Fifty-six

Henley

I watch Conner polish off his tall stack in recordtime, his manners impeccable enough to impress even my mother. I remember his own had been such a stickler for them. Not that she was formal but that she expected her sons to behave like gentlemen. I can see that the training stuck, whether he wants to admit it or not.

“Don’t be surprised if I start showing up on your doorstep at all hours of the day and night, begging for pancakes.” He grins at me, wiping his mouth before laying his napkin beside his plate.

His compliment makes me giddy. “I take cooking classes when I have time,” I say, standing to clear his plate. “Wait until you try my—”

His hand closes over my wrist before I can lift his plate. “Nope,” he says. “That’s my job.” I remember the way his father cleared the table every night and washed dishes for his mother because she cooked dinner. When she tried to help, her husband would say the same thing Conner just said to me—nope, that’s my job.

When Mr. Gilroy said it to his wife, I always imagined he was saying I love you.

I nod, bobbing my head like an idiot because that’s all I can manage to do. Get a grip, Henley. It’s conditioning, not love. “Okay,” I finally manage, pulling my hand free.

He lets go of me and stands. Collecting our plates, Conner moves around me, carrying them into the kitchen. Moving to the window by his recently vacated chair, I pretend to enjoy the view. The almost frantic bustle below. Even on Sunday, Boylston is busy. Pedestrians hurrying home. Tourists posing in front of the ballpark across the street. Cars. Traffic. So much activity and I can’t really see any of it. I’m too focused on the sounds of him.

I imagine him, bare-foot in the kitchen, moving around in my private space, familiar and sure in track pants and a T-shirt.

Like he belongs here.

Like I belong to him.

I’m so lost in the impossible fantasy of it that I don’t hear him behind me until I feel the warmth of his chest brushing against my back. His hands settle on my hips. The hard press of his cock between my ass cheeks.

“You’ve got quite the view,” he murmurs, his chin hovering near the shell of my ear. “All those people…” His hands slip around the front of my hips to flatten against my stomach, pulling me even tighter against him. My nipples tighten in response, the sensation sending a flood of warm down my spine, pooling between my thighs. “Any one of them could look up here and see us. I like that.” He finds the hem of my sweater and slips past it, his wide, callused palm coasting up the soft skin of my belly, his fingers trailing lightly over the slats of my ribs. “I like thinking about people seeing me touch you…” His rough-tipped fingers trace the curve of my breast, feather light touches that have my breath trembling in my throat. “I want them to know.” When his fingers brush against my bare, swollen nipple, the tremble in my throat slides into a moan, and his mouth closes over it in response, sucking and nipping against the corded muscles of my neck, the hard sting of it releasing another flood of wet warmth between my legs. “No bra?” he growls in my ear.

“No.” I whimper in response, my breath sawing in and out of my lungs, harsh and uneven. The hand on my stomach slips lower to span my pelvis, holding me in place, his hips grinding his cock into the cleft of my ass while the hand on my breast rolls its nipple between its fingers.

He nips my ear with his teeth, the sting of it both punishment and reward. “Panties?”

I try to answer, but the word gets stuck in my throat. I shake my head no.

“Fuck.” The word comes out, rough and guttural, hot against my ear, the hand on my belly streaking downward, digging in to push past my waistband. His fingers skim the soft, wet seam of my pussy, the trace of them slow, almost reverent. “Jesus fucking Christ…” His cock gives a hard jerk in response, and I widen my stance, silently begging him to—

“Conner...” I moan his name when he pushes past my slick entrance, stroking two fingers into me so hard and fast my knees turn to water, the arm banded across my chest tightening, suddenly the only thing keeping me upright.

“Look at them, Henley,” he breathes in my ear, pressing the heel of his hand to the top of my cleft, grinding my clit against my pubic bone. “All those people. They can see us. They know.” He cups my pussy, his juice-slicked fingers moving in and out of me. Teasing my clit. Pumping into me. “They know it’s me you want. It’s me fucking you.”

I should move away from the window. I should. But I don’t. Because I want what he wants.

I want people to see.

I want them to know.

“Yes.” It’s all I can say. The only word that makes sense. “Yes.”

The orgasm rips through me, throwing my head back, tightening my spine so suddenly I feel it bow, my hips thrusting forward to take him in deeper even as my pussy ripples and tightens around his fingers, trying to keep him. Hold him inside me even though I don’t want him to stop. I want him to keep stroking me. Fucking me.

And then his hands move, the support of them gone so suddenly I have to throw my own against the glass to keep myself from pitching forward. He pulls my pants off, jerking them down my legs and over my feet. Before I can even register the fact that I’m half-naked, standing in front of a window, he turns me, pulling me into his arms.

“I need to see you,” he murmurs softly, his lips skimming along my jaw, teasing at the corner of my mouth. “I need you to look at me.” He lowers himself into the chair he ate dinner in, pulling me down with him, turning and positioning me until I’m straddling him, our faces inches from each other, the thick, rigid length of his cock throbbing against my still-quivering pussy.

Greedy for more, I plant my feet, rocking my hips against him and he groans, his mouth falling open, gaze nailed to mine like I’m the only thing in the world worth seeing. Like he’s blind to everything but me. He finds the hem of my sweater again, this time pulling it up over my head to toss it aside, leaving me completely naked.

Before I can even think to be embarrassed, he returns the favor, reaching up and behind to snag the collar of his shirt to drag it up, over his head, exposing himself.

