Chapter 24 Emma
TWENTY-FOUR
EMMA
MARCH
“Hey, Em.”
The mattress dipped and the smell of fresh coffee permeated the air. I stretched and opened my eyes to find Harlan watching me, wearing one of my old T-shirts that was way too short and tight on him, and his underwear.
“Morning,” I said, then giggled as I took in his appearance. “You look like a seventies himbo. Short shorts, belly shirt, slutty mustache. All you need are some aviators and you’d have been the talk of the town.”
“I aim to please,” he joked. He lifted a mug and pointed to a plate on my nightstand holding a little glass of milk and some sugar in a bowl. “Didn’t know how you take it, so brought some stuff.”
“What a treat. Thank you,” I said, taking the mug from his hands. “I know how you take yours.”
He smirked. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Splash of milk, packet of Splenda when you think no one’s looking.”
His jaw dropped. “That is very rude.”
“Just letting you know that I know all your secrets. If you ever consider lying to me, I will figure it out.”
He chuckled. “Noted. What’s Leroy’s coffee?”
“Black. Come on now. That’s child’s play. Next.”
“Cap.”
I raised my eyebrow. “He’s trickier. So much cream it’s almost not brown at all, two sugars.”
“Sorrento.”
“One cream, one sugar, and always some dad joke comment about how Jeanine wants him to eat less sugar.”
Harlan laughed, but his smile faded when he looked down at his hands. “I should probably get home and get ready for practice.”
I glanced at the clock. “I need to get there before you.”
“I figured,” he said. “I’ll just take a rideshare home. Don’t want to make you late.”
“I’m actually a little early now. If you can wait twenty minutes, I can drive you.”
“You sure?”
“Totally,” I said. “I better go hop in the shower, though.”
“Mind if I join you?” Harlan’s eyes were hopeful, but he hardened his expression when he saw my hesitation.
“We should talk about what this is.” I pointed between us, then tugged on the sleeve of my borrowed shirt. “You certainly made yourself at home.”
He smirked. “I also stole a spare toothbrush. Hope that’s okay, but, you know, oral hygiene first.”
“I respect that,” I said warmly. “And high adrenaline car chase aside, last night was fun.”
“It was. I’d like to have more fun,” he hedged.
“Me too. But I don’t want to have the pressure of work watching, and I don’t want to lie to Liam.”
Harlan chewed his lip. “Well, completely respectfully, of course, but does Liam need to know what you do when he’s not around?”
I shook my head. “Lies by omission are still lies, Harlan.”
“Open mind for a minute?” Harlan asked.
“Sure.” I put the coffee mug on my nightstand and wrapped my forearms around my knees.
“It wouldn’t be a lie by omission forever. But he might need more time to warm up to the idea. Or maybe you want to wait until you’re more sure about things. You could tell him whenever you want. I never want to get in the way of what you two have.”
Goosebumps rippled up my arms. Who knew my work nemesis could be so considerate?
“I love how much you advocate for his needs,” he went on. “And I want to make sure you advocate for your own too.”
I snorted softly. “And you think I need you?”
He drew in a deep breath. “Think of the bus. You deserve happiness. I think we’ve both learned life is too short to delay happiness.”
“And you make me happy?” I scoffed.
His seriousness brought me out of my teasing. I was joking to deflect my deeper feelings, but Harlan was getting real with me. Maybe the age gap didn’t matter as much as I feared it did. I was trying to level with him. But when it counted, Harlan was very mature.
He studied me and I was struck once again by the stunning color of his eyes. “I don’t know how you feel about me, but I know you make me happy.”
I glowed, an ember hoping to spark back into a flame.
It was a simple statement. You make me happy.
This man who sat on my bed, who respected my need for space, who understood my limits and boundaries, somehow, I made him happy.
When was the last time someone told me that? Liam when he was a little boy?
“We deserve it, Em. For us. Even if it’s behind closed doors for a while. We deserve to live for today. To prioritize our happiness.”
I opened my mouth to argue and he raised his eyebrows to stop me.
“Not above all else. Other people and things still come first. But this,” he pointed between us, “us? We deserve to make the list.”
This was gearing up to be the most mortifying conversation of my life, but when had I ever been so honest with a prospective partner? It was scary but also refreshing.
“We need to talk terms,” I started. “I don’t know if you’re a big sleepovers guy—”
“Yes,” he interrupted.
I giggled. “Right, should have guessed. This is our second in a short period of time. But given Liam’s reaction to that first one, I don’t know if we can do it again when he’s here. And if he’s here, I don’t want to leave him alone.”
“I’d never expect you to choose me over him. If he’s here, you’re busy. I get that.” Harlan put a hand on top of my foot, still buried under the covers. “You take the lead on if, how, and when to include Liam. And you make the final decision for work. You have more at stake than I do.”
Who knew he had this kind of respect and understanding in him when he was the guy sneaking food out of my prep area and annoying me to the high heavens? “I don’t even know what the rules are at work.”
He lifted a shoulder. “Rules can be changed. I think if we eventually decide we want people to know, it’s better for us to come to them on a solid foundation than to be two fools running away together because bickering makes us horny, consequences be damned.”
I laughed and chewed my bottom lip, thinking.
I admired the man sitting at my feet. Harlan wasn’t just a daddy when we were fucking around.
