22. Henry
twenty-two
When I return to my bedroom, I move straight to the en suite bathroom to grab a shower. It’s too early to feel relief that Gabriel is getting help, but some of Franki’s attitude must be rubbing off on me because there’s a new lightness inside me.
I’m also anxious to get back to Franki. We were in the middle of something important when the situation with Louis happened.
Gabriel’s take on this is dead wrong. Our relationship has nothing to do with financial incentive. I would be asking her to marry me whether MPD was in the picture or not.
Hearing the way her father attempted to leverage money against her made me physically ill with the realization that I’d tried the same methods the night I proposed. This isn’t about using her. It never was. I can make her happy and take care of my responsibilities. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.
Given the time, I’m certain Franki is asleep, but if she hasn’t locked the door between our rooms, I’ll check on her before I go to bed. Who am I kidding? I’ll check on her if she has locked it too.
As I step out of the shower and snag a towel, I hear it. Tap. Tap.
I almost slip and face-plant on the white and black vintage-style tiled flooring in my haste to get out there and see who is knocking on my door. The knock doesn’t sound again, but a light shines beneath the door to Franki’s room.
I rub the towel over my wet hair enough to take care of the dripping mess. Then I scramble for something to throw on, grabbing the first thing in my drawer and dragging the sweatpants up my damp thighs.
Confident I’m decent, I swing open our connecting door, but Franki isn’t standing there waiting for me. She’s in her bed, reaching to turn off the lamp, her hair a loose cloud of light brown and caramel-colored waves.
Franki pauses, arm stretched and eyes wide, as she takes in the sight of me, mapping my body, starting with the top of my head and trailing over my still damp and glistening torso.
Like my brother, her gaze catches on the gunshot scar on my abdomen located near where my left kidney should be. Startled, she makes a sound of distress. “What happened to you?”
She’s never seen me like this, not even when we were children on the beach. I’ve always covered my scar. No woman besides medical professionals and my mother, Charlotte, has ever seen me with my shirt off. Until tonight.
I step farther into the room, gently kicking the door closed behind me as I go. “Ancient history. Gunshot and subsequent surgery. It happened when I was a kid before you and I ever met.”
I thought my words would reassure her. Instead, she looks devastated.
“No one ever told me that.”
“We don’t talk about it.”
“If you want to, I’ll liste—”
“I don’t.”
Her gaze continues to drift over my body. Then her attention flies to my eyes, then back again, as though she can’t help herself.
I glance down, and . . . I hadn’t considered the damp fabric/no underwear effect. But the entire scope and breadth of my cock is visible through these sweatpants. The longer she stares, the more prominent it becomes.
“Duck call collection,” she breathes.
I rub the back of my neck, a little embarrassed, but determined not to show it. With any luck, she’ll eventually see a lot more of me than this. “What about duck calls?”
She shakes her head, eyes back on mine, but this time with a small smile on her face. “Bronwyn almost said ‘dick’ in front of your mom earlier but changed it to ‘duck call collection’ at the last minute.”
Franki has always done this. Where someone else would have said, “Nothing” or “private joke,” she lets me in.
“I’d prefer if we don’t refer to my genitalia as a duck call collection,” I admit.
“It is a tad undignified. What would you prefer I call it?” she asks cheekily.
I narrow my eyes. “No need for any special word. Call it what it is.”
Flushing pink, but eyes sparkling with mirth, she says, “I don’t know. ‘I want to suck your penis,’ doesn’t sound very sexy.”
My now rock-hard penis disagrees.
I lunge at her, climbing across her bed, and looming over her in the span of less than two heartbeats.
She responds by lying back against her pillows with an exaggerated expression of innocence.
I hover there, my mouth inches from hers. “I’ve changed my mind. You can call it anything you like, as long as you say that first part with it.”
She’s under the covers, with layers of fabric between us, but she smiles and holds her palm to my jaw. “Hello, Henry.”
I drink her in. “Hello, Franki.”
Her dark eyes catch on mine, and she bites her lip. Neither of us is wearing glasses, and now that I’m closer, she’s in sharper focus. Her skin is virtually luminescent in the low light from her lamp and as smooth as glass.
I run my fingers across her eyebrow and over the crest of her cheekbone. “You knocked on my door.”
She nods.
“Did you need something?”
“A towel.”
I raise an eyebrow, the corner of my mouth lifting entirely on its own. “Really? At two in the morning?”
She looks to the ceiling as if she’s thinking. “I meant to say that my pillow was lumpy.”
“How dare any pillow be less than a cloud for your precious head?”
“I thought you might have better ones on your bed.”
