Chapter 14 Nate
NATE
Dropping Harper off the next morning goes against every single instinct in my body.
I’m struck with the overwhelming—and completely insane—desire to keep her right there in my house.
Where I can see her and talk to her and fuck her whenever I want.
And not just for the rest of the weekend—all the time.
Which is so far out of bounds I can’t even wrap my mind around it. This woman does something to me, makes me desire things that I know don’t work, that I know I’m incapable of.
So I ignore all of those instincts and I take her home after breakfast, just like I told her I would.
And when my thoughts consistently stray to memories of our night together, the way she had so perfectly submitted herself to me, the way it had felt to be inside her, I call Philip and convince him to meet me at our tennis club, knowing I need to burn off some energy if I have any hope of stopping myself from driving to her apartment and fucking her for the rest of the day.
Philip, of course, is exactly the wrong person to spend time with when my brain is so consumed. The cocky bastard is way too perceptive. And not at all known for his restraint.
“I take it things went poorly last night,” he asks, the moment he lays eyes on me.
I scowl. “Why on earth would you say that?”
His eyebrows go up the slightest bit. “You seem quite…frustrated.”
“It went fine,” I snap, grabbing a towel and marching out to the courts.
I’m not at all surprised when he doesn’t drop it. “You took this woman home. I can’t help but observe how out of character that is for you.”
“Jesus,” I mutter. “Can you just drop the shrink thing? It doesn’t suit you.”
He watches me for a long moment before shrugging. “If you insist.”
We play hard, as I knew we would. We’re both way too competitive to take it easy on each other.
I’m glad for the sweat that drips down my back, for the burn in my muscles as I lunge for ball after ball.
This is just the kind of distraction that I need today.
By the time we finish and hit the showers, my brain is blissfully silent, the all-consuming desire for what I can’t have finally muted.
And then Philip has to go and ruin it. “How do you plan to handle things this week?” he asks over a post-match scotch in the club’s lounge.
“Handle what, exactly?”
He must miss the warning in my voice because he plows ahead. “Your work. With this girl constantly underfoot.”
A flash of anger rushes through me. “You make her sound like some annoying child. She isn’t underfoot. She’s a graduate student who works incredibly hard and—” I cut off when I see his smug grin. “What?”
“Awfully protective, aren’t you?”
“Fuck off.” He chuckles, lifting his glass to his lips. “Look,” I continue. “I can handle it, okay? I can be professional.”
“Can she?”
I glare at him. “Yes.”
“Like I said,” he murmurs. “Awfully protective.”
As soon as I see her on Monday, I know that he was right to warn me. She’s dressed as she usually is—jeans and a sweater. Both of which cling to her curves, making me long to run my hands over her ass. I wonder if it’s still red from my hand.
Fuck. I cannot be thinking things like that at work.
But then she looks up at me, her eyes twinkling, like we have a secret, and I know that I’m in big trouble.
Because all I want to do is throw her over my shoulder and carry her back to my office.
I could fuck her on my desk, or maybe against that bookshelf under the window.
Hell, I could fuck her on the floor, the second we get through the door.
Because God knows my restraint won’t last much longer than that.
It’s going to have to last a hell of a lot longer, I remind myself. Because there’s no way you can fuck her on this campus.
I turn away from her quickly, not saying a word of greeting, and I can’t help but notice the way her face falls from the corner of my eye.
There’s nothing to be done for it, I remind myself, over and over throughout the hour.
And again, the next day, when she shows up in those same tight, perfect jeans, paired with a t-shirt this time.
She’s showing too much skin, though I logically know that her clothing is perfectly appropriate for the setting and the warm weather.
Asshole George seems to think so too, the way he keeps accidentally touching her, and I spend the entire day seeing red and thinking of creative ways to rip his eyes from his head.
On Wednesday I decide she must be trying to kill me.
She shows up for work in a pale blue sundress dotted with white flowers, her honey hair up in a ponytail.
