Chapter 26
Watching the flush creep up Harper’s neck and up to her cheeks is more riveting than any blockbuster movie. Her hand grips mine tightly, like she wants me close for support. A tiny sound escapes her and her breath hitches slightly when I change the vibration pattern.
Fuck, but I’ve been half-hard since the closet, and there’s no sign that my condition will be abating.
Sliding that toy into place, seeing Harper’s glistening pussy in the dimness of the tiny room, and hearing her breathing hard and fast because of me…
“Yes,” Harper says. “I love that neighborhood. We live in Kensington, and it’s right nearby.” She’s talking to the husband of an investor I needed to schmooze tonight. Her voice is pleasant, calm. With just a hint of strain.
I reach into my pocket and adjust the intensity of the vibrations. Change the pattern to one of pulses.
Watch as her hand tightens around the glass of champagne.
“You live together?” Sarah Fulton says. She’s good friends with Mads Knudsen, part of a semi-incestuous group of rich Europeans who frequent London, Paris, and Berlin. All potential important allies for Contron.
I incline my head. “Yes, Harper recently moved here from New York to work at the Sterling Gallery.”
“We’re friends,” Harper clarifies.
I increase the intensity of the toy by two measures at that comment. A gasp escapes her, but she quickly tries to cover it with a cough and braces her free hand on the nearby tall table.
“Very good friends,” she adds. “He’s the best.”
I smirk behind the phone in my hand. Slide it back into my pocket and give Sarah a wide smile. “I apologize. Urgent questions from the team in New York. You know how it is with the time difference.”
She waves it away. “Of course, of course. Bane of our existence. Our youngest daughter is spending a semester in Sydney. Eleven-hour difference. It’s inhumane.”
“Sydney? Is she liking it?” Harper asks. She’s good at this. Talking to people and taking a genuine interest… even if her expression is currently more pinched than normal.
“Yes, she certainly is. Do you know what—our oldest son is good friends with Mads’s nephew, Willard. They went to school together,” Fulton says.
Her husband nods rapidly. “Yes, Willard mentioned that he was introduced to a new arrival into the art world. Could that be you, Harper?”
“Must be,” she says happily. “He actually dropped by the gallery two days ago, to admire the selection of American impressionists we have and to speak with my boss.”
“He’s a good boy,” Sarah Fulton says warmly. “So clever. He brought a previously unknown Covey to the market just a few months ago. Did you know that?”
“He told me about that, yes,” Harper says.
The fucker,I think. He had monopolized her time for an entire evening at my party. They have art in common. He’s a handsome European man of her own age. And he visited her at the gallery?
I turn the intensity up by another degree.
Harper sways on her feet and turns to glare at me.
I smile serenely back.
It takes us another five minutes of small talk before she makes our excuses. I follow along, a smile threatening to break out.
It isn’t until we’re a few steps away that she grips my forearm like a vise. “Nate,” she says. “Please. I can’t… I can’t talk to any more people.”
“It’s getting too much?”
“Yes. I feel like I’m about to explode.”
I run my thumb along her jaw, stopping on her lower lip. “That’s sort of the point, baby.”
Her eyes narrow. “I can’t come here!” she whisper-shouts. “Everyone will see.”
“Mm-hmm,” I say. The idea of taunting her with it some more is fun… but I don’t want to risk that happening. The jealousy of earlier is still lingering in my system. It’s not a noble emotion. But it’s there, and right now, the idea of other people seeing her as she comes is out of the question.
I wrap my arm around her waist. “Let’s get you out of here, then.”
She nearly sags into my side. “Thank God. I feel like… like… I’m made out of electricity.”
We walk toward the exit, past the playing band and the open bar that will keep flowing well into the morning hours. These kinds of events always have a high risk of getting very wet.
“Poor girl,” I whisper against her temple. But on my phone, I change the vibration to one without oscillating pulses.
It’s a steady throb.
Her body draws taut. “Nate,” she moans. “What?”
