“Henry—”

He kisses the line of my jaw and starts to move inside me. “We don’t have to think of anything,” he says. “Just concentrate on me moving inside you. How hard you have me. What you do to me…” He seems to lose his train of thought here. “How unbelievably good…” He drives on, driving us upward, stoking the flame of us.

His skin glistens with sweat. Hard planes of muscle. A shiver of hair on his belly when I put my hand down there.

I’m on top awhile, then he’s on top. Then it’s me against the headboard. Every new thing seems to be the best idea ever.

“I want to memorize every sound you make,” he says. His glistening biceps bulge as he moves over me. Hot, hard flesh. The smell of sweat. Breath sawing. “Everything is new with you. Every way I feel is new with you.”

“Me, too,” I whisper thickly.

“You’re close,” he says, and he begins to move slow and steady. He changes his angle, seems to swell inside me, stretching me. It’s painful and good at the same time.

His eyes burn into mine. The intimacy of it sears.

Then he’s hitting my clit, and I’m spinning away. “Henry, please! More.” I grab his hair.

He goes harder. “Pull it, baby. Take what you need.”

I cry out as an orgasm tears through me.

He presses his face to my shoulder, stilling, shuddering inside me, coming with a small guttural sound.

When we’re done, when he’s out of me, he cages me with his arms. “You are so unbelievable,” he says.

I slide a finger down his cheek, then run it back up, down and up, loving the feel of his face, his whiskers. I think he likes when I touch his face almost as much as I do. Or maybe because I do.

“I was going to take more time,” he says. “I had a plan.”

I smile.

“I mean it. I want everything perfect for you.”

“You were supposed to leave your CEO role behind, remember?”

“Sorry,” he says.

“Don’t be. You make me feel like one of your people. You’re so beautiful with your people. They’re so lucky.”

“You are my people.”

I swallow and press my finger to his lip, trace the pillow of it.

I’m his people.

My throat is so clogged up with emotion, I couldn’t reply even if I wanted to.

He kisses me again, and I’m in heaven on the cool sheets below him.

Twenty-Five

Vicky

I showerwhile he makes phone calls about the Ten.

I dry off and put on one of his soft, beautifully made dress shirts. When I wander out of the bathroom, the smell of garlic and cheese hits my pleasure center full blast.

I find him cooking. Shirtless. Bare feet. Jeans hugging his hips just so.