Chapter 13
chapter
thirteen
Gracie
I'm boneless. Completely, utterly boneless—like someone reached inside me and removed every structural element keeping me upright.
My skeleton has left the building. What remains is a puddle of warm, trembling, thoroughly wrecked woman spread across Henry Blankenship's bed, and I have zero complaints about it.
That was the most intense orgasm of my life. And I say that as a woman who owns a perfectly reliable vibrator and has spent more than a few lonely nights putting it to good use.
But Henry's hands—those rough, calloused, impossibly sure hands—just rendered every battery-operated device I own completely obsolete.
My breathing is still ragged, my thighs still trembling, and my brain is still rebooting like a computer that got hit by a power surge. But even through the haze, I want more. I want him. I want to make him feel what he just made me feel.
I reach down between us and slip my hand into his boxer briefs.
The hard, hot length of his erection brushes against my palm and…
wow. He's thick. Thicker than I expected, and so hard he practically pulses against my skin.
The heat of him is startling, like holding something sun-warmed and alive.
I wrap my hand around him as far as it'll go and give him a stroke.
"Fuuuuuckkk," he growls, and the sound vibrates through his chest and into mine. Low and guttural, the kind of sound that belongs in the dark and has no business making my spent body clench with renewed want.
Then he rolls onto his back, effectively pulling my hand out of his underwear, and I make a noise of protest that I'm not proud of.
"I need my tongue on your pussy," he says. Like it's a fact. Like it's a biological imperative. He shifts himself on the bed, settling against the pillows, and pats his chest. "Right here."
I stare at him. "What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to come sit right here so I can eat your pussy."
My face flames. But I don't have time to feel embarrassed because Henry is lying there, looking up at me like I'm a meal he's been waiting for. I kneel and remove my panties. Not gonna lie, it’s totally awkward and dumb from this position, but eventually I get them off and tossed on the floor.
"Come on," he says. "Put your knees on either side of my head and let me devour that gorgeous pussy.”
I laugh—a real, surprised, slightly hysterical laugh—because leave it to Henry to make me laugh while simultaneously making me so turned on I can barely see straight.
It's the most disarming thing about him.
The way he can shift between devastatingly sexy and infuriatingly charming without any apparent effort.
Like he was born knowing exactly how to undo me.
I crawl toward him across the mattress, and God, I want to explore more of him.
I want to run my hands up the broad expanse of his chest, feel the coarse hair that dusts his pectorals and trails down his stomach, and trace the lines of muscle that years of ranch work carved into him.
I want to map him with my fingers the way I've been mapping him with my eyes for the majority of my life.
I'm completely bare now, and my nipples tighten so hard they ache, pressing against the air like they're reaching for him.
His gaze rakes down my body. Slow. Thorough. His hand grips his cock through his boxers and he squeezes, jaw clenching.
"I could come just from looking at you, Gracie." His voice is gravel and want. "Now let me have your pussy. I'm starving."
Lord help me.
Gently, and no doubt awkwardly, I get into position.
My knees on either side of his head, my thighs bracketing his face, everything I have right there, inches from his mouth.
I feel utterly exposed. Vulnerable in a way that has nothing to do with nudity and everything to do with the fact that this is Henry beneath me.
Henry, who knows me better than almost anyone.
Henry, whom I've loved since before I understood what the word meant.
His hands come up to grip my thighs and his breath ghosts across my most sensitive skin. I shiver.
"Fuck, you smell delicious.” He gives me one long, slow lick straight up the center, and my entire body jolts. My hands fly to the headboard to steady myself. "And that's the prettiest pussy I've ever seen."
Then he devours me.
There is no other word for it. This isn't a tentative exploration. This isn't a man going through the motions. Henry eats me like he's been dreaming about it, no, like he's been starving for me. I grip the headboard tightly.
His tongue plunges inside me, and the sound he makes, a guttural, satisfied groan, reverberates through my core.
His stubble scrapes against my tender flesh, rough and electric, adding texture to the slick glide of his mouth.
The combination of sensations is almost too much—soft tongue, rough jaw, warm breath, strong hands gripping my thighs hard enough to bruise.
He licks up the side of my folds, tracing the edge of me with devastating precision, then circles up and around the hood of my clit.
Close, so close, but deliberately avoiding the spot where I need him most. Over and over he does this, a slow, torturous circuit that has me grinding down against his face and abandoning every shred of dignity I've ever possessed.
"Henry, please,” I beg.
I'm riding his face and I don't care. I'm begging and I don't care about that either. My fingers twist in his hair and my hips chase his mouth with a desperation that would embarrass me if I had any higher brain function left, but I don't. That's gone. Henry's tongue has eliminated it entirely.
Then his tongue finally finds my clit.
He circles it. Tight, focused, relentless little circles.
Then my orgasm doesn't build so much as detonate.
It tears through me like a lightning strike, white-hot and all-consuming, and the waves keep coming, rolling through my body in pulses that seem to last forever.
My thighs clamp against his head, and I'm dimly aware that I might be suffocating him.
I scramble to move, to lift myself off his face before I actually kill the man, but he follows me. Stays with me. His mouth doesn't leave my skin until the last tremor fades and I'm gasping above him, trembling and wrecked and barely conscious.
He shifts us, or I shift, or gravity intervenes, and then he's looking down at me. Propped up on one arm, his mouth and chin glistening with my climax, his expression is so tender it makes my chest ache.
"We don't have to do anything else if you aren't ready," he says. His voice is rough but his eyes are soft. "No pressure from me."
