Chapter 24
HARLOW
I woke up with my face buried in Owen’s chest.
Not against. In. Like I tried to burrow through his sternum in my sleep. My nose was smooshed against his warm skin, my lips were practically kissing the space between his collarbones, and one of my legs had somehow wrapped around his thigh.
Owen’s arm was still wrapped around my waist, and his hand splayed across my lower back. He smelled so freaking good.
I didn’t open my eyes because I knew when I did, it would be over, and I wasn’t ready for it to end yet.
The rise and fall of his chest was slow, steady, and I matched my breathing to his without meaning to.
How could something this right be wrong?
I understood his loyalty to Jax. I did.
I even respected it.
I just didn’t have to like it.
“Harlow.” His voice rumbled through his chest, vibrating against my cheek. Low and rough with sleep, the sound of my name in his mouth was doing things to my nervous system.
I hummed something incoherent, burrowing deeper into him. If I didn’t respond with actual words, maybe I could pretend I was still asleep. Maybe I could stay in this moment forever.
“Are you awake?”
“No.” The word came out muffled. “Just five more minutes and then you can go back to ignoring me.”
His lips pressed against my forehead a smile curved against my skin.
“I think we’re past that now.”
I went still.
“I can’t seem to stay away. Even when I try. Even when I tell myself all the reasons I should.”
Slowly, I tilted my head back, and our eyes met.
Everything else faded, the morning light filtering through the blinds, the logical part of my brain screaming that this was a terrible idea and I was going to get hurt again. All of it disappeared, leaving nothing but the intensity of his gaze and the thundering of my heart.
I should stay quiet, play it cool, protect myself the way I’d been doing for as long as I could remember. I should remember all the times he pulled away, all the mixed signals, all the reasons this was probably going to end in disaster.
“Owen,” I said softly. “I like you.”
He went completely still.
“I have for a long time now. Years, if I’m being honest. Since before I understood what it meant to want someone like this.” Once I started, I couldn’t stop. “And I know it’s complicated, and I know Jax would probably…”
“Fuck it.” The words were barely out of his mouth before he moved.
One second, I was lying against his chest, spilling my heart out like an idiot. The next, I was on my back with Owen braced above me.
“Owen, what are you…”
His mouth crashed into mine with the force of something that had been building for years, all that tension and wanting and denial finally breaking free. His lips were firm, demanding, moving against mine, and my body arched up into his.
I gasped against his mouth, and he used the opportunity to deepen the kiss, his tongue sliding against mine, sending sparks shooting down my spine. My hands flew up to grip his bare shoulders, and I held on.
“Fuck.” He groaned, his forehead pressing against mine as we both gasped for air. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to do that?”
“Probably not as long as I’ve wanted you to.”
He laughed, breathlessly, and then his mouth was on mine, kissing me again. Slower this time but no less intense, his mouth mapping mine like he was memorizing the shape of me. His thumb traced along my cheekbone, so gentle it made my chest ache.
“I’m going to make so many terrible decisions because of you,” he murmured.
“Is that supposed to be romantic?”
“It’s supposed to be honest.” He pulled back just enough to look at me, his eyes dark and half-lidded. “You make me want to throw logic out the window. You make me want to say fuck it to every reason I’ve ever had for staying away.”
“So say it.”
“I just did.” His thumb traced my bottom lip, swollen from his kisses. “Fuck it. Fuck the distance. Fuck the complications. Fuck everything except this.”
Gripping my jaw, he kissed me again, thrusting his tongue in and out of my mouth with greedy strokes, stealing my breath, my thoughts, my ability to form a single sentence.
One of his hands slid down, skimming over the worn cotton of his shirt that I was wearing.
His palm settled over my breast, and even through the fabric, the heat of him was searing.
My nipple peaked instantly, aching for his touch, and he groaned into my mouth as his thumb rubbed slow, maddening circles over the taut bud.
“Fuck, Harlow,” he breathed against my lips, breaking the kiss only to trail his mouth down my jaw. His teeth grazed the sensitive skin just below my ear, making me whimper. “You have no idea what you do to me. No idea how many times I’ve pictured this.”