“You didn’t tell me Willard came to visit you.”
“Not me,” she breathes. “The art gallery. Didn’t seem important.”
“He’s interested in you.”
“He’s not. He’s interested in what I can offer him,” she says. Her tongue peeks out, wetting her lips. She looks almost feverish, and I want nothing more than to be home, right at this instant, where I can slip this dress off her and watch her body bow as she comes.
“I think he is… he is… something is wrong with him,” she whispers. “Is that our car?”
“Yes.” André gets out of the driver’s seat. I don’t use the car service very often, but when I do, it’s always him I hire. He opens the back door for us, and I help Harper into the vehicle before slipping in after her.
She sags against the cushions, stretching out her legs in the ample space. “Oh my God,” she whispers. “Sitting down… affects it…”
I shift closer to her on the seat. “You’re close?”
“Yes,” she whispers. “I can’t… Nate.”
It’s a split-second decision. To turn the vibration off… or to let her come.
I hit the button that raises the partition, and the barrier rolls up quickly, blocking out André in the front seat. He’s a good man. He knows where we’re going, and I’ll tip him generously when we get there.
“Nate,” Harper whispers again. Her hands are curved around the edge of the seat, her eyes half-closed. She’s breathing hard. “I’m going to…”
I pull up her dress. It’s more difficult in the car, but not impossible. As soon as she knows where I’m heading with it, she helps me. A second later, the gown is bunched at her waist, and I’m pulling her thong to the side. Bending over to get my mouth into position…
I push the end of the toy off her swollen clit and replace it with my lips.
The sound that escapes Harper is half shriek, half gasp.
Her skin is warm and fragrant. Soft. And I have wanted to do this for weeks. Months.
Years, if I’m being honest with myself.
The other morning, after she’d given me the best blow job of my life, this was the only thing I wanted to do. Needed to do. But the reality of the day and the racing clock had sent her away to shower and get dressed.
It’s too tight in the car for me to get in a better pose, but damn, beggars can’t be choosers. The toy is still vibrating inside her pussy, so I focus all my attention on her clit instead.
Where Harper said she usually focused while touching herself.
Her hand slides into my hair, gripping tight, and I love the sound of her soft moans. Her hips move beneath my touch as she rolls them on the seat, against my circling tongue.
“Nate,” she breathes. A cry cuts off her next half-spoken word, and she arches off the seat, pressing her clit tight to my lips. I suck on the swollen bud and listen to the sound of her soft moans and heavy breaths as pleasure washes over her.
It’s the hottest thing I’ve ever experienced.
Everything with her is the hottest damn thing I’ve ever experienced.
As her orgasm fades, she still trembles, her fingers still tangled in my hair. I have to fight in the confined space to reach into my pocket and turn off the vibrations.
“I can’t believe,” she whispers, “that just happened.”
Her hands slip from my hair and cover her face, hiding her from my view. I kiss her pussy goodbye and put the toy back in place, but without turning it on now. Pull the thong to rights.
Then, I sit down next to her. The car is moving, has been the entire time, but the traffic makes the progress slow.
“Friends help friends come,” I say with my hand on the bare skin of her thigh. Pulling her closer to my side.
She chuckles into her hands. “That must make you the best friend I’ve ever had.”
Her words are sweet. But they sting, the way everything does that reminds me of the differences in our goals. How differently we view one another.
“Harper,” I mutter, pulling gently on her wrist. “Don’t be embarrassed.”
Her hands slip down her face. There’s a tiny smudge of black mascara under her left eye, and her skin is flushed and sweaty.
“Was I terribly loud?”
“You were amazing.”
She shakes her head in tiny movements, eyes still pleasure-drunk and soft. “I know I can get loud. Oh my God. The driver!”
“He didn’t hear a thing,” I say. “That partition is soundproof.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. It’s a privacy feature, so people can take calls back here.”
She relaxes against me. “Oh, thank God.”
“And you were not too loud. You were perfect,” I say. “And this weekend, when you came, in bed, you didn’t make a sound.”
