Chapter 42
Gwendolynne
It occurs to me as we’re riding up in the lift that maybe this has been Harrisford’s plan all along.
Perhaps this whole thing has been a challenge for him. A conquest. A ploy to get me, his greatest rival, into bed. Perhaps he feels the need to bring me down a peg, to win this final game.
And you know what? In this moment…I don’t care. In a way, even if it’s just another one-night thing, at least I’ll have won, too.
It’s because I need this. I need the distraction. I’ve been so stressed out by exams. So defeated by my inability to figure out the black box or how to enter the Void. If one night of sex with Harrisford is what it takes to numb those feelings temporarily, I’ll take it.
We’re standing shoulder to shoulder, not talking, as we ascend to the twenty-second floor.
“Don’t you need to go back and get Pudding?” I say, to break the oppressive silence. “Isn’t she like, your emotional support lizard?”
“She’s not my emotional support—” Harrisford starts to snap, but then he catches sight of my grin reflected in the mirrored walls.
“You cheeky witch,” he laughs, bumping his shoulder against mine.
Then his smile sharpens. He half turns, his arm snaking around my waist, and leans in close to speak into my ear. “Trust me, though…” His voice has deepened to molten liquid. “With what I plan to do to you, I’d prefer not to have an audience.”
At that precise moment, the lift doors slide open and he strides out, leaving me to scramble after him, my face flushed beetroot red. How is it that I started out teasing him, yet I’m the one who’s wound up flustered?
When we enter, he shuts the soft-close door behind us. I only have a second to take in the room. Or, not a room rather, but a suite, bigger than anything I’ve ever seen before, bigger even than my entire flat. I don’t get a chance to register any details because Harrisford is already on me.
He’s kissing me furiously, and I’m kissing him back, our movements clumsy, harried, unbridled. He walks me backward farther into the room, his lips chasing me through space as my body arches, his hand splayed against my lower back.
It takes mere seconds before we’ve tugged off my T-shirt, and only another second before he’s pulled his own off, too. He runs his lips along the angle of my jaw, to my neck, kissing me down it, then biting me, hard, at the angle of my shoulder.
I cry out, half in lust, half in pain, and his mouth captures mine again, swallowing my scream.
Another strangled moan follows, also into Harrisford’s mouth, as he slips his hand beneath the cup of my bra and kneads my breast, skimming his calloused fingers across my nipple.
My whole body jerks, my legs almost giving out beneath me, but one of his muscular legs is shoved between both of mine, and then I’m grinding against him, finding both too much and too little friction between the fabric of our jeans.
He groans out my name and grabs hold of my butt, kneading it, clasping me tighter to him.
When he slips the straps of my bra off my shoulders and starts kissing across my décolletage, I quip, “No judgy Carlisle this time.”
He raises his head just a fraction, just enough to say, with a sinful gleam in his eyes, “I don’t think I need him to rein me in tonight.”
My desire surges from a current into raging river rapids, and I adjust my stance to let Harrisford take off my bra.
He leans back for a moment, his gaze sweeping down my body, and then drops to his knees, undoing my jeans, easing them down my legs, and good god I’m glad that I wore some decent knickers.
It’s my own personal end-of-exam celebratory ritual.
He gives a low hum of appreciation at the already dampening silk, skimming his nose along my waistband before impatiently tugging that down, too. Palming my hips and digging his fingers into my backside, he shoots me a lascivious look before clamping his mouth between my legs.
I cry out, my knees buckling, but Harrisford is there to hold me up.
I twine my fingers through his hair, rocking my hips against his mouth.
His touch, his lips, his tongue are urgent, uncompromising; he approaches giving me pleasure with the same enthusiasm as he did that night in Manchester.
He teases sounds out of me that I never even knew I could make.
And when my pleasure breaks, I cry out his name, and he keeps going, which makes me explode again, and again.
I’m still shaking with the echoes of my many orgasms when he pulls me up and lifts me into his arms, kissing me again.
