13. Harrison
13
HARRISON
I can’t remember the last time I slept on a sofa.
But I am now, springs digging into my sides and my feet hanging off the end. I’ve never humbled myself like this for a woman. If tonight’s events weren’t enough to keep me awake, the discomfort would be. Somehow, though, I manage to fall asleep, because the next time I blink my eyes open, there’s movement by the door to the bedroom.
I shift onto my elbow, ignoring the pain in my neck from sleeping on a throw pillow. “Raegan?”
She approaches without a word and stops next to the sofa. Her hair is braided over one shoulder after her bath, an oversized T-shirt covering her body.
“How much is sleeping on that couch killing you?” she murmurs.
“Never better,” I lie.
In the dark, I can’t see her face, but she holds out a hand. I lace my fingers through hers, running my thumb across her skin.
“C’mon.” Rae tugs me to standing.
I’m awake in an instant, following her toward the bedroom. I fell asleep in shorts, my suit draped across a chair. The hairs on my chest lift in the cool air as we cross to the bed.
My eyes adjusting to the dark, I stare at the dent on the right side of the king bed and chuckle.
“We sleep on the same side, don’t we?” she asks.
“It would be too easy if we didn’t.” I stroke her hand with my thumb. “I’ll wrestle you for it.”
This time it’s definitely a laugh.
She turns toward me, our hands still linked.
“Tell me how to help you,” I murmur.
She’s quiet a moment, as if no one’s ever asked her that. “After a show, I can lie awake for hours. Sometimes, in my head, I wind up back at that party as a teenager. No matter how many years or gigs or miles I put between myself and that night, I can’t forget it. I don’t want to be there. I want to be here, with you.”
I’ve always needed purpose, and the trust on her face gives me a new one.
I inch closer until she’s a breath away. She doesn’t move.
My lips caress hers. Gentle, simple, without the intent to tease or arouse. She sighs against me, her palm flattening against my bare abs, making me tighten under her touch.
I kiss her like I’ve never kissed a woman, but then everything is a challenge with her. Even taking things slow with her is torture. Her tongue brushes mine, and my cock hardens.
I meant what I said. Something did change tonight.
Just not what she thought.
I back her toward the bed until her knees hit the sheets.
She breaks our kiss. “You still want me.”
There’s no inflection at the end, but it’s a question. Every inch of her body, the trembling of her lips, tells me it is.
“I wake up wanting you.” I drag the shirt over her head. “I go to sleep wanting you.”
Her soft curves have me aching, and I slide my hands to touch her breasts with nothing between us.
“I breathe, I fucking want you.”
Her eyes are wide, cheeks flushed, and lips already bruised from mine. “Show me.”
I don’t know how to fix her, but there’s nothing to be fixed. She’s made the way she is. Like me, she’s a combination of everything that’s happened to her.
She’s not broken. She’s beautiful.
A piece of art as exquisite for its flaws as its perfections.
“I’m not going to let you out of this bed.”
“All night?” she asks.
“Ever.”
I spread her knees so I can stand between them, her eyes darkening. I want to leave every part of her swollen and humming. Use every part of myself to worship her and every trick I’ve ever learned.
My body is tight everywhere, already anticipating my release, but it’s a long time away. I’ll make her lose her mind first, to see only me when she closes those beautiful eyes.
Her nipples are hard in the cool air, and I bend to suck one. Rae’s head falls back, her hair splayed out like dark silk on the duvet.
“Every time I make you come, you say my name.”
She snorts. “Seems redundant. Unless you’re worried I’m picturing Daniel Kaluuya when I close my eyes. He is handsome and British…”
I bite her and am rewarded by a yelp and her hand tightening in my hair. I want her to trust me to make her feel things. To not run away from me.
I start with her breasts, licking and sucking until she’s breathing roughly. Then I skim down her body, kneeling between her legs to press my mouth to where she’s hot and wet.
The lace is rough, and her flesh is slick and smooth. I would tear it off except that it’s frustrating her every bit as much as me, and that’s my goal.
I grab the side of her thong and draw it up, pulling so it tightens everywhere, leaving lines in her skin and making her slit puff against the lace.
