Chapter 24: Chapter 24

HENRY LIVES in a lavish prewar building on Central Park, all marble walls and chandeliers. A scary-looking bouncer-sized doorman in a brown uniform and brown hat opens the door for us.

We walk into the lobby, hand in hand. Leaving the world behind.

“Who’s this?” the doorman says, grinning at Smuckers. Smuckers strains at his leash, tail a blur of wagging, because, stranger petting!

“It’s Smuckers,” I say, tightening my grip on Henry’s hand.

Henry swears under his breath as the man kneels in front of Smuckers.

I slide my hand under Henry’s suit jacket. He seems to vibrate under my touch.

Things turn out to be more exciting than Smuckers could’ve imagined—the man has a fist, and from inside that fist comes the smell of food. Finally the man opens his hand and sets down a bone-shaped treat, which Smuckers gobbles.

Well, who can pass up a bone-shaped treat?

“How’s it going?” Henry asks him.

“Fine and dandy,” the doorman says, ruffling Smuckers’s hair. “Look at you, mister!” Smuckers is apoplectic with glee. He likes this doorman.

Henry drapes his arm around my neck and whispers in my ear. “Sorry.”

I pull closer, slide a hand over his firm ass. “Will he have a problem,” I whisper, “if we make out on the floor over there?”

“Come on, Smuck.” Henry takes the leash. “See ya later, Alan,” he says.

Alan salutes Smuckers and then us.

We head deeper into the maze of marble and chandeliers and elegant carpeting and get to the pair of elevators with golden doors. Henry hits Up, never taking his eyes from mine.

The elevator inspection license is posted between the two elevators, just like in our building, except in our building it’s under smudgy Plexiglas. In this building it’s in an ornate gold frame like it’s a freaking Picasso.

“Some fancy action right here. If I’d’ve known, I would’ve put Smuckers in his silver bow tie.”

Henry gives me this look like he doesn’t give a crap. He’s so past giving a crap. He yanks me flush to him, chest to chest, lips inches apart. His heart bangs against my rib cage. His cock bores into my belly—hard—like he wants to make me feel it.

“Yes,” I breathe, immobilized by him in front of the elevator inspection certificate of the rich and famous.

His lips brush mine. It’s a whisper of a kiss. A shimmer of sensation. Flesh nipping flesh. Teasing and electric.

I touch one of the buttons on his shirtfront. I slip my fingers under, seeking his warm body, pressing the back of my hand into the hard plane of his stomach. He lets out a little groan of surrender, then takes my upper lip in his teeth for a moment, catching, releasing.

I find his belly button. I slide my knuckle down his trail of soft hair into the elastic of his underwear.

A ding sounds from somewhere.

Henry’s hands close over my shoulders as he kisses me. He maneuvers me sideways and backs me into the elevator without breaking the contact of our kiss. Smuckers is a blur at our feet.

Henry turns and stabs in a code, then backs me up to the wall, kissing me some more. He slides a hungry hand over my loose hair and then over the fuzziness of my sweater, over my breasts and shoulders, all the way down to my wrists, which he captures in his hands.

I’m a butterfly, pinned by his gaze, as he lifts my arms and presses them up against the dark velvet of the elevator wall panel. Again he kisses me, lips like plush pillows.

“I want you so bad I could die,” I say.

He kisses me harder.

The doors slide closed. Smuckers is a small sentry below, waiting for the doors to open again. Or maybe he’s trying to figure out the strange white shape he sees in the aged gold patina.

“Maybe you should stab some buttons a few times. Get this thing going.”

“Nobody’s stabbing any buttons,” he growls into my neck.

I like the growl. I tunnel my fingers into his hair, grab two fistfuls, kiss his cheekbone, then his lips.

“You were supposed to leave your hands up there against the wall,” he says.

“My hands are in a misbehaving mood,” I mumble into the kiss.

The bar of his cock is finding the V of my legs under the wool of my skirt, pushing and pressing, just the good side of too much.

His breath sounds harsh. It heats my skin like a burn as he slides his hands over my hips.

Feverishly, he starts sliding my skirt up toward my waist. “These skirts.” His hands tremble as he gathers it up, bunching. “You kill me all the time.”

“Henry. We’re in an elevator. What if somebody comes in?”

