Page 70 of Soft Flannel Hank

“No, no, no,” he bit out. “This is all wrong.”

Before she could stop him, he’d pulled her off. She was about to shout at him for being a killjoy and a tease when he picked her up under her armpits and deposited her on the counter where he’d been leaning. He thrust himself against her denim-covered cunt, causing the seam of her jeans to press brutally against her sensitive clit.

“Oh, god,” she gasped as he rutted against her and she wrapped her legs around his waist.

“I do feel guilty for wanting it,” Hank said, pressing his face against the crook of her neck as he ground himself against her. “I feel guilty for wanting you. You’re in trouble, and I’m taking advantage.”

“You’re not—” she started to say but broke off as a shockwave of sensation stole her breath. “You’re not. I want this. I want you.”

He moaned against her skin. “You left.”

“I didn’t,” she whined.

“You did. I didn’t know what happened to you. I didn’t know if you were safe. Need to you to be safe,” he said, and Esther felt every word as they lit a spark that traveled from his lips, through her live wire of a body, and straight to her clit.

“You keep me safe.”

She was on fire. Yet he kept grinding against her, thrusting his hips in a hard, brutal rhythm that left her breathless.

“Please stay,” he said as he brought his mouth back to hers for a kiss that consumed her so completely that she couldn’t tell where her lips ended and his began.

She felt her orgasm rising like a tidal wave, climbing higher and higher. She was powerless to stop it as it gained speed and depth and force and crashed over her. As it broke and she cried out hoarsely against Hank’s mouth, everything happened at once. Her phone rang upstairs. The mudroom door banged open. Hank wrapped his entire body around her to shield her.

“Hank. Hank! They know she’s here. They know she’s with you,” she heard Nat say as he burst into the kitchen and turned on the light. “Oh, fuck.”

* * *

Esther trembledin Hank’s arms. She winced and clamped her eyes shut. The dark kitchen had been flooded with the harsh light of the overhead fluorescents, and Esther wasn’t alone in feeling shocked by the change. Hank breathed heavily as he studied her face. She just squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lips between her teeth.

Hank looked over his shoulder to where Nat was standing in the doorway.

“Can you give us a minute?”

“Yeah, buddy. Sure,” Nat said, ducking back into the mudroom. “Hi, Esther.”

Hank turned back to Esther. Her eyes were open now, and fat tears spilled over and slid down her freckled cheeks. Her eyes looked that unreal blue, like a neon sign in a shop window, glowing bright and volatile. She was staring at the center of his chest, but it was really like she was staring through him, through the walls of his house, and out into the wild world that had become so unsafe for her.

Hank felt his heart drop as she took a shuddering breath. He tucked his still-hard dick into his underwear and did up his jeans and belt. He pulled out the stupid ponytail holder and raked careless hands through his hair, gathering it behind his head and rewrapping the strands with the elastic. He couldn’t remember whether Esther had nearly pulled it out or if he had when she dropped to her knees on the linoleum and nearly made him lose his mind.

Once he’d put himself back together, he cupped her cheeks carefully in his hands. He knew how his hands felt. Calloused. Hard in some places. After chopping wood for hours, they wouldn’t have felt better. But Esther had never minded his hands before, had never told him they scratched her or edged away from his touch, and so he cradled her face softly in his rough hands.

“Esther, I’ll keep you safe,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Esther leaned into him. She didn’t want to, he could tell, not at first, anyway, but she melted against him. Her phone rang again upstairs.

“You okay?”

She nodded, sniffling. “Are you?”

“Well, my balls are gonna be bluer than the Boise State football field, but I’ll live.”

She snorted. Like she’d snorted when Jory made her laugh. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’d offer to take care of that for you, but—”

“But your friend Nat is ten feet away with big news and you two horn dogs need to take five to hear it,” Nat called out from the mudroom.

“We’re presentable,” Hank called out.

Nat slid in through the doorway. “I’m sorry the timing is so shit, but you needed to know and you weren’t answering your phone, Hank.”