Automatically, my legs wrap around his waist, feeling the considerable length of his hardness slide against the slick evidence of my pleasure.
“I’m wrecking your jeans,” I whisper against his lips.
“Fuck it,” he manages to grind out. “I like it.”
He walks me to the bed, dropping us both down, the hard planes of his torso jutting up against the soft curves of mine.
With frantic hands, I help him remove his own jeans, pushing them down his long legs until they’re off completely, and then I do the same to his underwear until he, like me, is completely naked.
He sits back to grab a condom out of the pocket of his discarded jeans, and grins when I raise an eyebrow and say, “You were a bit overconfident about fucking me tonight, weren’t you? ”
He smirks and rips the packet open. “I believe you’ve got me exactly where you wanted.”
He rolls the condom on. And I stare at him.
My gaze rakes the full length of his body, tracing the dips and bulges of his muscles—he’s built, but not too built; lean, but not too lean.
My eyes linger on his cock, which is looking imposingly big.
And then I reach out, my fingers grazing his six-pack, trailing down his abdomen, then skirting sideways until they skim the sharp V of his hips…
“Gwendolynne,” he groans, and everything inside me tightens. I am so, so ready for him.
He leans over me, easing me back onto the pillows.
I’m nestled in down and linen and the lighting is soft and Harrisford’s body is warm and hard, and he’s braced himself on his arms above me, supporting his weight so he doesn’t crush me, and I put a hand on his chest and realize that he’s shaking.
Realize that his heart is beating about as fast as mine.
“Are you…nervous?” My tone is disbelieving.
“I’m not nervous,” he says, too quickly. Then he concedes. “Okay, maybe I’m a little nervous.”
I scrunch my brows in confusion, even as my legs curl around his thighs, tugging him even closer, until the evidence of his arousal slides—both hard and soft and oh so warm—against my abdomen. “But…why? I mean, you’ve done this before…”
“Yes, of course.” A look of alarm flashes across his face. “Why, haven’t you?”
“Of course I have!” But then I add, “Not very much, though. I was always too focused on study.” I don’t add that while I have had sex, it’s never been good. It’s never approached even a fraction of the intensity that I feel when Harrisford and I merely kiss.
Harrisford leans down and kisses me, tenderly this time. “I’ve done this before, Gwendolynne…” His eyes lock on mine; his hold on me tightens. “But never with someone I care so much about. So yes, I’m nervous.”
I almost snort, but I don’t. “You care about me. Right.” It’s still impossible for me to reconcile the Harrisford Briggs I’ve known for seven years with the words coming from his mouth.
“I do.” He lowers his head, brushing his lips along my jawbone, making me inhale sharply. “Do you want me to prove it to you?”
“How?” My voice comes out unusually high; I squirm.
“How many ways can I prove it, Gwen?” He cradles my face, presses a soft kiss at one corner of my lips.
“Shall I tell you about how I only bought that car to drive to Manchester, because I couldn’t stand another twenty-four hours of not seeing you?
” His fingers tighten as his nose skims along my cheek; he plants another light kiss at my temple.
“Or how about the fact that I lied about the qílín foal? I always knew you could do it. I wanted you to. I wanted you to have the win.”
My breath catches; I can barely comprehend what he’s saying because everything—his words, his touch—is all so overwhelming.
He feathers kisses down my face. One of his hands runs along my collarbone before twisting possessively into my hair.
“Or perhaps I should tell you how I don’t even care about the Ministry job anymore.
” At this, he takes control, angling my head and kissing me on the neck, until I let out a little whimper.
“If selling my soul to Magecorp is what it takes for me to be with you, so be it.”
He stills, his last words whispered against my skin. So raw. So vulnerable. “The truth is, Gwendolynne, I’ve wanted you for so long. Years, in fact. I was just too much of a coward to admit it.”
There’s a prickling at my inner eyelids that means tears are coming, so I blink hard, then say, “But…that makes no sense. Why me? I mean, there’s absolutely nothing special about me…”
“Chan.” He raises his head, completely exasperated by now. “You’re the smartest witch at Seamere—”
“You know what I mean. I mean…physically. Personality-wise. I’m dead average in every way.” And there it is: me laid bare. The insecurities I’ve had since forever, on full display for him to see.