His hand slipped beneath the hem of the shirt, his calloused palm meeting the bare skin of my stomach. He pressed harder, his hand sweeping up my ribs until his fingers brushed against my breast again. This time, there was no barrier.
His skin on mine was electric. He palmed me, his grip firm and possessive, his thumb brushing back and forth over my nipple; every stroke sending a direct line of fire straight to my core.
“So perfect,” he muttered, lowering his head.
He took my other nipple into his mouth, sucking hard through the thin cotton.
The wet heat, the pull, the scrape of his teeth, it was too much and not enough.
I cried out, my back arching off the couch, pressing myself deeper into his mouth.
My hands fisted in his hair, holding him there.
I needed more. So fucking much more.
He switched sides, giving the same torturous attention to my other breast, his free hand roaming down my side, over the curve of my hip. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of my panties, and my pulse skyrocketed.
“These have to go,” he said, his voice a dark rasp against my damp skin. He pulled, sliding the lace down my thighs, past my knees, until I could kick them off. The cool morning air hit my heated skin, followed immediately by the overwhelming heat of his body as he settled between my legs.
He looked down at me, his eyes blazing. “Look at you.”
I felt exposed beneath him, wearing only his shirt, my thighs spread around his hips. I should have been shy, but I only felt desperate.
He kissed me again, so hard my mind whirled as his hand slid down my stomach. And then lower. His fingertips were teasing me, and my heart rate picked up. And then lower, until he was cupping me.
“So wet already,” he murmured, his lips moving against my throat. He pressed the heel of his hand against me, a slow, grinding rotation, and my eyes rolled back. “Tell me you want this.”
“Yes,” I gasped. “Owen, please.”
“Please what?” His finger slid through my flesh, a slow, slick glide, finding my clit, and making me jolt. He circled it, achingly light. “Tell me what you want.”
“I want your fingers. Inside me. Now.”
A dark, satisfied sound rumbled in his chest. “Since you asked so nicely.”
He didn’t tease. Not there. One long, thick finger pressed into me, filling me in one smooth, relentless stroke. My mouth fell open on a silent cry, my breath catching in my throat. The sensation was so intense, so shockingly intimate, I saw stars.
“Oh, my…,” I choked out, my hips bucking against his hand.
“Tight,” he growled, his forehead dropping to my shoulder. He began to move, a slow, deep pump that dragged against every sensitive nerve inside me. “So fucking tight and wet for me. You feel that? You feel how perfectly you take me?”
I could only nod, my world narrowing to the feel of him inside me, and the coiling tension low in my belly. Then he added a second.
The stretch was too much; it was equal parts pleasure and pain that made me gasp. He curled his fingers, stroking a spot deep inside, and my legs started to tremble.
It was a brutal, perfect rhythm. In and out, his fingers fucking me while his thumb worked my clit in firm, circular motions.
His mouth moved down my jaw, hot and hungry, then assaulted my throat with open-mouthed kisses and gentle nips. Every bite, every suck sent another shockwave straight to where his hand worked me.
“That’s it,” he urged, his breath hot against my skin. His pace increased, his fingers driving deeper, faster. “Come on, baby. Let go. I want to feel you come on my hand. I want to watch you fall apart because of me.”
His words were the final push. The coil snapped, and a hot explosion started in my pussy and radiated out to my fingertips, my toes, the roots of my hair. My back bowed off the couch, a raw, broken cry tearing from my throat as I came, my inner muscles clenching and fluttering around his fingers.
He didn’t stop through. He fucked me through the pleasure, his fingers milking every last shudder, every last pulse of ecstasy until I was a trembling, oversensitive mess.
Slowly, gently, he withdrew his hand, and I went boneless against the cushions, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
He watched me, his eyes dark and intense, tracking every flicker of sensation that crossed my face as I came down from the high.
He leaned down and pressed his lips to mine.
“You are so fucking beautiful when you come,” he said, brushing a stray strand of hair from my damp forehead. “That was just the beginning, Harlow.” His hand, the one that had been inside me, rested on my thigh, his grip firm. “I’m not done with you.”
His phone shattered the moment, buzzing against the coffee table.