Letting me look.

Letting me see.

I lift my hand, letting my fingertips run the length of them. Across the hard slab of his shoulder. His neck. The wide, muscular plank of his chest. The powerful line of his arm.

Taking them in.

The Celtic love knot inked into the skin of his throat. The Claddagh that spans his entire chest, the heart inverted, the point of it aimed toward his own. The warrior’s sleeve that reaches from shoulder to wrist. The complex mathematical equation that runs along the inside of his bicep.

Trying to accept what he’s showing me.

Understand what it means.

That they’re for me.

That he marked his skin so that every time he looks at himself, he sees me.

Remembers me.

I look up to find him watching me, guarded and wary because he expects me to do what I’ve always done. Push him away. Refuse to let him in.

I lean forward, pressing my mouth to the base of his throat, my lips vibrating with the groan that builds beneath them. I dip lower, skating my tongue over his nipple, nipping it with my teeth and he hisses out a breath, the hands on my hips tighten, digging their fingers into my ass when I lick my way across his chest to press a kiss to the inside of his bicep. “Henley…” he breathes my name, his hips flexing against mine. His hands press me tighter against him, opening the seam of my wet pussy, soaking the front of his track pants with my arousal. My mouth slides along the slope of his shoulder while my hands find the waistband of his pants, working them down enough to free his cock. Palming it, my fingers unable to meet each other around its girth, I give him a long, slow stroke from base to tip.

“Christ.” His head falls back against the chair, hips flexing, pressing against me, deepening the strokes I’m giving him while my tongue licks its way up the length of his throat, teeth grazing his jaw on my way to his ear.

“I want you to fuck me,” I moan, my hand pumping and stroking. Want isn’t what I’m feeling and it isn’t need. It’s a craving. A bone-deep craving that hums and jangles across every nerve-ending I have. Three days ago, I was a virgin with an over active imagination.

Now I can’t get enough of him.

Of this.

Mindless, I raise myself off his lap, against the pressure of his grip, my hand on his cock holding him steady so I can lower myself onto the hard length of him. Before I can get him inside me, he captures me by the wrist and holds it, trapping it behind me. “Please, Conner. I can’t—”

He catches my other hand and pulls it behind my back to join the other, bracketing both of my wrists between his long, callused fingers. My arms captive, he pulls down gently, using the leverage to draw my shoulders together, arching my back to push my breasts higher.

“Now, now, Henley,” he says, his voice low, his words sounding like they’re being dragged across hot asphalt. “Is that any way for a lady to behave?”

As soon as he says it, I feel a full body flush erupt over my skin, covering me from head to toe. Because it isn’t.

Because I’m behaving like a crazed animal.

Because right now, that’s exactly what I am.

An animal.

And I like it.

I moan, my head falling back, chin tipped toward the ceiling, my breath catching in my throat when I feel his hand move between us.

“Ladies are patient.” He slowly traces the seam of my slick, throbbing pussy with this thumb, gathering the arousal I’m practically dripping with.

“Ladies don’t demand.” He slips higher, pushes between my lips to skim light, feathery circles against my clit.

“Ladies aren’t greedy.” He strokes me until I’m shuddering and panting, dangling over the edge. Hips lifting, I rock my hips against the base of his cock. His thumb. The hot, swollen length of him. Any part of him I can reach.

“Ladies don’t fuck.” His tone is tight, and he pulls lower on my wrists in response, pushing my breasts even higher until I can feel his warm, uneven breath against me.

“Conner…” I whimper mindlessly, turned inside out by need and desperation. “Please.”

“Please what?” he says, lifting his hand to brush his wet thumb across my breasts, coating their engorged nipples with my juices. “You know how this works…” He licks and sucks my breasts, drawing their hard tips into his mouth and I start to shake, strung out and needy from the feel of his mouth on me. The throbbing pulse of him between my legs. “You have to ask for what you want, Henley.” His tongue skates around the curve of my breast, leaving a trail of aching desperation in its wake. “Say it…”

“I want your cock,” I moan shamelessly. “Please, Conner. I want—”

“Fuck.” He lets go of my hands, freeing me to reach in front of him to snag something from the table.

A condom.

He must’ve left it there before he came to stand behind me at the window. Like he had it all planned. Like he knew I’d want this. Want him.

I’m too relieved to care.

I watch him rip it open and roll it on, fast and practiced. “Let me see you,” he whispers, and I look up to find him watching me, his gaze locked on my face like he’s committing it to memory. “Just like that…” he murmurs, lifting me on to my tiptoes, every one of his muscles straining and flexing as he lowers me slowly, breath pumping through his chest like he’s been running forever. “Henley...” He barely whispers it, and I gasp as the thick, blunt head of his cock splits my pussy wide, sinking into me. Filling me. Stretching me until I’m fully seated. Taken every inch of him.

Still watching me, he lifts his hands, weaving his fingers through my hair, pulling it from its loose braid. “I want you to kiss me,” he says, his gaze falling to my mouth and hearing him say it makes me realize he hasn’t yet. He hasn’t kissed me. Not once since I started this whole thing, days ago. “Yes or no.”

I nod, my head bobbing between the bracket of his hands. “Yes,” I say, leaning forward, the feel of him flexing and shifting inside me taking my breath away. Brushing my mouth against his, he sighs, the sound of it pushing between my lips and I swallow it. Hold it in my lungs so I can keep a piece of him with me forever.

Even when I’m gone.