14. Harper
Chapter 14
Harper
“Get away from me.” The whimper in my voice disgusts even me.
To my surprise, Cian’s hand drops from my neck, though he doesn’t back up so much as a centimeter.
“Crying won’t get you off the hook this time, princess.” There’s real hatred in his voice when he says that.
I get it. I hate me too.
“Just kill me then.”
His eyebrows knit together. “Kill you?”
“I’d rather die than go back with you.”
His teeth grind. “That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?”
“What do you care?” I slash my hand between us. “You eat girls like me for breakfast.” When he doesn’t respond, I jut out my chin with all the defiance I have left. “ Right ?”
“Watch it, Harper.”
“Don’t pretend to be offended.” My upper lip curls because he disgusts me almost as much as I disgust myself. “You’ve had your fun. So, you’ve always wanted to defile me like every other enforcer who works for my dad. Well, congratulations. You win.”
The storm cloud gathering on his face darkens. “Now’s a good time to shut your mouth.”
“What does it matter?” I erupt. “You don’t give a fuck about me. No one does! To you, I’m just some dumb slut who betrayed the family. If I had a different father, mine would have ordered you to kill me by now. And you would have. So please spare me?—”
“Why do you think I would ever hurt you?” He roars at me so loud, my ears ring. I’d be shocked if the whole restaurant didn’t hear him.
The mood shifts all over again.
What’s he playing at?
I exhale sharply. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s not like you’re a professionally trained killer, or you treat women like tissue. One blow, and it’s into the trash can. Real mystery, that one.”
“So what?” he growls. “When did I ever treat you like that?”
I blink as doubt rises because, the man has a point. Then I shake it off. “I’m supposed to take it as a compliment that you never fucked me and ghosted after, the way you do with every other woman who crosses your path?”
“For fuck’s sake, Harper. Stop twisting every word I say.”
“Doesn’t feel very good, does it?”
“ Why ,” he snarls, shoving his face into mine, “do you have to be such a colossal pain in my ass?”
Fury boils my blood. I’d love to punch that snarl off his face, but I have no interest in breaking my hand.
“Can we just…” I don’t even want to finish this dumbass sentence. Blowing out another breath, I try to calm down. “Cian, please. Can we just…start this conversation over?”
“You have my attention.”
And that’s not all. Cian’s dick is upright again, cocked at me like a gun between our tightly pressed bodies.
Really? I want to bust his balls. Fighting in a supply closet is what does it for you?
But also, who am I, with my damp panties, to judge?
I guess that means we’re both twisted.
“There’s nothing going on between Paul and me.” Resigned, I rest my head against his. He’s got me pinned. What the hell else can I do? “Ever. I swear.”
“Yeah, and you weren’t trying to escape either.”
“I don’t know why you think I’m as notorious a player as you are. I can count all the people I’ve slept with on one hand and still have fingers leftover. Until yesterday, I didn’t even know what that kind of orgasm was like.”
“What do you mean?”
For the first time since we ducked in here, I think Cian’s actually listening to me. Figures.
“Don’t make me say it.” My cheeks burn so hot with shame that steam probably wafts off my face.
Today may have just played out in the worst possible way.
“Explain yourself.” His hand on my waist slips down and around, attaching to my ass like an oversized paw. “Now.” After a beat, he grinds out, “ Please .”
Between his grip on my ass and please , I would have told him national security secrets if I had any. Lust poisons me against myself.
My attraction to this man is literally ruining my life.
“I’ve never…” I roll my lips together. “You know… come like that. Before.”
That sensuous mouth appears near my ear. “Are we talking about this morning?”
I nod into his shoulder, and he leaves a kiss at the base of my neck. The same neck he might have strangled the life out of.
Though…I’ll never forget the way he yelled at me.
Why do you think I would ever hurt you?
“Harper Brennan.” He drops a kiss near my ear, his tone as serious as the grave. “Am I the first man to taste you?”
Ugh , I hate him.
“Yes, okay? Are you happy?” So much for being civil. Here I am, starting a fight again. “You’re the first person to?—”
“Have you ever tasted a man before?” He kisses me once, just to mess with my mind. “Be honest.”
I shake my head no , too horrified to speak. I pray for an asteroid strike or an earthquake, anything to permanently end this moment. But then Cian kisses me hard enough to knock my head into the shelf behind it.
Oh, god, his lips scrub the slate clean.
Any lingering mortification flies away with my sanity as his tongue licks into my mouth. I melt into him, caging my arms around his neck hard enough to put him in a headlock. Cian must like it, because he lifts me until we kiss from the same height. My legs tangle around his waist while he grates his cock against the fabric covering my hungry pussy.
