could only hear the rushing in her own ears. As Henrik climbed from the truck and strode toward the cabin, her mouth ran dry. She absorbed every detail of him, some heating her blood, others adding fuel to her worry. The jeans riding low on his hips, the way his thin white T-shirt conformed to his muscular abdomen and thick upper arms…yeah, those details made her fingers itch to touch. Made her want to sit on his lap and tempt his erection. Conversely, she hated the tape around his knuckles, his sliced lower lip. The puffiness surrounding his right eye.
Without any prompting, her palm slapped the windowpane, making Henrik’s head lift. She frowned at him, and although she couldn’t hear him through the glass, she knew he sighed. Actually had the nerve to look disappointed at her choice of welcome. Well, too bad.
As soon as Henrik opened the door, Connor grabbed Erin’s hand and vanished through the exit, obviously headed back to their own cabin. Ailish couldn’t be more grateful. She had a few things to get off her mind, and all of them were directed at the man who had the nerve to look better in a T-shirt than any fitness model she’d seen on the cover of a health magazine.
Henrik closed the door and leaned back against it, thumbs slipping into his belt loops, the picture of resignation. “Hey, Lish.”
Oh no. Was it possible for a man to make you wet in just two words? Yes. Because Henrik had just done it. Heaviness descended between her thighs, even more powerful than yesterday, because she’d just had a full night of creating scenarios where he didn’t come back. Relief bisected desire and she couldn’t get across the room fast enough.
A second before she reached Henrik, his resignation transformed with surprise, but then…God. Then there was just a man wanting to fuck. Needing to fuck her. Ailish’s knees almost gave out before he snatched her off the ground. Her stomach remained quivering in the air as he lifted her, turned, and rammed them both against the door. They moved as one unit, her thighs hugging his waist, bodies interlocking like two sides of a broken heart.
“Jesus,” he groaned, lifting two fingers to her mouth, his eyes riveted as he pushed them deep past her lips. “I missed this little mouth. You got something to say, huh? Too bad. I can’t watch your lips move right now without wanting to get some part of myself between them. You understand what I’m talking about?”
Ailish nodded, whimpering when he thrust against her mound. As if her body started to operate on pure, erotic instinct, she sucked on his fingers and was rewarding with a grind of his hips.
“You think I won’t put you on your knees in that Disney Princess T-shirt, baby?” he breathed in her ear before licking along the rim. “You’re wrong. I’ll even use it to wipe your chin afterward.”
A sensation she could only equate with lightning drilled Ailish in her midsection. The force of it made her eyelids fall, her head list to one side as if she’d been struck by the ball of electricity. But at the apex of her thighs, she’d never been more alive. More awake. The walls of her core clenched together, missing a part of Henrik she’d never even felt there. A part so huge and hot behind the fly of his jeans, she couldn’t help writhing up and down on it, sucking, sucking his fingers like she’d been born for that sole purpose.
“I’m going to take my fingers out of your pretty warm mouth now, Ailish, but listen to me first.” His brown eyes were darker, richer than she’d ever seen them and rife with intention. “I can’t take you playing with me right now. Maybe tomorrow we can try to fuck through our clothes again to get your tease body off. But not today. On top of missing the hell out of you, I’ve spent the last twelve hours knowing I almost made you come on that bed. If I’d been punched in the face until I blacked out, I would have woken up thinking about how you panted and gasped, like it was just about to happen. So if you’re going to let me lick your pussy right now to make up for it, nod once and I’ll give you back your mouth, so you can scream.”
Ailish was nodding before Henrik even finished speaking. Oh God…she could barely see the room around them, her vision had gone so fuzzy. He was the only solid part of her surroundings, so firm and capable as he turned and threw Ailish onto the bed, where she bounced once. Positive her mouth was hanging open, she pushed up on her elbows and watched him strip, revealing that brick-house body, inch by inch. Arrogance didn’t typically appeal to her in men, but she loved the crap out of it in Henrik. He tossed that T-shirt aside, knowing full well his muscles shifted with every movement.
“Get your panties off.” He unsnapped the button of his jeans and unzipped. “I’m going to show you my cock, baby. I’m going to show you how I jerk it when I think about you. And then I’m going to get between your legs and taste how wet it made you.”
