by Penny Reid
“But if you want to smell me, you can.”
I don’t want to smell him. I don’t want the warm weight of his arm to feel so good. I want him to stop making me feel alive and happy. I want to not perk up in some soul-deep way when our gazes find each other from across a crowded room. I want him to not seem to admire the Vonda in me.
I want that not to feel amazing.
I lean in closer, stealing what doesn’t belong to me. My head isn’t exactly on his shoulder—it’s difficult to do that when you’re wearing a hard hat. But it’s close.
He brushes a lock of hair over my shoulder. His knuckles graze my jawline. His touch is featherlight. Barely there.
But the energy of it hums over my skin, spreading outward in a burn, like fingers of heat warming cold, remote parts of me.
I fight the urge to turn my face to his hand.
“You look hot in the hat,” he says.
“You’re just saying that.”
But when I do turn my head, his eyes are dark. Serious.
His voice lowers to a rumble. “I'm not just saying that, Vicky.”
Oh, I want to kiss him. And, if anything, an elevator shaft that looks like a well should be reminding me why I have an allergy to rich, powerful men. It’s not.
His eyes drop to my lips. My heart pounds.
The elevator grinds to a stop.
I’m shaking when we step out into wide open space, twelve stories over Brooklyn. And it’s not about fear.
Open blue sky soars above us and massive pillars of concrete surround us, stretching upward. Chains with links bigger than my head are coiled in piles, and there are stacks of wood and massive metal things like strange Legos.
I stroll to the far side, near a squared-off column. There’s a brightly spray-painted scribble on the concrete surface. Not from the 1970s, but new. Everything up here is new. Raw.
I toe the orange scribble like it’s more fascinating than the royal babies of England, but really I need to be apart from him, because I'm reeling from the goodness of his arm on my shoulder. The forbiddenness of ever falling for him. Of thinking he’s falling for me.
He comes up next to me.
I act like the operation of tracing the squiggle with my toe is of urgent importance. “Somebody went Jackson Pollack with the spray paint up here.”
“That’s actually a message. It’s there to show the electricians the alarm conduit placement.”
“How can you even read it?” I ask.
He kneels next to me, and his dark suit jacket stretches over his thick, solid arms as he points to different parts. “This is orientation. Right here is just a measurement. The fact that it’s orange means any kind of telecom, but this’ll be an alarm, of course.”
Of course, I think. Such a construction nerd.
I stand, biting back the urge to run my hands over his shoulders, to get in on the tautness of fine fabric over solid man muscles.
He twists and looks up at me, chin stubble glinting in the light. My heart is in my throat.
I force my gaze back to the scribbles. “The colors tell you?”
“Just like you see down on the street.”
“You’re all secretly communicating with each other?”
He stands. “Yellow’s natural gas. Red’s electric. Blue is water.”
His nearness affects me like a drug. My eyes fall to his lips, and I shiver.
“You cold?”
I’m not, but he’s taking off his jacket and putting it over my shoulders now, cocooning my arms, and I like it very much. I like how warm and soft it is. I like how he adjusts it so precisely, like he cares greatly for my comfort.
I tell myself the idea he cares about me is an illusion. Wishful, magical, ridiculous thinking.
Ancient people thought the stars formed pictures of archers and bears and gigantic spoons, but can we be honest for a moment? They’re just stars. They don’t form pictures, no matter how many stupid diagrams you make. Like the stupidest dot-to-dot puzzles ever.
That’s what I’m doing with Henry’s affection. Making pictures that aren’t there. Elaborate diagrams of him wanting me. But it feels so real.
He holds the lapels of the jacket snugly shut, his breath gusting warm on my forehead. “I’m so glad you could see this.”
His tender gaze sizzles over my skin. Like he’s really looking at me. And then he smiles.
His eyes sparkle. Uneven dimples appear. It’s his Henry smile. The real Henry smile.
I reach my hands out from my coat cocoon and grab his soft, warm shirtfront, pulling him to me.
I kiss him.
