Home > Love Me Like I Love You(315)

Love Me Like I Love You(315)
Author: Willow Winters

And wouldn’t this be just perfect if it was real, but how can it be?

“Henry, we’re not meant for each other,” I mumble in his ear, as I anchor my legs around his waist. “This would be… I’m your assistant. That’s such a cliché.”

“Are you finding new reasons to tell me to fuck off?” His voice is so unlike him. It sounds pained, and it’s jarring.

“No, just trying to avoid the meat grinder,” I explain. “Because I can see myself falling for you, and then—”

“And then, we’d be two fools falling in love with each other,” he ends the sentence for me. “It’s a different kind of venture, but one we can overcome—together. You’re my right hand. Who could be a better fit than you, the only person in this world who truly understands me? I’m going blind into a merger where I can lose myself with you, my world. Yet, I plan on winning.”

“Leave it to you to see this as a business transaction.”

“No, I see it as reaching for the only important thing I’ve ever wanted in my life. Which wasn’t planned by anyone. It happened because I believe that you’re my miracle. The one person who can make me feel alive. Just give us a chance. We’ll take it slow.”

Slow is obviously a figure of speech because as soon as he finishes talking, he fits his perfect lips against my cheek. I’m back against the wall. His scruffed jaw scrapes my neck as he moves his mouth down my jaw. The heat in my body increases when he looks at me. His green eyes are dark, overtaken by lust and need. I am dying for a kiss, but his lips are everywhere but kissing me.

“Henry,” I gasp his name.

“I won’t kiss you until you ask me to do it,” the asshole says with a wicked grin that looks great on him and yet is something too new. “I don’t break my promises.”

“Damn it, Aldridge just kiss me,” I beg him, instead of telling him that he just kissed me a few minutes ago.

He merges his lips with mine, one hand cupping the back of my head and the other on the small of my back. I hold onto his biceps as his tongue twists along with mine. The slow intensity is different from any kiss he’d given me before. He deepens it as if the world is about to end. As if nothing else matters but us. As if he’s trying to open up my heart and trying to pour himself inside it.

We’re falling apart, breaking, but all at the same time I feel him putting us together.

He steps back and runs a hand through his hair. “Any other questions before we go back to the festival?” he asks as he lowers me to the ground, his hot breath near my ear, and I’m about to combust.

Yes, why did you stop? Is this over?

“We’re going back?” I say flustered and watch him walk toward the door. “You… We… I thought…”

I lift my hands, shaking them in desperation. Ugh, men. I follow him because…well, what else is there to do?

“Why?” I ask as we walk back toward Main Street.

“I just promised to take it slow, and I plan on keeping my word,” he says, grabbing my hand.

When I look at him he’s smiling with a peacefulness I’ve never seen before. I can’t help but feel like a queen because he never smiles that way, and I’m responsible for it.

It’s not hard to find Pierce and Leyla. They are at one of the booths discussing something with Beacon.

“Everything okay?” I ask when we reach them.

“Do you use lube when you use anal beads?” Beacon asks me as if it’s the most important question he’s ever asked in his entire life.

“What?” I choke.

Leyla shakes her head and gives me a look as if saying do not engage, but it’s too late, Beacon is already showing me a set of beads. “Touch them. They are smooth. Why would you need lube?”

Pierce looks embarrassed as everyone around is gawking at us.

I link my arm with Leyla’s and say, “Leave these men to their nonsense.”

“Where are you going?” Henry asks.

“To buy smooth anal beads. Where else?” I yell, and Leyla and I laugh at their stoic faces.

“What was that?” I ask her as we stroll around the booths.

“Beacon trying to get some reaction from Pierce, who swears there’s no way he could be embarrassed,” she states. “Obviously, Beac won the moment he began to discuss anal sex and beads.”

“Who challenges Beacon? That guy is twenty steps ahead of everyone. He'll always win.” Then I ask, “Why does he sound like he drank the entire café?”

“He’s anxious because his bandmates haven’t arrived yet. Now, what was the emergency? And why did you come back with smeared lipstick and fucked me hair… Did you have sex with Henry?”

“Just a…nice kiss,” I say, using the camera on my phone to check my makeup and fix my lipstick.

“Nice kiss?” she asks skeptically.

“Believe me, it was only a kiss, or I wouldn’t be this…frustrated,” I clarify.

She touches my face and says, “Well, he rubbed himself well, didn’t he? What’s happening between you two? Did you finally check the I-like-you box?”

“You can say that.”

“Oh, girl, you’re doomed. Once you let an Aldridge in it’s hard to shake them off,” she says, grabbing a silver bracelet with a single green bead that’s on display.

“They are addictive,” she warns me, handing it to the clerk. “Do you have more?”

The clerk takes out six more of them and places them on the counter.

“I’ll take them,” Leyla declares.

“Why are you letting yours go?” I ask, handing over my credit card and saying the usual crap, “Merkel is paying.”

After the clerk packs the bracelets in individual boxes, we leave the booth and Leyla gives me a sad smile. “Because Pierce is like cocaine. When you try it, you think you’re in heaven. It wears off; you need more. But when you come to your senses, you realize you’ve just been poisoning yourself. He’s charming, alluring, and I thought he was what I needed for the rest of my life. We realized we weren’t compatible.”

As I’m about to ask why she’s still with him Pierce and Henry appear.

“Thank fuck their buddies arrived or I’d have killed him this time,” Pierce says. “I swear, he’s twenty-eight, but sometimes he reminds me of when he was ten and obnoxious.”

“He is still obnoxious,” Henry admits.

“Beacon?” I ask, and he nods.

“Those weeks when we had to spend time with William, it was us who had to keep an eye on the younger ones, not Grandma or dear Daddy,” Pierce recounts.

“You did nothing,” Henry protests. “It was Hayes and I controlling you five.”

Leyla looks at them confused and questions them, “Where was your father?”

“Busy at The Lodge, or sometimes he’d send an apology with some stupid toy or gadget for each one of us,” Henry explains. “Work always came first. So then we’d be with just our grandmother who made sure the help fed us at the right times, and we had chores to do all week long.”

“I don’t think she liked us very much,” Pierce confesses, not bother by the fact, and I wonder if that’s true.

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