Chapter Thirteen
Elise’s breath tasted like cherry ChapStick. Which was a knock on memory’s door. After ten years, Harper hadn’t forgotten what Elise’s lips had tasted like that night around the fire.
Her hands moved. One slid to the back of Elise’s neck, fingers threading into her curls. She tugged just enough to make Elise gasp softly against her mouth and let the other drift down Elise’s spine, skimming each warm ridge before finally gripping her waist to pull her in closer.
Elise met her halfway. Harper should’ve been surprised that Elise wasn’t jerking back and telling her to fuck off, but she wasn’t.
Elise wanted this as badly as Harper did.
She could tell by the way Elise had looked at her barely two minutes ago when Harper had surprised her by showing up in the garden.
As soon as Harper had cupped Elise’s cheek, the invisible wall between them that Elise had erected all those years ago had finally come crumbling down.
Harper had felt it physically. Elise’s body had given way. She’d leaned into Harper like her legs were threatening to buckle. But Harper had held her upright. She was the kickstand to Elise’s toppling bicycle.
“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” Harper said, completely dismissing the other night.
In fact, she preferred not to think about it.
This was exactly how she had imagined their kiss would feel after all those years.
Not Elise jerking back so fast, acting like she had been electrocuted.
Not telling Harper to go when all she had wanted to do was to stay.
“Shh, before my brain realizes this is a mistake,” Elise said.
“It’s not a mistake, Elise.”
But Elise barely let her finish her thoughts. She caught Harper’s bottom lip between her teeth and then released it. She did this again. And again. Over and over. It wasn’t long before tongues touched. Breaths hitched. Lips slid over lips like magnets with nothing else to attach to.
Harper swore she could feel Elise’s heartbeat thrumming against her.
It was fast and chaotic, just like the kiss.
Then, suddenly, Harper pulled back just a fraction.
“Do you want me to stop?” she whispered so softly she wondered if the words had even made it out of her mouth.
Then she wondered why she was even asking them in the first place.
Clearly, Harper most certainly did not want to stop.
She found herself adding, “I don’t want to, but I will if you want me to. ”
“Shh,” Elise said again, but this time she didn’t kiss Harper right back. First, she traced a finger along Harper’s exposed neckline, and then she moved closer until her lips hovered over Harper’s and whispered, “I think we should go back to my place.”
Harper’s entire body erupted in goosebumps. Without even saying yes, fantastic idea, she caught Elise’s hand in hers and laced their fingers.
Together they ran back up the stone steps.
When they reached the pool, it was thankfully half-hidden by two olive trees.
The contestants didn’t even notice; they were too enamored with Megan.
Harper led Elise toward a narrow path that the villa staff used to bypass the pool and followed it down another steep set of stairs.
Two minutes later they reached Elise’s crew house.
Elise opened the door, walked in first, and then pulled Harper inside. She’d barely closed it before her mouth went to Harper’s neck. “I can’t believe this is happening,” she murmured, pressing lips to skin.
“But you want it to happen, right?” Harper asked, pressing Elise up against the wall right beneath a painting of the Amalfi Coast with sailboats bobbing on choppy waters. “You’re not going to ask me to leave again, are you?”
“No,” Elise said, smiling. Her lips were swollen and bright red. “I’m not.”
Harper wanted to ask if she was sure, but didn’t.
Just in case Elise changed her mind. There was no reason to risk something like that when it wasn’t worth risking.
Besides, Harper was beginning to sound needy, and she wasn’t needy.
Not usually. Not with anyone else. So, she kissed Elise’s shoulder instead and said, “You’re so beautiful,” before moving her lips to Elise’s neck and her hands to her waist. “Do you know that?”
Elise giggled. Harper had never heard her giggle. “You know I don’t like compliments.”
“I don’t care.” She picked Elise up and carried her over to the small navy blue sofa pressed up against the wall, but then did a quick one-eighty toward the bedroom.
There was no way the sofa was wide enough for what Harper wanted to do.
When they reached the bedroom, Harper had barely set Elise down before they grabbed at each other.
Hands tangled in hair. Harper slipped her fingers under Elise’s top and pulled it over her head.
Harper took off her own top and bra as Elise was undoing her own bra.
