The laughter, clinking of glasses, drunken yells and squeals and high-pitched music faded as I said, “Who are you meeting?” I counted my heartbeats as they pounded in my ears. One. Two. Three. My head was full of cotton balls as I tried to focus on Richard. “What’s his name?” I forced myself to breathe. In and out. In and out. The waiting was agony as Richard’s gaze went from me to the phone, frozen in his hand.
“Henry.”
Hallelujah! I took a step forward desperate to place a celebratory kiss on his lips but decided against it. “Say that again.” This time with feeling.
“Henry,” he shouted over laughter in the background.
I held out my hand for the phone and he placed it in my palm. “Uncle?”
“Oh, thank goodness,” my uncle’s voice boomed through the phone. “Thought I’d have to send out a search party.”
“No need. And thank you. For everything.”
“You. Uncle. What? How?” Richard’s mouth opened and closed, and he ran his fingers through his hair.
“You’re Rich.”
“Some people call me that, yeah. But I’m meeting Henry. I don’t understand.”
I waved my arms in the air. “Hello. Right here.”
“You?”
It was as though I’d been jolted by 110 watts of electricity. I’m convinced my heart stopped for a moment while I waited for Richard’s reaction. It went from beating ninety miles a minute and I had sweat trickling down my spine to just nothing. A huge nothingness.
“Mmmm.”
“But I thought… but you… I… wait…” A corner of his mouth lifted. “Henry.” He outstretched his hand. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’ve been looking forward to this all week.”
“Liar! Blind dates are…” My voice trailed away. They were the worst but not this one. Tonight had delivered.
“Out of the way. I’m gonna puke.” A young alpha shoved between us and had us both grimacing.
After the door closed behind him, I answered, “You too, Rich. Good to meet you, I mean.”
He didn’t let go. And I didn’t want him to. His warm palm on my skin, his fingers curling and intertwining with mine felt right. More than that. It was perfection. And my poor heart, which had been given the runaround this evening, beat steadily as if to say, “About time.”
“Henry’s my given name. My legal name. But my family has always called me Harry. Except my uncle. From the time I was born, he’d insisted on calling me by my proper name.”
“I love it.”
“Sorry?” I squeaked. “What was that?”
“Your name. It means lord or ruler.”
I gulped. I’d heard the definition many times throughout my life—especially from my uncle. “Well, there’s more to love. My dad, who is Uncle Enrique’s brother, is also Henry.”
Richard scratched his head. “That’s basically the same name but in different languages. Do they also have a brother named Henrik?”
“No,” I laughed.
“That’s so cool. My family just has a lot of Dicks!” He sniggered.
I blurted out, “I’ll bet you do.” Shit!
“With an uppercase D. Dick as in Richard. It was a joke. Not a very good one,” he sighed. “Shall we sit?”
“Huh?” I had to stop with the one-word answers but him talking about dicks was doing a number on my head. And my cock. Thank God I was wearing dark pants and Jack’s was beyond crowded, so I hoped no one noticed. Who was I kidding? Everyone was drinking, yelling, singing, and doing God only knows what. They weren’t staring at my crotch.
“I booked a table.”
“Sure.”
After we were seated and had ordered drinks, Richard perused the menu. I knew it off by heart but pretended to scan it as my eyes flicked to my companion’s hands and those long fingers. Shame his lower half is covered up. I considered knocking my fork off the table but that would be so high school of me. Don’t do it, Harry!
The beer arrived, and of course it was the brilliant shade of clover. God, it was gross, but I’d drink a gallon of it if it meant spending the night in Richard’s company.
A drunk alpha who was slurring his words leaned over the table and asked Richard, “Are you Sandy?”
“Definitely not.”
He stumbled to the next table, and we stared at one another before giggling uncontrollably. “Imagine if he’d been my date,” Richard said.
“Or him?” I jerked my head at a tall alpha who was groping two guys at the same time.
“I know his type. He leaves toenail clippings on the coffee table.”
Holy shit. My mouth snapped shut. Should I confess I wondered the same thing about him? Nah. Best not. “Yeah, probably.” I cleared my throat. “We should order.”
We spent the rest of the evening regaling one another about crazy stuff at work. Richard recited a list of weird items people stuffed up their butts. “And there was a guy with a wine bottle!
“Ouch.”
“But the odd thing was,” he continued, “it was full.”
“Of what?”
“Ewww,” we said in unison.
I proceeded to tell him about a former client who’d lost his license due to driving under the influence and insisted I go to court to overturn the decision. “He said the pole he’d hit jumped out into the middle of the road and he couldn’t avoid it.”
After the waiter removed our empty plates, Richard nibbled his lower lip. It was mesmerizing. I hope I get to do that later tonight. But I should ask. Take control and not wait for him to suggest it—or brush me off. Except I probably would chicken out. Yeah, my courage had deserted me. “This has been fun,” I told him as I crossed my fingers under the table.
43
Richard
The rowdiness of the bar was growing exponentially with every minute past midnight. Yet we stayed at our little table chatting about everything and nothing, eating appetizer after appetizer and drinking soda after soda, both of us giving up on the green beer before our first pint was drained.