Ailish hooked her fingers in the sides of her underwear, lifting up her bottom to tug them down. When it became obvious Henrik wouldn’t proceed until she completed the task, Ailish hurried through the process, throwing her panties onto the floor and waiting. With a meaty fist, Henrik drew the flesh out of his jeans with gritted teeth before kicking off his pants and kneeling on the bed’s edge. Ailish moaned at the sight of him, this powerful man holding his arousal, like it was causing him an untold amount of pain—and his eyes accused her of being the culprit.
“Lift your knees up to your chest.” He bent down and kissed the inside of her thigh, so close to her center. “I want to watch it get wet.”
Once again shaken by the knowledge that she knew nothing about real, primal urges of men, Ailish hesitated only a second before she followed Henrik’s order. Her stomach hollowed and shuddered at his reaction, the intensity with which he watched Ailish reveal the spot between her legs in such a new, intimate way. Being this exposed in broad sunlight should have unnerved her, but no. There was trust beneath the heat, keeping her balanced. That balance was short-lived, however, because when Henrik thrust his hips up and back, pushing his arousal through the opening of his fist, Ailish’s equilibrium wavered. “This…is what you do when you think of me?”
“That’s right.” His grunt turned into a growl. “Nothing I thought of before now is this good, though. I’ll never be able to look at your hair again without wanting to see how well it matches your pussy.”
Ailish’s neck loosened all its own and her head hit the bed. Her hands were hooked under her knees, keeping her legs elevated, but she wanted to turn onto her stomach. Wanted to wedge the ache in her loins up against the palm of her hand. This was too much, this up-close-and-personal view of Henrik stroking himself. It made her stomach tighten, strained her calf muscles.
Maybe she’d expressed herself out loud, because one of Henrik’s hands gripped her shoulder, the other one sliding beneath her hip. And then he flipped her over, drawing a strangled scream from her mouth. Her hips were jerked up, leaving Ailish on her hands and knees. She could see herself reflected back in the windowpane, but refused to believe it could be her, this girl with tumbling hair and a swollen mouth. Her bottom poised straight up in the air…and a man running hands over that backside, slapping it gently.
Her breath shook out. “I thought…are y-you going to…”
“Fuck you?” Henrik’s reflection dipped, and then she felt it. His tongue licking up the center of her most private flesh. “No, I’m just getting a taste.” Another flicker of his tongue, this time against her entrance. “Mmmm, Lish. You taste like you need to come as bad as I do.”
“I do,” she whispered, the muscles in her thighs clenching. “Please…”
His palms smoothed down to her thighs and back up. “You’re going to suck my dick after I finish you.” He spanked her right buttock, then thrust his hips up between her thighs so she could feel his stiff erection. “I’ve thought about it the whole drive home. That pretty little red head bobbing up and down while you’re still wet between the legs from my mouth.”
Ailish’s fingers twisted in the bedspread, her nipples forming tight peaks as she imagined servicing the commanding man touching her so intimately. Reverently one minute and harshly the next, with long licks of her center, tight cracks of his palm. Tingles were already beginning in her limbs, starting in her knees as usual. Being positioned on her hands and knees lifted the heaviness below her belly button and made it more effective somehow, like a delicious weight pressing down, urging her toward the finish line. “Henrik.”
A response wasn’t forthcoming, and suddenly Ailish couldn’t care less because he dropped to his knees and yanked her body closer to the bed’s edge. His lips tugged at the flesh of her core, opening her up for his hardened tongue, his thumbs digging into the cheeks of her bottom and massaging as he battered her clit. Was it possible for a man to slap a woman with his tongue, enough to cause a sting? Yes. Yes…she could hear the sound of it connecting with the place between her thighs, causing explosions of lust throughout her middle. With rough hands, he pushed up her backside, exposing her more, giving his greedy mouth more access.
Ailish heard herself moaning and didn’t bother trying to stop. Nothing had ever felt this good. So good, she was begging him to stop in order for her to savor it, this moment before her own touch was no longer satisfying. This is what she’d been craving without even realizing. “Oh God…I’m going to…”
With a guttural sound, Henrik hooked his forearms beneath her thighs and lifted Ailish’s lower half into the air. His mouth never stopped nipping, licking, devouring. His beard scraped along her inner thighs with every flexing of his jaw, and Ailish mentally checked out, became nothing more than a vessel for pleasure that was about to shatter from exceeding maximum capacity.
