Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Phoebe
“ S he really took him back to our apartment?” Rhea glanced between Henry and me, full of disbelief as the four of us stood outside the bar, covered from head to toe in white, gooey foam remnants mixed with the heat of the night. “I feel gross. What the hell am I going to do now?”
Jace rubbed her shoulders. “There’s always my place.”
Rhea spun around to face him. “Remove that idea from your head immediately.”
He laughed easily, not at all fazed by her rejection.
“I’m not talking about you stripping down naked in my bed and making all my dreams come true, my feisty queen.
I just meant you could chill out at my place until they’re finished.
” He raised his hands in surrender. “I’ll keep these to myself, I promise. ”
“But I need a shower.”
“I have a towel and a spare T-shirt you can borrow until you get your room back.”
“Stop being so nice. It makes it harder for me to resist you.”
“You know my thoughts on that.” He smirked.
“Ugh. I can’t believe Bailey has done this.”
“Come on, Rhea,” I said, folding my arms over my chest. “We’ve always made a point of saying that if anyone hooks up, we go back to our place instead of the guy’s anyway, right? It’s safer that way. Bailey is only following the rules we set. She hasn’t done it to piss you off.”
“You’re right,” she grumbled before she gestured down to her soaked outfit. “But of all the nights she chose to get down to business with him in our room. Look at me.”
“We could always skinny dip in the ocean,” Jace offered. “Clean you up real good.”
Rhea just sighed, unable to hide the twist of her lips. “You’re relentless.”
“You have no idea.” He chuckled. “But the offer of my apartment is there, Ree-Ree.”
“It’s up to you, Bee,” she said, eyes on me. “Where you go, I go.”
The humour slid off my face in an instant.
I had no desire to spend the night counting down the hours with Rhea and Jace until Andy and Bailey were…
‘finished’. All I wanted to do was sneak away with the man standing beside me, but I had no idea how to get out of Rhea’s protective embrace in order to do that.
“Didn’t you just say you fancied one last nightcap before we left, Phoebe?” Henry asked, clearing his throat and rubbing the back of his neck roughly.
I took him in, blinking several times before I caught on to his plan. “I did, yeah. Why? You wanna join me, Cohen?”
His nostrils flared at my purposeful use of his last name, but he pressed his mouth into a flat line and smiled anyway. “I suppose I could go for a tequila or two.”
“And I suppose your company will do for an hour.” I turned to Rhea. “How about you guys?”
“Hell, no. I’m beat,” she said with a sigh before she looked at Jace. “Fine. We’ll go back to yours. Just no funny business.”
“Funny, ha-ha, or funny”—he thrust his hips forward—“you know?”
“Never, ever do that again.”
His eyes twinkled with mischief. “Not even if you beg me for it.”
Rhea sputtered out a laugh. “Yeah, right, okay.” She spun back around and pointed a finger at Henry. “Look after my girl.”
“Will do,” he responded with no emotion whatsoever.
When Rhea came to give me a parting hug, though, I didn’t miss the knowing look she flashed my way.
A look that told me that if I got the chance to make a move on Henry, maybe I should go for it.
A look that said she suspected more was going on here, but she wouldn’t push in case I retreated.
A look that made me feel like my best friend had a way of seeing into my soul that, quite frankly, terrified me.
I didn’t want any of this to be exposed. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
As mine and mine alone, it felt sacred.
Shared, it made me feel wrong.
Before she could say anything, Jace threw his arm around Rhea’s shoulder and guided her away from the bar. Less than a minute later, they were completely out of sight.
It took only a second for Henry’s lips to meet mine in a kiss so needy, it made a squeak of surprise fall free as I clung onto his wrists and leaned into him, letting him have my whole body, mind, and soul while he held me in his hands.
When he pulled away, we were both gasping.
“You’re taking too many risks,” I told him, dazed and blinking. “They could have seen us.”
“I don’t fucking care,” he said breathlessly, trailing his hand over my foam-soaked bikini top. “Admit it, you like the thrill of it all just as much as I do.” He grabbed my hand and brought it down by his thigh before he jerked his head to the side. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
“No tequila?” I smirked.
“Oh, there’ll be tequila.”
