CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Whitney
“ W hitney?” Hardy calls out and then stops when he sees me sitting at his kitchen island, a few candles lit for ambiance and a home-cooked meal waiting for him. He eyes the food, then me, and raises his eyebrows. “What’s this?”
“Something nice for you,” I say quietly, desperately wanting to wrap my arms around him and breathe him in.
“You’re going back to your place?” he asks. His face is a mask of indifference, but his voice holds a tiny vibrato of panic.
The same vibrato that somehow, I feel at the thought too.
“No. I’m not cleared.” I smile and take a step forward as he sets his bag down with a thunk .
“Oh. Okay.” Is that relief I hear? “Whew. I wasn’t ready to let you go just yet.”
My smile is as automatic as the endorphins that race through me. “No.” I swallow. “I’m not going anywhere just yet.”
“Good.” He stares at the counter behind me. “You did all this? For me?”
“Don’t praise me until you try it. It might be horrible.”
He chuckles. “I doubt it.” His feet stop at the end of the island, and he just stares at me. “Your suggestion helped.”
“Suggestion?”
“About the new formation. How I should approach it. It helped. Thank you.”
“Sure.” I don’t think I’ve ever felt prouder. “Anytime.”
He looks around the kitchen again with awe etched in the lines of his face. “No one’s ever done something like this for me before.”
“No?”
He shakes his head and moves toward where I sit on the edge of the counter. “No.” His voice is soft, barely audible. It’s as if there is so much to be said between us but neither of us is speaking.
Nerves suddenly spring to life as he stands before me and leans his ass on the counter so that we face each other—him standing with his arms across his chest and me sitting.
“It’s just a little something to say I truly appreciate everything you’ve done. For me. To help me. To—”
“What did I say about thanking me?” he teases.
“I know. I just ... I needed to do something that made me feel like me again.”
“You don’t feel like you?”
“I do, it’s just, how do I explain this to you? I feel like I’m in a different world here. It’s gorgeous and lovely, and you’re spoiling me, but I don’t belong here at all.”
“I didn’t realize ... I didn’t know you felt that way.”
“C’mon, Hardy. You saw where I live. My postage stamp . That’s what I’m used to, where it feels like I can stretch my hands out and touch both walls. Where I know work is only a few minutes away and where sirens go off in the middle of the night. Do you have any idea how quiet it is here?”
“What can I do to help you?”
“Nothing. Everything.” I pout. “Forget I said anything. I’m just feeling sorry for myself. I miss my kids and the chaos of the academy. There are bills to be paid and letters to write and ways I might be able to capitalize on all of this. I miss the stress and the ... my life. It’s not your fault at all.” I throw my hands up. “The day-to-day shit that’s piling up no doubt. It would be much better if I could handle that now. If I could—”
“First things first, the academy is handled. The kids, the bills, the everything is being handled.”
The bills . My cheeks heat, but the words don’t come out—he’s going to see how broke I am. How in debt the club is. How empty my accounts are. He already asked me what my salary is, I mean ... ugh.
I swallow my pride. If he already knows all that and is still standing before me, what more could I ask for, right?
But still . . .
Everything is being handled .
“Dramatic that I’m homesick over all that? Yes. But that’s why I wanted to cook. To do something I do at home so that maybe I felt a little more like me instead of eating those incredibly good meals your chef delivers.”
Those words coming out of my mouth sound so ridiculous it’s not even funny.
He chuckles. “Eating good food doesn’t make you feel like you?”
“You know what I mean.” I roll my eyes.
“I do. It’s not a crime to spoil someone, Whit.”
Why does it feel so good to have someone care for me? It’s weird and new and I quietly revel in the feel of it.
“Exactly,” I whisper. “Which is why I wanted to cook for you. I can’t buy you fancy things because you probably have them already, but I could do ... this.”
“I’ll take this any day over the fancy things.”
Our eyes meet. Hold. He moves toward me, and I suck in a breath. I think he’s going to kiss me but instead, reaches behind me to see what’s on the charcuterie board.
