23. Harper
TWENTY-THREE
HARPER
"Angel left you alone out there, didn’t he?"
I didn’t want to rat him out, but I knew better than to lie to Rowan. If Angel was a lousy liar, Rowan was a lie detector. I knew better than to try and fool him.
"It’s fine, Rowan. I’m still all in one piece."
His stern glare as he loomed over me, his eyes boring holes into mine, told me it was not, in fact, fine. "He shouldn’t have left you alone."
Moving his frame was hard when he outweighed me by a lot and was a head and a half taller than me, but he let me shove him off, quirking a brow at the effort I put in to make it happen.
"Well, I did antagonize him, so?—"
"No buts. No excuses. He knows better." His arms crossed over his muscled torso as he stared down at me, not pacing anymore, thankfully, but now more ominous thanks to his demeanor. "You could have been hurt—" He started to pace again, and I realized with a start that his hands were shaking, though it was clear he was trying in vain to hide it.
Imagine Rowan so scared for my well-being that a few minutes alone in the asylum sent him into a spiral. It sent a shiver of lust through me, just like the one I’d indulged in when he grabbed me after my run-in with Jackal.
I can’t afford to get tangled in this mess of feelings. They’re not the men they used to be, and I’m not the girl they used to know.
But no matter how much my mind fought against the feeling, my heart screamed just do it, bitch, and I was like day and night, at war with myself and my traitorous vagina.
"Rowan," I tried, reaching out to stop him, but he brushed on past me like he couldn’t see the woman on the sidelines, trying to calm him down.
"That fucking asshole, he knows how dangerous it is for you here?—"
"Ro," I tried again, stepping closer, my hand grazing his forearm, but he kept on going, his lips moving as he mumbled to himself, rage contorting his features into a frightening visage.
"I don’t know what I would have done if something had happened to you?—"
"Rowan Blackwood, stop it!"
He jerked to a stop, his head swiveling to find me with my hands on my hips, staring him down like a bull does a matador. He cocked his head to the side, and fuck if my insides didn’t twitch in an oh-so-naughty way at the reminder of the boy I used to fantasize about. That teasing, flirtatious dimple in his cheek, the one that made you wanna touch it with your finger to see if a second one appeared on the other side. The way his eyes flashed, like he planned to eat you alive?—
"Fuck, you’re so hot when you look at me like that."
He sputtered like a car refusing to start, confusion warring with shock as he tried to make sure he’d heard what he thought he heard. "I’m—uh, what?"
The instant regret raced through me, and I tried in vain to backpedal over the fucking word vomit I’d blurted out that had me feeling like a butterfly pinned in a display case. "You know what, I take it back. Just forget it?—"
"I can’t forget it, Harper. Do you wanna know why?" His smile crept over those stony features, and it was like the sun coming out after a thunderstorm, making way for a rainbow. It felt pure and genuine and set my heart to fluttering as I struggled to remember why jumping his bones would be a horrible idea.
I don’t want to get attached. But I wasn’t committing to anything beyond sex here. I couldn’t trust him. But did I really need trust, or did I need him to devour me like a fucking steak dinner? He’s no good for me. True. But I wasn’t looking for a man. I was looking to get laid. And right now, with his cocksure smile, those dimples in his cheeks, and the way his locs fell around his head and framed those gorgeous, intense eyes, all I could think of was what the rest of him would look like without all these clothes in the way.
"Because the way you look at me when you want me to pay attention to you has haunted me for a decade. You get this mischievous look in your eyes that makes them sparkle." He inched toward me, his hands moving to cage me in as we backed toward the work table. "Your lips turn down in this pretty pout, and your nose scrunches up in the middle. It makes you look like a pissed-off little rabbit."
To emphasize his point, he flicked his finger across my nose as he inched his face closer to mine. I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t form words as his hot breath skirted across my skin, teasing me, tempting me.
I’d been avoiding him since we were teens. Been fighting this attraction since I walked in on him and a girl and found out what he looked like when he came.
A complete and utter accident. A very lucky one, but one nonetheless.
"Do you wanna know a secret, Harper?" he breathed against the skin below my ear, his lips brushing the hairline as his words twisted my insides. "I’ll trade you, one for one."
"You first," I choked out, hoping against hope that whatever he came out with was a million times more embarrassing than anything I might blurt out in my brain-deadness.
He smiled against my skin, his lips teasing me as a hot ball of lust built in my stomach, heating me up, lighting the fire I’d banked for so long. "I’ve wanted to do this since the moment another man took what should have been mine."
