He handed back the rifle.
Novack stared at him as though reassessing his whole opinion. “Okay. Nell’s a nice lady, and it’s not like I’m doing anything else. I don’t like the thought of someone trying to hurt her. I’ll do it. Is she serious about the cooking thing, though?”
He could prove something else, too. Everyone thought he suffered. “She’s an excellent cook. Maybe you need to broaden your horizons, Novack. It’ll be good for you.”
Henry just hoped it wouldn’t be the end for him.
* * * *
Nell stared at the closed bedroom door and wondered if Henry was sitting up on the sofa or if he’d managed to get some sleep. He would leave in the morning. She and Michael would drive him to the airport where he would board a plane for Los Angeles. He had everything he needed to be Josh Hunt’s new DEA contact. In the end her plan had worked perfectly, and now she knew a whole lot about forging documents.
Not that she would do anything with it. She hadn’t written in weeks, couldn’t even consider working on the story she’d been developing about a young woman who falls in love with a man who isn’t what he seemed.
That hit far too close to home.
He was right outside and she couldn’t quite open the door between them. How would she feel if this was the last time she saw him?
She forgave everyone. Why couldn’t she do the same for him?
There was a slight knock on the door, a timid sound as though the knocker was certain he wasn’t welcome.
“I’m trying to sleep.”
He hesitated for a moment. “I’d like to come in and talk to you.”
It was stupid, and she knew she was being stubborn, but she couldn’t help herself. “I’ve locked the door.”
The knob turned easily and then he was standing in the doorway in his pajama bottoms and T-shirt that showed off his lean strength. “And I have an enormous amount of experience picking locks. This one is nothing, love.”
She stared at him, wishing she didn’t find him so sexy. “I thought the lock was really my will.”
“I’d like to pick that apart, too. I don’t want to sleep on the couch. I want to be with you.”
She wanted nothing more than to wrap herself up in him and pretend nothing had happened. “Then you should have told me the truth the first time.”
“Do you honestly want me to go without letting me touch you one more time, without letting me top you? You’re anxious, Nell, and I won’t be here to calm you down. Michael will protect you, but he can’t put his mouth on you until you cry away every bit of stress you have. He can’t let you ride his dick until your eyes roll to the back of your head and it no longer matters what’s going on in the outside world. Let me do that for you one more time.”
Because he wasn’t sure he would come back.
Every word was like a stroke to her skin, and her body didn’t care a bit about his lies. Her body was already warm, and that deliciously antsy feeling had come over her. She loved it. It was the kind of thing that would be frustrating if she didn’t have such complete faith that all her needs would be met.
“I don’t want you to leave,” she admitted.
“Then I won’t.” He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it to the side. “Nell, if you ask me to scrap this whole mission, I’ll do it.”
She stared at him for a moment, taking in the beauty of his body. “You have to save that woman.”
She didn’t like to think about how ruthlessly Henry had upended Kayla Summers’s life. It seemed utterly foreign to her that the man who volunteered every time he could, who’d helped her put together a food pantry and shown up every time a neighbor needed him, could have lied and manipulated the way he had.
His expression went stony as he stalked across the room. “Then that’s what I’ll do.”
So often lately she found herself in the presence of the other Henry, as she’d come to think of him, the Henry who always looked hungry when they got ready for bed, the one who never seemed to eat his fill. Perhaps John Bishop had always been with her. He’d always been the Dom side of Henry.
He reached out and shoved aside the blanket she’d been under and let his hands snake around her ankles. He did it slowly and with great purpose. “I’ll do whatever you want me to, but I get tonight. Tonight I get your submission, and tomorrow I’m your soldier to command.”
“I thought you were doing this for you.”
“There’s no me without you. That’s what I can’t make you understand. Yes, I need to do this, but I would walk away from everything if you asked me to. Nothing is more important than you.” He began to pull on her ankles, dragging her down the mattress.
She wanted to believe him. There was a part of her that did believe him, but a dark place had opened up inside her, a place she hadn’t even known existed, and she couldn’t deny it.
“You have nothing to say?” Henry looked over her, his jaw tight.
She shook her head. She didn’t know what to say. She could tell him she loved him, that she would be missing half her heart when he was gone. She could say how sad she was that they hadn’t been in sync for weeks.
She could tell him how hollow her life felt since she’d learned what shaky ground it had been built on.
His hands moved up her legs, squeezing lightly, and she moaned at the sensation. It had been too many days since she’d felt hands on her. Not just