Boom. He deepens the kiss. My kiss was soft, but his is rough and wild. With his other hand, he cradles my cheek, fingertips trembling with energy where they touch my skin.
“Vicky,” he rumbles. He walks me backward into a massive concrete pillar.
My hard hat falls down over my eyes.
“No, no, no,” he rasps, yanking it clear off my head and tossing it over his shoulder.
Because he wants to see me.
Somewhere behind us there’s a splock, and a softer splock as the hard hat comes to rest. I can barely hear it over the hurricane of my pulse whooshing in my ears.
And I want him so bad, I’m shaking.
He fists my ponytail. My breath hitches as he slides the backs of his fingers up my throat, up to the tender underside of my chin. His touch sears me.
“Henry,” I say, trembling down to my toes.
“I love watching my name on your lips.” His voice is ragged.
Silently, I mouth his name: Henry. And then again, Hen—
He doesn’t let me finish; my lips are still open when he kisses me, a desperate, open-mouthed kiss with the fury of a thousand senselessly whirling stars.
He shoves his hand into my hair, cradling the back of my head, pressing me back against the cool concrete post.
I can feel the shape of him against my belly, huge and hard. I want to wrap myself around him, to dissolve around him. To obliterate myself on him.
His breath is ragged as he bends to get our lips level. I reach behind him, fitting hungry hands around his warm, solid back, digging in with my fingers a little.
He makes a growly sound as he rains kisses over my cheek, my neck, before taking my lips once again.
The cool breeze caresses my exposed legs, but underneath my clothes, sweat trickles down my spine.
The entire building seems to sway in time with my thundering pulse, in time with Henry, pressing himself to me.
Somewhere down on the street, trucks and cars rumble by and honking horns are answered by other honking horns.
He’s still wearing his own hard hat. It’s sexy.
His breath turns erratic as he runs his hands over the sides of my hips, up and down. “You and your skirts,” he says, like my skirts are a point of awesomeness.
Without warning, he grips my ass—clenches it hard—fingers like steely vise grips. He jerks me against his rock-hard erection and I gasp to feel the size of him through our clothes. “You feel that?” he snarls, notching himself to me, pulsing against me. “That’s how you have me every day. Damn! You already feel good.”
“Oh my god, yes,” I breathe. He presses me harder. His weight feels amazing. I gasp as he kisses my cheek, my neck. Every time he moves, the pressure between my legs changes and my ache builds.
I’m pulling up his shirt, freeing it from his pants and belt. Finally I get to his warm abs. I press my hands there. I’m a thief now, taking what’s not mine. Consuming his belly, rough smattering of hair over muscle.
I don’t care if it’s not real anymore. It’s real enough.
“I’ve imagined this for so long,” he says, pulling away, panting.
I shiver as he skims his fingertips over my sweater-clad breasts “These fuzzy sweaters.”
“Take it off me,” I say. “Let me watch you unbutton it. Like before. How you started to before.”
“Have you been thin
king about it?” he asks. “You been beating off to it?”
“Yes,” I breathe.
His fingers tremble as he unbuttons the pearl buttons of the sweater. I love that he’s trembling.
“Pull up your skirt, then,” he says.
I hunch over and pull it up, turning it inside out, gathering it up.
He pushes a hard-cut thigh between my legs. “Ride it. Move. I'm gonna need you good and wet.”
“I don’t know how much more wet I can…”
“Ride it,” he growls. He gyrates his hips, getting up the rhythm. I match his movement, moving while he undoes me. It’s a little embarrassing, but it feels so good.
“Harder,” he whispers in my ear. “If you want me to undo these dainty buttons, you gotta do your part.” He nudges my legs wider. “Ride.”
I do it. Satisfied, he returns his attention to the buttons.
“I look at these buttons sometimes…damn,” he pants. Like he’s lost his ability to make sense. He kisses my forehead. “You watching me down there?” His fingers are soft spiders at my midriff, undoing the third-to-last button. The second-to-last button. “Unwrapping you. You watching?”