The dress looks like it was made for her, the hue soft against her creamy skin, the bodice hugging her chest, revealing miles of collarbone and arms. In an instant I run through a hundred fantasies, most of them involving lifting her skirt to her hips so I can fuck her right there on the desk, that ponytail wrapped tightly around my fist while I pound into her.
Asshole George is speechless when she walks in, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows over and over again.
“Harper,” I bark, before she’s even set down her things.
I probably sound like a dick but I don’t care.
I need to get her out of this room or I really will lose it—whether on her or on him remains to be seen. “I need this packet copied.”
She looks up at me, surprise and hurt mingling on her face. I push down a swell of regret. “Two hundred copies. Collated and stapled.” When the hurt seems to overtake the surprise, I soften my tone a bit. “Thank you.” She takes the packet from me without meeting my eyes and leaves the room.
If I thought her absence would bring me peace, I was mistaken. Instead I spend the next half-hour feeling increasingly shitty about that look on her face.
Which doesn’t stop me from sending her out again as soon as she returns. “I need these books from the library,” I tell her, not meeting her eyes as I hand her a list.
“All of these?” she asks, incredulous.
“Is that a problem?”
She’s glaring at me now. “They’ll be rather heavy.”
“I can go with her,” Asshole George volunteers eagerly.
“No,” I snap, making him jump. Fuck. I need to get it together. I look around the room until my eyes land on Kevin. He’s a lot skinnier than George, and a second-year. He’s also gay, and that makes him a hundred times more appealing than the asshole. “Will you please help Miss Cain?”
He looks confused—this is definitely the type of task normally handed off to part-time first-years—but stands to follow her without argument. They come back thirty minutes later, both weighed down with heavy text books. I’m ready for her when she gets there.
“I need these distributed to the staff mailboxes in Brody and Hunter.”
She eyes the massive stack of papers in my hand. Brody and Hunter are about as far apart as buildings can be on this campus, and from the angry look on her face, she knows it. She grabs the papers without a word and stomps from the room.
I lean forward into my desk, burying my face in a textbook. I know that I’m being completely transparent right now. And a huge jerk. But I can’t seem to help it. The idea of sitting here in this room with her, while she looks like that, and while the asshole drools on her—I just can’t do it.
The fact that Philip was right does not improve my mood.
By the time she returns, the rest of the students have left for the day. She doesn’t even look at me, merely marches to the desk where she’d left her things four hours ago and grabs her bag.
“Thank you for your help,” I say, and she turns to stare at me, her expression incredulous.
She just watches me for a long moment before she finally shakes her head and turns back to grab her sweater. “You’re welcome.”
Her words drip with bitterness. Goddamn it. She’s pissed at me, and rightly so. “Harper.”
She doesn’t turn. That hurt expression of hers flashes through my mind again. I am fucking this up so badly.
And then I see that her shoulders are shaking.
Fuck. Fuck. Is she crying?
Without thinking of the consequences, without thinking of anything at all except fixing this, I round the desks and take her into my arms, turning her to face me.
She keeps her head bowed and I feel like the world’s biggest asshole.
I made her cry, at school. I treated her like shit all because I can’t control my own reactions to her.
“I’m sorry,” I say, trying to pull her into me. She’s stiff in my arms, refusing to come closer. “I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t understand,” she says, wiping at her eyes. “Are you mad at me?”
Damn it. “Of course not.”
She finally looks up and I feel a stab of guilt and pain at the redness in her eyes and the tears that still cling to her lashes. “Then why are you acting like this? You embarrassed me in front of my colleagues. Kevin even asked me what I did to get on your shit list.”
I groan. “I’m handling everything all wrong.” I try to pull her closer again but she still refuses, her feet planted firmly, and my stomach drops. “Harper—”
Before I can figure out how to continue that sentence, before I can even begin to think of a way to explain myself, I hear voices in the hallway. It suddenly hits me that we’re standing far too close, practically embracing, my hands on her shoulders—in my classroom.
“Shit,” I mutter, dropping her arms and stepping back. The flash of renewed hurt on her face makes me feel sick.
And I blame that entirely for the next words out of my mouth.
“Come to dinner with me.”