Chapter 33
CHAPTER 33
NOW
Something was different when I woke up. The music had switched to lazy, rhythmic beats instead of catchy lyrics, the pizza box was in the backseat, and Henry’s hand rested on my leg. His fingers drew absentminded circles on my thigh, dipping between them because he’d made the circle too big—or maybe his hand was just too large to draw a small circle?
I blinked my sleep away, watching him nod along to the music, his eyes on the road—which had turned from grey highway into beautifully cared-for front yards, white picket fences and fancy houses. I stretched, sat up.
“You do have a destination in mind at this point, right?” I yawned, a little surprised we were still on the road at all. The clock of his car showed something past three in the morning.
His hand gave a small squeeze in acknowledgment of my words, but he kept his attention on the street. “Ah, she’s awake,” he said. “I do.”
He seemed proud of the fact, like the lack of plan and control earlier had only made him think of one harder and faster now. “And you woke up just in time to see it in all its glory.”
The road in front of us turned into a long, winding drive-up and ended with a house in the way. “Oh.” I searched for any kind of navigational system that would confirm Henry had taken a wrong turn, but he must’ve been driving by memory. “There’s a house in our way,” I said like an idiot, brain still half-asleep.
It was so dark I couldn’t make out the details of it. Only that it was large. And beautifully ornamented. Columns holding a rounded balcony up above what should be the entrance. Stairs led to it from two sides, flower beds in the middle. It seemed… familiar, for some reason.
Henry snorted at my assessment and turned the engine off. Silence grew between us until he said, “It’s only been a few months since you were here, Paula.”
And it clicked. New Year’s Eve .
I had been here before—considerably drunker with Maeve and Riley and Laila in tow. When Riley had been so excited about the invitation, she drove all the way from Hall Beck University to the location the Pressleys had rented in the Hamptons.
But it still didn’t explain why we were here now. “You didn’t actually rent out a house for us to stay in, did you?” I asked, because it was the only plausible explanation for why we’d stopped in front of it in the middle of the night.
“Rented?” Henry snickered in amusement. “It’s mine.”
My head snapped in his direction. Then back to the most gorgeous house I’d ever been in. With the rose bushes to the side of the property, the flowers in the big pots making it feel almost cozy—merging nature with the delicate work of humans.
“What?”
I knew Henry was rich. Everyone did, and he’d never been modest about it. Flaunted and taunted and used it to his advantage whenever he could. Sometimes tried to when he shouldn’t have. But this . A house like that—
I remembered the large stairway in the entrance hall, leading to the first floor from two sides. I remembered the chandelier, expensive floors and beautiful furniture. On New Year’s Eve, there’d been an actual bar .
“My parents’ summer house when we were young. They sold it just before—” He skipped the part, but I knew. “It was supposed to be torn down last year, so what’s left of my family bought it back. Started thinking about it almost exactly a year ago now, actually. I could barely focus on anything else back then.” And like the sentimental tone had never existed at all, he added, “But I made it.”
Exactly a year ago. Right before we’d broken up, then.
I realized how much I must’ve missed in the year we hadn’t been together. He’d bought a house. He’d made up with his sister. He’d signed contracts and met people I’d never hear about.
And I shook my head at the absurdity of what my life had become.
Four hours ago, I’d been close to breakdown number three, having passed on the idea of sleep to edit a draft that wouldn’t have gotten anywhere tonight. Now, I was fed, slept, hadn’t thought about the profile since.
Henry shrugged, unbuckling his seatbelt to turn my way. “I come here when it all gets… too much sometimes. When I just need some peace and quiet to hear myself think again.” His eyes drifted onto the building. “Turns out I needed that quite a lot in the past few months.”
I didn’t know how he managed to word exactly what I’d needed so perfectly. I’d always thought we were so different from each other, our struggles so wildly polar that we could never relate on that level, and yet.
Dios mío , I remember why I’d fallen for him. The way he understood me, looked at me like he could see right through me, read every single wish from my lips.
“Henry?” The words felt distant, like they weren’t coming from my mouth at all, voice thick and low.
When his gaze met mine, I thought that man would give me the entire world if I just asked for it. “Are you going to kiss me again?”
About three hours ago, there’d been no asking involved. No anticipation or curiosity about whether he would. Just his lips on mine casually. Like it had been second nature. But watching his eyes widen, mouth opening and closing when he decided against whatever he’d wanted to say, I was glad I’d asked now.
