Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
HARMONY
Harmony opened the door to her hotel room and gave it a quick scan. Bed made by someone else every day. Clothes and dry-cleaning bags in the open closet space on hangers locked around the rod, shoes lined up below. She’d hoped they’d end up here tonight, so that morning she’d dumped any other clothes laying around into the dresser across from the foot of the bed.
The bed that waited in the room like the answer to a question brewing between them the entire drive over, as she let Preston pretend to fix her dress’s hem when she scooted closer at a red light, and his fingers pinched and played with the fabric the rest of the way. The air had thickened between them on the walk up the covered stairs, Preston’s big hand steadying at her back.
No more pretending. Harmony turned and reached past Preston to grab the do-not-disturb sign, hung it outside the door, then shut it with a click.
Preston’s eyes were on her, their blue charged like the sky before a thunderstorm. “Dani will have Lacey until she drops her at Mason’s tomorrow.”
She slid her bag gently to the floor, without breaking eye contact. “That’s nice. You won’t have to be up early.” It felt like Preston promising not to rush her off like the last time they’d spent a night together. He was giving her his full attention, and she knew how precious that was.
He took his time now, shifting a small, deliberate step nearer. Leaning in toward her. Like a magnet attracted to his mouth, she swayed forward, and he dipped his head down, pressing his lips to hers.
At the library he had seemed like a starving man, desperate for each kiss before what he wanted could be snatched away. Now he savored her, sipping gentle kisses from her mouth, running his hand over her hair.
But soon the intensity built. Slow and sweet kisses became the play of their tongues together. His hands ran down her back, and the way he was holding on to her, his height cradling over her, made something catch inside Harmony. She slid her hands from Preston’s chest to clutch around his neck, hooked her fingers through his hair, and pulled herself against him.
There was no pretending he wasn’t as excited for this as she was, not with the hardness that met her fluttering stomach. He clasped her tight and kissed her until she was breathless. But when one hand skated up from her ass to find the pull of her zipper, she shifted back.
“Right,” Preston said, hands skimming to tentatively rest upon her shoulders. His eyes brimmed with yearning, pupils blown black against blue. He wrenched their gaze from her mouth to meet her own. Swallowed hard. “Right. Dinner.”
“No.” She could have laughed, because, ha , no , except something was making her stomach twist into enough knots to rival a pretzel stand. The wild urge to tell him, before this went further, who he was really kissing.
Her heart raced even faster than Preston’s touch had set it pounding. What was she thinking? She couldn’t torpedo her con. Preston’s rule-following must have been rubbing off on her. That was the last thing of his she wanted rubbing off on her tonight.
It was the uncertainty that shivered over Preston’s features that snapped her out of it. He looked lost. She’d done that to him, when they were supposed to be having fun, finishing what they started last week in the library. He wanted more but not that much.
So she stepped back, in her nude heels, and reached for the zipper herself.
Preston’s gaze on her now was something palpable, hot as a spotlight, as she drew the dress open and peeled one shoulder down, revealing the strap of her plum lingerie set. She always did love putting on a show. She slipped the other sleeve off, and with a small shake of her hips let the dress fall to the floor. “You ready to get into Trouble?”
He didn’t even scowl or roll his eyes at that. For a moment he looked as drunk as he had that night at the bar. Then his stare snapped back up to her face, full of intention. Like he knew he was indeed deeply in trouble and meant to enjoy every single second of it.
He strode across the room, somehow tugging her against him and backing her toward the bed at the same time. His hands were back on her, thank god, running over her bare skin, playing with the lacy edge of her underwear. He kissed her deep and hard, tongue sweeping over hers, teeth raking her lips.
When they hit the side of the bed, she let herself fall under his rush of kisses, which traveled down her neck now, as Preston braced himself above her, knees brushing her own. She toed off her shoes and kicked them away.
She couldn’t wait to get more of him and impatiently kissed his jaw, along his ear, loosening his tie and drawing it away before working the front clasps of her bra open one by one.
He leaned on his elbow so he could spread a hand over one freed breast and yes god his touch was warm and firm and made her immediately feel like some kind of treasure, discovered and secured by his penetrating stare.
“ Fuck ,” Preston breathed over her skin.
She managed to say, around her insides clenching and the instinct to gasp, “For a guy who works with books”—a shiver escaped her lungs—“your vocabulary’s awfully limited.”
His lips twisted wryly. “Sorry, I left my thesaurus at home.” Then he applied that smirk to her skin and there were no words needed at all, none that might possibly describe the heaven of Preston’s mouth stroking over her breast, slowly, gradually, agonizingly honing in on her nipple.
She grazed her fingers over his back, up through his hair.
“Do that more firmly.” He spoke into the wide hollow between her breasts. “It feels wrong unless—”
“Autism thing?”
“Mm-hm.” He had already moved his mouth to her other breast, and it was no problem at all for Harmony to dig her fingers into his back, to claw them through his curls, over his scalp.
Preston slid back, hand still massaging her breast as he kissed down her side and sank to his knees.
“ Preston .”
“Let’s see how articulate you are in a minute.” His fingers snared the lace and dragged it free from her hips. He shifted back on his heels, removing his glasses and folding them before carefully placing them on the bedside table.
When he leaned forward it was to spread her thighs, looking for all the world like he was opening a book he was very interested in studying. His eyes had a slightly unfocused look that didn’t quite catch on Harmony’s face as he asked, “Okay?”
“I’m gonna give you a late fine if you don’t hurry up.”
“We don’t give late fines anymore. They’re inequitable.”
