51. Mandy
MANDY
Ireach for Hendricks before I’m fully awake.
That’s my first mistake.
My second is the sharp stab of panic when I expect my hand to find cold sheets and it doesn’t.
There’s a man wrapped around me.
Not just a man—Hendricks. Naked, warm, and very much here, one heavy arm locked around my waist, his chest fitted against my back like he decided this was where I belonged.
Well, fuck.
I’m not prepared for how much that matters.
I don't move. Don't want to break whatever spell has him here. My heart is doing something stupid in my chest. I have no idea what love is, but I think it’s this.
Last night I thought I might be falling in love with Adrian Hendricks. This morning, I know.
His arm tightens around me, and I realize he's awake.
"You're thinking too loud," he murmurs against my hair.
"I'm not thinking anything."
"Liar."
I turn in his arms, and his gray eyes are already on me, clear and focused despite just waking up. The morning light filters through the curtains, casting shadows across his face.
"Did you really mean it?" I ask, hating the uncertainty in my voice.
"Amanda." His thumb brushes my cheek. “What part of ‘I don’t change my mind’ was unclear?”
Well, fuck me sideways. The man wasn’t having a post-orgasm lapse in judgment. Hendricks had calmly rearranged my entire fucking future—and apparently, he expects me to live in it.
His phone vibrates on the nightstand.
Thank God—saved by the bell.
When it buzzes again, insistent, I nudge him. "That's your contact.”
"Probably." He pulls me closer instead.
Damn but he feels good. "You should answer it."
"I should."
Neither of us moves.
The phone goes silent, then immediately starts buzzing again.
Hendricks doesn’t even look at it.
For some stupid reason, that scares me more than anything to date. “You know, for a competent man, you’re surprisingly bad at answering your phone.”
His hand slides up my back to tangle in my hair. “I’m busy.”
“Doing what?”
He tugs my hair, tilting my head back so our eyes meet. “This.”
My heart does that stupid thing again—that hopeful, terrified flutter. "Lying in bed?"
"Lying in bed with you," he corrects.
I wrinkle my nose. “That sounded dangerously romantic.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
I laugh—I can’t help it.
Something in his expression changes. I feel like I can read Hendricks pretty well, but I don’t recognize this look. “What?”
“Nothing.”
Frowning, I trace the corner of his mouth. “That wasn’t nothing.”
“I just like the sound of that.”
“What sound?”
“You laughing.”
Well, shit. “You really need to stop saying things like that.”
His leg slides between mine. “Why?”
I swallow my moan as his knee presses against my pussy. “Because I’m trying very hard not to fall any harder for you.”
His gaze locks on mine. Then he smiles, that slow, devastating smile of his that he only pulls out once every blue moon, and he rolls us over so he’s on top. “Who said I want you to stop?”
And just like that, the last wall I’ve been clinging to crumbles.
I kiss him.
He responds immediately, using my hair to angle my head and deepen the kiss. His other arm secures my waist, pulling me flush against him, and I feel him hard against my thigh.
"Mandy," he says against my mouth.
There’s only one thing I can reply. "Please."
Without warning he flips us over so I’m on top of him. I straddle him instinctively, my hands on his chest. For a second, I just stare at him—at this controlled, impossible man who somehow looks at me like I’m the dangerous one.
His hands settle on my hips, warm and steady. "Take what you need, Amanda."
“All of it?” I reach between us, wrapping my hand around his cock. He's already hard, and I stroke him once, twice.
His fingers tighten on my hips. “Everything.”
I have no problem with that.
We both watch my hands explore him, squeezing and rubbing his shaft and his balls. I like the way he shifts under my touch, like it’s both not enough and too much, just like he makes me feel. But it’s when my fingers slip behind his balls that he breaks.
"Fuck.” He reaches for a condom from the bedside table and quickly rolls it on.
I position him at my entrance, then slowly—so fucking slowly—sink down onto him.
The stretch is perfect. The fullness makes me gasp. And when I'm fully seated, when he's buried completely inside me, I have to stop and just feel it.