“I tried very hard not to,” she admits, a soft smile on her lips.
But I’m frowning. “Why?”
Her eyes dip down to my lapels, and she reaches out to play with the satin of my bowtie. Looks at that instead of meeting my eyes. “I don’t know if I should tell you,” she admits.
An unsettling feeling unfurls inside me. “Does this have to do with the box?”
She nods.
I try hard not to show any reaction. “Tell me anyway. If you want.”
“He would say,” Harper murmurs, smiling ruefully at my bowtie, “that I was too loud. So I tried not to be.”
I freeze like a goddamn statue. Forcing myself not to scowl, not to hiss, not to protest. But I can’t help it. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Fucking Dean. Was that why you were quiet this weekend?”
She nods, and there’s a shy look on her face that is so at odds with what we’ve just done, with my hand on her bare thigh, with her body against mine. “Yeah.”
“Don’t,” I say. “Not with me. I want to hear you. Fuck, Harp, it turns me on.”
“It does?”
“Of course it does, as it should any normal red-blooded man.” I shake my head, trying to clear the image of Dean from in front of my eyes. The idea that he’d said that to her, that he’d ever implied… that he had been allowed to do this to her—to taste her, to feast between her legs—and had the audacity to tell her to be quiet when she came. “I thought Dean was a better man than that.”
She chuckles. “Sorry. I don’t want to ruin your impression?—”
“Fuck that,” I say. “Not your responsibility. Besides, if he lost you, then he must have done something wrong.”
Her eyes are on mine, and I can’t look away from those green depths. From the softness in them and the hesitant emotions swirling within. My fingers stroke along the satiny skin of her outer thigh. She’s warm.
“I think everyone believes it’s my fault,” she says quietly. “Not his.”
“Well, I’m guessing everyone doesn’t know the full story, do they?” I ask. “They shouldn’t blame you for things they don’t know shit about.”
Her lips tip into a smile. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”
“And why not?” I ask. “It’s the honest truth.”
Harper’s swift fingers have undone the bow tie at my neck and have slipped inside the fabric, brushing against the skin of my throat. “I do like it when you’re honest with me. I feel like you’re not honest very often with… others.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Is that a backhanded compliment?”
“No,” she says with a small laugh. “Just an observation. I think you have a lot of acquaintances… people who would consider you their friend. But I don’t think you’re so quick to return the sentiment. I don’t believe you consider many of those same people as friends in return.”
Her words feel heavy, and I struggle under the weight of them for a few seconds before I nod once.
“Maybe not,” I say. “But I consider you my friend.”
A friend I’m hopelessly, painfully and irrevocably in love with.
Her entire face softens with the warmth I feel in my very bones. “I feel honored that you do.”
The words are on the tip of my tongue. They feel hot, too pressurized, and I know they’ll wreck everything. But looking at the softness in her face, the warmth in her eyes…
“I want?—”
There’s a knock on the privacy divider from André in the front seat. I glance outside to see the familiar townhouse. The glossy black front door, flanked by two planters of boxwood, and a gold number eight in the center.
“Home,” she breathes and pushes open her car door. I follow her out and thank André before heading inside the residence.
I watch her play with the puppies, letting them into the garden, checking on their water bowls… In her silk dress and the diamond necklace, her hair still in that sleek ponytail.
It’s so easy to imagine her always living here with me. That this is our home. Our hot dogs. Our life.
My wife.
The word comes unbidden. A fantasy I didn’t realize I had until I saw her walking around my kitchen, looking like a movie star.
It’s late, past midnight, and the house is mostly dark. It’s a weeknight… or I would have suggested we stay up. Order in. Collapse on the couch.
I would pull her into the shower, take the toy out of her, and give her one final orgasm before we’d both fall asleep.
But it is a weeknight… and the tired smile on her face, as she carries Stanley back inside the house, tells me she needs something else right now. Rest.
We say goodnight on her landing, with the dogs pacing around her heels and her mascara still smudged under her left eye. I want to reach out and wipe it away.