Our bodies touch. Still. He’s so close yet so damn far away.
“Hardy?”
“Hmm?” he asks, amusement in his tone. “Just looking to see what goodies you have for me.”
“ Touch me .”
“What?” He chuckles as he pulls back to look at me, and every crease in his face pulls tight.
I spread my legs wider so they cage him. “You heard me.” I lean forward, my lips hitting his ear when I speak. “Touch me.”
“I can’t. Your surgery. Your—”
“I think that’s what our problem is.” I trail a fingernail down the midline of his chest, my body heating as it goes over the dents and grooves of his corded muscles beneath his shirt.
“We have a problem?”
“Mmm.” I flutter my lashes up to meet his eyes. “It’s between us. Every conversation. Every look. Every unspoken word.”
“What is?” His voice is thick with desire and restraint.
“This.” I press a kiss to the side of his neck and love hearing his quick intake of breath. “The wanting of each other. The memory of what we feel like together. The needing to feel it again.”
He hisses as I brush my knee ever so gently over his slowly hardening cock. His groan is as epic as they come, and it causes the deep ache between my thighs to sweeten. “We can’t. You’re recovering. You’re—”
“If I’m well enough to cook, I sure as hell am well enough to do other things.” I lift my eyebrows.
“Other things?” His lips whisper over mine as he talks.
“Are you going to make me beg?” I ask because I’m about to do just that. My body feels alive for the first time since I fell ill, and I welcome the adrenaline-laced chaos racing through my system at the thought of touching him again.
At him touching me again.
“Beg?” His voice breaks and sounds like pure liquid seduction.
I trace my tongue over the seam of his lips. His body vibrates with restraint as he holds back what I want to untether. “Pretty please,” I purr.
His lips meet mine. The kiss is a seduction of slow and skillful. His hands spread wide on my back and slide their way up my spine as he firmly cements himself between my thighs. His cock is already hard and pressing against me through the fabric of our shorts. I grind against it and love feeling the muscles of his chest bunch beneath my fingers when he feels me do it.
“Do you know how hard it’s been to keep my hands off you? To not push you until you were healed enough and ready? It’s been pure, fucking torture.”
His groan fills the room as I push him back to grant some space between us so that I can remove his clothes from him. I then allow him to do the same.
We stand in his kitchen, where the light is dim and the air is cool, and just take each other in.
The man is breathtaking. It’s not like I didn’t already know that, but standing before him with a little more of a grip on the emotions I’m beginning to feel for him, I realize he’s even more beautiful.
So much so that it hurts.
I reach out, take his hand, and lead him down the hallway to my bedroom. He’s worried he’s going to hurt me. I can see it in his eyes and hear it in his words—and so I know I’ll have to take the lead.
“Whitney,” he murmurs, his lips pressing kisses on my shoulder as we stop at the foot of the bed, his front to my back.
I can feel every long, powerful inch of his body behind me, against me, and it makes me feel so small, so feminine against him. I tilt my head to the side to give him access to lace open-mouthed kisses to my neck, and he does with such adeptness that my entire body hums with a need it seems only he can create within me and sate.
“Show me what you need,” he murmurs against my skin as his fingers find their way between my thighs and part me.
I lift a leg up on the bed to grant him better access and mewl at the sensation of him tucking inside of me.
“Christ,” he says as his cock jerks against my lower back, only serving to heighten my need for him. “So fucking tight. So goddamn wet. So bloody perfect.”
“Hardy.” My breath is labored as I drop my head back on his shoulder and let myself feel.
“This is all I’ve thought about, Whitney. Being inside you again. You taking all of me until you can’t take anymore. You gagging on my cock. You dripping all over my balls.” He bites gently on my shoulder, and it causes me to buck my hips farther into his hand. And when I do that, he hits every single sensation within me.
His hand begins to move quicker. The slick sounds of his movements are loud, paired with my panted breaths. I reach back and dig my fingers into the sides of his thighs. It’s the only place I can think to touch, to grip, to hold on to because the minute I come, my legs are going to give out, and my body will sag.
