Page 95 of Lessons in Forgiving
His breath fanned against my nose, uneven. “That’s not good,” he whispered, tugged a curl behind my ear. His hand lingered, holding my chin tenderly. He was shaking. “That’s really bad,” he amended.
My eyes closed, and I felt him more intensely. Hovering above me, his knuckles brushing across my cheek like he couldn’t help it. Pinewood and citrus lingered in the air, but more than that it was the sweet note of coffee on his lips, the scent of the bodywash we’d both used yesterday. The bad ideas. Always those.
“Is it?” My eyes fluttered open. He didn’t seem very sure anymore.
Henry only mumbled, “Mhm.” Paired it with a lazy nod. Came closer. “So bad,” he repeated. “Because it makes me want to be selfish again.” He pressed his lips to the top of my head, taking a deep breath like it took him everything not to place them elsewhere. “It makes me want to take you,” he said. “Have you in all the ways I can.”
My heartbeat tripled in my chest, an unsteady rhythm that could still be felt between my legs. Pulsing with need and desire and tragedy.He could have me,I thought.In all the ways he’d wanted.
“Is it—” My breath caught in my throat. “Is it still selfish when I want you to be?”
I did. I wanted him to be selfish enough to throw his reasons to hell.
Henry drew back, his eyes fluttering across my face wildly. They always found their way back to my lips. “I guess it wouldn’t be. No.”
And it was sad—longing and angry, the way I kissed him. The way he held my face between his hands, pressed his body againstmine like he was scared I might disappear if he didn’t hold on tight enough.
He kissed me like he wanted to make up for the fact he’d ever let me go. And I let him. With my lips parting, my breath hitching, and my hands clinging to him, I let him.
“I don’t know how—” He breathed into my skin, connected our lips again. “How was I able to walk away from this?” As he trailed a string of kisses along my neck, I wasn’t quite sure how I’d survived a year without it. My back arched against the balustrade with a barely audible moan.
It drove his hand up my leg, slipped it under his shirt I’d fallen asleep in. He stopped short of where I needed him most, froze against me completely as his fingers curled around my bare hip. “You’re naked,” he discovered.
His statement brought color to my cheeks; I could feel it climbing up my neck all the way into the tips of my ears. “I didn’t think I’d walk into you.”
He fell into motion again with a groan, let his fingers draw across my hip, over my stomach, between my thighs. Never touching me where I wanted him to. “So you thought—” His grip tightened. “You’d walk around the house with nothing but my shirt on? And what? Kill me in the process?”
I was going to say that no, I just meant to check for his car, then jump back into bed. But he’d swiped his fingers between my wetness, and every thought was wiped from my brain.
“God,” he hummed against me, my knees buckling, legs giving in. “This is what I do to you?”
In answer, I took him down to the terrace floor with me, not caring how cold or hard or uncomfortable it might be. I leaned against the foot of the banister, back against stone, and pulled Henry over me, legs on either side of him.
I shook my head in answer to his question. “No,” I moaned, just as he sucked on my neck, then trailed to my breasts, kissed them over the shirt.
I took his hand in mine, the one continuously teasing my entrance, and said, “This is” before I pushed his finger into me. Moaning and marveling at the wayhemoaned.
“Paula,” he hushed, breathless, needy. I thought he might say something else, but he didn’t.
Just Paula.Just me.
Slowly, rhythmically, he pumped his fingers into me until his head disappeared under my shirt and his kisses trailed over my nipples, down to my stomach, between my thighs.
Wholly, eagerly, while my head fell against the stone and I moaned his name into the trees around us, he devoured me.
I must’ve fallen asleep again after we’d moved to his bedroom, because when I opened my eyes, enough time had passed to make the house smell. I would’ve loved to say amazing—like homecooked meals and freshly prepared produce, but it just smelled. Perhaps like someone wastryingto cook.
I slipped out of bed, fished some clothes out of the bag Henry had packed for me, and went to investigate.
When I got to the kitchen, before I’d even said anything, Henry turned away from where I’d appeared in the doorway. “Are you wearing more than just that shirt?” He asked, continuing to shield his eyes. “Because I’m busy over here, and I don’t want to have to abandon my workstation. Which I would have to if you’re—”
“I’m decent.” I cut him off as I strolled into the chef’s kitchen.
Henry sighed in relief, let his hands fall to his sides. “Couldn’t say I’m not at least a little disappointed regardless,” he hummed, with an amused tone as he got back to the pot. My eyeswere drawn to the contents of it, and I stopped short when I approached.
I recognized it immediately.
Arroz de Pajarito.