I’m supposed to say something clever and act like this is no big deal. Gabriel would already have her clothes off. It doesn’t matter what Gabriel would do.
When I don’t say anything in response, she lifts her shoulder. “I’m cold?”
She says it with the lift at the end, as if it’s a question. I’m making her nervous.
She’s made herself vulnerable to me, and I’m hovering here, speechless, like the twenty-seven-year-old virgin I am.
I draw away far enough to pull her blankets back and slide under them with her. “Then I better warm you up.”
I prop my head on one hand, elbow bent, and wrap my arm around her waist over the blankets.
Franki moves closer. “I’m cozier already.”
She traces the divot in my chin far more firmly than the first time she touched me. “You told my father we were getting married. When he finds out we lied because he annoyed you, he’s going to come down on me like a ton of bricks for humiliating him.”
“I didn’t lie. I am going to marry you.”
She eases back, her expression hardening and her voice barely audible when she asks, “Why do you want to marry me?”
MPD may be why I have to get married, but Franki is why I want to get married. “Because you’re my person.”
“How do you know that so soon?”
“Franki,” I scold gently. “I’ve always known. Our timing wasn’t right back then. You were too young. Or I wasn’t young enough, but you were always my favorite person.”
I give a self-deprecating huff. “And then I was overwhelmed and acted like an ass. But tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you don’t know, all the way down to your soul, that you and I were always meant to be.”
She catches her breath. “I’m your favorite person?”
“Without a doubt.”
“This is fast.”
“It feels the opposite of fast to me. You asked me to wait for you. That’s what I’ve been doing for a very long time.”
“When I said that, I wasn’t sure you understood the subtext, and I couldn’t bear to clarify it and have you tell me I was wrong. The longer I was away from you, the more I convinced myself you couldn’t possibly have wanted me.”
“I tend to have very black and white thinking. The idea of a relationship with you when you were only eighteen fucked with my head. It wouldn’t have worked for either of us, but don’t ever doubt that I wanted you.”
Her eyes shine with an emotion I recognize. I feel it too. It’s one of the new ones inside me emerging from what I thought were the long-cold ashes of my soul: hope.
“We need time together to get used to this. To make sure it’s real and is going to work,” she whispers.
“I already know it’s going to work.”
She laughs, her hand on my face. “Henry!”
“Marry me, Franki.”
She sobers. “No.”
“What will it take for you to say you will?”
“Time. Trust.”
I narrow my eyes and think. I have to get creative. “I’ll buy you a house in the country and hire a farmer to grow you all the pumpkins you could ever want.”
She shakes her head with a pfft.
“I’ll buy you a diamond so big you could see it on Google Earth.”
She rolls her eyes.
I purse my lips. “I’ll cook you breakfast every single morning for the rest of your life.”
She shakes her head, but her lips twitch.
I run my tongue across my bottom lip. “I’ll hand knit you socks without seams.”
She leans toward me, her eyes heavy with lust.
I’ve nearly got her. “I’ll buy the most comfortable, ergonomically correct dog bed ever made and all those little ramps that dachshunds need so Oliver doesn’t hurt his back. All over. Every single place we ever stay will look like Ramp City.”
She tries, unsuccessfully, to hide her smile.
“I’ll take you to see The Front Bottoms live, even though I tried listening to them myself, and I don’t see the appeal.”
She laughs and puts her hand over my mouth. “Stop.”
She pulls her palm away. “I think you should kiss me now.”
I do, and it feels like falling. I’ve lost my balance. There’s no up or down. There’s only the way she wraps both her hands in my damp hair and holds me to her so tightly.
I lower the blanket to get closer, and electricity shoots through me as I make contact with bare skin. I noticed she’d let her hair down and changed into a tiny T-shirt to sleep, but it’s ridden up. As I slide my hand down her hip to explore, along with tantalizingly soft skin, I discover a texture that’s become achingly familiar to me. She was planning to sleep in her panties.
She knocked on my door like this.
“I figured out why you were cold,” I say against her mouth, as I slide my fingers under the stretchy material cupping her ass. “Your panties have holes in them.”
She shivers, but gurgles with laughter. “They’re lace. There are supposed to be holes.”
“I need a closer look. So I can be sure I understand.”
I slide down her body. And then I’m between her slender thighs, her black lace-covered slit close enough for me to kiss. And I’m going to. First, I trail a finger down her seam. The fabric is damp, and she squirms against me. “Harder?” I ask. “Softer? How do you like to be touched?”
“That was perfect.”
“Tell me if I do something you don’t like.”
When she doesn’t answer, I lift my gaze to hold hers. “I mean it. We can’t learn each other if we aren’t honest.”