When Harry yawned for the third time, I knew we had to call it an evening. I didn’t want to, but it was time. I’d enjoyed pretending for the night. Pretending I could balance work and romance. Pretending I wasn’t the one who ruined every good thing that came my way.
“I should probably head out.” I set my napkin on the table. “Don’t worry. I’ll let your uncle know that you were a gentleman and kind and fun and all that jazz and that the timing just wasn’t right for us.” All of which would be the truth as much as that sucked.
“You think I could say something like that when I refuse to attend my cousin’s wedding?” He rolled his eyes. “So sorry, dear cousin, but I couldn’t possibly make your wedding… the timing just isn’t right.” He leaned back in his chair and forced a laugh. He really didn’t want to go.
“Do you not get along with your cousin or something?” I asked, the plan to go home before I threw myself at Harry brushed to the side.
“No. I love Darren, and I’m glad he is going to get his happy ever after, but weddings when you are single suck monkey butt.”
I had to agree with him on that one. I’d been to enough of them to know how it went. Every old person had the perfect match for you, only none of them were, and every last one of them was single for a reason, that reason often included being jobless or living in some relative’s basement.
Then there were the single people who were so desperate not to look single that they threw themselves at you with the hopes of fooling someone into thinking they weren’t the single loser of the family, as if being a couple somehow made you more worthy.
And if you were really lucky, you could be sat at the table with all the people that no one wanted to invite but felt like they had to invite because it was easy to slip just one more person at the table, and being single, that person became you.
“And the worst part is...I’m the best man, which means that if I don’t have a date I’m going to be sitting up there w
ith all eyes pitying me as the best man who will never be a groom.” He took a sip of his now tepid and flat soda. “That’s why I said yes to my uncle after he hounded me about this blind date,” he sighed. “At least mostly.”
“You think a date will make all those woes disappear?” I asked, my mind already forming a plan—a bad bad bad plan that I should’ve shut down immediately. Instead I let it grow.
“It would keep people off my back—so in that way, yeah, it would.”
“Date me. Take me,” I spit out my plan as shitty as it was. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, not saying any words.
“I’m a pretty good dancer.” Mediocre, but I didn’t step on toes which was better than most based on my minimal wedding experience. “And seriously, my job might be swabbing throats and dealing with puking kids, but you have to admit, ‘This is my date, Richard. He’s a doctor,’ can do a pretty fantastic job of shutting down the ‘we need to get him married before he is an old man’ rhetoric.
“I don’t know. I still want...I mean…” He was hesitating not because he didn’t want me to go but because he... what? Wanted me to be more?
“You still want what you want,” I filled in the blanks for him, and he nodded.
“And my mind is unchanged about the future and stuff, but if we both go into this knowing that our time together has a specific endpoint, what’s the harm?” At this point I was trying to convince myself more than him. That was how I rolled when crazy plans popped into my head.
“So we date and go to the wedding, but we are only pretend dating?” he clarified, and the word pretend stung.
“Yeah, something like that.” I stood up, brushing off my pants which now had lint sticking to where someone’s beer had spilled on me.
Maybe everyone was spilling beer because it was so awful to drink?
“Do you want to get out of here?” I asked, trying to figure out where we stood. My cock had been semi-hard all evening and was now begging at my zipper for him to say yes.
“You know what?” He threw a tip on the table. “Why the heck not.” He took my hand and we wove through the drunks.
Maybe this blind date thing wasn’t a bad idea after all.
44
Harry
We made it inside the front door—barely. I kicked it shut as my mouth slammed onto Richard’s, and my grabby hands roamed over his body, squeezing, caressing, and fondling every dip and curve.
When I finally pulled back and took a breath, the light from the street shining through the open curtains illuminated the pink splotches on his face. I ran my thumb over them, and he grabbed it and sucked. “If you’re trying to kill me, you’re doing a good job,” I gasped.
He raised a brow and a wicked grin crept over his face. “Maybe.”
I slapped his ass, and he closed one eye and stared at me. But the smile became a frown as he glanced over my shoulder. “What’s that?”
I swiveled around, with my hand still on his butt. “Fifi. But she’s asleep.”
“I’m hoping you don’t have a dog or cat in that thing.”
“It’s a terrarium, and Fifi’s a tortoise, but let’s not talk about her.” But thinking of my pet had me pulling away, and I asked, “Where’s Sophia?”
“She’s having a sleepover with my neighbor tonight.”
I didn’t need or want a long-ass explanation as to why but thanked the universe for Richard’s dog having friends. I turned on a lamp just inside the door. “I need you naked.”
My companion flipped off one shoe and then the other. Too slow. “Better?”
He’s taunting me. With both hands splayed over his chest, I clutched his shirt and yanked. A harsh ripping sound punctuated the air, and buttons toppled onto the floor.
Richard’s mouth formed a huge O. “No one’s ever done that before.”
Oh, shit! Too much. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” Or is he upset because I ruined his favorite shirt? Nah, the green food coloring is never coming out.
“I loved it.” He tore off what was left of the garment, and my gaze strayed from his face to his heaving chest. He fumbled with his belt, but I nudged his hands away.
