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Fifty-six
Henley
Iwatch Conner polish off his tall stack in recordtime, his manners impeccable enough to impress even my mother. I remember his own had been such a stickler for them. Not that she was formal but that she expected her sons to behave like gentlemen. I can see that the training stuck, whether he wants to admit it or not.
“Don’t be surprised if I start showing up on your doorstep at all hours of the day and night, begging for pancakes.” He grins at me, wiping his mouth before laying his napkin beside his plate.
His compliment makes me giddy. “I take cooking classes when I have time,” I say, standing to clear his plate. “Wait until you try my—”
His hand closes over my wrist before I can lift his plate. “Nope,” he says. “That’s my job.” I remember the way his father cleared the table every night and washed dishes for his mother because she cooked dinner. When she tried to help, her husband would say the same thing Conner just said to me—nope, that’s my job.
When Mr. Gilroy said it to his wife, I always imagined he was saying I love you.
I nod, bobbing my head like an idiot because that’s all I can manage to do. Get a grip, Henley. It’s conditioning, not love. “Okay,” I finally manage, pulling my hand free.
He lets go of me and stands. Collecting our plates, Conner moves around me, carrying them into the kitchen. Moving to the window by his recently vacated chair, I pretend to enjoy the view. The almost frantic bustle below. Even on Sunday, Boylston is busy. Pedestrians hurrying home. Tourists posing in front of the ballpark across the street. Cars. Traffic. So much activity and I can’t really see any of it. I’m too focused on the sounds of him.
I imagine him, bare-foot in the kitchen, moving around in my private space, familiar and sure in track pants and a T-shirt.
Like he belongs here.
Like I belong to him.
I’m so lost in the impossible fantasy of it that I don’t hear him behind me until I feel the warmth of his chest brushing against my back. His hands settle on my hips. The hard press of his cock between my ass cheeks.
“You’ve got quite the view,” he murmurs, his chin hovering near the shell of my ear. “All those people…” His hands slip around the front of my hips to flatten against my stomach, pulling me even tighter against him. My nipples tighten in response, the sensation sending a flood of warm down my spine, pooling between my thighs. “Any one of them could look up here and see us. I like that.” He finds the hem of my sweater and slips past it, his wide, callused palm coasting up the soft skin of my belly, his fingers trailing lightly over the slats of my ribs. “I like thinking about people seeing me touch you…” His rough-tipped fingers trace the curve of my breast, feather light touches that have my breath trembling in my throat. “I want them to know.” When his fingers brush against my bare, swollen nipple, the tremble in my throat slides into a moan, and his mouth closes over it in response, sucking and nipping against the corded muscles of my neck, the hard sting of it releasing another flood of wet warmth between my legs. “No bra?” he growls in my ear.
“No.” I whimper in response, my breath sawing in and out of my lungs, harsh and uneven. The hand on my stomach slips lower to span my pelvis, holding me in place, his hips grinding his cock into the cleft of my ass while the hand on my breast rolls its nipple between its fingers.
He nips my ear with his teeth, the sting of it both punishment and reward. “Panties?”
I try to answer, but the word gets stuck in my throat. I shake my head no.
“Fuck.” The word comes out, rough and guttural, hot against my ear, the hand on my belly streaking downward, digging in to push past my waistband. His fingers skim the soft, wet seam of my pussy, the trace of them slow, almost reverent. “Jesus fucking Christ…” His cock gives a hard jerk in response, and I widen my stance, silently begging him to—
“Conner...” I moan his name when he pushes past my slick entrance, stroking two fingers into me so hard and fast my knees turn to water, the arm banded across my chest tightening, suddenly the only thing keeping me upright.
“Look at them, Henley,” he breathes in my ear, pressing the heel of his hand to the top of my cleft, grinding my clit against my pubic bone. “All those people. They can see us. They know.” He cups my pussy, his juice-slicked fingers moving in and out of me. Teasing my clit. Pumping into me. “They know it’s me you want. It’s me fucking you.”
I should move away from the window. I should. But I don’t. Because I want what he wants.
I want people to see.
I want them to know.
“Yes.” It’s all I can say. The only word that makes sense. “Yes.”
The orgasm rips through me, throwing my head back, tightening my spine so suddenly I feel it bow, my hips thrusting forward to take him in deeper even as my pussy ripples and tightens around his fingers, trying to keep him. Hold him inside me even though I don’t want him to stop. I want him to keep stroking me. Fucking me.
And then his hands move, the support of them gone so suddenly I have to throw my own against the glass to keep myself from pitching forward. He pulls my pants off, jerking them down my legs and over my feet. Before I can even register the fact that I’m half-naked, standing in front of a window, he turns me, pulling me into his arms.
“I need to see you,” he murmurs softly, his lips skimming along my jaw, teasing at the corner of my mouth. “I need you to look at me.” He lowers himself into the chair he ate dinner in, pulling me down with him, turning and positioning me until I’m straddling him, our faces inches from each other, the thick, rigid length of his cock throbbing against my still-quivering pussy.
Greedy for more, I plant my feet, rocking my hips against him and he groans, his mouth falling open, gaze nailed to mine like I’m the only thing in the world worth seeing. Like he’s blind to everything but me. He finds the hem of my sweater again, this time pulling it up over my head to toss it aside, leaving me completely naked.
Before I can even think to be embarrassed, he returns the favor, reaching up and behind to snag the collar of his shirt to drag it up, over his head, exposing himself.
Letting me look.