Owen’s head dropped to my shoulder with a groan. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Ignore it,” I whispered.
“I can’t.” But he didn’t move. His lips found the curve of my neck, pressing a kiss there, making my toes curl. The phone buzzed again, insistent.
“It might be important.”
“It’s not.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know I don’t care.”
His teeth grazed my collarbone. The phone went silent. For three beautiful seconds, I thought we’d won.
Then it started again.
Owen swore under his breath and pushed himself up on one arm. He grabbed the phone, and I watched his expression shift as he read the screen.
His jaw tightened.
“It’s Jax.”
Two words. That’s all it took for my chest to constrict, for the warm, liquid feeling in my limbs to crystallize into something cold and brittle.
I knew what came next. I’d seen this movie before, the part where Owen remembered all the reasons this was a mistake, where the walls went back up, and he retreated behind that frustrating, noble sense of loyalty.
I braced for it. Steeled myself for the regret that would cloud his eyes, the careful distance that would creep into his voice. My fingers curled into the couch cushion beneath me, already preparing for the blow.
Here it comes.
Owen looked at me.
And smiled.
“I’m going to have to tell him you’re staying here,” he said, his thumb hovering over the screen. The phone kept buzzing between us, Jax’s name flashing. “But I’m not ready to tell him about...”
He paused. His eyes held mine.
“Us.”
The word was small but seismic. Us. Like we were a thing now. A real, actual thing with a name and a future and…
I opened my mouth, not entirely sure what I was going to say. Something profound, probably. Something that captured the enormity of this moment, the years of wanting, the relief flooding through me…
“I’m not asking you to be my dirty little secret.”
I closed my mouth.
Owen’s expression softened, his free hand coming up to cup my cheek. His thumb traced the line of my jaw, achingly gentle. “I’m just asking for time to figure out what this is between us before we say anything to anyone else.” He held my gaze, searching. “Is that okay?”
The phone buzzed again. Jax was nothing if not persistent.
I smiled. “I was going to agree.”
His shoulders relaxed. I hadn’t even noticed how tense they had gotten. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I reached up and smoothed the furrow between his brows. “Besides, I don’t think Jax needs to know what you just did to me.”
Owen huffed out a laugh, the tension bleeding out of him entirely. His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Probably not.”
“I mean, I could tell him,” I smirked. “Give him a detailed play-by-play. Really paint a picture…”
“Harlow.”
“...I’m very descriptive when I want to be…”
“Harlow.”
“He might appreciate the literary quality…”
Owen silenced me with a firm, quick kiss. When he pulled back, his eyes were bright with amusement. “He will never know that.”
“Never?”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.” He pressed his lips to my forehead. Then he climbed off me, and I immediately missed the weight of him. “Now behave yourself while I manipulate the truth to my best friend.”
I propped myself up on my elbows, watching him scrub a hand through his disheveled hair in a futile attempt to look like he hadn’t just been ravishing his best friend’s stepsister.
“You might want to take a breath first,” I suggested. “You look like you just committed a crime.”
“I feel like I just committed a crime.”
“A good crime, though. A victimless crime.”
“Tell that to my conscience.” But he was smiling as he said it, and when he finally answered the phone. “Hey, man. What’s up?”
I couldn’t hear Jax’s response, but I watched Owen’s face as he listened. The way his expression shifted into something casual and easy, the mask sliding into place with practiced precision. He wandered toward the kitchen, phone pressed to his ear, and I let my head fall back against the armrest.
Us.
He said us.
I pressed my hand to my chest, feeling the rapid flutter of my heartbeat beneath my palm. My lips were still swollen, and my body humming with the aftershocks of what he did to me. And somewhere beneath the giddy disbelief, a quieter emotion rooted in, something that felt dangerously close to hope.
Owen’s voice drifted back to me. “Nothing much just...” He paused. “Working out.”
I bit my lip to keep from laughing. Technically true. I would definitely call that a workout.
He glanced over at me, and our eyes met across the room. Something passed between us. A shared secret, and the corner of his mouth quirked up.
I mouthed, liar.
He winked and turned away.
And for the first time in years, the ache in my chest didn’t feel like longing.
It felt like the beginning of something.