25. Henry
“No.”
Heat singes my body, and my vision blurs as all of my blood rushes straight to the appendage I shouldn’t be focusing on. I finally lock eyes with her and see exactly how turned on she still is.
Her cheeks are flushed a pretty pink, and her pupils are blown wide. The longer I look at her, the clearer it is that she’s in the same situation I am.
“Do you want to?” There’s gravel in my voice, and I try to clear it away, but with the way she’s looking at me, there’s no helping it.
“Do I want to what?” Her eyes widen. She even sounds needy.
Every moment we spent together over the last few weeks flashes in my mind. We’ve spent so much time together platonically that I’m second guessing what I’m about to do.
After I saw her see me at my apartment, shame and surprise flooded my brain. The shock basically cut off any chance of finishing what I had started.
Not that I would have. Her walking in on me with my hand on my dick moaning her name was…a lot. Overwhelming. I stopped the moment I knew what was happening.
And after she flew out my door, leaving me alone and still hard, my second thought was that I wanted her right there in my bed with me.
As her friend, that’s wrong.
But as a man? Who’s been into her since the moment I saw her at The Well? The pull is there. And it’s clearly not going away.
It’s strong enough to see if she might be receptive to adjusting the parameters of our relationship.
“Come. Do you want to come?”
Her cheeks flush hotter, and she sucks in a breath.
“Do you?” She slowly unfolds her body, placing her feet on the floor. “Want to come?”
The soft, curious way she asks pierces me straight to my core. I should jump at this chance. I should just say yes, find some relief. I should strip down, then demand that she do the same, and crawl into that bed and see about making sure we both get off.
I want to do that, but something holds me back. Because I’m not sure…and I need to be.
“Gianna, I don’t want this to go any further if it’s not what you want.” My dick strains painfully against my jeans, protesting my words. “I don’t want you to think that I’ve just been spending time with you in hopes that this would happen.”
“Again.” Her voice is husky, and there’s something hovering just behind her eye.
It takes me no time to figure out what it is. Because I’ve seen it before.
It’s pure lust.
“Again?” Clearing my throat, I try to tamp down the rawness of my voice.
“This has happened before.” She lifts an eyebrow. “Twice.” I blink and it’s gone, but I swear she smirks.
“Not that you’re counting.”
She hums, shifting her legs so her thighs rub against each other. We both sit, clearly uncomfortable, for several moments. I want to hear a ‘hell yeah’ or a hard no from her. But I don’t want to say anything that might sway her decision. So I stay quiet, for as long as I can.
Which, as it turns out, isn’t that long.
I go to say something, anything, and something shifts. A look of determination crosses her face.
“Come here.” Her request is as close to a demand as she’s probably capable of making.
And I respond immediately. I”m out of my chair in a heartbeat. Then I’m right in front of her, standing while she still sits. She tips her head back to look up at me and breaks out into the most amazing smile.
My body sways forward, pulled into her orbit, but I don’t move. Not until she tells me to.
Instead of using her words, she crooks a finger, beckoning me down to her. I lean down and put myself right in her personal space. Not sure what she wants, I stop short, but she curls a hand behind my neck and pulls me close.
She pulls me into a kiss and takes complete control. Bracing myself with my hands on either side of her, I give as much as I get. She nips my bottom lip, and I moan into her mouth. When our tongues tangle, my restraint crumbles, and I haul her up into my arms.
“Clothes off, Henry.” Gia drags her mouth down my neck, kissing and licking.
With one arm banded across her back to hold her close to me, I use my free hand to reach down and flick open the button of my jeans and pull the zipper down. I start moving us toward the bed.
With every step, my jeans slip lower on my hips, and right before I make it to set her down on the bed, they drop. The next step I take sends me flying forward onto the bed.
Luckily, I react quickly enough to throw a hand forward so I don’t crush her. She squeals as she crashes down, clinging to me. When we settle, I pull back, and the moment our eyes meet, we both burst out laughing. I drop my head and laugh into her shoulder as she wraps her arms around my middle and laughs into my chest.
Once I pull myself together, I turn my head and press a kiss to her neck. “You okay?” I whisper into her ear.
“I’m good. If I knew you were going to take us both out, I would have told you to keep your clothes on.”
“Ha, ha. Let me just take care of this.” Despite the hilarity, I’m as hard as ever, and when I stand to get rid of my jeans, it’s abundantly clear. My boxer briefs don’t hide anything.
“We should probably talk about me walking in on you.” She eyes my crotch, then drags her eyes up to meet mine.
“Do you want to do that right now?”
Considering her options, she shakes her head. “We can probably worry about that later.”
All laughter falls away as I kick my jeans to the side and peel my shirt off. Gia scrambles to do the same. The moment her shirt comes off, I realize she’s not wearing a bra, and I don’t even try to bite back a moan.