“Nice!” he thrust his hips forward.
Putting a finger to his forehead, I trailed it around his face. “What big eyes you have.”
“Ohhhh, I love a good fairy tale. They’re so wicked and naughty.” He stuck out his tongue, and those gorgeous eyes that were brown in some light and green in others narrowed. “All the better to see you with,” he growled.
The hairs stood up on the back of my neck as desire surged through my body. My now-trembling finger slid over Richard’s cheek and circled one ear before leaning forward and licking it.
“Oh, Jesus.” Richard swayed as heat radiated from his body. He gripped my arm, and his eyes blazed with a desperate need. He mumbled, “Stop teasing me.”
Ignoring his plea, I nibbled the soft part of his ear, and he moaned. I traced over his plump lips and whispered, “What beautiful lips you have.”
Richard’s teeth snapped. My body sizzled as desire, anticipation, and fear surged through me, while his hand went to my crotch, and he said, “All the better to eat you with.”
I inhaled an intoxicating aroma that overwhelmed my senses. My dick swelled, and he removed his hand and ground his hips against mine. Breath caught in my throat as I slid a finger over his throat, tweaked a nipple, which had him panting, and moved over firm, warm flesh to his belly button.
I was tempted to forget the foreplay, but our first time had to be memorable. It needed to be seared into our minds so no matter where we were or what happened in the future, we’d remember it for the rest of our days.
“Don’t stop there,” Richard whimpered.
“There’ll be no stopping until I’ve filled you with my knot.”
He shivered, and I dragged my fingers over the bulge in his jeans. But he shrugged it off and instead clamped his hand on the swelling in my pants. “What an enormous cock you have.” His husky voice washed over me and had me purring.
I could barely manage a squeak as I responded, “All the better to fuck you with.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” He licked around his mouth.
My hand slid over his ass. “I need you wet. So wet that the slick is trickling from your hole and down your leg.”
“God yes, I am,” he gasped. “I ache for you. I want you in me.”
I gulped. “Show me how wet you are.”
He slid his jeans over his hips, and in the dim light from the lamp, I made out the hard ridge outlined under his briefs. I slid two fingers into the waistband and yanked. His engorged dick bounded out, and I grabbed it.
Richard moaned as I gave his cock a quick tug. “Mmmm, yes, Harry. I’ve been waiting so long.”
My other hand slid over his ass, which was covered in slippery slick. With my fingers coated in wetness, I smeared it over his lower back and then brought my hand to his lips. He lapped at the slipperiness, and I pulled away and slammed my mouth on his.
The room spun around as slick, sweat, and saliva assaulted my taste buds. Richard’s soft lips, his breath laced with a hint of beer, pressed against mine, and when he parted them, I dueled with his tongue.
With one hand on his ass and the other cradling his face, our bodies pressed together as my tongue explored his mouth. And when we finally pulled away, the skin around his mouth was a gorgeous shade of scarlet. Probably from my bristly chin.
We were both panting, and Richard’s head fell on my shoulder. He tugged at my collar and licked the skin, generating a current that charged through me and clouded my thoughts. I ground my hips against his cock while he sank his teeth into my flesh.
The combination of pain and pleasure stirred a primal need deep in my belly.
“Wet enough?” he croaked.
“Not sure.”
“Maybe this’ll help.” Richard twisted around so his back was against my chest. He reached behind him and spre
ad his cheeks. Taking a deep breath, I got on my knees and eyed his glorious ass shimmering with slick. He bent over and revealed his tight puckered hole, and I moaned and nibbled my bottom lip as my cock stiffened and squirmed.
My finger circled his entrance and then probed it. He’s so tight.
Richard pleaded, “Put it in.”
I eased my finger inside up to the knuckle, and Richard wriggled his ass and whispered, “More.”
After pulling out, I inserted three fingers, and Richard groaned as they slid in and out, slow, fast, and then slow again.
“If you want me to come right now, keep doing what you’re doing,” he mumbled.
I was torn. I wanted to give him pleasure, to have him come, but needed to be buried deep inside him when he did. The first time anyway.
“Come on.” He tripped over his jeans, and after getting rid of them and his briefs, followed me into the bedroom where I flicked on another lamp.
Richard, now gloriously naked, threw himself on the bed, stuffed pillows behind him, and sat with his legs apart, his fingers lazily stroking his engorged length. “Show me what you got?”
“Like that is it?” My shirt landed on the floor, while I hopped around trying to get rid of my pants. Not the look I was going for.
“Show me that dick I’ve been thinking about for months.”
Months? With my pants puddling at my ankles, I pulled my briefs down. Richard’s eyes widened, and his mouth gaped as my length sprang out. The hand grasping his dick froze, and he leaned forward. A tiny mew escaped his lips as I kicked off my clothes and crawled over the mattress.
“I can’t take my eyes off you. You’re magnificent.” He made to flip himself over, but I grasped his ass.
“I want to see you.”
“I’m right here.” He put his hand over mine. “And my hole is begging you to fill it.”
“No. I intend to look into your eyes as I plunge into you.”
Love at Blind Date Complete Series: Books 1-4 Page 16