I had no idea what he meant, but I found myself giggling like a schoolgirl anyway as he led me down the foreign streets of Mykonos, his strides so long and quick, I struggled to keep up.
He let me go for only a few minutes when he left me outside an all-night store, before he came rushing out with a bottle of tequila in his grip.
“You’re insane.” I found myself laughing even harder as he, once again, picked my hand up in his and began dragging me down the street. I tried really hard not to focus on how much I liked him leading me places.
We soon arrived back at our apartment complex, and Henry made a point of stopping by my favourite flowers, spinning me around in front of them, then pressing my body against the collection of pink petals so they framed my head like a fluorescent halo.
He stepped back, taking me in as I looked up at him, somehow feeling adored by a man I barely even knew.
Even knowing we weren’t made to last, I took what I could of his adoration anyway.
“Don’t move,” he said, digging into the pocket of his shorts, pulling out his phone, and raising it to take a picture of me without warning. The flash went off, temporarily blinding me, but when I focused back on Henry again, he stared at the screen with a serene smile on his face. “Damn.”
“What is it?”
“You’re just… hot as fuck.” He turned his phone around to show me the picture.
Flushed cheeks and a happy smile took centre stage, my eyes almost seductive as I stared into the lens, as though enticing this man closer with my pigtails and wet bikini.
The sight of it made my cheeks blush because that didn’t even look like me.
The woman in that picture seemed confident, daring, bold—a total contrast to the woman who’d stumbled onto that plane only a few days ago.
Did Henry really hold that much power over me already?
If so, what the hell would I look like by the end of this holiday?
I glanced up at him, feeling needier than ever for his touch. “What are you going to do with me now?”
He pushed the phone back into his pocket and brought his free hand around the back of my neck, pulling me to him. “Make you pay for calling me Cohen all night long for starters.”
“Oh.” I sighed dreamily. “That.”
“Yeah.” He smirked. “ That .”
We’d laughed quietly the whole way to his apartment, him with his masculine half-smirks telling me to “Shh”.
Me, having to press my hand over my mouth while he encouraged me to move faster so he could have his way with me sooner.
The door had barely slammed shut behind us when he placed the bottle of tequila on the countertop and turned to me, breathless from the way he’d raced up the stairs to make it to his room unnoticed.
But the moment we were alone, our quiet laughter and cheek-aching smiles gave way to heavy breaths, parted lips, and an air of expectation that became suffocating.
We were two live wires ready to cause a catastrophe, not caring about the aftereffects, only caring about basking in the spark that came to life.
He walked over to me slowly, taking me in while taking his time.
When he came to a stop only inches away, he reached around to the strings at the back of my bikini and carefully untied them, letting both ends fall down by my hips, before he did the same with the string tied behind my neck.
The material fell away to the floor, as though it, too, was scared to break the sexual tension with even the faintest of sounds.
Henry eventually glanced down at my sticky breasts, raising his palms to push up against them, running his thumbs over the puckered nipples carefully, painfully, causing me to inhale a stuttered breath as a jolt of white-hot pleasure shot straight to my groin.
“Shower with me?” he whispered.
I nodded my consent, unable to look away from him as he grabbed my hand and guided me to the bathroom.
Henry didn’t bother to turn the light on once in there, allowing the constant echo of the moonlight to hold court above all else, casting shadows among us like we were two pieces of art being defined by lines, light, and darkness.
Without saying a word, he flicked the shower on, then started peeling himself out of his damp, sticky clothes, while I stood there wearing nothing but my denim shorts, waiting.
Staring. Soaking every part of him in. The strength that oozed from his body.
The fire that shone from his eyes when he dropped his T-shirt to the floor and began to lower his shorts.
The way his dark hair stuck up at certain angles, reckless yet perfect, like the two of us in this secret affair we’d somehow forged out of hatred and loneliness.
When he pushed his boxers down, letting his cock spring free, I wasted no more time in letting him know my intentions.
I unbuttoned my shorts before I pushed them and my bikini bottoms down my legs, watching as Henry’s tongue ran out over his bottom lip the moment he saw me straighten up in front of him, totally naked.
It was the first time we’d seen each other this way, no barrier between us.
No clothes.
No swimwear.
No ocean hiding our sins.
No foam cloaking our desires.
“Jesus, Phoebe,” he said on a long exhale.