Henry huffed, reaching across the console to unbuckle my seatbelt. His hand brushed my hip, across the black leggings I wore, and although it was really just a slither of a touch, my breath caught in my throat.
“Do you want me to?”
His hand slipped to my waist, the simplest of touches guiding me onto his lap.
Slipping into old patterns was so easy with him. When we were together like this, alone and without disruptions, it felt like he was still mine and I was still his and nothing at all had changed between us.
One leg on either side of him, I nodded faintly. “While we’re here—” I whispered, then cut myself off when I wasn’t quite sure what I’d been about to say. “Just for this weekend, we can pretend nothing’s changed. Right? Not think about being reasonable and just—” I took a deep breath. “Just be.”
Henry blinked up at me, swallowing thickly as he traced a hand down the small of my back. Watching me squirm beneath his touch, sigh at the contact. “Anything, Paula. Whatever you want.”
When his fingers made their way back to my face, trailing across my neck in a way that made me arch into his touch, the smartwatch around his wrist vibrated against my skin.
I didn’t want to look away, but the buzz drew my eyes to it anyway.
Right there, on the screen of his watch, it read, Looks like you’re working out! Record this workout?
My gaze jumped to his, unable to keep my lips in check when they turned upward. “Is your heart beating fast?” I asked, tauntingly, because I didn’t know what else to say and the thought was objectively sweet.
His eyes narrowed. In response, he took my hand, pressed it to his chest, and kissed me. And whether it was my mind playing tricks on me or not, I could swear his heart skipped a beat when we did. I know mine had. “I told you,” he said between breaths. “You make me nervous.”
Henry had kissed me a lot in the past few days. Short and sweet, messy and longing. But never like this—slow and passionate. Savoring every sweep of his tongue, craving more and holding back.
His hands explored my curves like he was seeing— feeling them for the first time. His lips did the same. From my neck to chest to shoulders, he kissed every inch exposed, took what he could get, and when it wasn’t enough, needily tugged on my sweater, let his hands slip underneath.
“Fuck,” he groaned against my lips, the first time his fingertips had grazed my bare skin. His hand skidded up my torso until he realized I wasn’t wearing a bra, then he groaned again.
The sound travelled right between my thighs, his own problem growing. And with his fingers carefully, delicately playing with my nipples, his head buried in the crook of my neck, and his hard cock against me, I couldn’t take it.
My moan rang through the car, head thrown back, hands finding themselves on his shoulders when I looked back at him. Heat and lust and a million other things played in the air between us, drove me to roll my hips against him, and made him finally snap.
He matched my sound, just darker and rougher, and willing to do something about what it insinuated.
“Hold on,” he said. We were out of the car so quickly, I didn’t even get out of his lap. He’d just collected me in his arms and got out.
My legs wrapped around him instinctively, and I couldn’t help that my lips were back on his before we’d even made it to the staircase. He managed his way up, drawing away from my face only to see where he was going.
“I don’t want to let go of you.” And the thought seemed to trouble him deeply. Me, too. “But they keys are in the potted plant behind you.” I jumped off him, only to get us behind that door quicker.
Henry moved with purpose, retrieved the key, unlocked the massive hardwood door, and we were back at it before it had even closed behind us. He used my body to do that—much more efficient.
My sweater landed on the marbled floor, and he pushed against me as if he might combust otherwise.
Somehow, I was back in his arms, my legs wrapped around his waist the way they used to, and his mouth, his tongue playing with my nipples.
I didn’t have enough time to look around when he moved us from the foyer into the living room. I only cared about Henry—leading me to stand on my own two feet again, gently pushing me backward until my legs hit… something. I pulled him down with me, and the couch beneath us was luck.
I wanted him so badly, I might’ve let him take me on the marble, too.
And I wanted him so badly, I didn’t care about consequences at all.
Despite my initiation, he lowered me onto the sofa gently, one of the throw pillows beneath my head.
Sitting back, eyes roaming up my body, down and back up again, he might’ve been praying when he said, “Paula.” The sound guttural, raw. “God, you’re so beautiful like this.”
And I wondered if he meant out of breath, needy, desperate and wet. Because that’s what I was.
