“Do you feel what you do to me, Ariana?” He rocked against me, pulling back and framing my face in his hands. “Ever since that gala, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you, and I hated myself for it. But that was before…” He trailed off, swallowing hard as his gaze briefly floated to my torso.
But I didn’t want him to feel guilt or regret or shame.
I didn’t want to bring my past into whatever this was.
“Then have me, Henry.” I reached for him, threading my fingers through his hair. “I’m yours.”
He searched my face for reassurance that I was okay with this. Finally, he touched a light kiss to my lips.
“If you want to stop at any time, tell me. I’m not going to force you to do something you’re not ready for. You don’t owe me anything.”
“I wouldn’t want to leave you with a raging case of blue balls,” I joked, needing to do something to break the tension.
But he didn’t laugh. Didn’t waver. Just kept his unrelenting gaze trained on me.
“I’ll happily suffer through weeks of blue balls if it means you never feel pressured. Everything we do… It’s your choice.”
It felt strange to hear those words when nothing had been my choice for years.
I slid my hand behind his neck, pulling him toward me until our foreheads touched, our breath mingling in the narrow space between us.
“Then Henry?”
His eyes dropped to my lips. “Yes?”
“I choose…” I began.
“Yes?” he repeated when I didn’t say anything further, the distance between us growing shorter and shorter.
“For you…” My lips softly brushed against his in a ghost of a kiss.
“Yes,” he said again, this time more of a moan than anything else.
“To fuck me.”
He didn’t move right away. Just remained in this place as my confession hung in the air between us.
Then he growled as his lips found mine once more.
There was nothing careful about his kiss. Just heat and want and that raw, unfiltered ache that had been simmering between us for days. His hand slid into my hair, fisting gently as he angled my head to deepen the kiss, his tongue stroking mine with a promise that made my whole body tremble.
“Can I take this off?” he murmured, his fingers grazing against the side of my bra.
I answered by reaching behind me to unhook it before tossing it aside.
His eyes turned molten. His hand cupped my breast with excruciating gentleness, thumb brushing over my nipple. Then he lowered his mouth to it.
His touch was soft, barely there, but by the way my body shuddered in response to the pleasure coursing through me, you’d think I just had a mind-blowing orgasm.
“You okay?”
I nodded, breathless.
“Words, Ariana. I need you to say you’re okay. That you want this.”
“I want this,” I managed to croak out. “Want you.”
His voice dropped an octave. “Good girl.”
