by Sofia Daniel
Her gaze fell. “With Henry, yes.”
“And now you want to antagonize Trommel?” yelled Mr. Bourneville from beyond the door.
“Why?” screeched Aunt Idette.
Henry muttered something I couldn’t hear. Largely because he wasn’t screaming at the top of his voice.
My heart rate doubled. Why were they talking about Rudolph? Mrs. Bourneville and I hurried through the door and down the hallway. We reached a white door and stopped.
“What did you say, boy?” snarled Mr. Bourneville.
“I can’t believe it,” said Aunt Idette.
“You brought this on yourself,” Henry replied. “First, you swindled him by saying the ransom was twice the amount you paid out, then you refused to refund him. That’s why he released those pictures onto the internet.”
“What nerve,” growled Mr. Bourneville. “You, who stole from your family and then slapped us in the face by taking it up the arse from a boy.”
“The nerve of that boy!” said Aunt Idette.
I raised my hand to push open the door. To storm into that room and halt that awful conversation.
Mrs. Bourneville held me back. “Henry has to learn to stand up to his father,” she whispered. “Or he will be a follower his entire life.”
My shoulders sagged. I’d never seen Henry in this light before. In the academy, he had been the captain of the rugby team and one of the triumvirate. Edward appeared to be the leader of the trio, but I couldn’t tell whether it was because of his natural leadership or because he had been friends with Blake and Henry before they had become friends with each other. I shook off those thoughts. Henry wasn’t a follower, he was just… quiet.
Mr. Bourneville continued his rant, with Aunt Idette acting as hype-man with loud agreements and the occasional jibe.
“Get out of my sight,” Mr. Bourneville snarled.
Mrs. Bourneville grabbed my arm and pulled me into a powder room. Her shoulders drooped, and her face flushed with sadness. “Do you see what I mean?”
I ran a hand through my hair and sighed. What could I do to help Henry stand up to his father?
Chapter 10
Doors opened and slammed. Mrs. Bourneville leaned over the counter and dabbed at her eyes. I stared down at the powder room’s marble floor tiles and shuffled my feet. Poor Henry. His shitty father seemed to blame him for everything that had happened with Rudolph, even when it was Mr. Bourneville who had angered Rudolph twice.
Henry’s mom placed a comforting hand on my back. “I’ll show you to his room.”
“Thanks.”
She walked me down the hallway, past the room where Mr. Bourneville and his spiteful cousin sniped about Henry’s imagined shortcomings. We stopped at a door close to the end, and Mrs. Bourneville gave it a soft knock.
“What?” he said.
She opened the door a fraction. “Go to him. Maybe you can say something to inspiring. Everything I’ve tried has failed.”
I stepped through into the mingled scents of leather and citrus. The bedroom was a mix of charcoal, brown leather, and ivory sheepskin that reminded me somewhat of Edward’s study at Elder House. Henry sat with his back to the door on a leather ottoman at the end of the bed.
“Henry?”
His shoulders sagged, and his hands clutched the edge of the ottoman. “I can’t believe you heard.”
“Why did you let your father talk to you like that? You’d never put up with that crap at the academy.”
He blew out a long breath through his nostrils. “I don’t know.”
I crossed the room and placed a hand on his bicep. “You just don’t want to admit the reason why.”
“Maybe not.”
A convulsion seized the back of my throat, and I placed a knee on the leather ottoman and wrapped my arms around Henry’s broad shoulders. What on earth had happened between Henry and his father to cause this level of animosity?
“Do you remember when I told you I’d been kidnapped on my way to Mercia Academy?” asked Henry.
A dull thud reverberated through my heart, and cold dread filled my insides. Pushing away speculations of what terrible thing might have happened when he had been abducted as a child, I forced out a long breath. “D-did they hurt you?”
