Page 29 of One More Gift

Chapter 18

Saskia

Henry knocks on mybedroom door, and even though he’s just seen me naked, I wrap my fluffy towel tightly around my body.

“Come in.”

His hair is mussed up from where I gripped handfuls of it while I rode him, but the smile on his face suggests he doesn’t care.

“Good shower?”

“Really good, thank you.”

Much needed, both physically and mentally. I’m not normally so dominant with one man, let alone two. I was grateful for some space to process what just happened.

He closes the door behind him, and we hear the bathroom door slam shut.

“Is Casper OK?” I ask, panic creeping in that I basically abandoned him. Aftercare is important to me, and that was not it.

“Bit messy,” Henry smirks. “He’ll survive. Come here, sit with me for a second.”

He hops onto the bed and leans back against the headboard, patting the space next to him. I pull my towel tighter and join him, glowing inside at the sight of him in my bed, at last.

It was easy to ignore my feelings for Henry when things were good with Casper. When I was being touched and worshipped so often, there wasn’t space in my brain to think about anyone else.

Then, while we were drifting apart, Henry was simply the friend I desperately needed. The shoulder to cry on even if he was thousands of miles across the Atlantic ocean. There was never a text that was left on read, or a 3am call he didn’t answer.

Even though we have seventeen years of friendship filled with memories, those nights where we’d video chat in the dim light of our bedrooms are some of the best. When I’d wake at five, he’d be heading to bed, and I could imagine myself there, with my head on his other pillow.

“Last night, you said you haven’t been with anyone for a while.”

“I haven’t. Not since a brief thing last year.”

“Were you waiting for me?”

He hums softly and takes a deep breath as he ponders my question. “Not consciously. I wasn’t hoping for the downfall of your relationship, if that’s what you were thinking?”

“No?”

“No, never. It’s more that when I admitted to myself how I felt about you, everyone else might as well have disappeared.”

“I think I’ve been waiting for you,” I confess.

“Really?”

A trickle of water drips from my hair down my chest, and he catches it with his fingertip.

“When you told me it was over with Julia, I was strangely happy about it.”

“Mean,” he teases, rubbing the water into my skin.

“I know. I hated myself for it. And it was extremely confusing for me.”

“Don’t hate yourself, sweetheart. Julia was fine about the break-up. We were never going to last.”

Those envious feelings were buried so deep, there’s still a trace of them now. Ugly feelings that twisted my stomach and sat heavy on my heart. I never wanted to feel that way, only wanted what was best for him, even if that wasn’t me.

“I would never have admitted as much while you were in a relationship. Or while I was.”