Then Elise fumbled with the waistband of Harper’s jeans until she managed to yank the zipper free.
By the time Harper stepped out of her pants, Elise’s pants were already slipping down her knees.
“Wow, you’re so beautiful,” Harper said again.
And damn, she really was. Her skin was smooth and buttery.
Her breasts were perky and full. And Harper’s breath nearly hitched at the elegant strip of pubic hair that led down to folds so perfect she could barely get her thoughts in order.
Not that she had to. Because Elise pulled Harper flush against her, skin to skin, and her mind went entirely blank.
All she could focus on was what was right in front of her. After a decade, Elise Mercier’s lips were on Harper’s neck and her fingers were skimming down Harper’s waist.
Harper had to do everything she could not to let the buzz between her thighs take over the rest of her body. She wanted to take her time, to savor every second.
Harper cupped Elise’s breast and swiped her thumb over her perky right nipple.
She then swapped the swiping for pinching and Elise moaned so loud it triggered a memory from ten years ago: Elise’s nipple in Harper’s mouth, Elise arching into the bite, the inky black sky that seemed to fold inward and collapse into a single point where Harper’s lips touched her skin.
Harper hadn’t thought it was possible to miss something she’d only had once. And yet here she was, ten years later, feeling like her whole life had been one long wait to touch Elise again.
Before Harper could drown in that memory, she decided to make a new one, and she pushed Elise onto the bed.
The mattress was so bouncy that Elise rebounded an inch, causing her legs to fall open in a way that left Harper entirely breathless.
She crawled over her, lowering herself until her right knee slotted between Elise’s legs and her thigh pressed right up against Elise’s heat.
Elise was already wet.
“OMG,” Elise muttered, her head lolling back onto the mattress.
She cupped Harper’s ass and, in the same heartbeat, started circling her hips up and down, around and around.
Harper was surprised she knew exactly what she wanted, but then again, maybe that was the point.
Ten years of pretending, ten years of wanting, ten years of trying to be someone else—it all seemed to pour into the way Elise moved against her now.
“This feels so fucking good,” Elise breathed.
Harper couldn’t agree more. The feeling of her skin on Elise’s skin was like a fire that had once burned itself out and then exploded back to life.
She’d forgotten how good this could feel, how good it was supposed to feel.
She’d forgotten about the butterflies in her stomach, the way her body should feel like it was dizzily floating.
Or maybe she’d never actually experienced it before.
Maybe she’d just been pretending. Because nothing and no one had knocked her sideways like this in ten years.
She bent down and kissed Elise like she’d wanted to every day since the first time their lips had met.
Elise made a sound that punched straight through Harper’s chest. It was a tiny, desperate noise, like she’d been holding it in for a decade.
Her hands slid up Harper’s back, fingers pressing into her shoulder blades as if to anchor her there.
“I thought I made you up,” Elise whispered against her mouth. “Sometimes at night I’d think about that night and convince myself I’d exaggerated it. Or that I’d imagined how much I wanted you.”
Harper pulled back just enough to look at her.
Elise’s eyes were glossy, lashes damp, the curve of her mouth kiss-swollen and soft.
“You didn’t imagine it,” Harper said. Her voice came out rougher than she had intended.
“I’ve been trying not to think about that night for ten years, and I failed. Miserably.”
Elise gave a tight, broken laugh. “Me too.”
Harper kissed the corner of her mouth, and then the place beneath her ear that had made her shiver ten years ago and still made her shiver now.
The familiarity of it wrecked her. The way Elise tilted her head to give her more access, like her body remembered exactly what to do, wrecked her even more.
“I’m sorry,” Harper said softly, brushing her lips along Elise’s throat. “For leaving. For not being brave.”
Elise’s hand slid into her hair and held her there. “I’m not exactly innocence personified here,” she murmured. “I married someone else too, remember? I chose ‘safe’ over this.” Her fingers tightened, just a little.
Harper kissed her way down Elise’s neckline to the valley between her breasts. Every inch felt like rediscovery and proof, and apology all at once. Harper could feel Elise trembling beneath her. Her muscles coiled with impatience, and her breaths came in short, choppy bursts.
“Harper,” Elise said. There was a plea in the word that made Harper’s stomach flip.