That same smirk from earlier is back, and she casually brushes her fingers across her breasts. Her nipples pebble, and my mouth goes dry. She rolls her leggings down, lifts her hips, and pulls them off.
She’s not wearing any panties.
Fuck, if I could get any harder, I would.
Once she kicks the leggings off the bed, she looks at me with eyebrows raised. Reaching over, she slides open the bedside table drawer, tosses a condom on the bed next to her, and looks at me expectantly.
“I don’t know how slow I’m going to be able to take this one, babe.” My voice trembles as I rake my eyes over her. This is the second time I’ve called her that, and I realize I never want to stop. I want to call her every pet name under the sun. Whichever ones she likes. And I know she likes “babe” because when I say it, her eyes flare, and her breath catches. It makes me want to say it over and over again just to get that reaction.
“I promise, slow isn’t what I’m looking for.” She slides her hand down her body, running two fingers along her clit. Seeing how turned on and ready she is, I waste no time getting in bed with her.
I take the condom, rip it open, and roll it on faster than I ever have. I hear a soft moan and find Gia slowly circling her clit with her middle finger. Surging forward, I catch her moan in a kiss and press into her.
For a moment, we’re both still and then we’re moving together like we were made for each other. Her hands grip and caress me while I hold on to her like my life depends on it. Our moans crash together as we kiss and it can’t get better than this.
Gia’s inner walls squeeze around me, and my eyes roll back. Gasping, I shift and bring my thumb to her clit. I press against it in the way that I know she likes, pulling a keening moan from her.
“Yes, Henry, right there.” She throws her head back, hands firmly gripping my sides.
Her nails bite into me as my orgasm rips through me, mind blanking and body shaking. Gia comes with me, pulling me close and gasping for me.
We both go boneless, spent and wrung out. For a moment, I stay there inside her. Hovering over her, I drop kiss after kiss to her neck and shoulder. To her face and lips. After several moments, my brain starts to come back online, and I say the first thing that comes to mind.
“I threw in a load of your clothes, by the way.”
Blinking her eyes open, she just looks at me before letting out a startled laugh. “Henry, I don’t think I want to just be friends.” She whispers.
I almost laugh, but the tugging in my chest stops me. “What do you mean?” I ask, desperate for some kind of clarification. With everything she’s said, the lines she’s drawn, I don’t know what she means.
“I mean,” she starts and stops, a contemplative look crossing her face. “I don’t think that being friends with you is enough for me.” Her voice is quiet, tentative, almost like she’s worried about how I’ll react.
“You mean you want to bring hooking up back on the table?” I ask, not willing to let myself believe that she’s saying what I’m hoping she’s saying.
“What? No.” She moves so we’re facing each other. “I mean, yes, but not just that. I like you, a lot more than as a friend, Henry.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. Yes. I thought it was obvious.” Her forehead scrunches, and she frowns.
“No, at least not to me. After everything you said and all the talk about you dating people your family knows and all of that, I didn’t think you liked me at all.” The familiar feeling inadequacy starts creeping over my skin. “I’ve liked you from the start, Gia, more than I’ve ever liked anyone. And I know you said I’m not a relationship kind of guy, but I think I’ve just been waiting for the right person to become one.”
“Henry…I never meant to make you feel like that. You’re more relationship material than all of the boyfriends I’ve ever had combined. I like you an exhausting amount, really.” She teases a smile from me, cupping my cheek in her hand and pushing it up through my hair.
“Yeah?”
“One thousand percent, yes.”
I drag her toward me, pulling her into a kiss. It’s soft, slow. Our tongues glide together, and our bodies end up wrapped around each other. Before we get too worked up, I slowly pull away, dropping a kiss to her forehead.
“We should probably talk about what this means. Do I get to take you out on dates now? Can I call you my girlfriend? My family will probably want to meet you at some point.” I know I’m bulldozing ahead, but I’m excited. Hopeful and keyed up.
The same isn’t reflected back in the look she’s giving me now. Her eyes are wide, suddenly guarded. She shifts, creating some space between us, and my heart starts to plummet.
“Maybe we should talk about this another time. Maybe tomorrow?”
Confused, I question her. “Why?”
“I just don’t know if we should have conversations about our relationship status while we’re in bed naked post sex.”
“It sounds like maybe you’re regretting some of what you just said.” I say exactly what I’m thinking, not knowing what else to do.
“No, not at all. I just want us both clear-headed and not amped up by orgasmic hormones when we figure this out.”
It sounds like she’s backtracking. Like she’s pulling away from the words she just spoke, and it worries me. Maybe she just said all of that because we slept together again. Maybe she wasn’t being as truthful as she seemed.
Despite my slowly spiraling thoughts, I don’t push for a conversation now. It’s clear she doesn’t want to talk right now.
We’re definitely not just friends, that’s for sure. I just wish I knew what we were. Hopefully, she sticks to what she says, and we can figure that out tomorrow.