Henry’s cheeks were flushed, his eyes bright on mine. His chest heaved and he shuddered in the aftermath of the pleasure I’d given him. My face was wet from it just the way his had been that first day in his office. I did nothing about it as I crawled up his body and put my open mouth on his. It was carnal. It was forbidden. It was incredibly arousing. I pressed my sex to his to help ease the throbbing. Grinding against him, I tried to get some relief, but only ended up increasing my arousal.
I wanted him. I wanted him in a way I’d never had him. Finally there was nothing between us. No secrets. No more hiding. No more barriers. Our bodies pressed together like this felt like nothing I’d ever experienced. I wanted to be inside him and all around him. I wanted to drown in him and never come up for air.
Breaking the kiss, I climbed off him. He reached for me immediately.
“Wait,” I told him. “Close your eyes.”
A crease appeared between his brows, but he obeyed anyway and settled back against the sofa. As quietly as possible, I retrieved his phallus and strapped it on. It took some finagling to get the leather straps on tight as I was larger in the hips than Henry. There was something on the inside of it; something textured that rubbed against me deliciously. Now I knew how Henry had achieved his pleasure as he gave me mine. It didn’t make me feel like a man the way it did Henry. It made me feel closer to him, understand him better. He was complex to be sure. But weren’t the most difficult puzzles the most satisfying to figure out?
I took a moment to enjoy the sight of him all long-limbed and laid out for me. He was naked in more ways than one. My heart pressed against my rib cage, trapping my breath. He was beautiful. Perfect. More so now than ever before. We’d reached some kind of threshold tonight and crossed over to the other side.
I wanted to ask him why. Why did he share himself with me now? What had Jack said to him to get him to drop all of his defenses and show me who he really was?
Did I really want the answer to those questions or did I just want to accept that he’d finally come around? Because I knew. I’d always known his secret. I’d known and hadn’t cared. He was more to me than his parts, or lack thereof, more to me than the money he paid me, more to me than the pleasure he gave me. He was, quite simply, Henry. Perfect in his imperfections, his quick temper, and gentle hands. Perfect in his total domination of my body, my mind, my soul.
I lay down on top of him, careful to tuck the phallus off to the side so he didn’t discover it yet. The feel of him, his bare flesh against mine. I hadn’t realized until this moment how much I’d missed it and craved it even though I’d never experienced it. I took a moment to just lie with him and nuzzle that spot just under his jawline.
“I smell like you now,” I told him. “Every time I take a breath, I breathe you in.”
His arms came around me, his hand slipping into my hair the way I liked. “Now you know why I spent so much time between your legs. Can I open my eyes now?”
“No.” I slid a hand into the curls between his legs. “I’m not done with you yet. You’ve been hiding from me and I intend to punish you for that.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d accept me…”
“Accept you? Naughty boy, I worship you.”
“You still see me as a man?”
“Isn’t that what you are?”
He wrapped his fingers around my wrist and worked my hand against his slick folds. “Am I?”
Gripping his wrist, I stopped his motion and drew his hand up above his head. His eyes remained closed. I had a feeling it wasn’t obedience. He was still hiding from me.
“Of course you’re a man, Henry. What else would you be?” With that, I reared my hips back and plunged into him.
His eyes popped open in shock. He wasn’t hiding from me now. He stared wide-eyed up at me as I stroked into him.
“You’re my man,” I told him. “Nothing’s changed. Don’t you see that? You’re my Henry and I love you.”
“Oh, god, Ruby.” His arms banded around me hard. He accepted my inexperienced thrusts, tilting his pelvis as though he couldn’t get enough. “Make me yours. Please.”
I lunged at him over and over, coming closer and closer to the brink of my own pleasure and trying to hold it off. I wanted him to go over first. His back arched and he cried out. I lost control then and ground against him, chasing my own release. We came together perfectly entwined and pressed together. Me and my Henry.
A long time passed before I caught my breath enough to ask. “What did Jack say to get you to share with me?”
He didn’t answer for several minutes, playing with strands of my hair. Our sweaty skin cooled and our heartbeats settled in to a steady rhythm before he finally answered, “He threatened to tell you himself.”
I knew he had, but I wanted to hear it for myself from Henry. “Would you have ever shown me?” I propped my chin on my hand on his chest to look into his eyes for the truth. “Or would we have gone on forever the way we had been? Did you think I was too simple to not figure it out?”
“I don’t think you’re simple.”
“Yes, you do. Or you did. When I lie with men, they leave their seed inside me. You left me dry. I figured that out the first night we were together. Remember? Somehow you achieved pleasure from wearing your phallus. Did you not think that I’d figure out that you didn’t wear it because of some injury or birth defect? That it served another purpose other than pleasuring me? Or these scars…?” I traced the half-moon shape a couple of inches beneath his right nipple. “Did you think I wouldn’t catch on as to why you have them?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know. I didn’t think.” He caught my hand and laced his fingers with mine. “I just wanted you. From the moment I saw your reflection in my office window. You were even more beautiful when I turned around. And so compliant. You took off your dress without hesitation and lay down and let me do things to you. Whatever I wanted. Your cries of pleasure were beautiful and your taste…like honey on my tongue.