“The kidnappers weren’t too bad. It’s what happened afterward that really stung.” He dipped his head and stared into the sheepskin rug. “They dropped me off on a country road late at night. I wandered around for hours, thinking they had left me in the middle of nowhere to die. By the time the security staff found me, I was inconsolable. Father slapped me and said I was a disgrace to the Bourneville name.”
Bile rose to the back of my throat. “But you were only eleven.”
“Ten.”
“How’s someone that young supposed to protect himself from grown attackers when your driver couldn’t?” I drew back and stared into his mournful, green eyes.
“I’d had self-defense lessons since I was tiny, and he made me study martial arts. I was no good at it. Hated every moment. Father kept telling me he had enemies who would come at him through his weakest link.”
“Why didn’t he assign you bodyguards if he was so worried?”
A huge sigh gusted out of his lungs. He pulled himself off the ottoman, crossed the room, and turned his back to me. “That’s a question he’ll never answer. He just recites the same old crap he did since I was five: I’m weak, useless, a burden.”
I followed after Henry and grabbed his wrist. “But you’re nothing like that.”
“Those voices never go away,” he said, still not looking me in the face.
I wrapped both arms around his broad body and inhaled his mint and citrus scent.
Henry slipped his arm around my waist and kissed the top of my head. “That night in the Peak District when you followed after me, we should have called off the kidnapping.”
I drew back to stare into his eyes and listened. Maybe now, I’d understand more about what had gone through his mind at that time.
He lowered his gaze to my collarbone. “But my mind kept going back to Edward’s father. He was great when we were young, and now he can’t even recognize his own son. I wanted to help, but Father wouldn’t let me access my inheritance early. So, when Paul… When Mr. Frost knocked you out, he wanted to move you to another field even farther away than the night before, but I didn’t want you to get hurt, so I suggested we bring you along.”
I stepped closer and rested my head against his shoulder. This was the longest I had ever heard him speak. “Whose idea was it to inject me?”
“Paul’s, of course. He wanted to make sure you didn’t wake and raise the alarm.” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “I’m so sorry for that and sorry for letting him convince the others in the squat into blaming you if anything went wrong.”
Any residual anger I’d held about the kidnapping drained out of me. I’d finally gotten what I had sought from Henry, a heartfelt apology.
“I really did feel something for you during those days.” He guided me to the edge of his bed, sank down on the mattress, and positioned me between his legs. “A lot, actually.”
“What happened the day you disappeared?” I stepped into his personal space and slid both hands over the muscles on the sides of his neck.
Henry stared up at me through green eyes that glistened with remorse. “Paul arrived to discuss what to do if you ever called the police. He told the people in the squat to blame you. I went along with it because I didn’t think you’d seen anything useful enough to lead to an arrest.”
“I was awake when we left the car, cataloging landmarks, like Mulberry Terrace, the three-story house, and the photographer with the dreadlocks,” I said.
He groaned. “If I’d known that, I would have explained our plans.”
Warmth spread across my chest. Finally, I understood Henry. I leaned down and pressed a kiss against his temple. “I also get why you didn’t confide in me. You didn’t want to jeopardize
helping Edward’s father. He was lucid today, and I couldn’t believe someone could be struck down so young.” All the air left me in one outward breath. “Now I wish I hadn’t taken matters into my own hands and contacted the police.”
He wrapped his arms around my waist and squeezed me around the middle. “You were worried. And I must have sounded flippant.”
“I thought you and Blake had gone crazy.” A laugh bubbled up in my throat. “The excuses you made for not being scared of the kidnappers were so frivolous.”
He drew back and fixed me with his earnest, green eyes. “From now on, there’ll be no lies or half-truths. If I can’t tell you something, I’ll just say.”
“And I won’t sneak about behind your back.”
He pulled me onto his lap and wrapped both arms around my waist. A comfortable silence stretched out between us, and all the tension from the day melted away.
In this bedroom, in this secure apartment, and in his warm, firm embrace, I finally felt safe. If only we could stay here forever and never leave until the police caught Mr. Carbuncle and arrested Rudolph. But a nagging voice in the back of my head told me that it was time for me to unburden myself.