“I’m nervous. I’ve never actually done anything like this before.”
Oh, my sweet darling.“Neither have I.”
“You’ve never had oral sex?”
“I’ve never done anything at all. I”—I place a sucking, exploring kiss on that fabric, right where my earlier touch told me her little clit is hiding—“am a virgin.”
“Ohh.” The word is a breathy exclamation of pleasure. “Me too. I was afraid.”
I lift my head, frowning. “Afraid of what?”
“To trust, I guess. It isn’t always logical.”
It may not be logical, but I understand.
“Did your doctor warn you that sex could be a problem or…?”
“No. It’s just a knee-jerk reaction when anyone touches my hip. Especially my left.”
“Is this hurting you?”
“No. I’m a little sore there, and my knees, but it’s not bad.”
“You tell me if I do anything that has you worried. We don’t have to do anything at all, if you’d rather not.”
She nods. “I’ll tell you, but I want to. With you, I do.”
She hesitates, then asks. “Why haven’t you done this before?”
“I told you. I was waiting for you.”
She searches my eyes. “You’re telling the truth.”
“Yes.”
“Now neither one of us knows what we’re doing,” she says with a laugh.
“I’ve done some research.” I gather the fabric of her panties and give it a little tug, teasing her with it before I slide it to the side and get my first look at paradise.
I’ve heard the phrase “the scent of a woman” but had no idea what that really meant. There’s nothing to compare it to. My mouth waters for a taste of her. She’s entirely bare down here. So smooth that she either waxes or has had laser treatments. Her outer labia are glistening and damp, the seam closed, even with her legs parted for me. Using my thumbs, I press her open.
Everything about her sex is delicate. More so than I expected.
She looks like a pretty pink flower, and though I fall within normal parameters in terms of my size, my cock looks and feels like a monstrous battering ram in comparison. Her vaginal opening is smaller than I thought it would be. The mental image of her body stretching to make room for my cock has me fighting not to come in my pants.
We have to fit. I will fucking make it fit, and I’ll make sure it feels good when it does. If that means I have to give her fifteen orgasms and a perineal massage first, then that’s what’s going to happen.
Her clitoris peeks from beneath its hood, and I try to remember the techniques most likely to bring her to climax. No hurry. Women take longer to get there than men. These things take time, and we’ve got hours.
I draw a figure eight with my tongue. She moans and grinds up against me. I work her clit until my jaw needs a rest and she’s panting, then I move further down and press my tongue into her opening.
She’s slippery, her wetness coating my chin and cheeks. I’m dying of thirst, and she’s my oasis. I can barely get my tongue in an inch, but that’s fine. I set up a counterclockwise rhythm with my thumb on the outer edge of her clit and fuck her with just the tip of my tongue. I’m so turned on by the feel and taste of her that it’s becoming impossible to concentrate on her and fight my own orgasm at the same time. Coming now would only help my stamina later when I’m inside her.
The thought of her pussy squeezing my cock the way she’s squeezing my tongue sends me over the edge, just as Franki’s body shakes and jerks against me. I keep going until she nudges my head. “No more.”
I lift to look at her. “Was that an orgasm? Or are you not enjoying this?”
Breathless, she says, “Orgasm.”
I glance at the clock on the bedside table. “That took eleven minutes. I expected closer to half an hour.”
She slaps her hands over her face. “Way to turn this clinical, Henry.”
“I’m covered in your pussy juice, and I ejaculated in my sweats.” I slide up over her, pulling her hands away from her face, to take her mouth with mine. “Do I taste clinical to you?”
When I lift my head to evaluate her reaction, I’m gratified by the glazed expression in her eyes. She grinds against my thigh, her face and chest flushed with the proof of her pleasure.
“You finished in your pants?” she asks.
“I’m far from finished.”
“Does that mean you were into it? You didn’t mind doing that?”
I don’t like the insecurity in her voice. She needs something from me, and I’m failing her. When I rub my thumb over her bottom lip, she sucks it into her mouth, and it feels like she’s sucking my cock. That’s the intensity of this moment. “I’ve never been more turned on by anything in my life.”
She visibly relaxes, and a lightbulb turns on for me. She needs praise and reassurance. Needs to know how she’s making me feel.
I never planned to be a “talker” in bed. Some women find it a turnoff, and it’s a next-level skill that will take time and practice to develop.
If I do it wrong, it’s more likely to make her cringe than arouse her. But I can tell her she’s amazing. That I can easily do.
“You’re the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life, Franki. Can I keep going or are you ready to rest?”
She releases my thumb and gives me a slow smile. “You should definitely keep going.”