One of his hands disappears from my ass, only to spank me a moment later. The shock of pain does it for me so much, I moan against Cian’s mouth. The sound that crawls out of his throat in response is like a rough fingernail dragging down my spine. I’ll never admit this to anyone, but I love the way he kisses me, as if this is everything and not nearly enough at the same time.
When he’s done, my lips are raw.Cian sets me down with obvious reluctance. He’s got that conflicted expression on his face again. I’m dizzy from his kisses, but I know we haven’t come to a truce.
At least, not the kind that instills confidence that he won’t zip-tie my wrists the first chance he gets.
I want him to tell me what’s wrong, but that’s also a lie because I don’t want to talk to Cian about anything. Conversations aren’t our strong suit. Every time I open my mouth, our discussion devolves into a fight.
But what if I could change that?
In what might be the scariest, bravest, dumbest thing I’ve ever done, I lower myself to my knees on top of a narrow box, letting my hands rest on Cian’s waist. I gaze up from this pose of supplication, his erection only a few centimeters from my face.
Cian’s eyes widen like saucers as he stares down at me.
His gaze is a spotlight. Perfect, since I’m about to perform for him.
A bead of sweat trickles down my back. Nerves. Part of me wishes I didn’t know how fucking amazing he is at giving head. There’s no way I’ll be able to make this as mind-blowing for him as he was for me. Forty percent of my brain urges me not to even try, but that other sixty percent instructs my trembling fingers to latch onto the waistband of his shorts and tug them down. His cock springs free, and I freeze at the sight.
Heat flares in my lower belly, along with a shiver of fear.
Cian’s cock appears big from a distance. Up close, that thing is a beast.
The chances of me fitting that into my mouth are low. Really low.
The growing arousal between my legs insists I try.
I want this. Back home, under my father’s thumb, I never got to choose for myself.
Today, in a storage closet, that changes.
Exhilaration turns my pulse erratic as I reach for his length with tentative hands. The feel of his skin startles me. He’s so velvety soft on top, yet rock hard underneath. And so very, very hot.
I let my fingers explore, stroking the wide, rounded head before dipping to the ridge underneath. Cian jerks and braces himself against the shelves behind me with both hands.
“ Fuck .”
His reaction triggers a fresh wave of desire, as well as a burst of satisfaction.
I did that to him. I might not know what I’m doing, but Cian’s body doesn’t seem to care.
I’m still beyond nervous though.
In so many ways, this is the most difficult performance of my life.
Mainly because…I’m not performing at all.
I’m just being myself, and up to this point, being myself is something that happened behind closed doors where no one could see me, except maybe Bex. Or Riley.
Or my mom, during one of her rare moments of sobriety.
Since I hit puberty, the real Harper Brennan became a girl who hides in the attic of her mind until no one’s around.
And while I can tell myself that touching Cian is about preserving my ability to run away later, that would be a lie. I’m on my knees because I want to be.
I press my lips to the tip of Cian’s cock. When he shudders, I get bolder and trace the head with my tongue. Instead of an unpleasant flavor like I feared, he tastes of salt and musk.
Emboldened, I lick him from the hilt all the way to the crown. Once. Twice. Three times. Like I’m taking measurements with my tongue.
Above me, he groans while I treat him like a popsicle. One of his hands tangles in my hair.
My confidence grows. Before now, I thought the act of giving a blowjob seemed demeaning and that the guy had all the control, but actually, the opposite is true.
I might be on my knees before Cian, but I hold all the power. I control this beast of a man with every stroke of my tongue.
“Stop fucking teasing me.” Though the words themselves sound harsh, Cian utters them like a plea. “Put me in your mouth and suck.”
I feel that command between my legs.
Setting my nerves aside, I open up and suck the crown into my hot mouth. His cock stretches my mouth open the lower I go.
Why does fantasizing about his view make me suck harder? I dig my fingernails into his quads, my lower back aching. The box is hell on my knees too. The discomfort dissolves, though, especially when he wraps his fist around the base of my ponytail and yanks, causing a delicious sting in my scalp.
“Just where do you get off, lying to me?” The jagged roughness of his growl channels to my core.
He’s pissed again, but I don’t know why. And I don’t know why his anger excites me when I’m down on my knees like this.
“You said you’d never done this before.” Cian’s accusation gratifies me more than I ever imagined it could. Those seven little words are his version of complimenting me. If he’d given me a proper compliment, I would have worried he was saying it to comfort me about my lack of experience.
