Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Phoebe
“ T ake a walk with me?” I asked.
With a brush of his thumb over my chin, he stepped back, releasing me from his hold.
It took everything in me to stay upright, but I somehow turned to lead us down a wooden walkway that led to the beach. Once there, I slipped my heels off and carried them as I turned to make sure Henry had followed me.
“You’re not going barefoot? The sand feels amazing between your toes at this time of night.” I said, swinging my shoes by my thighs.
“I can’t be bothered holding onto them.”
“You’ll carry me but not your shoes?”
“Absolutely.” He smirked.
“You make no sense.”
“It only has to make sense to me.”
We fell into a weirdly comfortable silence as we made our way down to the shoreline and began to walk along the water’s edge, with me on the left of Henry so his trainers didn’t get wet, while I relished the feel of the ocean lapping gently at the soles of my feet.
It grounded me after all the chaos back in that bar.
“So, tonight went to shit, huh?” I said.
Henry’s voice was quiet, almost contemplative. “I’ve had worse nights.”
“Dare I ask?”
He side-eyed me, that look of mischief on his face that made it impossible to believe just how grumpy and standoffish he’d been when we’d first met.
“Well, normally after a fight like that, I head home to shake it off and spend the night alone thinking about how I could have hit the guy harder or better. It’s not often I get to take a walk on the beach with a beautiful woman like you after that kind of madness. ”
As tempted as I was to acknowledge his compliment, I stopped in my tracks and turned to face him fully. “You make it sound like you fight like that a lot.”
“Consequences of the job.”
“What job?” I frowned.
Henry pushed his hands into the pockets of his shorts.
“Another secret you’re getting out of me.
Fine, but this has to stay between us.” He leaned forward, whispering conspiratorially.
“Andy and Jace don’t know about it, but sometimes I work freelance as security—a bouncer, if you will—in several nightclubs across London. ”
A bouncer? I couldn’t believe it, even if his moody persona fit well for that kind of job.
“You… bounce?” I asked, unable to keep the look of surprise off my face.
“Sometimes. It’s not what I do for a living, though. That’s a lot more boring.”
“And that is?”
“Architect in training. I work for Andy’s dad, James. But…”
“Another obligation you don’t feel you can get out of?” I guessed, realising just how much Henry seemed to put his own life on hold to please everyone else around him.
I could relate to that more than he knew.
“Something like that. When you owe certain people your whole life, it’s pretty rude to turn down opportunities they offer you at their own expense, even if those opportunities aren’t what set your soul on fire.”
“And security work does that for you?”
“No.” He laughed, shaking his head. “That just allows me to take my anger at the world out on arseholes like that guy back there who touched you.”
“Oh.” I swallowed. “I didn’t realise how much you enjoyed being violent.”
“I don’t enjoy being violent as much as I enjoy teaching people a few manners here and there.”
“Manners. Is that what you kids are calling it these days?” A shiver ran through me, and I wrapped my arms around myself despite the warmth, my shoes dangling from my fingertips.
Henry’s eyes dropped to my arms, which were now covered in goosebumps “You’re cold.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Just… I don’t know actually. I feel weird all of a sudden.”
He closed the distance between us. “Weird, how?”
“I have no idea.” My body started to tremble without my permission. I hugged myself tighter, but nothing seemed to work.
“Shit,” Henry hissed, and before I knew it, I was back in his arms, my cheek pressed to his strong, warm chest again. “I think you’re going into shock.”
“D-Don’t be ridiculous.” I tried to laugh, but it only came out as a strangled jumble of words. “Shock over that back there? That was… that was nothing.”
He rubbed his large hands up and down my back, caressing the bare skin there, and all I could focus on was the beating of his heart against my ear, the sound so rhythmic, it allowed me to close my eyes and simply… trust him.
Henry told me to take a few deep breaths, and I did as he instructed, breathing in and out in time with him until I began to feel the wave of unexpected panic recede.
“That’s it,” he soothed. “Your body’s relaxing. You’re good now.”
“Good now,” I repeated on a whisper, inhaling deeply to soak in his heavenly scent—one I was becoming all too familiar with, as well as addicted to.
But as much as I enjoyed being in his arms, I hated how pathetic I sounded. I’d endured a lot in my life—heard a lot, seen a lot, felt a lot, survived even more. The way I seemed to crumble in this man’s arms made no sense.
“I hate that I didn’t punch him myself when I should have,” I admitted quietly. “I promise I’m not weak, even though I look it right now.”
Henry carefully peeled me off his chest, held me by the shoulders, and looked into my eyes. “Don’t you ever say anything like that to me again. You’re not weak, you’re angry, with every right to be.”
“But—”
“No buts, Phoebe. I know the world wants all women to be hard and all men to be soft these days, but the fact is, we are what we are, no matter what anyone says or thinks about it. Allow yourself to feel whatever you feel right now, and fuck what anyone else, especially me, thinks. You hear me?”
I nodded, unsure what to say. Where had this man come from, and how had I been the one to catch his attention when all I’d given him so far was attitude and complications?
“We’ve only known each other a few days, and this is the second time you’ve swept me off my feet and come to my rescue. Thank you,” I said softly.
“You don’t need to thank me. And for what it’s worth, I think you’re way tougher than me.”
“The marks on your knuckles would disagree.”