My other hand slides up to rub her breast, tracing a thumb around her nipple before pinching. I suck on her until she breaks, shaking and shivering.
“Say it.” I trace a finger up the inside of her thigh, and she trembles from the climax.
“I’m not even naked?—”
I press my tongue against her once more where she’s sensitive, and she squirms, but I don’t let her inch away.
“Harrison. Okay?”
I shift over her, the dazed expression on her face and the fact that her eyes are glazed with pleasure instead of haunted telling me I’m on the right track. She traces her nails down my chest and stomach. I love it enough that I hate what I need to do next.
“Flip.”
With a suspicious look, she does.
The sight of her arse in the air has me biting my tongue. I run both hands over her, squeezing and admiring how good she feels as much as the little sound of pleasure that escapes her.
I brush the hair back from her ear. “I’m going to fuck you now.”
“You didn’t last long.”
“Not with my cock. Need to leave something to look forward to.”
The underwear stays on, and the next time she comes, it’s around two of my fingers, my thumb pressing hard against her clit.
“Harrison,” she pants against the duvet, her hands fisting in the fabric.
She shifts to look over her shoulder, eyes full of hazy pleasure and accusation as I lick her off my fingers.
“How many more times can you come?”
Her sigh is tortured. “None.”
I press my lips to the base of her spine. “So much to learn.”
I rip the lingerie off her hips, ignoring her gasps as I plunge two fingers back inside her, adding a third when she’s rocking toward me even as her legs shake.
My mouth finishes her off, and she cries out against the sheets, her sounds muffled.
“Can’t hear you,” I rasp.
“Harrison.”
I shift her up the bed and onto her back, lifting her knees and instructing her to hold them there. “Again.”
The next time, her toes tighten around my neck as I suck on her, my hands squeezing her ass.
“Stop,” Rae pants, one hand fisted in my hair to hold me away as she scrambles back toward the headboard.
I firmly pry her fingers away, pinning them at her side.
“Why?” I ask.
“It hurts.”
“Physically or because you’re not used to someone putting you first?”
“Both.”
It’s devastating she’s never had anyone take care of her, even though the woman she’s become through that independence is admirable.
I want to be that man.
I bend down to press my lips to hers.
When I pull back, I reach for my trousers to grab a condom, but her cool touch on my arm stops me.
“We don’t have to.”
“You want to stop?”
Not being inside her after what we’ve done might kill me. My cock aches, leaking more every time she moans and writhes through a climax I dragged her to.
“No, I mean you don’t have to use protection. I’m on the pill. Have you…?”
I don’t answer because I’m stunned silent.
My muscles are tight, as if I’ve been worked over rather than her.
“Yes. I’ve been tested.”
Relief washes over her, and she moves first, her lower lip caught between her teeth as she tugs down my shorts.
I rise and kick them off before shifting back over her, leveraging myself over her body with my elbows. Lowering until we’re skin to skin, heat to heat.
I move between her thighs, nudging them wider and grazing her wetness to feel her tremble. The head of my cock slides against her soaked flesh, and the feel of her makes me groan.
Man on his knees.
That’s what this would be called.
Because as I grab her hip and sink inside her, one inch at a time, I am fucking fallen .
She trusted me tonight, and that tells me we’re going to be okay. Everything else, the club, I can handle. The greatest gift I’ve ever gotten is the one she’s given me.
Not sharing her body with me, but her life. Her hopes. Her fears.
I’ll guard her with every shred of my being.
I let us both adjust, her to the stretch, me to the exquisite tightness.
I draw back, all the way to the tip, on an inhale. And on my exhale, I sink back in.
The curves of her body are addictive, demanding my attention. But I can’t look away from her eyes as my thrusts grow deeper.
“You’re a goddess.”
I’m on the edge, ready to explode.
“I’m a queen,” she corrects with a breathless smile.
We come at the same time.
I’ve never wanted it, never understood why it would matter for our bodies to agree even when our lips couldn’t.
With her, it’s everything.
After, she lets me hold her in the dark.
“You’re my queen,” I murmur as I brush the hair from her face.
But she’s already asleep.