“I’m sorry, too.”
He stilled. “What for?”
“This whole mess you’re in is because of me. If I hadn’t worked with the Saturday Correspondent, Rudolph would never have gotten that footage of you and Blake, and he wouldn’t have released it on the internet.”
“I blame Rudolph and Father for that part, not you.”
I dipped my head. “Can we call a truce?”
His lips spread into a smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Henry gave me a gentle kiss on the lips. It was probably meant as a peck, but I snaked my arm around his neck and held him in place before he could withdraw. Now that we had really spoken about out grievances, I wasn’t about to let him go.
His strong lips moved against mine in a series of toe-curling caresses. I moaned, and his tongue slipped between my lips. His tongue caressed mine, each stroke causing tingles of pleasure between my legs.
He adjusted me onto his lap, so my legs straddled his, and my knees sank into the mattress. We sat chest-to-chest, drinking each other in. This was the closest I had felt to him since our time in that dingy room. The first time in months, we had expressed affection in the form of a kiss instead of out of lust.
My heart fluttered with the wing-power of a hundred butterflies. This was new. Exciting, even better than it had been the first time around.
I pulled back and stared into his forest-green eyes. My face reflected in pupils widened into vast pools of black. “I’ve missed you.”
“Not as much as I’ve missed you,” he replied.
His hardness pressed against my core, and I writhed on top of him, enjoying the way tiny bolts of sensation sparked from my nub.
Henry placed both hands on my hips and groaned. “I can’t get enough of you.”
I felt the same way. His tongue twisted and curled around mine, eliciting the most delicious sensations. My core, aching and needy, writhed against his clothed length. It was nice, but not enough. I wanted more.
Desire made my hands shake, and need made the muscles of my core twitch. I unbuttoned his shirt and ran my hands over his hard, muscular chest. This was the first time in an eternity that I’d gotten the chance to explore him without the others.
Henry shouldered off my blazer, pulled my shirt from the waistband of my school skirt, and reached under the fabric. His fingertips skimmed the fevered skin of my back.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this under your parents’ roof,” I murmured. “What will your father say?”
“I’m past caring.” Securing my legs around his waist, he stood and walked around to the other side of the bed, where he laid me on my back.
My gaze trailed down prominent pectoral muscles, a six-pack I wanted to explore with my tongue, and down a treasure trail of golden hair that led to the waistband of the gray pants of his academy uniform. His erection strained against the fabric, and I stretched out my arms to unleash it.
Henry stepped back. “Ladies first.”
With as much speed as I could muster, I divested myself of my shirt, skirt, and loafers, leaving myself in an ivory silk lace bra and matching panties. “Your turn.”
Henry pulled off his shirt, pants, and boxers. His beautiful, thick length jutted out from pubes as blonde as the hair on his head. I licked my lips and stretched out my arm, eager for him to unwrap the rest of me.
He stepped forward and straddled my hips. “Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?”
My lips curved into a smile. “I never get tired of hearing it.”
His kisses trailed down my neck to my collarbone. I reached down and wrapped my fingers around his thick erection and slid my hand over its length. Henry groaned into my ear. “If you continue like that I’m going to come all over you.”
A giggle bubbled up in my throat. “I don’t mind.”
After removing my bra, he slid off my panties and parted my legs, exposing my throbbing clit and sopping, wet folds. “You look good enough to eat.”
Before I could respond, he lowered his head between my thighs and ran his tongue along the length of my slit. A bolt of pleasure sent shockwaves of sensation through my core, making my body jolt with surprise.
Henry raised his head and fixed me with a gaze so heated, shivers of pleasure skittered down my spine. “Like that, do you?”
I bit down on my lip and nodded.
