The trembling passes, and Henry draws away. He licks his lips as he stands and slides his pants off.
He’s gorgeous, bathed in nothing but candlelight that highlights the defined muscles of his torso and the deep lines of his stomach that seem to point directly to his thick cock. He strokes it lazily, his gaze raking over me, wet and spread wide for him at the edge of the bed.
“You are so beautiful.”
I slide back, and he prowls over me. He teases me, rubbing his cock against my sensitive clit until I whine.
Then he pushes into me agonizingly slowly. I want to grab his hips and pull him all the way in, but it feels so intense I can barely do anything but breathe.
He groans against my pulse, and I feel it everywhere. “Let me in.”
It’s different going slow. I’m more aware of every touch, how he’s stretching me to my limits. He draws back and then pushes deeper, and it takes my breath away.
“Henry,” I gasp.
He curses into the crook of my neck. “Fuck. Say it again.”
He pulls back and watches my face as he draws away and pushes in again, and I gasp his name again.
He drops his forehead to my shoulder and takes a shuddering breath. “Divine dammit, you take me so well.”
Henry hikes my left knee up and rolls his hips. The angle feels so good, my whole body clenches. I am helpless to everything he does, moving with him like we’re floating together in the same tide, and it feels so good to be in sync, to be able to kiss him and have him so close while he moves inside me.
He tweaks my left nipple, and I arch up off the bed.
“Bleeding woods, you’re so wet for me, Harlow.”
I don’t think I’ve ever been this wet in my life, and it’s all because he’s so close. Because he’s kissing me as he moves. Because one arm is hooked under my leg, his hand braced against the scar on my lower back, and the other is gripping my shoulder. I’ve never felt this close to someone else.
I’m exhilarated and about to tip over the edge. I can’t stop clenching.
He seems to feel it because his thrusts get more insistent. He pulls back and looks into my eyes with pure adoration.
I know what he does not say because it’s in every touch. Every brush of his lips. In the way he doesn’t bite me or allow me to turn this tenderness into fucking. I know by the raw look on his face that will be burned into my memory forever.
His heart is in his eyes when he looks at me. My climax hits hard. I grip his shoulders and moan as he continues to move in a perfect rhythm to draw it out. He murmurs soft praise into the shell of my ear, and I shiver.
When I can’t take any more and my feet are cramping, I push him onto his back and straddle his hips, sinking down on him in one swift motion. But Henry’s not content to lie back and take it. He sits up and pulls me close, and I want to fight it.
It’s so unnatural, and yet it’s all I want: skin on skin without fear that I’ll hurt him.
Every movement between us is so intuitive. He finds a rhythm with me immediately, his hands cupping my ass as I grind against him. He nips at my neck, and I’m already right back on the edge again.
“Yes, that’s it. Fuck, Harlow, you’re so good.” He kisses my shoulder, murmuring something incomprehensible into my skin.
I arch back and move faster and I’m so close. Henry’s bruising grip on my hips keeps me perfectly in sync. I meet his eyes, and I know how he feels right down to my bones.
In one searing moment I’m made and unmade, by this quiet, gentle, fleeting thing between us. When I look in his eyes, I’m no longer a Carrenwell or the Poison Vixen, or even Henry’s wife. I’m transformed into Harlow.
In that reflection, I see myself for the first time how I might have been. It hurts so much and the ecstasy is so bright and blaring that I have to close my eyes and breathe through the crush of it. He groans and shoves me all the way down on his cock as he shudders and finds his release.
“I love—” It slips out in some sort of brainless sex-drunk stupor. Mercifully, I catch myself mid-sentence.
He must read the panic in my eyes. “It doesn’t have to mean anything. We’re just pretending, right? It’s no big deal, Harlow.”
But I’m not pretending anymore, and it doesn’t feel like no big deal. It feels like he’s woken me up from years of dreaming and now I don’t know how to go back to sleep.
I’m panicked. Everything that opened up in my chest wants to lock down again. I want to flee.