“I’m watching,” I say.
“Is this what I’m doing when you beat off? Don’t bother trying to tell me you don’t.” He knows it is. He flicks the last button. My sweater falls open.
His thigh between my legs is blunt waves of pleasure. He fists the center of my cami, uses it to pull me into a faster rhythm. “I love how you move on me.” He skims his palms up the front of me, sliding over the white fabric, calluses catching and snagging. “Like this?” he says. “Is this what I do to you next?”
“Next,” I pant, “you do whatever you want to me.”
His chuckle is a rumble in my ear. He curls his fingers around the tops of the bra cups and jerks down. I gasp at the violence of the movement. My breasts pop free with a jiggle.
“Jesus, you’re hot,” he says. He throws off his hard hat and kisses me roughly, then pulls away, panting.
“Watch my hands, kitten, watch what I do to you.” He presses his hands over my breasts, rough and warm. “So hot. My cum would look so good right here. All over these pretty tits. You look so prim and proper, it makes me want to corrupt you. It makes me want to unravel you. There are so many layers to you, and I’m going to fuck them all.”
The layers comment sends momentary alarm through me, but then he plucks my nipple, and the zing of it flares bright white inside me.
“So entitled.” My breath speeds. The city spreads out below us like another world, another time, dizzying and slightly unreal.
“Why aren’t you riding?”
“I need something else there now,” I say. “But isn’t this a little bit exposed up here?”
“Nobody sees you but me,” he says.
I think it might be true on a level he doesn’t mean. I don’t know how to feel about that. He slides the pads of his fingers over my lips. Lust runs thick between us.
“Open.”
I gaze up at him, knuckles grazing his steely abs.
“Wetness is not going to be a problem,” I say.
“Baby.” The word feathers my cheek. “You’re not the only one beating off to things these hands might do.” He slides a thumb over my bottom lip, pulling it down. “Open.”
I open and he slips two fingers between my lips, into my mouth. “Suck. Get them nice and wet. These are the fingers that are going to fuck your pussy.”
Heat rushes through me as I palm his bulge, as I suck his fingers, as I run my tongue over them. He slides them in and out, watching me.
“This is how you’re going to suck my cock when the time comes. Except you’re going to squeeze the root and give me a little teeth on the bottom. Try it.”
It’s so Henry to give me a tutorial on sucking his cock. I wrap my hand around his fingers and give him a little graze with my bottom teeth.
“Oh yeah. Perfect.”
He pulls out his fingers and anoints my nipples. They pebble in the cool breeze coming off the water.
“Only I see you.”
He pulls aside my panties with rough efficiency and curses, low and rumbly, when he finds me waxed and wet.
“Fuuuck,” he groans. “What have you been hiding under these librarian skirts?”
“Not books,” I say.
His fingertips brush my sensitive clit, sending a jolt of pleasure through me, making me gasp.
A dimple appears on his cheek and I kiss it. It goes away, but then it appears again and I kiss it.
“What are you doing?”
“Being so into you I can barely think,” I say.
He pulls away, panting, eyes wild, beard stubble sparkling. “Oh, yeah?”
Suddenly I feel bare to him. Not just physically, but soul-deep bare. As if his fingers are everywhere inside me. “Yeah.”
He slips rough, thick fingers deeper between the folds of my sex. My head tips backwards onto the hard pillar, eyes drifting closed.
“Oh, yeah,” I say as he slides them against my clit with the perfect motion. He changes his angle, and this new sensation swirls through me, making me senseless and lightheaded.
“Do the nipple pluck thing,” I whisper.
He breathes out a shaky fuuuuck. “You are so…everything.” He does the nipple pluck thing and I cry out. It’s rougher than I expected. Better than I expected.
He exhales a shaky breath and kisses my cheek and then my ear. His teeth graze my earlobe, sending wicked lightning all through me. He plucks my nipple again, softer this time.
It’s like he’s learning me. Exposing my secrets. Stripping me bare for the first time.
His fingers send rippling heat up through my core.
