26. Maisie
Chapter 26
Maisie
M y ears are still ringing when we pull into Harlan’s driveway after the concert.
I might have to change my tune on country music. Whereas I went along for the fun of hanging out with Harlan and his family, the music was actually — good. Which was a surprise to say the least. Every time country has come on the radio while I’ve been driving, I change it to something more to my tastes.
But I might have bought a t-shirt or two on the way out.
Audra’s passed out from the excitement of the day in the back seat and my skin buzzes with the leftover adrenaline of the concerts. I didn’t know any of the songs, so I couldn’t sing along, but I had a blast cheering for each act and laughing my ass off with Harlan and his brothers.
When Jem said Duke was obsessed with Tally Monroe, I kinda assumed it was similar to how I feel about my favorite artists, but I was wrong.
Duke takes the term fanboy to a whole new level, belting out the lyrics and hollering his head off between songs.
“I had so much fun,” I gush to Harlan as he opens my door for me to climb out of the car. My legs don’t want to sit still and there’s so much energy coursing through me. It started right after the first act came on and hasn’t let up since.
“I’m glad.” He loops his arms around my waist and pulls me into his chest in a gesture that I’m starting to love.
Love.
What an odd concept after the last few weeks. I didn’t think that I’d love anything about the opposite gender for a long time.
Harlan pulls out of the hug and gently unbuckles Audra from her seat to lay her on his shoulder. He’s so gentle with both of us. A safe harbor in the storm of life, and that has a different kind of tingle working through me.
The kind of tingle that sends shivers skittering down my spine. The kind that makes me want to feel the warmth of his bare skin pressed to mine. The kind that makes my core heat and clench in want.
My cheeks flush at the thought. I want to laugh and dance and shout in joy at the feeling. I didn’t think I’d ever feel completely normal again — giddy with a crush on the guy that I’m dating. But here I am. A terrific day spent with him and his family where we all had a good time and I’m … happy. There’s no lingering loneliness. No anxiety plaguing my mind. The overactive organ in my skull is at peace here in this tiny town in Idaho, and a large part of it is in thanks to the man cradling my daughter against his chest.
“You’re amazing,” I whisper the words before I can snatch them back.
Harlan’s eyes widen. “What?”
I shake my head, embarrassed at first. “I just mean … You’re an amazing man, Harlan Calhoun. I’m so happy th at I landed here, even if it was one more complication to my life. So grateful for you and your family.”
My eyes sting, but dammit, I’m going to get through this without crying.
“If I had crashed anywhere else… I don’t know what I would have done, but you, your family — hell the whole town — has been pretty amazing, and I’m so thankful that we landed here, in a safe place.”
“Sunshine.”
I step forward, and go to my toes, lightly press a kiss against his lips.
Harlan’s free hand comes to the back of my neck, holding me in place, and where it might have scared me two weeks ago — it doesn’t now. I’m safe with Harlan.
Harlan is safe.
He makes me feel safe. He lets me move at my own pace, and at this rate, a sloth moves faster than we have.
“Can we stay the night?” I whisper once I pull back, ready to take a chance and move forward. To fling aside the doubts and worries that I’ve had since leaving Tulsa in a panic.
I’m done with the fear. With running.
Harlan drops his forehead to mine, and our gazes lock. I love that too. That I can confidently meet his eyes and know that I’ll find affection and care there.
“Of course.” The husky timber of his voice hits me right in the gut. Goosebumps spread down my arms.
We climb the porch, the air still between us, and enter the darkened house to climb the stairs with my hand clasped in his.
He opens the door to one of the spare bedrooms, and I gasp.
“Harlan,” I whisper. “What is this? ”
The far corner of the room has a cradle set up, fresh sheets covering the mattress and a fluffy blanket hanging over the rail. A mobile floats above it, shimmering in the moonlight, casting stars on the ceiling. There’s a bright pink rug on the hardwood floor and gauzy curtains hang at the window.
An old rocking chair is set next to the crib, and my hand covers my mouth.
“When did you set this up?” When did he have the time? I’ve been here every day over the last week, and I never could have imagined he’d be setting up a room for Audra.
Harlan steps forward and puts Audra down in the crib before covering her with her blanket.
He snags my hand again and switches on the monitor sitting on the dresser and flicks on a nightlight before pulling me out of the room.