The fact that he thinks I was straight-up lying is somehow a more honest form of flattery.
When I think of Cian coming apart because of me, it gets me so hot that I grab his ass again, the skin bare and firm beneath my eager fingers. His hips buck forward. When he hits my uvula, I start to gag, but I don’t stop. I force myself to take it. I stretch my mouth as big as possible, struggling to swallow him all the way to the base.
God, my desire for Cian is wild. I’m drooling like a dog at his feet, gorging myself on the fullness of his cock in my mouth. Why do I like having him inside me so much? Even if it’s just his fingers, even if it’s like this…
With difficulty, I let him slip from my mouth, wet with my saliva, still throbbing.
I’m breathing hard from the lack of oxygen. I don’t know where to go from here. Inside, I’m divided between wanting to make him come all over me again and wanting to run from this room right into the nearest straightjacket.
With his thick, lethal fingers, Cian brushes both sides of my face. Gently, he tilts my head up so I’m looking into his eyes, backlit with crazy , like I just electrocuted him.
What do I look like to him?
I expect another damn smirk, another smug or slanderous remark, but instead, he lowers his eyelids like he’s surrendering to me and murmurs with a velvety voice.
“Open that beautiful mouth.”
His fingertips dig into the sides of my head, holding it steady. Almost as soon as I part my lips, he threads his cock between my lips and proceeds to fuck my face, like that’s what it was made for.
Just when I thought blowing him couldn’t get any more arousing.
Him thrusting himself into my mouth…punching the back of my throat like a clock, as if he can’t help himself…it’s just like this morning when he used my thighs.
Only better. More intense.
“That’s it.” Cian huffs as he attempts to bury his cock down my throat. “You’re doing so well.”
Of all the things I’ve ever tried to be good at it, why is this the one that makes me the proudest?
I’m so stupid. I’ve always been stupid, trying to be a?—
“Good girl.”
My eyes snap open, and a bolt of pure need slams into me.
How did he do that? He finished my thought and hardened my nipples with the same two words. Is he fucking magic?
Why do I want him to call me that again?
The smooth, tan skin of Cian’s waist captivates me as he screws my mouth.
“Look at me.”
The second I meet his eyes, he groans.
“You gonna swallow?”
I hesitate, then shake my head, not wanting to risk ruining the moment by upchucking all over him.
“How about on your face?”
My clit swells, and I nod.
“Fuuuck.”
Cian unplugs my mouth one second before his body lurches forward and he frosts my face with his come. He splatters across my lips, cheeks, even my forehead and nose. His wild expression and the unhinged noise he releases—somewhere between a growl, a curse, and a shout—are rewards all on their own.
We stay like that for a few minutes while our breathing evens out. His cum drips off my face, like glaze off a hot donut. Drops dot the back of the useless hands folded in my lap.
This has been the weirdest day of my life, and it’s barely half over.
“Pull my shorts up.” His command falls between us, heavy as a paperweight.
I’m so out of it, I do. I drag his shorts up and over his perfect lower half, until his cock is hidden from view, and he once again resembles a fully dressed adult. I don’t look at him. All my nerve has disappeared now that I’ve gotten exactly what I wanted. Him…coming apart all over me.
The satisfaction all throughout my highly aroused body proves that he still unravels me far more than I unravel him. This altercation can be summed up as a draw at best, but more realistically, it’s my loss.
Not only did I lose my chance to escape, I let Cian distract me to the point of voluntarily giving him my dignity. I got so carried away that I…gave him a blowjob…at the place where I work.
Maybe I really am the whore he thinks I am.
His fingers gradually release my head and pull me to my feet. Without warning, he shoves his hand under my dress and slides the crotch of my panties to one side.
“Sucking my dick get you this wet?” he growls as he dips a finger through my folds. “Fuck.”
I don’t bother replying. The answer seems self-explanatory.
His thumb moves to my clit. I’m so primed that ten seconds and a few circles later, I go off like a firework.
He waits until I finish before stepping back.
I drop my chin against my chest to keep my face hidden from his sight.
A meaningless gesture. He knows what transpired, even if I won’t give his brain the satisfaction of a mental commemorative photo.
He rifles through the shelves before offering me a handful of paper towels. “Clean yourself up and get back to work.” His voice is hoarse.
I don’t open my mouth to respond. I’m afraid of what will happen if any of Cian’s cum winds up inside my mouth… Could be a hypnotic hallucinogenic substance for all I fucking know.
I let Cian disappear.
What the hell has he done to me?
That’s the first question that pops into my head, but it’s the wrong one.
The real question is…what have I done to myself?