His hands curled around my waist and yanked me against him, his lips moving across my jaw to capture mine in a heated, passionate kiss.
To say that Rowan Blackwood could kiss was an injustice to his skill and raw talent. He moved with such grace, it left me reeling. His hands crept up my back and curled around my shoulders as he slid a knee between mine and parted my legs around his waist, putting us closer than we’d ever been before. I could feel the imprint of his cock against my core, and my lips parted on a gasp, granting him access that he took advantage of in a heartbeat.
His tongue teased the inside of my mouth, dragging along the edge of my teeth, teasing me as he finally gave me what I wanted and tangled it with mine. I arched into his embrace, moaning wantonly as his fingers danced over my spine and trailed down, teasing the waistband of my shorts.
"Fuck, Harper, tell me you want this," he panted, coming up for air for a brief second. His forehead leaned against mine, and those eyes flicked open, staring straight into my fucking soul as he waited for confirmation.
For permission to ravish me.
"You wanna know my secret?" I whispered, teasing the edge of his lips with my tongue. "I’ve known what you looked like when you come since we were eighteen. And it’s lived rent-free in my head ever since."
"Fuck," he swore, his hands tangling in my hair as he yanked my lips back to his, and this time, I let myself indulge in him. I rested my weight on one hand as he tilted me back just a bit, and the other hand moved under his shirt, skimming the smooth, ridged, iron-hard abs that he must do a million crunches a day to maintain.
"Yes," I panted, my hand shaking as he yanked it from his torso and bent me back over the table all the way, pinning my hands above me with a little growl of impatience. "Oh, fuck, Ro." The curse slipped out as his lips moved to my collarbone, tongue and teeth dancing over me, nipping sensitive skin, then soothing the hurt with the wet heat of his mouth.
"Do you like this shirt?"
"Why?"
"Because I’m about to ruin it. "
That silky voice rumbled over my shoulder as his nose buried itself in the soft fabric of my t-shirt, and for the life of me, I couldn’t form a fucking coherent thought one to tell him I didn’t give a shit about the stupid secondhand vintage band tee I’d swiped off my last short-term fling.
"Harper," he growled, and like that, I nearly fucking came on the spot.
"Fuck, Ro, just get rid of the damn thing," I barked, needing to feel his hands on my skin more than I needed air to breathe.
Time wasn’t wasted as his hands gripped either side of my collar and tore it straight down the middle, and holy shit, I don’t think I’ve ever been so fucking thankful I didn’t wear a bra before in my life ? —
His lips were on my nipple in a heartbeat, a single hand holding my arms above me as his free hand rolled the other nipple between two fingers. Boy, I knew his hands were skilled, but I had no fucking clue they could light a fire like this. I didn’t know I could burn this hot for one person.
The realization scared me.
All at once, the fear started to creep back in, the fear of being a hit-it-and-quit-it, especially to him, but I was too wound up in this passion and want and need to back out now. His lips moved south, distracting me from the worries traveling through my mind like a couple on vacation trying to cross everything off their bucket list.
It was too much and not enough all at once.
"Ro," I whined, my hips rising off the table as his tongue trailed to my navel, dipping in it to drag another gasp of shock from me before he released my hands and moved both his to my hips, dragging my sleep shorts from my waist, down past my thighs, over my knees, and let them fall from the tips of my toes.
"Shit, Harper, you’re beautiful."
His hands reverently trailed over my legs, caressing every inch of me like he wanted to carve the imprint of my body in his mind for eternity. Fingers on the curve of my ankle, moving up my calf, past my knee, until they drew circles on the insides of my thighs. Those eyes hadn’t moved from the juncture of my thighs since he eliminated the second to last obstacle to baring me to his view.
If he stared at me for much longer, I might’ve fucking melted into the tabletop, though.
"Ro, please fucking touch me." I was past caring how much of a whore I sounded like. How brazen my words were. All I wanted was more of him—his lips, his hands, his, fuck, fuck, his cock ? —
"I don’t want our first time to be on this table," he groaned, shifting from one leg to the other. "Fuck, you deserve better than this?—"
"Rowan Blackwood, we could be fucking on the floor and I wouldn’t give a shit. As long as you move, dammit." I rolled my hips pointedly, my hands at my sides, gripping the edge of the table for dear life. "Please," I added, feigning sweetness suddenly.
"God dammit, Harper, I—" he patted his pockets, a sudden realization sweeping over him as his face fell. "Shit. I don’t have any condoms."
I sat up and grabbed his cock through his pants, needing proof that he was just as eager for this as I was. "I’m on birth control. Now for fuck’s sake, either put up or shut up."