Once we’re in the hallway, he says, “I wanted Audra to have a comfortable place to sleep. I wanted you to be comfortable here — if we ever got to this point.”
“But a crib? Furniture? The rocking chair?”
I didn’t have a chance to look at everything closely, but the chair, that’s old. Something that his parents would have used when he was a baby.
He shrugs. As if setting up a room so my daughter would be comfortable isn’t a big deal. But it is.
How could he know that we’d stay? That’d I’d be here tonight or that I’d need somewhere not only I was comfortable but that my daughter would be too.
Touched beyond words, I ask, “When?”
“The crib? Right after I kissed you the first time. The rest of it, my dad set up for me today while we were at the concert. Do you like it?” A little bit of doubt colors his question.
“I love it. Your dad set this up?” I ask.
“Yeah. He was happy to.”
“And he’s okay with … this. With us?” Hal was friendly at dinner, but what must he think that his oldest son is practically moving a woman in with him after a few short weeks.
Harlan nods. “Yeah, Sunshine. He’s good with this, but even if he wasn’t, he’d still support my decisions. But he likes you, said that we fit.”
Hal thinks we fit. And that makes me want to cry happy tears all over his son. Because he’s right. We do kinda fit, and the nursery isn’t the first sign of acceptance into this amazing family that I’ve seen, but it hits me the hardest.
Harlan smiles at me, the white of his teeth stark against his bearded face, and I can’t help but return the expression.
Unable to speak through the chokehold on my emotions and voice, I rise to my toes and kiss him.
This man. What am I going to do with him? It’s been so long since someone’s cared about me, about my wants and needs. The knowledge that Harlan cares about me — about us — is much more than I can take.
I pour every ounce of my gratitude and feeling for this man into the kiss. Dipping my tongue, I taste his bottom lip and hum at the flavor of him exploding across my tastebuds. Any lingering doubts and fears that I’d fumble evaporate into nothing when he tilts his head and his tongue strokes mine.
My shoulders meet the hallway wall, the firm press of him holding me steady as we get lost in each other. In passion. In sheer desperate tingling want.
Fingers tangling in the nearly too long hair at the nape of his neck I scratch through his scalp .
“Mais.” The whispered grunt between us curves my lips into a grin as my nipples tighten into hard peaks pressing against the lace of my bra.
“Har,” I whisper back. “Take me to bed.” I nip at his lips one second, and the next I’m swung up into his arms, my legs wrapped around his waist. My core pressed against the hard length of him, and I shift my hips for more friction. The heat from his body lighting me on fire.
The good kind of fire. The one that simmers on low in your veins before sparking a flash fire hot enough to consume.
Harlan kicks his door shut behind us and lowers me to my feet. His hands dip under my top, and I shiver at the feel of his hands on me.
He kisses a path down my neck, nipping at the skin before soothing it with his tongue and I’m about to go up in flames.
When he pulls back, I meet his gaze — my eyes heavy.
“Ground rules.” He grinds out as his hips shift against mine. The firm evidence of his own desire thick and hard against my tummy.
I laugh. “You and your rules.”
“Sunshine.” He growls into my neck and nips at my ear lobe. Goosebumps dance down my arms at the sensation. “Focus.”
“Hurry up,” I whine.
“You say stop, I stop. You say wait, and I wait.”
I nod. Remembering the words from the night we started our relationship.
“Are you on birth control?” he whispers the question against my lips before he sucks the bottom one into his mouth for a quick sucking nip .
I nod. “Yes. I’m covered. I had a physical right after Audra was born and haven’t been with anyone since...”
He kisses me again and tugs on the strands of my hair in his hands. “Can I have you bare? I want you — with nothing between us. I’m safe — I’ll keep you safe — I promise.”
I lean forward and steal the promise from him. Harlan’s safe. It’s been my mantra for weeks as I navigated this new thing between us. I know this, like I know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. He’d never do anything that could hurt me. He’s shown me that time and time again.
“Yes. Please. Nothing between us,” I whisper against his lips. I reach down and grab the hem of my shirt, intent on getting naked, when Harlan’s hands stop me.
“Let me?”
I nod, and Harlan crouches. With every inch of skin he unearths, his lips follow a trail up my stomach and across my chest until he pulls the fabric free. Once he’s standing again, his lips find mine, his hands mapping my skin as if committing the feel of me to memory.
