Henry Cohen isn’t capable of having ‘feelings’, Bailey. Not those kinds of feelings anyway.
I should have worried how easily those words came to me, but I’d made a promise to Henry to keep it between us—at least for now—and I wasn’t going to break that promise if I could help it.
I didn’t want to.
It was too early for there to be anyone else around the pool when I got there, so I chose my favourite sun lounger, draped a towel over it, and pulled out my book to read before I laid out in my bikini, grateful I wasn’t staring at that white ceiling any longer, overthinking everything.
I must have read the same line of my novel fifteen times, though, because no matter how hard I tried to focus on my current book boyfriend, Reed Easton, I couldn’t get Henry Cohen out of my mind.
Then, as if I’d conjured him merely by thought, he appeared out of nowhere, sitting down onto the edge of the lounger beside me, wearing nothing but a pair of teal blue swim shorts and a smile on his handsome face. How he made his domineeringpresence known without uttering a single word, I had no idea, but he had my attention with very little effort yet again.
I allowed my eyes to rake over his body, taking in the hard lines of the muscles in his stomach and across his chest, over his shoulders and down to his forearms, before my gaze settled on those fingers that had brought me so much pleasure the night before. I licked my lips, looking back up at his face when I heard him clear his throat.
“Morning,” he said, brows bouncing.
“Morning.” I smiled right back.
“You’re up early.”
“I couldn’t sleep. Someone looks very pleased with himself, though. I take it you slept just fine.”
“Nope. Barely slept at all. Just kept thinking about how you were cruelly stolen from me last night before I even had chance to do this again…”
After a quick glance over both his shoulders, he leaned over to press a soft kiss to my lips I hadnotbeen expecting. It sent ripples of desire to my toes, and when he sat back down, all I could do was stare at him, open-mouthed.
It was Henry’s turn to lick his lips before he dragged his bottom one through his teeth, smug as all hell. “Now,I feel better.”
“Henry, someone could have seen us.”
“Nobody who matters. They’re all still in bed.”
“But—”
He leaned over again to run his thumb over my bottom lip before he tugged it down and just stared at it as though he wanted to devour it. “Do you have any idea how good this lip feels to kiss?”
I dropped my book onto the lounger and shook my head like an imbecile.
“It feels real fucking good, Phoebe.”
A sigh filled with sexual frustration escaped me, because after last night, I needed more.
“What do we have here?” he asked, picking up my book and turning it over in his hands.
“If I need to tell you that, you may need to go back to school.”
“Ha-ha.” He deadpanned, laying a look on me. “Such a?—”
“Smart arse?”
Henry shook his head in amusement and looked back down at the book again, reading the blurb aloud. “Forever Engaged. A gripping romantic tale of a woman taken from her high society life and dropped into the villainous world of the?—”
“To yourself,” I interrupted, and to his credit, he started to silently mouth the words, which only made me smile as he flipped it back over to look at the cover.
“Sounds rubbish. Is this guy on the front supposed to be good-looking?”
“Hey!” I tried to snatch it back, but he pulled it out of my reach, opening up the book extra wide, making me cringe. “Careful, Henry. The spine, for goodness’ sake!”
“The… spine?” He eyed me, smirking.
