41. Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-One
Kat
Ifinally stopped heaving, nothing else coming up for several rounds as it was. Tears and snot running down my face, I tried to turn away from Henry. But he didn’t let me. He pulled me into his lap and just clung to me, keeping a firm grip on me when I tried to pull away.
“No,” he said firmly.
“I’m sorry,” I sobbed, hiding my face in his neck. He stiffened at my words.
“Hey. Kat, hey, I mean it. Don’t be sorry.
That is so utterly absurd. Please,” he both commanded and begged.
It was a strange but utterly ‘Henry’ combination.
I just kept sobbing. I couldn’t stop. It was his BIRTHDAY.
He didn’t need to be dealing with THIS. My fucking pathetic, broken, stupid issues.
One of his hands was gently stroking my hair, and it felt so damn GOOD. I leaned into it, even knowing I needed to go. But I fucking needed HIM, too. I sobbed again.
“Oh, sweetheart, it’s okay. It’s okay, Kat,” he murmured. Fuck, he was perfect. Why was he so good? Why was he such a good, kind man? Why was he making this so fucking hard?
I was spiraling. I recognized that. Liz would tell me that was good, that I could recognize it. Because if I could recognize it, I could work to stop it. But I wasn’t stopping it. It was going and going and going. Because this was it. This right here was why I needed to just leave him alone.
I was being so many awful things. Hot and cold. Kind and mean. Push and pull.
A fucking tease.
But even if I couldn’t break my spiral. He could. Because of course he could. Only he could make me fucking laugh in the middle of a sob. Make me want to kiss him when I should be walking out the door. Make me want to love him when I should be making him hate me. With one fucking sentence.
“You know, love, when a guy says he wants his girl gagging on his cock, we don’t mean it literally.”
I burst out laughing. Fuck, I loved him.
“Henry, that wasn’t it,” I said softly. He shook his head, not quite understanding.
“I figured I pushed you too far, especially after all the alcohol,” he confessed. I giggled. We were so fucked. We were both sitting here blaming ourselves for things. We always did that. I could see it. I actually wasn’t sure he could, though.
“No, not at all, sweetheart. I was very much enjoying myself. But I-you-fuck!” I growled, frustrated that I couldn’t explain myself. But keeping him from continuing the self-flagellation was the biggest motivator I could possibly find.
“Your breathing got erratic and I…” I murmured, trailing off. He pulled me tight to him again. He understood what I was trying to say.
“Oh, baby girl, I’m so sorry,” he said. How absurd.
“Why the hell are you sorry?” I asked incredulously, pulling back to look him in the face.
“Why the bloody hell are YOU?” he retorted. I snorted.
“I’m not the one that was half a second from exploding before having it ripped away from me,” I snapped. I wasn’t angry at him. I was angry at myself. He laughed. Hard. He was laughing hard as hell at me.
What the fuck, bro?
He realized I was just looking at him still, and he stopped laughing. He flushed slightly and leaned in to nip my earlobe. I yelped.
“Kat, I was way too far gone,” he admitted. Yes. That was the exact point I had been making. He probably had the worst case of blue balls ever right now. He sighed, knowing I didn’t understand what he was trying to say.
“Kat, look down,” he whispered, his cheeks VERY red now. I did. And I saw what he was alluding to. I wasn’t sure why he was blushing. That was fucking hot as hell. I was wildly curious. I didn’t care what any woman TRIED to say, no one was voluntarily guzzling the stuff.
But I wanted to taste him, even so.
I slowly reached up and stuck my finger in my mouth, sucking the salty tang from the pad. Those deep blue eyes watched me with an expression that could only be described as hunger.
Pure, unadulterated hunger.
I grinned ferociously. Then replied.
“We seem to have made a mess, hmm?”
We both got ourselves cleaned up in our respective ways in silence. But when we were done, he slid between me and the door, keeping me in the bathroom.
“Don’t leave,” he said, an unsteady look in his eye. I stepped into him, putting my hand on his chest and leaning in slightly. I didn’t look him in the eye, because I was close to crying again. He looked so afraid I’d bolt. I hated that.
I deserved that.
“I don’t want to go,” I admitted quietly. He waited, though, sensing I had more to say.
“I really want to snuggle with you all night, watching TV and talking,” I said honestly. I chanced a glance up at his face. He was smiling.
“We can absolutely do that,” he said, pausing. I fully looked him in the face. He had a mischievous grin on his face.
“But I can also think of plenty of fun things we can do tonight that won’t get MY breathing out of control,” he murmured, sliding a hand around my hip to my ass, pulling me to him. The only problem with his theory?
He was already hard again.
But I was sure we could figure something out.