29. Jude
Chapter 29
Jude
I check in on Harper on Sunday too, but I decide to do it earlier in the day when Dad and Diana are out with Rosie. I was flabbergasted when Diana asked if me and Harper wanted to join them at the movies—not just that she’d asked but because they were taking Rosie with them. I almost went with...but I hate animated movies. I endure them at home when Rosie asks me to watch the first bit of Moana with her, but I can’t handle a full film in the theater.
Harper doesn’t go either, and the only reason for that is so she can get up to mischief. So I wait her out to see what she does or where she goes...but she doesn’t even leave her bedroom. About an hour after our parents leave, I slip into her room. I expect to see her on her bed, reading or texting on her phone. Maybe even doing homework by her dresser. But her room is empty.
Fuck! Did she climb out the window?
I rush over and lean out, knowing she’s already long gone, but unable to help myself. It was an idiot move, but I’m glad I couldn’t control the impulse because it’s only once I’m standing there, glaring down into the swimming pool area, that I hear the faint swirl of water coming from inside her bathroom.
So she didn’t leave after all. But I should.
Instead, I head for the bathroom door she left ajar. Instead, I turn the handle. Instead, I push it open.
Harper’s in the tub. The way the bathroom is laid out, she’s facing me, but there’s no scream for me to get out because her eyes are closed. If it wasn’t for her fingertips twitching along to whatever music she’s listening to on her earbuds, I’d have thought she dozed off. Her hair is in a dry, messy bun on top of her head, her body veiled with a few soft mounds of bubble bath. But she must have been in the bath for a while because those bubbles are becoming sparse.
I can already make out the dark triangle between her legs. Both her nipples are exposed, those dusty pink circles full and soft. But as if she can sense me standing here, as if she feels eyes on her, those nipples start to tighten. I watch, fascinated, unable to tear my eyes away.
Harper shifts in the water, letting out a soft sigh, her eyelashes fluttering. My chest tightens, and I take a hurried step back, then another, trying to move as silently as possible.
I slide around the door, pressing my back into the wall as I release the breath I was holding. I wait for her to call out, for her to ask me what the fuck I was doing watching her...but I guess I got out of there just in time because there’s no sound from the bathroom. It’s only when in the hallway outside, turning to close her bedroom door behind me, that I hear her call out, “Hello?”
Silently, I shut her door and creep back into my room.
I lock my door. There’s no way she’s catching me jerking off again. I don’t even bother turning on porn. I shove a hand under my mattress and drag out her undies, already pulling my dick out of my sweats as I perch on the edge of my bed.
I inhale the scent of her, but despite the punishing rhythm I set, my climax feels miles away. Growling with frustration, I toss her panties away from me and fall back on my bed, closing my eyes and trying to work up a visual image of Harper so I can end my misery.
But nothing works. All I can see is her soaking in the tub, curves that would give Michelangelo a fucking hard-on.
It takes me a few minutes of futile jerking off before I realize what’s wrong. I sit up in a rush, shoving my rock-hard cock back in my sweats and digging my fingers into the comforter spread over my bed.
She was fucking happy, that’s why. I don’t know what—or who—she was thinking about, but it wasn’t me. And that made her happy, and when she’s happy...
I’m pissed off.
It makes no sense. I’m not a fucking sadist. I don’t enjoy seeing other people in pain. But I do resent the fact that Harper can lie in the tub and be happy, even for a brief moment, after all the shit she’s pulled.
What does that make me?
I leave my room in a rush, striding past Harper’s bedroom door without even looking at it. I’m in the attic a minute later, dusting my hands as I scan the cobwebby shadows for the boxes I left up here.
I’m not a sadist...I’m Harper’s worst fucking nightmare brought to life. And if she can lie there and be happy, then I’m obviously going about this all wrong.
I made it too easy.
I took away every ounce of temptation. Meanwhile, I have to live with her in the same house, sleeping a yard away from me. She’s a constant temptation. I realize my mistake now. I’ve stacked the odds in her favor.
Time to fix it.