“Oh…oh, Henrik…yes.”
She peaked while her legs were suspended in midair, which gave her no anchor, save the unbelievable mouth sucking at her clit. Tremors sizzled down both sides of her body, meeting in the middle. Her knees slipped down to Henrik’s chest, both of her ankles held in a death grip. So powerful, this man. She could only withstand—it was her sole purpose at that moment. To survive the most intoxicating pleasure she’d ever experienced.
At least, until Henrik flipped Ailish onto her back, threw her ankles over his shoulders and made her experience it again. And again.
...
Henrik needed to stop licking Ailish’s pussy sometime today, but Christ, the girl tasted sweet and fresh. Her thighs hugged both sides of his face as he took another drag of perfection, felt a little aftershock shiver through her stomach. Never want to stop. His hands shared the sentiment, kneading any and all flesh he could find. Her thighs, her scalp, her shoulders…that ass. He could make her come one more time. Just one more.
“No more,” Ailish whimpered, her narrow hips twisting under his grip. “Please…you need me…let me.”
You need me. God, no exaggeration there. He’d driven a hundred miles an hour to get near Ailish this morning, all the while hating himself for bringing the stain of Chicago along with him. Where he’d been last night, the man he’d interacted with…that shit had no business in her orbit. At the same time, though, he’d needed to see Ailish to get clean again. Needed to see her and acknowledge that she hadn’t been returned to her father, simply by virtue of the possibility being voiced. No way in this life he would let that happen.
“Henrik,” Ailish screamed, thighs clenching so tight he could barely hear that beautiful sound leaving her mouth. His goddamn name. Yes. She was coming again and Henrik lapped at the dampness like a dirty dog that hadn’t been given water in weeks. So good. So good. Slippery and warm and smooth and his.
This time, when she pushed his face away with her hands, Henrik went, sinking back on his heels. As she sat up on the bed and pushed messy red hair out of her face, Henrik had to restrain himself from diving back on top of her to get his tongue in that pussy. God, he was fucking addicted. A certified Ailish addict. He actually might have tried to convince her to lie back and take more of his mouth, if his dick wasn’t throbbing like a motherfucker against his thigh.
As if she’d read his mind, those hazel eyes glassed up, her lips seeming to go puffy under his regard. Lord, he shouldn’t have come to her so damn hungry. His already-potent drive was amplified after last night’s unfulfilling fight, after the frustration of being on a deadline to figure out how to keep her protected. She looked like a sacrifice waiting for him to pillage, and shit, he wanted to. His lust had been penned in like a zoo animal and now it stalked, back and forth.
“Lie on your stomach,” Henrik half shouted, before taking a deep breath and repeating the order in a calmer manner. Bring it down a notch. Or maybe ten notches would be better. Henrik looped a hand around his cock and stood, watching Ailish crawl forward and arrange herself facedown on the bed. Without a verbal warning, he curled his hands beneath her arms and dragged her forward, bringing her face even with the edge. His heart was being beat with a mallet and bouncing back with twice the strength, just looking at her taut backside, the slightness of her form, the proximity of her mouth to his ready dick. The urge to overpower and take was fierce, but he battled it back and focused on her eyes. “I haven’t been with anyone since that day in the park, Ailish.”
Henrik didn’t realize he’d said the words out loud until Ailish’s expression changed, went soft, before sliding right back into aroused. She liked hearing he hadn’t been with anyone and hell, didn’t that make up for showing a portion of his hand? Damn straight it did. Her hips writhed on the bed, cheeks gone pink. The girl looked ready to mouth-fuck him into another time zone.
“You going to give me a nice ride on that tongue, baby?”
Mischief lurking in her gaze, Ailish nodded, one hand reaching out to tug his legs closer. No sooner had his knees bumped the bed frame than Ailish surrounded his cock with wet heat. Oh God. Henrik ordered his body to keep him upright. Ailish had never been intimate this way with a man—he could tell by the way she explored—and Jesus, that made his balls tighten like nobody’s business. Her mouth was virgin territory, and the first taste would always be him, no matter what. Mine. My mouth.
