21. Harrison
Chapter 21
Harrison
S he was a vision, and Silas was right. This was going to be something I would look back on multiple times in my life. This would be something I would never regret.
Harlow bent over a couch in the bunkhouse, screaming out into the quiet night air won't be something I’ll ever be able to forget. The sounds she makes, the way she responds to my touch, the things she pulls out of me. Not once have I ever spoken to a woman the way I spoke to her.
She didn’t pull back and slap me across the face when I gave her a demand. She pushed back, my demands spurred her on, and although she gave me pushback, she ended up doing what I told her.
That kind of push and pull hadn’t been something I had known I wanted. I’d considered myself a generous lover in the past. Always making sure my partners felt satisfied in some way. A woman achieving orgasm isn’t always an easy feat, a lot of it can be mental for them. So even if she couldn’t get there, I wanted to make sure she had a good time. Having an orgasm is obviously always preferred, but I’ve had some partners who I couldn’t always make that happen for. I hope they’re with a person who can bring them the kind of pleasure that I couldn’t back then. Maybe I just wasn’t in tune with their bodies.
It didn’t seem to be something I had to work very hard for with Harlow. She was raring to go when I started. That’s likely the tension she’s been talking about. It’s like an electric current buzzing between us.
I didn’t stay after our living room encounter. I made sure she was comfortable and settled before I left. I rushed home to think about how perfect she was under my hands in the shower and again in bed.
Once wasn’t enough.I wanted to have her again, and soon.
When I woke up this morning, I was completely erect and anxious as hell.
A fear has snaked up my spine about this whole arrangement. How will this work overall? Will she send me money after each time we spend time together? Will she add a lump sum at the end of her stay depending on the quantity and quality of our time?Do I think I could take someone’s money?
I want to march over there and experience more of her, feel more of her, and finally get to taste her. Before I do any of that, I know I need the details of this whole thing. I can’t just take this day by day. That would be both an irresponsible and dangerous route for me. Hunter may be right; my soul and self might be too good for a casual fling. Silas is also right; I would regret it if I didn’t do it. Having clear rules and boundaries will be the only way I’ll hold myself together at the end of it.
I toss and turn in bed for close to a half hour, racking my brain about the boundaries that I want to set, but I can’tthink of much. Is there a way for me to ask someone how to keep myself together without divulging all the details?
I kind of did with Silas, and he knows all about flings and casual hookups. Hunter was all about keeping things simple, mostly driving out of our town for a lover before his wife. Cassidy is the queen of it all. She has two serious relationships under her belt, and one of them ended in marriage to my brother. Her other encounters outside of that were only casual.
Each of them would have something different to say about the kind of boundaries to establish before moving forward, but I can’t get myself to talk to any of them about this.
Rolling over I see it’s only five thirty on a Sunday. I don’t have much to worry about today; one of the hands is on rotation for ranching. Sleep won’t take me once I’m awake since my brother and I were trained at a young age to rise early.
Tossing myself out of bed, I make my way to the kitchen to start coffee and brainstorm boundaries. Once I’m settled on the couch with a fresh cup, I grab my sketchbook to write down whatever I come up with. It’s still open to the vague picture I started of my dream girl.
Apparently, I have the attention span of a small toy dog because I’m pulled into the piece. Little details start to take shape—the arches of her lips, the thickness of her lashes, the cut of her jaw. It’s not concrete or definitive; it continues to hold soft, wispy lines over hard ones. Her abstractness continues to amaze me since I’ve always felt I knew what kind of girl I wanted.
I knock on her door a little after eight, hoping it’s not too early. I’ve never considered what time she wakes up, but this seems like a decent hour. Cassidy is some form of koala that prefers about eighteen hours of sleep a day, especially on Sundays. Harlow doesn’t come off as a late riser.
Relief washes over me when she opens the door wearing that waffle-knit sleeper I find so appealing. Rather than a lace nightgown or a silk teddy, this comfortable piece does something that those can’t.
Her hair is tossed up in a messy bun on top of her head, looking much like a lazy bird’s nest. Her skin is clean, and her eyes are free of any makeup. All there is, is her. Onyx eyes, fair skin, and soft pink lips. She’s like a fantasy, something you would read about in a mythology book. A witch might be too simple.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” she says with a rasp as she catches sight of the reusable bags I have in each hand.
“I came to make you some breakfast . . .” I look past her into the bunkhouse, wishing I could be inside to further this conversation. “So we can talk.”
“I’ll never turn down a meal.” She steps aside, opening the door wide to let me in.
While I cook for her in the small, simple kitchen, she brews a fresh pot of coffee for us. It’s quiet but companionable.
“Where’s your cat?”
“Cleo is particular about when she likes to come out, especially with company. Not to mention, it’s colder here, so she’s likely still on her heating pad.”
A heating pad for a cat seems a bit excessive. We’ve had our fair share of barn cats, and none of them needed a heating pad. Then again, they all had hair.
I keep cooking as she sits at the counter and watches. A relaxed expression sits on her face, and a thought about how comfortable she is around me, not even offering to help, crosses my mind. I don’t know how to start the conversation, and the few boundaries I was able to think of are suddenly forgotten.