I look up at this man—this man who just gave me not one, but two earth-shattering orgasms without once asking for anything in return.
Something in my chest breaks open. Not breaks apart. Breaks open. Like a door that's been locked for years finally swinging wide.
"I want to," I say. “I’ve wanted you this way a long time. I’m sorry I didn’t wait—”
His finger goes to my lips. “No, we’re not doing that. Nothing matters but you and me. Here right now. This was meant to be. You an me are everything that’s right in my world. I don’t care how long it took us to get here.”
“I love you, Henry.”
He smiles and it’s kinda dopey and sweet. “I love you, Gracie Lynn. Always have, always will.”
“Then make love to me.”
He presses a sweet kiss to my lips, then stands from the bed. He drops his boxer briefs, and then he's just there. Standing in front of me completely naked in the low light of the bedroom, and I can't breathe.
He's magnificent. All of him. The broad, muscled shoulders and the thick chest and the narrow waist and the strong thighs and. Long and hard and heavy, jutting out from his body without apology.
“You’re so damn sexy, it’s kind of annoying,” I say.
He grins. “I live to annoy you, my wife.”
That makes me laugh.
“Oh, I’m not sure if I have any condoms,” he says suddenly.
"It's okay," I say. "I'm on the pill. And I'm clean." I hesitate, then add with a small, self-deprecating smile, "It's, um, been a really long time for me. Like, an embarrassingly long time."
He swallows visibly. Drops down next to me on the bed, still holding the condom, and the mattress dips under his weight. "I'm clean too. Got a clean bill of health last month." He pauses. "And it's been a hell of a lot longer than that since I've been with someone."
Something warm blooms in my chest at that admission. At the vulnerability of it.
"I trust you," I tell him. And I mean it in ways that extend far beyond condoms and clean bills of health. I trust him with my body and I trust him with my heart. I never thought I’d be able to do that, but today is a new beginning for us.
“I’ve waited so long for this I just want it to be perfect,” he admits. “I want to be amazing for you. And I’m fucking terrifying I’m going to go off like a damned rocket the minute I slide inside of you.”
“And if you do, you do and we’ll do it again later. It’ll be perfect because it’s me and you. I don’t need some big performance. You already made me come more than Andrew ever did.”
He leans back a little. “Wait, really?”
“Yeah. He was not a very attentive lover. Thankfully, we didn’t sleep together but a couple of times.”
Then he's lowering himself on top of me, and the full weight of him presses me into the mattress. His hips wedge between my thighs, spreading me open, and I feel the long, hard length of him brush against my inner thigh. Hot silk over steel.
He reaches between us. Notches himself at my entrance.
And slowly—so slowly it makes my eyes flutter shut—he pushes inside.
There's pressure. Fullness. A stretch that borders on overwhelming as my body opens to accommodate him.
But no pain. Just the thick, insistent slide of him filling me inch by inch, and the realization that nothing, no fantasy, no dream, no years of imagining, could have prepared me for how it would feel to have Henry inside me.
"Goddamn, you're wrecking me, Firefly." His voice is shattered. Raw. He thrusts all the way in, his hips flush against mine, and then he stills. Looks down at me.
His arms tremble on either side of my head.
I wrap my legs around his waist, hooking my feet at the ankles and squeezing him to me, pulling him impossibly deeper. I don't want space between us. Not anymore. Not ever.
"You feel so good." His forehead drops to mine. "I don't know how long I can make this last. You're so hot inside, and wet." He presses a kiss to my mouth. Soft. Almost reverent. "Perfect. You're perfect."
"You feel perfect too," I whisper. And it's true. He fits inside me like he was made for this exact space, and that thought should terrify me but right now it just feels like coming home. "You can move now. I'm good."
"Did I hurt you?"
"No." I cup his face with both hands and hold his gaze. "You feel amazing."
His blue eyes blaze. He shifts positions so he’s almost sitting back on his knees. He’s got me angled just right. He's deeper now, hitting places I didn't know existed, and his eyes are locked on where our bodies are joined. On the place where he disappears inside me.
"I have to watch," he says. His voice is barely human.
Then he starts to move.
Shallow at first. Slow, controlled rolls of his hips that make me feel every ridge and inch of him. Then longer. Harder. Deep, driving thrusts that push me up the mattress and punch the air from my lungs.
"Oh shit!" The words tear out of me because he's rubbing some spot inside that I've never been able to reach. Not with my fingers, definitely not with any toy.
"Don't stop doing it just like that,” I beg.
“You have no idea how fucking hot it is to see your pussy swallow my cock like this,” he murmurs.
He puts one hand on my pelvis, spreading his fingers wide across my lower belly, and his thumb drops to brush against my clit. A whisper of pressure. A ghost of a touch.
And that is all it takes.
The orgasm rips through me with the force of something biblical.
I'm screaming or crying or chanting his name—possibly all three—and I don't care because this is the orgasm to end all orgasms. This is the one that rewrites my understanding of what my body is capable of.
Every muscle locks, every nerve fires, and for a few blinding, breathless seconds, there is nothing in the universe except the waves crashing through me and Henry's hands on my skin and the place where we're joined.
I feel utterly, completely drained. Hollowed out and filled up all at once.
I open my eyes just in time to watch him follow me over the edge.
His jaw clenches. His head tips back. And he comes with a roar. It’s raw and unrestrained as he empties himself inside me, his hips stuttering against mine, his fingers gripping my hips hard enough to leave marks I'll be able to trace in the mirror tomorrow.
“Love you, Firefly,” he says.