A fleeting thought flashed through my mind, and I wondered if he’d want nothing more to do with me now he’d got his way. Now he’d had me. Would he go back to being the miserable Henry I first met? Would he be cold and distant? A complete arsehole all over again? But the thought didn’t last long, because Henry wasted no time in closing the distance between us before bringing me into another tender kiss that made my insides melt all over again.
We kissed like that for what felt like a lifetime, yet not long enough, never letting each other go.
He never loosened his grip. He never set me free.
For a single moment in time, I wondered if he ever would, too scared of the answer being yes, too ecstatic by the possibility of the answer being no.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Henry
We made it back to the apartment an hour later, two different people to the ones who’d left hand in hand. If I’d had my way, I’d have stayed in that ocean all day and night with her, taking her over and over again, letting the waves guide us along the coastline without even bothering to look up and see the sun go down.
If sex with her had been that good in the ocean, I couldn’t wait to lay her on my bed and see how her body reacted to me when we had hours to play. When I’d be able to lose myself in her arousal without the water washing it away.
Those thoughts ran rampant, like a trap door to my dreams had been opened, and now all I could think about was touching this woman by my side, kissing her, running my tongue over every inch of her insanely smooth, coconut-scented skin. I wanted to pack up my shit, tell the boys I was going home, then book Phoebe and me another hotel miles away, where we could spend the next nine days and nights losing ourselves in each other without giving a shit about what awaited us back home.
Unfortunately, reality didn’t play along with my fantasies, and when Phoebe and I came to a stop by her favourite bougainvillea flowers, I cast a quick glance all around us before I pushed my hands into her hair and kissed her one last time.
She hummed into it, her eyes closing, her body falling forward, waiting for me to catch her. When I reluctantly pulled away, I let my forehead rest against hers and took my time to breathe her in.
“You okay?” I dared myself to ask.
Her lashes fluttered as she pressed her lips together, tasting us there, before she looked up at me and nodded.
“You’d tell me if you weren’t?”
“I’m good, Henry,” she assured me. “Better than ever.”
I pressed a kiss to her forehead, then stepped away, wondering if this was how addicts felt whenever they tried to walk away from the one thing they couldn’t give up.
Phoebe shook out her arms, closed her eyes again, and blew out a breath as though rebalancing herself. When she eventually looked back up at me, those eyes had the potential to make me fall to my knees and tell her the game was over. Tell the whole fucking world what we’d just done as far as I cared. I already needed more.
But I couldn’t do that to her.
Couldn’t do that to anyone I cared about, including Andy.
For now, this was all I could have. I’d known the rules of the game I’d created from the start. It had been my choice to play. Now I had to deal with the consequences of that decision.
“Okay.” She smiled brightly. “Game face on?”
I pushed my hands into my pockets and forced a smile to my face that matched hers, hoping she didn’t catch the way I swallowed down the weird emotion that tried to claw its way up my throat. “Let’s do it.”
She inhaled a deep breath, blew it all out, then turned and marched away from me angrily, clutching the strap of her bag to her the way she always did whenever she became frustrated.
I waited a minute before I took the same path she had. When I turned the corner to the pool area, I watched as Phoebe threw her bag onto her sun lounger, then dropped down onto it, too, as though she’d had anything but a good time.
“Hey, Bee,” Bailey said, walking around the pool with a cocktail in hand. “What took you so long? You’ve been gone ages. I thought you were just going for lunch?”
Without even acknowledging my presence behind her, Phoebe thumbed over her shoulder as though she didn’t have time for anyone anymore. Especially not me. “We’d have been back ages ago ifhehadn’t been so stubborn and refused to ask for directions. We got lost, just going around in circles, trying to find this little tavern he insisted we eat at. Because apparently, the other four hundred and seventy-three taverns we passed weren’t good enough.”
Bailey chuckled and took a sip of her cocktail through her straw. “Was it at least worth it when you got there?”
Phoebe shrugged as she flicked off her sandals. “I’ve had better.”
She’d had better, had she? I highly fucking doubted it, but I’d be sure to bring that up with her later, some way, somehow. Before I could stew on her convincing performance a second longer, Phoebe cast a quick glance over her shoulder. When she knew nobody but me could see her, she flashed a cheeky smile and a small wink my way, making it almost impossible for me to keep my face straight when I walked past her like she didn’t matter, all while my cock throbbed, begging to go to her… begging for more of what it would never forget.
I was in big fucking trouble.
