Chapter 12 Nate
NATE
It takes a long time for my heart rate to return to anything close to normal. I feel like I could lay there forever, my body slumped against Harper’s, my cock still buried deep inside her hot tight center.
Slowly other sensations start to work their way into my pleasure-muddled brain. My knees are starting to hurt, which makes me think Harper’s must feel even worse. Reluctantly, I pull out and something in my chest howls at me to go back to where I was, to keep that connection forever.
But I know I can’t actually live in her pussy, as heavenly as that might sound, so I put some distance between us, hoping to quiet the howling, and take care of the condom before pulling my boxers back on.
When I’m done, I look over at Harper. She’s laying in the exact same position, sprawled on the ottoman, unmoving. “You okay?”
She makes an incoherent, happy little sound and I chuckle. “Come on,” I say, reaching for her shoulders.
“Where?” She lets me pull her upright and then to her feet, swaying slightly. She yawns as I steady her and I can’t help laughing. She looks adorable, like a sleepy little kitten.
Who I just fucked senseless on my living room floor.
“Food first,” I tell her.
She smiles sleepily at me. “And second?”
“Second?”
“After food.”
“Then bed.”
Her eyes glint a little. “Hmm.”
I raise my eyebrows. “The thought of my bed only warrants a hmm?”
She flushes, looking down. “I thought you might…you know…take me to your playroom.”
I fight a momentary battle between laughing and getting aroused as hell at the thought of her in a playroom. In the end, my laughter wins. “I don’t have a playroom here. And you need food. Come along.”
I slip an arm around her, figuring she’ll need the support to get more than a few steps toward the kitchen.
And, to be honest, because I just really feel like touching her again.
I grab a cashmere throw off a chair as we pass and wrap it around her shoulders.
She makes a contented little sighing sound and for some reason that makes me half-hard again.
The urge to take care of this woman, to protect her and make her always that content, is overwhelming.
I deposit her on one of the bar stools in the kitchen and set about making us a late dinner. “Grilled cheese okay?”
“Grilled cheese is perfect.”
I notice her looking around while I cook, taking in my kitchen. “This is really nice,” she murmurs. “I would kill for a kitchen like this.”
“You cook?”
She shakes her head. “Not much. But I love to bake.”
I picture her here, an apron the only fabric on that gorgeous body of hers, making me cookies while I watch and try to cop a feel.
The image is so clear it almost seems like a memory.
Which doesn’t make any sense because I don’t bring women to this kitchen.
Don’t bring them to this house. Not ever. Tonight is an anomaly.
So when, exactly, am I expecting her to bake me fucking cookies?
“What about you?” she asks. “You put this kitchen to good use?”
“I enjoy cooking.” I place the buttered side of the bread on a frying pan then slap down a few slices of cheese. “Usually a little more sophisticated than this. But I’m in a hurry tonight.”
“I don’t need food that badly.”
I look up at her over the pan. “I need your body again that badly.”
Her eyes go wide. “Oh.” I watch her throat as she swallows, as the color of her skin changes, gets redder. God, what other body parts I want to make turn red. “You can…again?”
I smother a snort so I can fix her with my steeliest gaze. “Yes, Harper. I can.”
She stares up at me with those huge brown eyes, so innocent with that blush on her cheeks, and I think of a hundred ways I could defile her. Steal that innocence away and make her mine.
I take a steadying breath and turn back to the frying pan, flipping one of the sandwiches.
She clears her throat and when she speaks again I can tell she’s trying to sound unaffected by my words. “So, you enjoy cooking. And expensive scotch. And international travel.”
I raise my eyebrows and she fidgets some more with the edge of her blanket. “I saw a few travel guides in your living room. They looked well-used.”
I shake my head at that. “If you were coherent enough to notice the books on my shelves, I’m not sure I did my job thoroughly enough.”
I lift the sandwiches from the frying pan and slide them onto two plates. I deposit them on the counter in front of her and pour us each a glass of water before joining her. “Eat,” I urge as I climb onto the stool at her side.
She takes a bite and I feel a brief rush of pleasure at her obedience. I had thought she was a natural from the moment I met her and the more time I spend with her, the more sure I am.
She chews her sandwich, eyes on me, like she’s expecting me to pick up the previous thread of our conversation. To my surprise, I want to. I never talk about my personal life with my usual subs. Then again, it’s getting more and more clear that whatever this is with Harper is far from my usual.
