They were the last words spoken between us before the frantic dance of our tongues turned into a slow, languid ballet of touching, feeling, and really seeing each other for the very last time.
Henry dropped to his knees, parted my legs, and took his time burying his head between them until I screamed out his name loud enough for the whole island to hear.
I went down on my knees for him, too, feeling him hitting the back of my throat over and over as I looked up at him with wide eyes, wanting him to remember the way I loved to do this for him. The way he turned me on. The peace I felt when he filled me.
After, we laid down together, and Henry’s hands touched every part of me, mind, body, and soul. I wanted him everywhere, and that’s exactly where he went, until finally, we knew we were running out of moments together.
When he finally sank into me, hovering above my body and holding his own weight as he ran a hand through my hair, I could have sworn I saw an unshed tear burying itself into the crook ofhis eye. But then I remembered how strong this man was, and how sometimes the desire to see something is so strong, you imagine it there instead of it being real.
“RTM, angel eyes,” he whispered.
“I’ll remember,” I breathed back. “Forever.”
His sad smile made my heart swell, and the reality of this mess I’d suddenly found myself in hit me all at once. I had no idea how it had happened in such a short space of time, only that it had, and I couldn’t escape it now.
Because I’d fallen madly in love with Henry Cohen.
And I’d probably love him for the rest of my life, imagining he belonged to me, when the reality would be that, actually, he’d end up belonging to someone else.
The guys were due to leave a few hours earlier than us on a different coach, but that didn’t stop the six of us from dragging our cases to the same part of the apartment complex at the same checkout time.
Henry carried my case down the stairs for me, then insisted on pushing it over to the others, more to keep his hands and mind busy with something to do, I assumed. From the moment we’d parted after our last time together, only an hour ago, he’d gone into shut down mode again. We both had. The thought of that final glance or final graze of the hands became too much, so it was easier to pretend it would never happen than imagine we were about to face it.
“Hey, love birds,” Bailey chirped when we approached her and Rhea. She glanced between Henry and me, her arms folded as she took us in. She didn’t have to say anything. Nobody did. But I saw the sadness she tried to hide.
“Hey,” Henry said, rolling my case next to the girls’ before he leaned in to press a kiss to the side of my head and started to walk away.
I spun around to reach out to him in a panic. “Where are you going?”
He gestured to his case. “Putting this over there with Andy’s and Jace’s stuff. Don’t worry.” His sad smile killed me. “I’ll come back.”
My heart raced at the sight of him walking away again, and I watched as he slid his case closer to the boys’, only for Andy to look him up and down and turn his back on Henry as though he didn’t exist. I hated seeing it, and the defeat in Henry’s posture didn’t go unnoticed by any of us.
“Arsehole,” Bailey muttered. “Nothing more unattractive than when a grown man acts like a petulant child.”
“You still haven’t spoken to Andy since the whole boat thing?” I asked.
“Oh, he’s tried. Won’t stop blowing up my phone, but I’ve told him to let it go. I was never in so deep that I couldn’t see his behaviour for what it was. I warned him to leave it alone.”
“You warned him? You mean, before he even found out about us?”
“We all had our suspicions, Bee. Even Andy. Especially Andy, actually. Kinda hard for anyone to miss when Henry’s been drooling over you like a dog over a squirrel these last two weeks.”
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
“And make you feel so guilty that you called it off with Henry before it even began? Nope. You may have thought of this holiday as a no men zone, but I always knew what you needed more than the sun, sea, or the sand. Isn’t that right, Rhea?”
“As much as I hate to admit it, yeah, she did, Bee. She’s been praying for you to meet someone out here since we booked the trip.”
I glanced back at Henry, who was trying not to look like the rejected man from a trio of friends as he glanced down at the phone in his hand.
“Well,” I said quietly. “Looks like we finally have proof that praying works.”
Bailey wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “There’s no reason it has to end here, you know. You can stay in touch. Try the long-distance thing.”
I exhaled slowly, the weight of it all releasing, heavy. “Maybe. Who knows. But we’ll never be here again. It’ll never be like this no matter what happens now.”
“Like this?”