“Get on the bed,” he orders, clearly with different plans for how this is going to go. “Lie on your back and let me taste you. It’s all I’ve thought about. All I want.”
And no sooner are the words out does he dip his head down and lick his way into me. With his hands braced on my thighs to keep them spread and his nose hitting my clit as his tongue works me over, I slowly unravel. Loop by loop. Lick by lick. I see him between my thighs—his dark hair and gray eyes looking up at me—and I give myself over to the sensations.
To the friction and the wetness and the pressure and Alexander Hardy.
I scream when I come. It’s a resounding explosion of heat and pleasure, a coil that snaps so its reverberation is a constant push out to my fingers and toes before snapping back and hitting my core.
“That’s it, baby. Come for me.” The heat of his breath hits my pussy. “Let me taste you. Let me lick it all up. Let me have you completely.”
His words only make what I’m feeling more intense, more damaging to any chance I might keep my heart in check.
“I need to feel you like this,” he says as he lines his cock up at my center, pulls a nipple in his mouth at the same time, and pushes his way slowly into me.
His groan is feral and erotic and enough to make my orgasm continue.
“Hardy.” I reach down for his cock, to wrap my fingers around what he can’t fit inside but realize engaging my abs after the surgery isn’t exactly going to happen.
“No,” he murmurs as he laces his fingers through my hand and begins to slowly move in and out of me.
It’s a slow dance we begin. A slow climb for him as my body begins to descend. There is still that animalistic need between us, but every part of Hardy screams control because he’s afraid of hurting me.
“Just like that,” he coos and then begins a constant stream of comments as he manipulates each and every nerve within me.
“You feel incredible.”
“My God, you make me want like I’ve never wanted before.”
“Your pussy is ... fuck, that feels good .”
He slowly picks up the pace, but with a gentleness that shows even in his most carnal of moments, he’s thinking of me.
“God.” He leans over and buries his face in my neck as his hips continue to move. “Yes. Right there.” His mouth laces open- mouthed kisses, and his groan sounds in my ear. “I’m coming. Fuck, I’m coming.”
His body pulls tight, then his hips begin jerking as he climaxes himself, before gently collapsing on top of me.
His heart beats against mine. I revel in the weight of him on top of me. It’s the weirdest, most satisfying feeling that has me running my fingers up and down the line of his back, memorizing every single thing about it. His stubble tickles the skin under my jaw, and the scent of his shampoo fills my nose. His labored breath and the feel of him softening inside me. His sweat misted skin, and the pads of his fingers as they rub back and forth on my skin.
“You okay?” he murmurs and presses another kiss to my shoulder.
“Yes. Fine. Wonderful, really.” I giggle, and the sound is so unlike me, but really, isn’t that the perfect explanation of Hardy? He brings things out of me that aren’t normal but that make me feel ... better? Lighter? More carefree? Alive?
How about all of the above?
“At least it’s better than a grass pitch, huh? Did I redeem myself, Lucky Shot?”
I run my fingers through his hair and love the sound he emits deep in his throat. “Yes. Very much so.”
“Good. Can’t have you thinking otherwise.”
I chuckle as he nuzzles his face deeper into my neck. “You know ...if I’m well enough to do this, then I’m definitely well enough to go back to the office.”
His sigh fills the room followed by a laugh. “You really are something, you know that?” He rolls to the side of me and then props himself up on his elbow so his hand can run down the side of my face. He looks stunning like this. The moonlight through the window. His hair mussed up from my hands. The rough stubble on his cheek after a long day.
And I try to catch the trip of my heart in the moment but fear I might not have reacted fast enough.
“Not yet. A few more days.” He brushes his lips over mine. “Just to help erase the image I still have of you lying on your floor.”
A part of me thinks he’s playing me. Another part of me knows how hard it is to get over the trauma of something you’ve experienced.
And the selfish part of me doesn’t want whatever this feeling is right now to end.
“Okay. A few more days.”