“I do enjoy travel,” I tell her. “I try to get away several times a year, usually on school breaks. Though I have taken sabbatical in the past to enjoy a longer trip.”
“Where did you go on sabbatical?”
So I tell her about the trip to South America, hiking in Peru, the guest lecture series at the Universidad de Buenos Aires.
She’s attentive while I talk, like she finds my every word fascinating.
I have to remind her several times to eat.
If we were further along in this relationship, I would punish her for that.
For making me remind her. I’m immediately half hard at the thought.
But I can’t do that, not now. I don’t even know what this is yet.
“Have you been abroad?” I ask, trying to push thoughts of my paddle on her ass from my mind.
Her face lights up. “Only once. To London, after my high school graduation.”
“With friends?”
She seems to deflate a little. “Mason and I were supposed to go but he had to work. Some big case he couldn’t get out of.” She smiles but I can tell she’s covering, that she isn’t okay with this, even all these years later. “So I took Emma instead. We had a blast.”
I’m not buying the false cheer in her voice. This is a sore subject. “Does that happen often? With Mason?”
She shrugs, playing with the crust of her sandwich. “He’s very busy. It was a lot of responsibility, taking me on after our parents died. He’s always worked so hard to provide for me. I can’t complain about that.”
She might not be complaining, but there’s still something in her voice. Something that sounds a lot like yearning.
“He’s never considered you an imposition.”
Her head snaps up to meet my gaze. “How do you know that?”
She looks almost desperate for the reassurance, eyes wide and fixed on mine while she waits for my answer.
“Harper, he’s crazy about you. It’s obvious in the way he talks about you.
” She doesn’t look convinced so I continue.
“I remember a conversation with him, shortly after it happened.” From the look on her face she isn’t entirely comfortable with how close we’re getting to the subject of her parents’ death so I hurry on.
“He talked about how proud of you they had been. How lucky he was to have you. He never once indicated it was anything but an honor to be the one to help you after they were gone.”
She swallows several times, looking away.
I can’t tell if she believes me or not. She’s hurting, and I hate it.
Hate that I can’t do anything to make the world right for her, to take away the things she lost. More than anything else, I hate that she’s turning away from me—that she’s trying to keep this part, any part, of herself away from me.
Before I can even begin to think of a way to bring her back to me, she looks up, smiling again, not quite so false this time. I’m surprised by how relieved I feel, to see that smile.
“What about your family? Are you close?”
I snort at that. “Not exactly. I’m the great family disappointment.”
“You? But you’re so successful!”
“Academics don’t mean much to my parents.” She looks gobsmacked by this statement. “All they care about is money—which is probably why they have so much of it. When I decided I had no interest in making that my life, they pretty much lost all hope in me.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
She looks so affronted I can’t help but laugh. “It’s fine.” I long ago accepted the limitations of my relationship with my parents. “Are you still hungry?”
She looks down at her mostly empty plate. “No. I’m good.” She gives me another one of those shy smiles, the kind that makes my chest hurt. “It was delicious.”
“I can think of something else delicious I’d like to try tonight.”
God, the way she blushes is enough to make me want to tease her with innuendo for the rest of my life.
When I stand she slides her hand into mine. It takes me off guard, how easy it feels. How natural.
I notice her eyes sweeping her surroundings as we make our way to the stairs, just as she had in the kitchen. Like she’s soaking up the view. “Looking for something?”
She shakes her head. “Just curious. I’ve wondered what your house looks like.”
I don’t tell her that I’ve wondered the same. That I’ve laid in bed feeling like I’m going crazy, wondering where she spends her time, what her room looks like, where she sleeps at night.
“You really don’t have a playroom?” she asks, lips turning up in a sly smile. I’m starting to think that I like this teasing side of her almost as much as the obedient, innocent side.
“No playroom. That’s what Club Wyld is for.”
She sounds surprised when she answers. “You only do…this…kind of thing at the club?”
“Yes.”
“And when you bring your subs here you’re, what? Vanilla?”
I stop at the foot of the stairs, letting the silence settle around us for a moment. The answer to that question seems oddly big just now.
“I don’t bring subs here.”
She’s quiet for even longer. “Never?”
I shrug. “Never.”
“Wow.”