Chapter 23 Harper #2
“I…I think I knew. Deep down, I think I’ve always known something was wrong.
And I didn’t question it. I never question anything.
” He shook his head miserably. “Because that’s not what we do.
My family… We don’t talk. We keep it all in and we pretend, and we just keep going, even when things are messed up, and I was messed up, but I didn’t want to embarrass anyone… ”
Tears filled my eyes, and I blinked them back. “You’re not messed up. But you’ve been compensating your whole life. It’s all you know to do. And when something is all you know how to do, then it becomes how you think things are supposed to be.”
He looked up at me, his eyes full.
“I’m so tired, Harper. I’m so bloody tired of pretending I’m not drowning.”
“I know,” I whispered, and reached for him, holding his face in both hands. “You don’t have to pretend anymore.”
He exhaled a long, ragged breath. Finally. I pulled him to me, and he wrapped his arms around me and let go. I held him as best as I could, his large body shuddering, shoulders shaking. I sank my fingers into his hair, the little spirals I loved so much.
Him. I love him—
I tried to cut the thought off before it could dig deeper roots.
But it was too big, took up too much of me.
So big that I couldn’t ignore it. In that moment, it revealed itself, and no amount of my self-preservation could deny it.
His pain was my pain. My heart broke because his was breaking.
My anger for those who abandoned him ran deep and hot, and yet so did my desire.
I wanted to set all this aside and go somewhere and kiss him until we lost ourselves for a few stolen moments. Body and soul, I loved Orion.
You can’t. He’s moving back to England…
I pushed that thought away too and focused on him. These moments of revelation, because from now on it was going to be different for him. Better. No more struggling alone, unseen.
Orion pulled back, heaving unsteady breaths, and wiped his face with his sleeve.
His eyes met mine, and they were as full and dark, mirrors of my own.
His mouth found mine in a kiss. One touch, shallow and light.
Then another. Deeper. And another. Until the spark lit, and the raw emotion of the night burst forth.
He took my mouth in a devouring kiss, a kiss full of heated need, pent-up pain, and want of me.
I felt all of it, consuming and dizzying and powerful, and I let him have me.
Let him take what he needed in that kiss, before giving it back.
Before kissing him with the same ferocity, because I wanted him just as badly.
And I’d never wanted anyone. Never loved anyone—
Stop, it’s too much…
He took me down to the hard, thinly carpeted floor, but I hardly felt it.
Only his large body on mine, his hands roaming under my skirt, and mine grasping at him, pulling him to me and into me, despite the clothing between us.
His hips ground against mine, and I wrapped my legs around him as our mouths clashed in a desperate union of biting, sucking kisses.
“Fuck, Harper, not here,” he gasped, pulling back. “You deserve better…”
And I’d wanted better than fumbling encounters in random places. But it turned out I wanted Orion more.
I hauled him back to me, kissed him again, my hands in his hair. “Do you have a condom?”
“I think…yes.”
“Then, here.” I kissed him again and let my hand slip between us, down to his jeans, and stroked the hard length of him. “I want you. I want this.”
He groaned, and that was all he needed. He needed this. A release. And so did I.
Orion attacked my neck, his mouth alternately biting and sucking and licking the delicate skin until I was half out of my mind, every nerve ending tingling and lit up.
He moved lower, over my breasts, finding my nipple through the material of my shirt and nipping.
But there was no time; we could be caught at any moment, but that only added another layer of urgency to this intensity between us that could not be delayed another minute.
Orion moved off me long enough to find a condom in his wallet, while I stripped out of one leg of my tights and underwear.
I helped tear open the button and then zipper on his jeans, and in moments he was ready.
With one smooth movement, he used his knee to spread my thighs wide, sending a fresh wave of heated desire all through me, and lay over me.
“Are you sure?” he breathed between kisses.
I nodded rapidly. “This isn’t my first time.”
“But it’s your first time with me.” Orion held my face, straining to hold back. “I want it to be what you want.”
“It is,” I said. “Because it’s you.”
A heartbreakingly sweet smile flitted over his lips, and he kissed me softly before burying his face in my neck. “I love you, Harper,” he breathed, and then we were joined.
I gasped at the perfect, heavy sensation of him, coupled with those words.
The gravity of the night, the feel of him, all of it coming together in that moment overwhelmed me in the best way, like a reward I’d been waiting for.
Tears stung my eyes but burned away quickly as he began to move.
A slow build of heat that grew with every touch that was more perfect than the last.
Little moans were coming from my throat, and Orion kissed me there, then my chin, then my lips as he moved, his hips pistoning slower, then faster, building that heat into a sweet ache that was growing deeper and stronger.
I clutched at his back, over his shirt, then down to the waistband of his jeans that were pulled low enough, until I could find skin. I slipped my hand down, pressing him into me.
“Harper, does it…feel good?”
I nodded mutely, hardly able to speak, and gazed up into his eyes in the dimness, held his face, then brought it down to mine to kiss. To breathe with him, to taste and revel in him as the pleasure grew into something bigger than I’d ever felt.
“Orion…” I managed and then clenched my teeth, clutched at his shirt, holding him to me, my legs wrapped around his hips. “Oh God…”
The waves rolled through me, leaving me weak and pleasantly heavy, just as his began to crest. Orion reached one hand to grab my hip, the other pressed to the floor. I held his forearm, the other hand snaking into his hair as his face took on an expression of pained ecstasy.
“Fuck, Harper…”
He shuddered, and I watched as the release found him, moved through him and into me.
A grunting sound issued from his chest, and then a gasp, both the sexiest things I’d ever heard in my life.
Then he collapsed—carefully—on top of me, perfectly heavy.
Like a shield. I held him, my hands trailing lazily over his head, into his curls, and down his neck.
“I’m too heavy,” he murmured into my neck.
“You’re just the right heavy,” I said, holding him closer, unwilling to let him go. “But I need to tell you something.”
“Hold that thought.”
He kissed my forehead, my nose, my chin, then carefully moved off me, disposed of the condom, and came right back, holding me close. And my heart broke in the best way to see so much of that horrible exhaustion and grief had lifted out of his eyes.
They’re twinkling again.
“What were you going to say, Bennet?” he said. “Something terribly unromantic?”
“In about ten seconds, you’re going to feel so bad for teasing me. Like, so bad.”
He grinned. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” I stroked his cheek, traced his jaw. “What I was going to say is, I love you too.”
Orion’s smile tilted and became richer. More real, somehow. “I was hoping…so much.”
He kissed me then, the most deeply beautiful kiss of my life, before shooting a glance at the door. “Come on. We’ve pressed our luck long enough, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” I said. “And you have a paper to write.”
***
We pulled ourselves together and walked back to Atlas Hall. It was early yet, only six o’clock. I called home to check in with Mom, while Orion ordered a pizza.
“What are we doing?” he asked after we ate mushroom and pepperoni slices in his and Easton’s dorm apartment, though his roommate was, as usual, nowhere to be seen.
“We’re writing your Mesopotamia paper, due tomorrow,” I said, and pulled him into his room, to his desk.
“We?”
“You. I’m just here for secretarial purposes.” I planted a kiss on Orion’s lips. “Can’t let Callister have the satisfaction.”
“Harper, I can’t write that damn paper.”
“You’re not. I’m going to write it. Well, type it. You dictate.”
He frowned, about to protest, but then nodded and tapped his temple. “Yeah, I think I have enough stored in here for something.”
He opened his laptop to a blank document, and I smiled into the keyboard, overcome with pride for my brilliant boyfriend.
“Ready when you are.”