“So fucking beautiful. Every goddamn inch of you is perfect.”
He makes me feel it with each slide of his fingers against me. His hand dips under my bra strap, and he tugs it down to hang loosely over my upper arm.
“You’re a gift. Meant to be savored and unwrapped. Just for me.” His lips follow the trail of my other bra strap down my arm.
His mouth travels across the swell of my breasts — still encased in lace before a flick of his wrist at my back opens the garment and I let it drop to the floor.
“A vision.” His eyes don’t dip down though, they stay locked on mine.
I’m a vision to him .
My own hands come to splay across his chest, the firm heat of him under my palms making me lightheaded. I reach down and pinch the hem of his shirt between my fingers to slowly lift it over his head and drop it to the floor. The crisp hair that dusts his chest tickles my palms as I sweep my hands over the massive expanse of his skin.
So strong. Will I feel his heartbeat thunder against my lips?
Testingly, I press a kiss to his sternum. The steady thump of his heart a pulse against my mouth.
The button on my shorts gives way under his fingers, and he slides his hands around to my ass before working the denim and my panties over my legs.
I reach out to do the same, but his hand grabs mine. “Those need to stay on if this is going to last longer than two minutes.”
The ragged edge of his voice makes me smile — because we’re on the same page. I feel like I’m going to combust if he doesn’t touch me, if he doesn’t hurry the hell up.
Harlan turns us and walks me backward until my legs hit his bed. Slowly, he lowers me until my back hits the mattress and then kneels on the floor between my parted thighs.
There’s no room for embarrassment, the most private part of me bared to his gaze. Not when I look down and see the fiery devotion in his own gaze.
“So. Goddamn. Beautiful.” He traces a finger through my folds, my arousal coating the digit until it glides smoothly.
My back arches at the sensation. “Har,” I pant his name like it’s an anchor holding me in place.
“Fuck, Sunshine.” His mouth replaces his finger, and he kisses my clit.
“Oh Jesus Christ,” I shout at the electricity coursing through my clit at the innocent touch. I bite the back of my hand to stifle the moan that rips through me.
I am not waking my daughter up. I refuse to ruin this.
He swipes his tongue through my folds, and a rumbly growl vibrates against my overheated flesh.
My hand digs into Harlan’s hair, and I scratch my fingers against his scalp. Hazel eyes lock onto mine just as his mouth closes over my pussy.
A press of his thumb against my entrance is what does it. Like a rocket being shot into the sky, I catapult over the edge of pleasure. Waves of sensation course through me, my inner channel clenching on nothing as I come against his mouth, his lips and tongue working me through the climax.
“There you go, Sunshine.” He growls against me as his thumb abandons my center to rub slow circles against my clit. “There you go. Come all over my fingers — all over my mouth.” He dips a finger into my core, and it sets off a second stronger orgasm until I’m a writhing mess at his mercy.
Just as my orgasm winds down, his finger disappears, replaced with the flat of his tongue as he laps up the moisture spilling from my center.
“You fucking taste like sunshine too.” My legs shake, the oversensitive skin between my legs tingling as I come down from the high.
I run my hands through his hair before tugging lightly.
My eyes tingle and my cheeks warm against the emotion this man makes me feel.
I thought that I might have a hard time with intimacy, with being with someone else after… before… and I want to both laugh and cry that it’s not the case. That somehow, someway, I’m able to be with him and not run screaming for the hills when so much of my past experience was force and anger and abuse boiled down to its most heinous. I got here myself, goodness knows I’ve put more thought into this than anything else over the last few days, but Harlan helped to give me this gift back. The gift of giving my body to someone in care and devotion.
And I know down to my bones that he won’t ever take it — or me — for granted.
“Come up here, please.” I gasp, still unable to catch my breath my eyes stinging at the emotion flooding my heart.
Harlan’s hands drop to the button on his pants, and in a second, he’s naked. All corded massive muscle illuminated by the moonlight coming from his window. His abs pave a pretty picture to the thick, heavy length of him, and my own hands itch with the need to touch him all over. To learn what rips the growl from his throat, what makes his muscles quiver. To give him as much pleasure as he gave me and make him feel as cherished as I do right now.
I cock an eyebrow at him and smile.
“My turn.”