He pauses to cradle my chin with gentle fingers. His fingers are gentle but his gaze is pure savagery. Maybe he’ll kill anybody who comes on. Maybe that’s it.

His words feather over my lips. “You see me put in that code? That code takes this thing directly to the top floor, which is my floor. This is my front door we’re in.” He kisses me. “My doorway.” He kisses me again, then pulls back to look into my eyes. “Mine.”

In a heartbeat, the nobody game turns dangerous. Mine. He means me.

My shoulders press back flat against the velvety wall. My sex aches. Throbs. The third-floor light flicks off and the fourth-floor light flicks on, strange stars.

He kisses me. Melts me.

I’m a thief, and I’ve broken into somebody’s beautiful home. I’m enjoying their furniture, helping myself to their food, wearing their soft clothes. It’s wonderful, but it also hurts, because none of it can ever be mine.

Just one night.

He’s back on the skirt project, making a logjam of thick fabric and lining, like ropes around my hips and thighs. “Uh,” he says, stepping back, panting. “Get it off you.”

I start to unhook the waist.

“No, no, hell no.” He’s shaking his head. “Keep it on. Just pull it up.”

“You like when it’s pulled up.” My heart pounds. Even in this, he’s so specific in his vision.

“Do it.” He pants ferociously.

I can’t resist.

I bend over and grip the hem, gazing at him from under my lashes as I draw it up slowly, turning it inside out on myself. “You have to do it nice and neat,” I say. “Or it doesn’t get done at all.” I say it all prim and proper, because that goes with the skirt fantasy he has.

There’s a feral light in his eyes. The powerbroker billionaire of the century feels out of control.

Even before I have it all the way up, he falls to his knees in front of me. “Jesus, you’re so hot.” Strong fingers slide up to grab my fleshy butt cheeks as he presses his face to my panty-covered mound.

The elevator jolts to a stop. The doors slide open revealing a dark penthouse suite, moodily lit, city lights visible in the distance.

Smuckers escapes the elevator, leash dragging.

“Smuckers just…”

“Let him destroy the place.” His words are hot against my throbbing sex. His tongue rasps over the fabric. “Let him set the whole planet on fire.”

“Well, you have quite the low opinion of poor Smu—” My words die in my throat as rough fingers yank aside my soaked panties and invade my soaked folds, sliding, stroking.

Pleasure sparks through me. My knees turn to jelly.

“You are so wet.” He’s pushing my panties down my thighs, down my legs, pulling and mauling them off. “You kill me. You kill me with your secret hotness.”

He grips my calf. “Up.”

Shaking, I comply. He frees me from my panties, fingers and fabric a whisper against my ankle. He guides my leg over his shoulder, opening me to him. The air hits my heated core.

I grip the rail on either side of me, pulse racing. I have no right to be here.

I have no right to this man.

He kisses my bare mound, mauling it with his mouth, edging his lips deeper between my folds. I let out a strangled cry when he hits my clit.

Confident hands press the flesh down there wider. I squirm and whimper as he swipes a tongue over the length of my seam.

He holds me tight. “Vicky, Vicky, Vicky,” he breathes into my heat, licking me mercilessly. Rough whiskers abrade my inner thighs.

I feel wild. My blood rushes thick, like warm honey, throbbing through my veins.

“I have needed this,” he breathes, “so damn long.” His every word tickles my clit. “So damn long. I have needed this for so long.”

Then his tongue is on me, soft and warm and long and flat.

My shoulder blades press against the wall as he strokes me higher, stoking a tidal surge of feeling into the tip of my bud.

Every lap of his tongue builds the feeling higher. His licks are relentless. Merciless. Brilliant and driven, like him.

He changes his tongue. It feels pointy and stabby now. “Please, Henry, please.”

Harsh fingers grip my thighs. His tongue seems actually to curl against my bud.

“I didn’t know a tongue could do so many…shapes.”

He stops licking and looks up at me, dark hair wild, eyes glittering. He’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

“That’s what you’re getting out of all this?” he asks. “The wonderful world of the human tongue?”

“No! Please, go back!”

“I love how wet you are for me.” He traces a drip of wetness on my thigh to where it disappears. He finds another.

I need him so bad, I’m shaking. “You have to go back.” Sweat trickles down my spine. “Please.”

“You’re even hotter begging like this.”