I tip her head back, leaning close enough for our lips to almost touch… and whisper, “Take good care of the toy.”
She blinks a few times. “I will. I promise.”
Once I’m inside my room, I tear off the tux. My skin feels too hot beneath it. My morning is due to start way too early, but I get into the shower nevertheless and replay the memories of the last few hours.
Hottest thing I’ve ever experienced.
She is so game, so open, so willing… so happy. Adventurous. I’ve never met anyone who means it quite like she does. Who is as earnest about enjoying life as she is.
Who treasures the small moments like she does.
I lie in bed on my back and stare up at my ceiling. It feels familiar. What preceded it does not.
Old.
She’d meant it, when she said it about Austin Silver. Joked about it when I made the point, but… she had meant it earlier tonight.
Maybe that’s exactly how she sees me. Dean is my age, though. So it hadn’t bothered her before. Does it bother her now? I promised Harper never to open the box, the one with her past. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have questions about it.
What truly happened? What does Harper need out of a relationship? What does she want?
I run a hand over my face. Fucking hell, Dean. I can’t believe the son of a bitch told her she was too loud during sex. The knowledge has settled like a brick in my stomach, and it lessens the guilt that I’ve been grappling with since Harper moved in.
Lessened it significantly.
He never deserved her.
I knew it the very first night he had decided to speak to her, had walked up and charmed her with his good looks, humor, money, and that all-American smile. His drunken confidence.
She’s mine now, I think.
However she wants me, whatever kind of relationship she wants… friends, friends with benefits, or that elusive more. The elusive all.
My phone pings.
I hadn’t meant to leave the sound on, but now that it’s on…
I reach over with a sigh to shut it off entirely.
Until I see the name on the screen.
Harper: Want to sleep down here?
I close my eyes. Breathe in. Breathe out. And then, I’m tossing off the covers and heading down the steps. Knocking twice on the door. Hearing the soft sound of her voice.
Come in.
She’s sitting up in bed, her straight hair loose around her shoulders. It’s still a new and odd sight to see. She’s wearing a camisole. And around her neck, the diamond necklace, shimmering in the soft light of her night lamp.
The two dogs are lying beside the bed. Both are staring at me. Stanley’s stubby tail is wagging softly. Quincy is less enthusiastic. The older dog hasn’t yet made up his mind about me.
“Hey,” she murmurs. “I think I might get… cold.”
I walk around to the far side of the bed and pull off my T-shirt. Just boxer briefs will have to do. “We can’t have that.”
“No, not really.” She pulls her hair over one shoulder and gives me a sheepish smile. Her eyes are tired, but happy. “I couldn’t unlock this clasp, either. I think it has some sort of safety mechanism to it?”
“Yeah, it’s a double clasp. Here.” She scoots close, and I get it off her in a few quick moments before laying it on the nightstand.
She burrows deeper under the covers. “Thank you,” she murmurs and shuts off the light. “For… everything. I had the most amazing night.”
After only a second of hesitation, I slide beneath the blanket, reaching for her in the darkness. She sighs and settles against my body. As if she likes it there.
“Thank you for coming,” I murmur. “These sort of events were a lot more boring before you came along.”
She chuckles weakly, and it breaks into a giant yawn. “I’m sure you give all your dates sex toys.”
“Never have before,” I say into her ear.
“I like that.” There’s a smile in the sound of her voice.
“Mm-hmm. I liked the taste of you.”
Another soft sigh. “I liked your taste, too.”
“How convenient, then.”
“Friends help friends,” she murmurs. Another yawn, and then she snuggles even closer. I wrap my arm tighter around her waist, my hand finding purchase on her stomach. My fingers just barely brush the underside of her breast. “Thank you for… lending me the necklace. I’ve never… worn anything that nice.”
Her breathing evens out, and I draw a deep breath. She smells good. Warm and floral and all woman.
“It wasn’t a loan,” I say.
But she’s already asleep.