His strokes go long and strong. He slides two fingers in. I suck in a short, sharp breath.
“I gotcha, baby.”
I crash over the edge. White-hot pleasure. Naked and alive.
“I gotcha, baby.” He pins me to a pillar high above the city, raining kisses over my face. I’m lost. I’m found. I clutch his arms, kissing him back.
“Damn,” he says again. As though the whole thing surprised him.
I feel shaky all over. And fresh and new.
I don’t care what’s real or not.
I’m all-in.
I drop to my knees, gazing up at him. I fit my hand over his bulge and give it a small squeeze.
“Jesus.” He tunnels both hands into my hair, half ripping it out of the ponytail holder.
With shaking hands I undo his belt. He takes over, quickly undoing it. “Leave it to the professionals,” he says.
And then he touches my chin. I think he’s about to explode, but he touches my chin. Like he kind of can’t believe I’m in front of him.
I love his eyes on me. I love the sunshine of his gaze. I usually prefer the shadows, but Henry’s breaking all the rules.
I pull him out; he’s big, broad, and club-like, pink at the tip. Soft as silk.
Watching him from underneath my lashes, I give him a lick.
He stutters out a breath. “Do you know how hot that is?”
So I do it again. I really will give him anything.
I turn my attention to his cock in earnest. I take him into my mouth, squeezing him at the root. A pained sound escapes him. Fingers close over my head. He starts to thrust gently into me, guiding my head but not forcing it.
A triangle of his belly is exposed and it pulses in and out, like he’s breathing double time.
I squeeze the warm, velvety base of him. I take him deep.
His fingertips pulse and curl at my scalp with every thrust, like his excruciating pleasure is coming out his fingers. I sneak a look at him standing over me, broken and beautiful.
And then I give him a little teeth, just a graze at the bottom. “Holy shit,” he says.
He clamps his hand onto my head and takes over the motion, fucking my face, coming with a strangled cry.
After h
e pulls out, he kneels in front of me. “Holy shit,” he whispers.
“Yeah,” I say.
He traces my lips with his finger. “It was more. How you were was more than I imagined. You’re always more.”
I put my camisole’s bra cups back over my breasts. He starts buttoning up my buttons. Clumsily.
“The professionals,” I say, taking over.
He stands, tucking in his shirt. “Gotta get you cleaned up.” We get ourselves together and drift over to the elevator.
Chapter 19
Vicky
I stab the makeshift button, feeling dazed. Stab stab.
“Hey,” he says.
A grinding sound comes from below. Like the elevator didn’t get the message.
Stab stab stab.
“Don’t do that,” he catches my wrist. “You’ll burn out the winch starter.”
“Somebody is quite the micromanager,” I say.
He kisses my fingers.
The little cage arrives with a strange whirring sound and I get in, and then he gets in and hits the down button. The elevator lurches and begins to lower. It sounds funny. Different than before.
Just then, a motor below makes a grinding, screeching sound.
“Shit,” he says.
“What is that?” I ask.
“We’re okay,” he says, but the cage we’re in grinds to a stop. The motor falls silent. The light flickers out.
We’re in the darkness. Deep in a well.
“No!” I whisper, turning and clutching the cage side. “No…”
“We’re okay. There’re safety cables all up and down this.” A light flashes on—Henry’s phone. He’s talking to somebody, trying to work out what floor we’re near.
I slide to the cold, corrugated floor, arms around my legs, back against the chain-link cage. I’m in that well again, that well where I spent three lonely, terrified days.
Breathe. Breathe.
You’re not there.
“Vicky?”
Breathe. Breathe.
He squats next to me. Gently, he settles his hardhat onto my head.
“Okay, that just makes me think we’re going to crash headfirst,” I say. “Or something is going to crash on top of us.”
“None of the above,” he says, adjusting it to fit my head. “I’m only putting it on you because I know I’d lose points off the manliness portion of the New York’s Most Eligible Bastard competition if people knew I was hogging the only hardhat in a situation like this.”