I grip the rail. “Please.”

His mouth is near my clit again—I can tell by the heat of his breath. He holds me in place, traps me with his hands and mouth. I’m his prisoner.

Finally his mouth is back on me again. He feasts on me. I whimper and squirm.

Hot, determined fingers dig harder into my ass as he licks me into a frenzy. The world begins to dissolve around me.

When he sucks the bud of my clit into his mouth, my breath goes shallow. “Oh,” I say. One short, sharp word.

He gives it another pull and the pleasure crashes over me, crashing and breaking over me like a wave. Explosions of surf and pleasure and white-hot light.

My head falls back against the wall panel. My breath saws in and out. He’s stopped the licking but his mouth hovers there, like he can breathe in my ecstasy.

He moves up my body to stand in front of me. I’m shivering, shaking.

His hands cradle my cheeks as he rains kisses over my face. “We’re going in there, baby, and I’m going to strip you naked and fuck the daylights out of you. I’m going to fuck you like there’s no tomorrow. You good with that?” He kisses me again. Again.

His words drug my veins. Good drugs, wild and intoxicating. My mind is thinking yes, and then I’m whispering it. Yes, yes, yes, to the rhythm of his kisses.

He pulls back, studies my eyes.

I mouth his name. Long and slow, I mouth it. Hen-ry.

He exhales raggedly. His hands are on me. He’s picking me up. I scream as I’m whirled around. He carries me through his place, past low lights. Past furnishings. Kitchen. Walls. Hall. Into a spacious bedroom.

He throws me down on the bed. I scoot back a little, and he crawls right over to me and grabs my legs, yanks me under him. “Where’re you going?”

I like no past or future. I like no roles. He goes to work on the pearly buttons, fingers trembling. “I never feel like this,” he says, suddenly serious. “I never feel this messed up. Your skirt was an engineering problem I should’ve understood, but I felt like…a bear. My hands like a bear.”

“I liked it.”

“I’m serious. You’re all I could think about, all these weeks.”

“Me, too,” I say. “I watch you. I try not to want you,” I say.

He growls with satisfaction when he hits my camisole. “You always have these under there?”

“Kind of,” I say.

He yanks the cups down so they’re under my breasts. “You need to be dealing with that skirt right about now. I need it off you.” His voice is sluggish with lust and desperation.

I unhook and unzip my skirt as he tongues my breast. Then he makes me take the rest of my clothes off.

I’m naked under him, just like I imagined, but he’s not playing his part. I’d imagined hot, arrogant Henry in his beautiful suit, crassly using me.

Instead he’s skimming his hand over my skin, like he’s learning me. Mapping me. Enjoying the me I hide under the court clothes. Enjoying Vonda.

It’s too much. Too much vulnerability.

“Henry.” I reach up.

He grabs my hands. Kisses a finger. Keeps them clasped in his. “Shh.”

He runs two fingers under my breast, a whisper of a movement that nudges it up just slightly. “I love you right here.” He slides his palm down over the curve of my belly. I quiver to his touch. “And right here.”

Stop talking, I think.

Fingers roam over my hip, pressing, printing. “Here.”

He nudges apart my legs. My heart jumps into my throat, knowing what’s coming. He trails a lazy finger over my mound. I arch up when he makes contact with my clit. Steely eyes holding mine, he plays with my sensitive folds.

“You are so beautiful.”

He’s not just printing me, he’s seeing into me. All the possibilities, the hidden things. Like the Moreno hotel. He sees beauty where everyone else sees rubble for a landfill.

I whimper. A strange sound to my ears—misery mixed with utter pleasure.

“I’ve got you, baby.”

All this time I thought the worst thing that could happen would be me being exposed as Vonda.

I was wrong.

The worst thing that can happen is the possibility that he might love Vonda.

I rip my hands from his grip and pull him closer. “This is hardly fair. You with all the clothes.” I reach down to his cock, grab the bulge, fitting my fingers around best as I can with his pants still on.

I know when I get it feeling right, because he growls. I pull, erasing everything he’s doing. I bite his ear, taking back control.

“Not. Fair,” I say.

“Fair is for judges.” He rises up over me and undoes his belt, looking at me naked under him. He yanks it clear out of the belt loops, all hot and crass.

The tender mood is gone.