“Ready and waiting.” His finger trailed from my collar bones over my breasts, all the way down my torso, stopped by my hips. Lingered before he slowly pushed my leggings and panties down my body. “Naked and blushing.” Which is when his fingers brushed their way back up the inside of my thighs. Stopped right where I wanted him. “Needy and wet.”
A whine parted my lips, and it all but confirmed his words.
“Henry,” I moaned… groaned? I wasn’t sure how to differentiate between pleasure and frustration anymore. They’d merged into one, entangling further with every sweet nothing whispered into the darkness. “Fuck me.” I blushed before I’d even said the words. “Please?”
His eyes flew up to mine, and the look lingered.
Something else between us snapped, and we were back in our rhythm of unpredictable predictability, where Henry pulled his shirt over his head and I fussed with his sweatpants, my hands trembling with need.
Until finally, finally , I pushed the grey fabric down his legs, and I saw that he still wore the same kind of boxer briefs, and I didn’t know whether to smile because he was still My Henry or beg him to hurry up, so I could feel him again.
A year was a long time.
But the anticipation in my chest was swamped by a wave of dread. “Do you have a condom?”
He paused, deflated. So did I. Our panting filled the air, the house otherwise quiet. “In the car,” he winced. “Maybe upstairs.”
But upstairs was far, the car even further. When I looked back at him, chest heaving above mine, eyes wide, pupils blown out as he searched my eyes, I thought I might not be able to wait. Until he’d get dressed, run around, then come back. The thought physically hurt.
He seemed to share the sentiment because he desperately threw in, “I haven’t been with anyone else.” His brows drew together, he still hovered above me. “Since you. If that helps.”
“What?” I’m not sure I could believe that. I wanted to, obviously. But it didn’t seem… plausible.
Henry hadn’t exactly been a prude when we’d met, and he certainly wouldn’t start once we’d broken up. Right?
“I couldn’t—I mean.” He shook his head. “I could have. But they just weren’t… you.” Our eyes connected. “And that’s what I wanted—who I wanted. You.”
So I kissed him again, and I didn’t know I was going to until our lips met, drawing needy, desperate sounds out of both of us. “If we don’t get upstairs in the next twenty seconds—” I began, and before I’d even finished the sentence, I was back in Henry’s arms, my legs wrapped around him.
I could feel him straining against his boxers. Every step he climbed made him push against my bare skin, made him groan into my mouth or neck, and by the time we’d made it to his room he seemed as needy as I’d been.
At least we’d leveled the playing field.
Once more, Henry lowered me. Onto a perfectly made bed, almost as comfortable as the one in New York had been. He lost his boxers somewhere between getting that condom out of the nightstand and joining me between the sheets, and his breath fanned against my lips when he hovered above me.
His hand slipped between my legs, and he touched me exactly the way I’d shown him I liked.
“I dreamed of this,” he gasped against me, our heavy breaths mixing between our lips. I could feel him hard against me again, his tip glistening. “For months, Paula.” He slipped a finger inside, just to feel me for a second, and my moan was strangled—like a broken whine.
“In New York.” He lined himself up above me, trailed a string of kisses from my neck to my breasts before he sat up. His eyes never left mine when he ripped the packaging open, and my heart dropped into the pit of my stomach when he rolled the condom over himself. “Wearing that jersey. My name on your back, and you were so close. Right there.” He looked up at me. “And that I couldn’t do anything about it was killing me.”
My breath caught in my throat, his tip resting against my entrance. I felt him twitch, felt the groan bubbling in his throat.
“Then do something about it now.”
And he did.
When Henry pushed into me, I didn’t know whether to focus on the euphoria of finally or the way he couldn’t seem to keep himself upright or that unapologetic moan by my ear. If I should tell him to go faster or slower—because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to savor every moment of this round —or get to the next. If I only wanted him this way for the rest of my life or in a thousand other positions tonight.
I settled for not saying or thinking anything at all.
Just flowing with the rhythm of his hips against mine, the way our groans and moans mixed in the air, and the way he filled me so perfectly, snugly, that knot in my stomach tightened. All within a few minutes—no more than five—I was ready to come apart for him.
He muttered a “Thank God,” because with the pace he was holding, he couldn’t be very far from release himself. His hand slipped to my clit again.
I lost myself in the bliss of a perfect orgasm, and he twitched inside of me, groaning and cursing and praying, and before he pulled out, he kissed my forehead.