His hands spread me open even wider, exposing me fully to his gaze. This wasn’t the sweet Henry who stroked my belly and massaged me to a shuddering climax. This was the Henry from the start of the term. Henry from the inspections he had conducted in Blake’s study. The one who had made me take off my panties and display myself to him and his friends. My breath caught, and the muscles of my core trembled with delicious anticipation.
When his tongue swirled around my nub, the sensation was so intense, I flinched away. Henry continued circling and flicking and lapping at my clit, holding me in place with those strong hands, and not letting me wriggle out of the way of his relentless tongue.
“H-Henry…” Whatever I wanted to say died in my throat. It was a mixture of the most exquisite pleasure, bordering on pain. Pain from the pressure expanding behind my clit, around my core. Pressure that seemed to have no end, yet I didn’t want it to stop.
He continued his sweet torture until my vision went white, and the pressure burst, releasing a torrent of ecstasy that made me open my mouth in a silent scream. Through the pounding in my ears, I heard the tear of a foil wrapper. Seconds later, while I was still riding my climax, Henry entered me in a smooth, hard thrust. The movement made the muscles of my core clamp hard against his length.
I let out a shuddering moan. “B-but I thought you were a virgin.”
“You’re forgetting, I have a very experienced roommate.” His hips moved in a slow circle that sent pleasant ripples through my core.
The intensity made me groan and arch into his chest. Blake. I imagine he was quite a handful. “Have you two—”
“All the way.” He pulled out of me and slid back in, building up a steady rhythm
My thighs tightened around his hips, and my pelvis rocked against his thrusts, creating a delicious friction that made my eyes roll to the back of my head. Each downward thrust rubbed his pelvis against my clit, and each time he ground against me, the muscles of my core spasmed against his length.
Henry continued this rhythm of grinding and stroking and delicious, hard thrusts. I held onto his hard glutes with both hands, enjoying how they flexed as he fucked.
“You’re terrific,” he murmured into my ear.
I squeezed his ass cheeks. “I wanted to do this with you from the moment I saw you in that stairwell.”
His movements faltered, and he pressed his lips on mine in a dizzying kiss that lasted until I was breathless. While his
tongue caressed mine, that gorgeous, thick erection massaged the muscles of my core to submission. It was wonderful. It was ecstatic. I could have made love with him like this all night.
Henry’s pelvis resumed its delicious grind against my nub. I squeezed my eyes shut and writhed against him, pleasure exploding around my core and sending a flurry of stars shooting behind my eyelids.
“W-what was that?” I gasped out.
“You liked it?” He ground against me, and this time, my nipples tightened against his chest.
“Don’t stop.”
Each movement sent shockwaves of pleasure that traveled up my torso and into my nipples, then down the insides of my thighs until they reached my toes. I tightened around him and bucked. This had to be my g-spot. Somehow, Henry had found it, and now he was giving me the most excruciating pleasure of my life.
My nails dug into his ass cheeks—I couldn’t help it—and Henry shuddered. He pulled out, then thrust forward in tight, circular motions. I bit down hard on my bottom lip. Was that how he and Blake had sex? They had looked so hot together at the Valentines’ Party.
“Keep going,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Fuck,” he gasped out.
Henry continued this maddening back and forth circular movement that hit my clit with one stroke and caressed that sensitive spot in my core with another. Sweat poured down my brow, and I panted at having been suspended in pleasure for so long without release.
I squeezed my eyes shut and quickened my movements. Henry did the same, and flashes of pleasure lit up my nerve endings. They kept sparking and flaring until the deepest spasm rocked my core and squeezed Henry so hard, I worried it might hurt.
“Ugh!” Henry’s upper body convulsed, and a low, deep moan filled my ears and reverberated in his chest. His erection thickened and trembled with tiny shudders.
A second orgasm blazed through my body, making me clench and pulse around him in a series of never-ending tremors.
As Henry softened, he drew back, green eyes bright. “Give me a minute,” he said between panting breaths. “I’m going to fuck you until my prick falls off.”