“I plan to be totally unfair with you. I’m going to exploit every advantage. I’m going to keep you naked underneath me and fuck you until you’re screaming my name.”

“Uh,” I say.

He presses my hand to my sex. “Do yourself, baby. Get yourself ready.”

“I want you to.”

He gives me a stern look. Bossy, stern Henry hasn’t quite left his CEO self behind. I’m feeling better now. I slide my fingers between my legs. He unbuttons his shirt, gaze heavy on my skin. I get up a rhythm.

He strips off his shirt, revealing a muscled chest. He tosses the thing aside, then rips off the rest of his clothes, gaze never leaving my fingers. “You don’t know how hot you are.”

“Come here,” I say. I need him to cover me.

He’s fumbling in his bedside drawer. A thrill sparkles through me. I turn on my side and slide my palm up his thigh, a smooth, massive pillar below his cock, which juts out hard, thick and veiny and beautiful in the moody shadows of the room.

Henry’s cock is beautiful, just like him.

“Didn’t you have a job you were supposed to be doing?” he growls.

“I have a different job now.” I take hold and he groans. “A lateral move,” I add.

He groans again as I slide my hand around steely hardness. “…gonna kill me,” he mumbles.

I sit up and lick up the side. “There might be a graze of teeth involved.” I swirl my tongue around the glistening head, salty and smooth.

With a strangled cry he has me on my back. He’s tossing a condom wrapper. He’s rolling a condom onto himself with quick, efficient movements, gaze never leaving mine.

“Fuck me,” I say. My words sound breathless. My entire being feels like it’s in suspension, waiting for him, craving him.

“You sure?” he asks, sliding his head to my clit with the help of his thumb, which gets me reeling, almost setting me off.

“I’m sure.” I buck my hips, urging him on.

He presses me back down, pinning my hips to the bed as he glides himself around on me with perfectly tantalizing pressure.

He’s rubbing my clit harder and more mercilessly, zeroing in on the most wildly tickly parts of me.

I make a little begging sound. I’m moving under him, rhythmically, like he’s already fucking me.

I let out a breath as he pushes into my swollen sex, huge and thick.

“Holy shit,” he says, voice full of wonder.

My blood races. Everything is spinning out of control. Being joined with him is too much truth, suddenly. Truth hiding a painful lie.

“Henry—”

He kisses the line of my jaw and starts to move inside me. “We don’t have to think of anything,” he says. “Just concentrate on me moving inside you. How hard you have me. What you do to me…” He seems to lose his train of thought here. “How unbelievably good…” He drives on, driving us upward, stoking the flame of us.

His skin glistens with sweat. Hard planes of muscle. A shiver of hair on his belly when I put my hand down there.

I’m on top awhile, then he’s on top. Then it’s me against the headboard. Every new thing seems to be the best idea ever.

“I want to memorize every sound you make,” he says. His glistening biceps bulge as he moves over me. Hot, hard flesh. The smell of sweat. Breath sawing. “Everything is new with you. Every way I feel is new with you.”

“Me, too,” I whisper thickly.

“You’re close,” he says, and he begins to move slow and steady. He changes his angle, seems to swell inside me, stretching me. It’s painful and good at the same time.

His eyes burn into mine. The intimacy of it sears.

Then he’s hitting my clit, and I’m spinning away. “Henry, please! More.” I grab his hair.

He goes harder. “Pull it, baby. Take what you need.”

I cry out as an orgasm tears through me.

He presses his face to my shoulder, stilling, shuddering inside me, coming with a small guttural sound.

When we’re done, when he’s out of me, he cages me with his arms. “You are so unbelievable,” he says.

I slide a finger down his cheek, then run it back up, down and up, loving the feel of his face, his whiskers. I think he likes when I touch his face almost as much as I do. Or maybe because I do.

“I was going to take more time,” he says. “I had a plan.”

I smile.

“I mean it. I want everything perfect for you.”

“You were supposed to leave your CEO role behind, remember?”

“Sorry,” he says.

“Don’t be. You make me feel like one of your people. You’re so beautiful with your people. They’re so lucky.”

“You are my people.”

I swallow and press my finger to his lip, trace the pillow of it.

I’m his people.

My throat is so clogged up with emotion, I couldn’t reply even if I wanted to.

He kisses me again, and I’m in heaven on the cool sheets below him.