“Anyone can have physical strength. There are no gyms for emotional strength. That comes from within. Often built in dark, lonely rooms, where people like you and me spend far too much time alone, reading books or contemplating the meaning of life.”
“You contemplate the meaning of life?” I laid a look of disbelief on him.
“I contemplate a lot of things. Like right now, I’m contemplating how I can make you feel better without touching you, even though I want to trail my fingers all over your skin to make you forget everything that happened, so the only memory you have of this night is the way I made you feel using nothing but my hands.
But I can’t do that, because someone else just violated your body, and I’m not about to do the same unless you tell me to. ”
A new warmth I didn’t want to control spread over me. “And if I tell you to?”
“I’ll make sure you remember tonight for all the right reasons.”
The very idea of him touching me in any capacity set my heart racing at a dangerous pace.
I brought a hand up to his handsome face, never taking my eyes off his as I pushed it through the side of his hair, just the way I’d imagined doing ever since I first laid eyes on him.
It felt so soft through my fingers, and Henry’s mouth pressed into a flat line as he swallowed whatever emotion he didn’t want me to see.
We both knew what point we’d reached, and all it was going to take was for one of us to make that very first move, so I rose up on my toes, slid my hand down to his neck, and pulled his forehead down to rest against mine.
“I want you to touch me, Henry,” I whispered. “I want you to make me think of nothing but you for the rest of my days here.”
Our breaths met, the closest we’d ever been, and my body rippled with tension as I waited for his answer.
Henry’s hands found my waist, and within the blink of an eye, he’d spun me around in his arms until my back was flush against his chest, making my hand fall to his strong forearm as he tugged me harder against him.
So hard, I could feel the effect my words had had on him.
He was rock solid beneath his pants, and the feel of it pressed against me had me hitching in a breath.
Henry’s mouth came down to my exposed neck, and he brushed it over the pulse point there, never once kissing my skin, only teasing with those lips of his, making me ache for his touch until it became almost a physical pain in the very pit of my stomach.
“Look out at the ocean,” he ordered quietly as he ran his hands over my stomach, scrunching the material in his grip as though he wanted to tear it from my body in one swift motion. “Think of nothing but what you see in front of you and how my touch feels.”
I was already panting, and he’d barely even started.
“Forget everything but us, Phoebe.”
“Us…”
“Us,” he sighed. “Tell me where I can touch you.”
“Everywhere,” I breathed.
I felt his small, satisfied smile against my neck as he brought one hand up to my breast, and he squeezed it with the perfect amount of pressure, making a small moan climb up my throat.
Before long, that hand dipped beneath the low neckline of my dress until his rough palm met my hard nipple, and when he rolled it between his finger and thumb, playing with it to the point of a beautiful pain I’d never felt before, I almost lost myself completely.
This.
This is what I’ve been waiting for.
“Your wound up so tight,” he murmured.
“I… I…” Oh, God, I couldn’t speak.
“You like how that feels, don’t you?”
A feeble nod and a breathless whimper were my only responses.
Henry huffed out his amusement, but it was soon followed by an appreciative moan that almost did as much to me as his hands.
My thighs pressed together without instruction while my nipples drowned in the bliss he offered.
I pushed my arse back into him, desperate to feel some sort of friction down there from any part of his body, but with one twist of my nipple, my head fell back against his chest with a thud, and I closed my eyes, thinking of only him and his touch.
Of how strong he felt.
How dependable.
How good he was.
The hand around my waist started to slide lower, until it was hitching up the short hem of my dress, pulling it higher so he could slip his hand into the tiny piece of lace lingerie that covered the one thing I wanted him to devour the most. The moment his finger slid through my wet pussy, I sucked in a sharp jolt of air, the contact almost too much before he’d even started.
“Jesus,” he whispered. “You’re drenched.”
I moaned again, my body twitching in his grip as those jolts of pleasure started to spread out in every direction.
“And so fucking sensitive. So reactive.” He ran his finger back and forth over my swollen clit, making wave after wave of indescribable pleasure wash over me.
“Please,” I managed to moan before I began to roll my hips, begging for more.
“Your manners aren’t needed here. Tell me what you want.”
“You already know.” He did. Henry didn’t need any cues when it came to me, and he never had.
Within moments, he slid his finger into my pussy, pushing it in deep, holding me against him in a tight grip as I rose on my tiptoes, pressing my entire weight into his body.
“Open those angel eyes for me, Phoebe,” he ordered in my ear before he nipped it between his teeth, creating goosebumps on top of goosebumps. “See where you are while I make you come on my fingers. Imagine how beautiful my view is with you about to explode in my arms.”
Blinking furiously, I looked out at the cool night sky, at the calm ocean creating the perfect soundtrack of soothing waves, at the moon on the horizon watching the scandal play out in front of it.
It was almost sensory overload.
He was everywhere all at once. In my pussy, at my chest, in my head… and then he pressed those incredible lips of his against the pulse point in my neck and kissed me.
In that moment, I was done for, lost to every sensation that tore through my body.
When his finger began to work inside me at a pace I could barely stand, I began to see stars, too.
My entire body turned rigid, my mouth in the shape of an “O” as I rode the climb of my orgasm, getting ready for the fall, and with one final brush of his thumb over my clit, I came undone in his strong arms, falling against him, knowing without a doubt that he’d be ready and waiting to catch me.