“Average!” Harrisford repeats. He shakes his head at me. He’s silhouetted by the light, and his eyes are dark, smoldering with an intensity that curls my toes. “You know, Chan, for an intelligent woman, you really do have a poor grasp of the word ‘average.’ ”
My lips part, and I’m going to say something snarky in return, but the words never leave my lips because he’s positioning himself, his eyes fixed on mine.
He pauses for a moment, staring down at me, his breaths coming ragged.
He brushes away a strand of hair from my face.
And for the second time ever, his expression is one of complete vulnerability.
It’s as though I’ve died and exited my body because I never, never envisioned him looking at me… like this.
Our lips find each other again, raw and tender and sweet and unhurried. And then he’s pushing himself into me, so slowly, so gently, and I’m stretching and stretching and he’s murmuring my name against my lips and I’m full, so full of Harrisford, both in my body and in my heart.
We both stay still for a moment, our shuddering breaths mingling together, fracturing the hotel room’s somber silence; he rests his forehead on mine for a second, his eyes closed. “Gwendolynne,” he says, teasing my name out on his tongue, and involuntarily I clench around him, making us both gasp.
And then he’s moving. He’s moving in me, and he’s kissing me all over my cheeks, my jaw, my chin, the tip of my nose.
I wrap my legs around his waist and tilt my pelvis, meeting him stroke for stroke…
inviting him to go even harder, even faster.
He responds in kind, and with each thrust I cry out, because he’s nudging me higher and higher and closer to the precipice until suddenly…
He pulls out.
I gasp, bereft at the sudden emptiness. Is he…done? I can’t believe it would be over so quickly, and yet…
But he’s not done. He’s standing, his face flushed, his expression oddly furious, and he pulls me almost roughly to him and then rasps in my ear. “Hands on the desk, Chan.”
“What?”
He spins me around. “Hands on the fucking desk.”
I hadn’t noticed the desk before; it’s much like Harrisford’s own desk, all sleek shiny wood and tasteful stationery and—oh god—he’s behind me again, lining himself up, positioning us in such a way that I’m forced to brace myself on the desk’s surface.
With a single movement, he buries himself inside me again, all the way, and as he begins to move he leans over, his chest nestled against my back. I let out a shivery moan from the sensation, and he grabs my chin and turns it to give me a frantic kiss, before letting my face go.
“All those times you said you were chained to the desk,” he says into my ear, his voice rough, “and all I could think about was holding you down and fucking you just like this.”
Still buried in me, he drops his hand and starts working at me between my legs.
I cry out again; the pleasure is so intense, building so rapidly.
Every nerve ending is on fire, my body singing with unleashed desire.
He clamps a strong arm across my torso and tugs me against him so that our bodies are flush, my upper thighs sliding against the shiny wood of the table, his fingers rubbing as he starts thrusting faster.
“Tell me when you’re close, Gwendolynne. ”
“I—I’m close. I’m close.”
He flips me around and maneuvers me back to the bed, climbing over me and pinning both of my wrists down with one of his large, rough hands. He slides himself back into me, his thumb once again rubbing at my clit. “Come for me, Gwen. I want to see your face when you come.”
It only takes two more thrusts and then I’m falling apart, shuddering and boneless. “Harrisford!” His name explodes from my lips like a prayer. “Oh my god. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!” My final curse morphs into a scream.
He speeds up, unrelenting, until he’s groaning my name into my ear and his movements have turned erratic and his hand tightens around my wrist almost hard enough to crush me.
But he doesn’t crush me. He goes motionless, so still, settling carefully against me so he doesn’t hurt me, his cock still buried deep inside. He presses a kiss against my lips, softly, like a salve for their bruising, and then another kiss right by my ear.
“Congratulations, darling Gwendolynne,” he says. “On finishing final year.”