At first, she seemed fascinated with the head of his dick, the ridges, how they felt gliding over her tongue. Henrik was more than okay with that, because as soon as she took him deeper and those lips expanded to accommodate his girth, it would be a too-quick road to relief—
Fuck. That thought had formed too soon, because his fast little learner wanted to get all of him inside her mouth—at the same time. She choked twice, but wouldn’t stop trying to reach his base. Over and over. Until nothing could stop Henrik from assisting her, pumping his length into the smooth entrance of her mouth. He leaned over her prone body and took two nice handfuls of her ass, squeezing the flesh as he thrust.
“Goddammit yes. You like having your mouth fucked, baby?” He snatched up Ailish’s hands, crossing her wrists at the small of her back, that submissive position turning up the volume on his lust. “Can you tell how much I love fucking it, you cock-hungry girl? I’m going to bust like a motherfucker and it’s all your fault. So greedy and hot and tight. Suck it harder.”
Ailish moaned around his flesh, burying her feet in the bed to push closer, to take more of him. She pulled at his restraining hands, but Henrik refused to release her. Every buck into her mouth made her pretty ass shake, and yeah, that little shudder was going to bring him to the end, sure as shit. Ahhh, then he pictured those hazel eyes looking up at him, determining whether or not he was pleased, and a Goliath tightening occurred beneath his navel.
“I can’t hold on. I can’t…just stay right there.” His head was assaulted with a wave of delirium, his balls trying to climb inside his stomach. “Fuck, fuck, Ailish. Your mouth is killing me. Just clamp down with those lips, baby…yeahhh. That’s real goddamn good. Feel how bad I want inside you. All the damn time.” He couldn’t pull out yet. It felt too good, so he held his breath and delivered shallow pushes into her waiting mouth, groaning in a voice so foreign, he almost couldn’t recognize it. Have to pull out. Too much inside me for her to take.
Adrenaline and animal instinct combined in a white-hot pool, twisting him down into the vortex they created. With his remaining sliver of clarity, Henrik removed his erupting cock from Ailish’s mouth, held her down on the bed with a fist of red hair…and came on her bare back, as far down as he could reach, roaring his satisfaction until he’d spent himself completely.
When reality surfaced, Henrik realized how punishing his grip was on Ailish’s hair and immediately let go, soothing her scalp with his hand and rasping an apology. They were equally out of breath as Henrik walked to the bathroom and retrieved a towel, cleaning the evidence of his pleasure off her beautiful body upon returning to the room, watching her turn over and stretch out like a contented cat. The bed creaked as Henrik lay down beside her, examining her expression for a hint of what she was thinking.
“I was rough, Ailish.” He trailed his lips down her temple. “There’s an apology dying to get out of me. But I’d have to apologize every time. I’m a big man to begin with, but it’s you, baby. I…need your body to remember mine when we’re done. Need it to feel reminders every time you move. And I need it so damn bad.” His palm molded to her hip, tugged her closer. “If you want me inside your body—if you want me to fuck you—we might need to work up to it.”
Just when Henrik was about to panic over Ailish’s distant stare, she turned onto her side and spoke. “Um. W-when can we get started on that?”
Wait. Had he heard her right? Yeah…yeah, he had. A smile was pushing free behind her lips, those already-flushed cheeks deepening with even more color. Oh man. The landscape of his insides shifted, like two fault lines parting and relocating after an earthquake. This girl. She was either going to be his reason for living or the reason he died. It was all right there, shining in front of him like a spotlight.
Ailish went up on an elbow, making her tits sway like two tempting pieces of mouthwatering fruit, hidden beneath her shirt. “Henrik?”
Disliking the note of worry in her voice, Henrik leaned in and kissed her mouth, long enough that his cock started to harden again between their bodies, ready for another round. Pulling away from the promise of more Ailish wasn’t easy by any stretch, but they needed to talk. His career and her freedom—possibly her life—were on the line and they needed to be part of the solution together.
He wasn’t ready to tell her about the evidence he’d destroyed. Not quite. His feelings for Ailish had been given far more time to cultivate and strengthen, whereas she’d known him a grand total of two and a half days. He couldn’t risk her backing off when she realized he’d already given up everything. Time and patience were required here. Once they were free of danger and she’d spent more time with him, he’d reveal the full picture and pray she understood. Pray she didn’t resent him for taking away her choice.
“We need to talk, Ailish.”
She tugged on a strand of hair, eyes suddenly evasive. “Okay, but there’s something I need to tell you first.”