His hands slide up my sides, over my ribs, covering my breasts and pinching my nipples. “Ride me. Get yourself off on my cock.”
“Yes.” The thought makes me go even wetter than I am. I start to move—slow, deliberate rolls of my hips. Not the frantic pace from before. Not the rough intensity. This is something else entirely.
This is me memorizing him—every inch of him inside me, every flex of muscle beneath my hands, every sharp intake of breath when I move just right.
"Amanda." His voice is rough. "Look at me."
I do.
His gray eyes are locked on mine, and there's something in them that makes my chest tight. Something that looks very much like what I'm feeling.
Holding his gaze, I keep moving, keep riding him with slow, measured strokes. His hands guide me—not controlling, but present. Helping me find the rhythm that makes us both gasp.
"Faster," he says.
"No."
His eyebrow quirks. "No?"
"I want to feel every second of this." I lean forward, bracing my hands on his chest. The angle changes, and he hits something inside me that makes me moan. "I want to remember exactly how this feels so I can ask you to make me feel it again."
His hand comes up to cup the back of my neck, pulling me down until our foreheads touch. "You will."
Two words. Absolute certainty. It shouldn’t be so hot, but it is. “You’re awfully sure of yourself.”
“About this?” His gaze doesn’t waver. “Yes.”
I roll my hips. “About me?”
“Especially about you.” His hand tightens on my neck. “Especially about us.”
I kiss him, desperate and needy and probably too honest. He kisses me back like there was never any question about where this was going. I chase the pleasure building low in my belly as his other hand slides between us, finding my clit.
"Oh fuck," I gasp against his mouth. For a second, I can’t move, the shock of his fingers on me is so delicious. But then I begin to grind on him, watching his fingers play with me.
"That's it," he murmurs. “Rub yourself on me.”
It turns me on, watching him play with me. I ride him harder, the sound of skin on skin filling the room. He starts to pluck my clit with perfect pressure and the sharp pleasure tears a cry from me.
"Adrian," I breathe. I'm close—so fucking close.
"Fuck." His eyes flash at the sound of his first name. His hips thrust up to meet mine, and the angle is perfect. "Say it again as you come for me."
"Yes."
His hand grips my hair. "Look at me when you do, Amanda."
I force my eyes open, force myself to hold his gaze even as the pleasure builds to an unbearable peak.
"Just like that," he murmurs, and he pinches my clit as he tugs.
“Adrian,” I scream as I come, my eyes locked on his. The orgasm crashes through me, and I can't look away—can't hide from the intensity of it, from the vulnerability of letting him see me like this.
He watches every second of it—he watches me fall apart on top of him.
Then his hand is gripping my shoulder and he's thrusting up into me with brutal precision. "One more."
"I—"
"Yes, Amanda." His voice is commanding, absolute. "Give me one more."
He taps on my clit, and I gasp. Arousal floods my body and somehow—impossibly—the pleasure is building again. Sharper this time. Almost painful in its intensity.
"Adrian, I—"
"Come for me, Amanda." He taps me again.
I break—hard—harder than before. My body clenches around him as I cry out his name.
He follows a second later, his grip bruising as he comes with a guttural groan.
For a while, neither of us moves. I’m sprawled on his chest, listening to his heart hammer beneath my ear while his hand travels slowly up and down my spine.
"You okay?" he murmurs.
"Yeah." My voice comes out muffled against him. "You?"
"Ask me again when I can form a coherent thought."
A laugh slips out before I can stop it. Grinning, I lift my head.
His hair is a disaster, his gray eyes softer than I’ve ever seen them, and he’s looking at me in a way that makes my heart do that stupid flutter.
"What?" I ask.
He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. "You."
“Me what?”
He kisses my neck. “Just you.”
Jesus. We’re a pair. “Careful, Hendricks. You’re getting sentimental.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
I snort. “Your reputation would never recover.”
Before he can respond, his phone buzzes again. Instead of reaching to pick it up, we stay tangled together, his cock still inside me. Apparently, the rest of the world can fucking wait.