A swell of feeling for how sweet he was, how sincere, washed through her. Preston never bullshitted.
But she was immediately distracted by another feeling, because Preston certainly wasn’t bullshitting now as he laid his mouth down between her thighs. There was only heat and the perfect balance of soft and insistent he learned quickly from her sharp inhalations and how her hips bucked, especially when he swept his mouth down and circled her clit with his thumb, chasing it back with a swirl of his tongue. She writhed under him, holding on to fistfuls of bedsheets. “Fuck.”
He laughed, breath warm over her sensitive skin. His hand stilled. “Can I—?”
She scoured her hand through his hair again. “I’ve only been imagining you inside me all damn week.”
Preston groaned at that, sending a gratifying vibration up through her pelvis as he kissed her. He dipped a finger inside her, and soon another, delivering delicious friction he played in counterpoint to the velvet glide of his tongue. When he hooked them upward it set off red sparks through her, and his mouth sucked at her clit, and she moaned “ God, fuck, yes, Preston ” as her orgasm lit and rolled through her like lightning and thunder at once.
Preston kept working his hand in her, tasting her, while she floated back from where he’d sent her. But like she’d told him, she always wanted more, and it seemed like every taste she got of him only drove her need for another. She tugged on his hair until he drew over her, and then she grabbed him by the belt loops and pulled him down to kiss him slow and thoroughly while she worked his buckle open and the fly of his pants.
He’d been dressed up for their dinner, clearly, and now he shrugged out of his jacket and began unbuttoning his shirt. Not fast enough. She helped too until their hands met in the middle of his heaving chest.
He captured her fingers and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “You’re so fucking gorgeous,” he murmured against them. “And I’ve wanted—” He interrupted himself with another kiss, to the flesh between her finger and thumb. “I thought so the minute I first met you.”
“You thought I was Cheryl Weaver’s minion and yelled at me to go away.”
He ducked his face to her hand, hiding a smile. “It was a very confusing minute.” He reached to kiss her on the mouth. “Thank you for staying long enough for me to see how wrong I was.”
That flare of something inside her ribcage again made Harmony’s breath hitch. She got what she wanted plenty with her looks, but knowing he’d only acted on that attraction once he’d grown to know her, once he’d seen through so much of her facade she threw at the world, made her feel a little bit like she’d been turned inside out—and like she was still safe, even exposed like that, with Preston. Maybe because he spent so much time masking himself from others too.
She pushed his shirt off his shoulders. “Well, obviously I wasn’t going anywhere until I got to see your tits.”
He rolled his eyes so hard his head actually drifted backward a little. “You—”
“Yeah?” She scraped her fingers through his dark chest hair.
But Preston’s only answer was to drive his mouth against hers again. She worked his pants down over his narrow hips, and his boxers, and oh lord, she was not a patient woman, but Preston was a tall man, and this had been worth the wait.
When she wrapped her hand around him, he pressed his forehead to hers. “Fuck. Harmony .”
No one said her name like that. No one cried it out or groaned it or whispered it reverently like Preston. She was always Claudia or Trish or Megan or whoever she was that month, and whoever she was with didn’t often bother to remember those aliases anyway. Zach knew her real name, but he wasn’t one to whisper anything sweet in your ear.
Preston did, as she pumped her hand over his erection and brushed her thumb over the head of his cock. His hands clenched on either side of her head and he breathed her name again. Harmony. Sweetheart. Please . He kicked free of the last of his clothes and she pulled him down beside her, head to pillow, and climbed on top of him.
“Wait, in my wallet, I have a condom—”
“So do I.” She leaned over to grab one from the bedside table drawer. “In my purse too.” She hadn’t been about to let another chance at him pass. And, damn, all that biking must have paid off in the lean, toned muscles under her now.
He grinned up at her. “You brought treats for everyone.” He caught her breast and licked it before she sat back to open the foil.
Once he was set, she shifted up from his thighs to slide herself along him. He hissed with pleasure, so she rocked along him a few more times before falling forward, braced on the headboard, to guide him inside her. They were both gasping as she worked herself down his length. Her hand clenched the headboard hard.
She gave herself a moment and felt Preston, hands splayed hot over her thigh and ass, straining not to take this too fast. Harmony pitched against him, chest to chest, kissing his shoulder, nipping where it met his neck, teasing his ear. His turn to have someone take care of him. She moved slowly, and god he felt so good, there was no need to rush; she reveled in the sensation as she eased forward and sank back down against the base of his cock for an eternity or two.
His hips jolted up against her, all that restraint slipping at last, and it was too good, she wanted more, so she sat back to drive herself over him. She looked down and Preston was smiling an utterly blissed-out smile, wide across his sweat-sheened face, dark lashes low over his blue, blue eyes. It might have been the truest, most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
Then he swiped his tongue over the pad of his thumb and took hold of her breast, rubbing circles over her nipple and pinching gently. Everything she was feeling dialed up to fucking eleven. She clenched hard around him, and his thrusts sped.
Preston’s fingers dug into her hip, holding her in place. He was crying out her name again, shuddering so hard and oh god she was always in control, could always get ahead of whatever was coming for her, but right now a relentless tide was crashing over her, pulling her tight, drawing her onward to break against a climax that seared her vision white.
Undone, melting forward, Harmony could only remind herself to breathe as Preston kissed her and kissed her, slow and deep. Sink into the bedsheets as he pulled her down to him and stroked his fingers along her heavy limbs. Enjoy far too much how he cuddled her against his chest, where she could hear the steady, brisk drum of his heartbeat.
She was in so much trouble.