Great Exploitations (Crisis in Cali) Read Free

barely brushing mine—allowing me a chance to slap his face before shoving him away. But I didn’t slap him, and I didn’t shove him away. I tore my grip from the desk and lifted my hands to his chest. When I dropped them against him and pressed my body hard into his, it felt like he trembled. Before I could be sure, his lips touched mine, and the whole world outside of us froze.
    Henry’s mouth moved against mine slowly, so purposefully it was like he’d planned and waited for that moment for decades. His hands stayed on my waist and neck, but his fingers curled deeper into me, almost like he was trying to find a grip. He was controlled, patient, and so careful it was as if he was trying to hold onto a wild animal.
    But nothing felt controlled or careful inside me—I felt the opposite. I wanted to pull him hard against me and kiss him until I was breathless and all my energy had been spent. Instead of our lips being the only parts connected, I wanted every other part to join in.
    I’d known from the beginning that if I let him kiss me, I’d be in trouble. I knew I’d feel the same kinds of things I had when we’d first been together, but I hadn’t expected to feel other things. Different kinds of emotions and desires. As Henry kissed me, very little of the college boy I remembered making out with was still around. Instead, he was a man who exuded confidence and made no qualms about his desire.
    The first few times Henry and I’d “made out” in college, he tried to keep me from feeling or noticing his arousal, almost like he was ashamed . . . but the man making out with me now wasn’t trying to hide or disguise anything. He wanted me to know what he felt and what he was ready for.
    I didn’t know how my hand wound up at his zipper, but my hand was lowering it before I’d given it the okay to do so. I didn’t feel Henry’s hand on the hem of my skirt until he was rolling it up my thighs. I didn’t know what was happening until it had already happened, and even though something inside me knew I should make it stop, I didn’t. It all felt too damn good and right to stop. As my fingers worked his belt free and he slipped my skirt higher, his mouth paused.
    “Eve?” His voice was low and rough but still able to inflect his question. All of the unsaid ones in my name.
    His belt was undone and my skirt could go no higher when I gave him my answer. “Henry,” I whispered, pulling him back to me as I pressed the rest of the world a little further away.
    He was just laying me back against my desk and leaning over me, his thumb hooking through the lace of my panties, when a phone rang. It took the second ring before I realized it was one of my phones and the third before I realized which phone. My hands had stilled on the first ring, but Henry’s didn’t stop until a sigh slipped from my lips.
    We’d held off the world for a few minutes, but it was a fool’s hope to wish we could hold it at bay forever. There was, as I’d tried to explain to him earlier, too much history between us. Not only that, but we had too much history on our own to allow us the kind of future we’d just been trying to claim. It wasn’t just Henry’s indiscretion keeping us apart—it was also how I’d made my living for years and the reason why I’d magically appeared in his life again.
    When I’d told Henry there was too much history between us, he assumed I meant one thing. In fact, I’d meant so many more things as well.
    “Henry?” None of the same assuredness was in my voice as my hands, which had been working his shirt free seconds ago, pressed him away.
    This time when he trembled, it wasn’t from anticipation. With a long exhale, Henry lifted off me and took a few steps away from the desk. “Eve.” He was already moving for the door as he refastened his belt.
    I wanted to call to him as he left my office—I wanted to call him back to me and prove to us both that nothing could or was keeping us apart—but that