“I still have the handkerchief I wiped my face with in my desk drawer. I take it out from time to time and touch myself to the scent and my memories of you and your body, the way you give yourself totally to me. No demands. Only pleasure. You take what I give you and don’t ask for more. It’s enough. I’m enough. The others… As soon as they got a hint that something wasn’t right, their hand was out, asking for more money, threatening to expose me. Not you. Never you, Ruby.
“I had to take the chance even under threat that you’d stay true, and you did. You did.” He crushed his mouth to mine with a desperation I’d never felt from him before.
I accepted the storm that was Henry, the things he said and the things he couldn’t yet say. His kisses slowed and gentled. When I finally raised my head, well, I’ll never forget the look on his face. He may not have the words yet, but I could feel them and see them.
I stroked the hair back from his forehead. “My Henry. My big, sweet man. I have all I’ll ever want or need right here in this room.”
“Your Henry. I like the sound of that. You don’t know how jealous I was of your Johnny, the way you spoke about him. I wanted that wistful longing in your voice to be for me and only me.”
“I’ll always love him. I can’t help it. And I can’t help the way I talk about him.”
“What about Jack? Is he yours too?”
“You heard me tell him he wasn’t. You made me hurt him, so he hurt you. Or tried to. That really wasn’t fair of you. I’m cross with you about that.”
“You still want him?” Jealousy was there in his question and a fair bit of resentment. “He can give you something I can’t you know.”
“What could he give me that you can’t?”
“Children.”
I hadn’t considered that. I’d always wanted a child. My Johnny and I had been working on that very thing before he’d shipped off. Unfortunately we hadn’t been blessed.
Never having children. I couldn’t fathom it.
“We could adopt,” I offered, a seed of worry planting itself in my belly. Was Henry looking for a reason to keep himself apart from me even now?
“You don’t ever want to carry a child of your own, have it grow inside you, nurse from you, have your eyes or your nose?”
“Yes.” I couldn’t help but be honest with him. It was all I’d ever been with him. “I want that very much. But wanting it and having it are two different things. I wanted a child with my Johnny, but we weren’t blessed. If we’d never been blessed, I’d have had this conversation with him. Do you want children?” I held my breath, waiting for his answer.
“Yes, but that’s not likely to happen in the normal way. I want to marry you, Ruby. I want to live with you and lie with you at night, wake with you every day. I want to make you mine in every way, but I can’t be that selfish. You deserve to have your dreams come true.”
“My dream has come true. I never thought I’d find someone, love someone after my Johnny.”
“If my secret was ever discovered it would ruin you.”
“I’ve been ruined. When my father cast me out. When my Johnny was killed. It didn’t stop me from trying to be happy.”
“This isn’t the same. There are laws—”
I pulled away, slid the phallus out of him, and rose to my knees between his legs. “If you don’t want me,” I motioned between us, “or this, then say so. Say so right now, but don’t lie there with me inside you, thinking up reasons to put me off because you’re afraid. That’s just chicken and that’s not you.”
He jackknifed, startling me, and gripped my face in his hands. “I want you, Ruby, more than anything or anyone in this world, but you’re too romantic to see what’s right between is also what’s wrong. I want to be selfish and take you for my very own, but I can’t do that to you. Society won’t forget or forgive what I am. What we are. There’s a name for it, Ruby, and it’s ugly. We’re an abomination.
“You’d be giving up your dream of having children to live with a freak, a Frankenstein monster, not a man. I’m not a real man.” When I shook my head he pressed on. “I’m not. I never will be. As much as I feel that I am, I’m not. I can’t ask you to give up everything for me.”
“Then what is this? Why did you start it?” I pushed his hands aside. “Why did you make me fall in love with you if you’re just going to tell me it’s not real and I can’t have it? Why are you being so cruel?”
“I’m sorry.”
I climbed off the sofa, knocking his hand away when he tried to reach for me again. “No. Don’t touch me.” My hands trembled as I tried to work the buckle on the phallus. I felt stupid for wearing it, for falling for this man, for believing in him. I finally got free of it and threw it to the floor. “Don’t call me.” Sweeping down, I retrieved my dress. “Don’t come over. I need the man who made me feel beautiful and special, not this coward who torments me and turns my words against me. When you’re ready to be that man again, let me know. Until then I don’t want to see you.” With that, I stormed out of the library.
The thud of Henry getting to his feet behind me barely registered. He didn’t follow me as I tore through the house, my dress flapping open, not caring as I made my way to the front door. The butler met me there.
His gaze flickered over me briefly before flying up and sticking to the ceiling. “The car is waiting in the drive.” His tone said everything—everything he thought about me.
Of course the car was waiting. Not only did the butler not like me, he didn’t have any more faith in us than Henry did. I dashed away a tear and thanked him as I was taught. Turning away from him, I redid the buttons on my dress, then opened the door and went down the walk. I thought I heard Henry’s voice as the car took off, but I didn’t dare look back for fear I was wrong.
And for fear I was right. I couldn’t go back to the way things were. I couldn’t take his money. I couldn’t lie under him and not feel the things I felt for him. I couldn’t pretend that we didn’t share something secret and special.
Most of all, I couldn’t pretend we might someday have everything I ever dreamed of.