When we’re finally seated next to each other with our plates full of authentic, farm-fresh food. I peek over at her, and she blinks at me with long lashes over her mug.
“What did you want to talk about?” Harlow’s voice isn’t as high-pitched as my previous girlfriends. It has a rich, rounded tone with a rasp whenever she gets excited. Her pronunciation of words is direct and commanding with a level of comfort that I find admirable.
“This whole thing.” I drink my coffee, seeing if I have to elaborate or if she’ll just pick up where I left off. She doesn’t say anything. She patiently waits for me to continue. “Between us.”
She nods knowingly. “What about it?”
“Like, how is this all going to work? I told you before I can’t do casual, and here I am. Trying it. I don’t know what I’m doing.” A pink tinge takes over her cheeks followed by the slow, sweet curve of her smile. Her eyes gleam with mischief I’ve seen before, and I feel all the more nervous about this talk.
“What if I tell you it’s not casual, it’s contractual. This way, we’re both doing something we’ve never done. We can lay out our own rules. I’ll let you make most of them. I’m on vacation, so most of my rules are gone with the wind.”
She takes a full bite of the omelet and hums in appreciation. She nods and shoves a second bite in before she’s even finished the first.
That’s an approval if I’ve ever seen one.
“I thought I’d have more rules, but I feel like what I want is an understanding. Just accepting cash for my time with you makes me feel like an escort. Like in all those books and movies.” Her head pops up at my words.
“Books and movies?”
“Yeah, like those movies where the girl is going home for her cousin’s wedding, and she doesn’t want to show up alone, so she pays a guy to be her date, or where the guy needs a girl to be his girlfriend so he can tap into his trust fund or get the promotion.”
Harlow’s face screws up in confusion and then a small pinch of disgust.
“Not my genre, so I can’t say I’m completely familiar. My best friend Meg eats that shit up. It’s not like that. This is mutually beneficial, and we have an end date. I don’t live here. You do. It’s as simple as that.”
A loud laugh escapes me, and she startles.
“That’s what they all say.”
“Well, what don’t they say?” She shovels two more bites into her mouth.
“I only know what they do say.”
Harlow lets out an exacerbated noise before she scarfs down another bite. She chews, swallows, and drinks some of her coffee before turning my way.
“Okay, maybe I should consult Meg and see what she says about all this. She could tell us the terms and conditions we would need to make sure this doesn’t get messy.”
“No! I don’t want to get the opinions of others, then it’s not what we want.”
Harlow rubs her temples and lets out a long sigh.
“Well, what do you want?” Her tone is irritated, and her gorgeous black eyes roll.
“I don’t know, I’ve never done this!”
“Harrison, I swear to God, if we go in this circle one more damn time, I’ll make no talking one of the guidelines or whatever you want to call them.”
“No talking? Then you would literally only be sex. I would basically be a sex worker,” I grumble. My food has barely been touched, and she’s practically finished. She doesn’t look up at me as she continues to eat and drink. She hasn’t rebutted my escort comment, and I find it both irritating and amusing. Once she’s finished her food, she gathers her plate and stands.
“Harlow?” Shit, I fucked up. I went and pissed her off, and now she’s done with the whole thing.
After Harlow drops her things in the sink, she walks over to the coffee table and grabs a spiraled legal pad and a pen. Plopping back down in her seat, she looks at me.
“Fine. I’ll take you seriously, which is much harder than you think.” She narrows her eyes at me before opening her notebook to a blank page.
“H you don’t think you could walk back to your place after a round or two with me? You seemed fine yesterday.”
I nod again. No sense in arguing.
What do I want?
“Five, each encounter between H a small headache is starting, and I don’t know if it’s from this whole situation or my coughing fit.
“Less, much less. Maybe two-fifty?”
“That’s too little. How about we meet in the middle and call it five hundred?” That still seems like a lot to someone like me.
“What if we have like, levels. Two-fifty for casual company and simple trysts, and ummm,” I swallow hard, “five hundred if we take it all the way. But we can change it or talk about it later too. I don’t want to stress the money stuff now.”
Harlow laughs freely, shoulders shaking. “God, you’re so young. Okay. I’ll write that.” She strikes a line through her original numbers and changes them to those we agreed upon.
“What else?” she asks me.
“Um, can this be exclusive? Like no one else while we’re doing this.” Why can’t I sound more confident, like I did last night? What’s the difference between then and now?
“Sure. Six, H&H agree to remain physically exclusive during the contracted time period. Should HH or HW find interest in a new party, said person will alert the other to end the contract early. Does that work?”
I nod.
“Anything else?” she asks.
I only shake my head, and she nods at me with a smile.
I watch her as she scribbles her name a few lines after the last.
“I left room just in case we need to add anything later since we’re thinking on the fly.” She gently pushes the paper and pen in front of me, and I scribble my name.
“So that’s it, right?” she asks, and I feel a sudden change in her tone. She turns in her chair to face me, placing her palms flat on the table surface.
“Yeah, that’s—” I hear the scrape of her chair, and the next thing I know, Harlow is standing over me, snaking her fingers in the hairs at the back of my head. Threading them, she tightens her grasp, pulling me so I’m facing up. I only get to look at her witchy grin for a moment before she crashes her lips to mine.