He held that strong, grounding role here too.
“And here I thought goalies were weird. Turns out you’re more grown up than most men of any age.
I’ve worried about having to be the grown-up with you, that if we did give in, I’d be the responsible one.
I thought your playfulness meant you were immature.
But it doesn’t.” I picked up my coffee mug and held it in the air between us.
“Let’s do it. Secret for now, but not secret forever. ”
He clinked his mug to mine. “Not secret forever. Cheers, Chef.”
We both drank deeply, then Harlan set his mug down and took mine from my hands. He pulled me out of bed by my hand and, once I was standing, dipped to throw me over his shoulder. “Now,” he said, lifting me. I shrieked and he talked over me, “I heard there’s this princess who needs a shower.”
“Oh my god, Harlan! I’m going to hit my head on the doorframe.”
“Not if you cooperate,” he argued back. He put me on my feet in the bathroom and figured out how to turn on my shower. I started the process of brushing my teeth, and when I was finished, he snapped his fingers at me. “Come on. Clothes off. We don’t want you late for work.”
“Geez.” I shoved my shorts down and by the time I had my shirt pulled over my head, Harlan was bent over naked by the shower, testing the water temperature.
That was too easy an opportunity to pass up. I scampered up behind him and slapped his ass as hard as I could. He yelped and jumped. “Hey!”
“For all the times you used my kitchen without my permission. Karma’s a bitch.”
I did not like the glint in his eye. “You’re right, Chef. Karma is a bitch. Get in the shower for me.”
Nerves shot through me as I stepped into the shower, standing back so he had room to get in too.
“Come here, princess.” With tender care, he dipped my hair into the spray, using his fingers to spread the water through my hair. He filled his hand with shampoo and got to work. I was surprised when his fingers massaged my scalp.
“This is . . . nice,” I hedged.
“I am, after all, a nice guy,” he said. He rained kisses onto my neck and shoulders, his erection bumping against my stomach. I dropped my hand to drag my fingers over it, a move that made Harlan close his eyes and smile. “And you are such a nice girl.”
He took down the showerhead and rinsed out my hair. Then, he twisted the dial until it put out a singular, steady stream. “Ass against the wall. Legs wide.”
I opened my legs and leaned back against the cool tile. Harlan started by kissing me, slow and deep, while the stream of water circled one nipple. He dipped to suck the other, swirling his tongue in time with how the water circled my other nipple. “Oh, fuck.”
I reached for his cock and gave it a firm tug. He tipped his head back at the pleasure, which I took as an opportunity to softly suck his neck.
I went up on my toes, searching for some way, any way, to fit him inside me. I pressed his tip against my entrance and he hissed through his lips.
“Trying to tempt me?” he growled.
“I’m trying to get fucked,” I protested.
“The greediest.”
“I have to get to work!”
“And you will,” he said, dropping the showerhead and training the stream of water right to the top of my slit. “After I play with you.”
I made an embarrassingly needy noise into a kiss, savoring the taste of his mouth and the way he kissed me like he wasn’t bringing me to the brink.
One of those massive hands pinned me to the wall at my throat, his fingers long enough that nothing was constricted.
He left me feeling simultaneously secure and untamed, unleashed but with the softest guard rails.
“You’re so pretty like this,” he said, gazing down into my eyes. “Letting yourself go. Letting me handle you.”
“I trust you,” I blurted out, and that felt like a bigger admission than if I had admitted I loved him. Which, I didn’t. Obviously.
But trust somehow seemed bigger.
Harlan’s eyes softened. “Good. Daddy’s got you.”
I liked it, but my slight embarrassment about it made my cheeks fire-hot. He picked up on it.
“Don’t get in your head about it,” he said. “Focus on my hands.”
The hand holding the showerhead started to circle my clit, a move that made me buck my hips. I stopped stroking his cock, getting lost in what he was doing to me.
“There you go,” he coaxed me. He watched my face for a few moments, and I let him see me: desperate, wanting, unfolding for him. “I trust you too, Emma.”
I beamed up at him, and I almost became a puddle on the shower floor when he smiled right back, biting his bottom lip like he couldn’t get over me.
Our kisses were slow, languid. His hand left my throat to play with my breast and my hips sought the water stream.
“Is that good? Is that what you need?” he asked, but I could tell he was starting to mess with me.
“It’s not enough,” I whined. “Please don’t fuck with me right now.”
“What do you need?”
I clutched the back of his neck for leverage, practically humping the showerhead between us.
“Tell me. Do you need me, princess?”
“I need you, Daddy,” I rushed out before I could doubt myself.
“Yeah?” he asked, false concern scrunching his brow. He was mocking me.
“I fucking hate you,” I spat, on the verge of ecstasy and agony and frustrated tears.
Harlan’s eyes lit up and his smirk sent me somewhere between heaven and hell. “If you hate me so much, you better fucking scream for me.”
My nails dug into his neck as I gnashed my teeth and held my breath.
Harlan pinned me to the wall at my neck again and I wanted to be able to scream his name, or Daddy, or something, anything to let him know I’d never been this high before, that I’d never felt so seen and safe, that this feeling transcended love and hate and sex and trust.
But all I could do was scream.
He encouraged me with little chants of “let go” and “so gorgeous.”
I pinched my legs shut as I came and Harlan let the showerhead drop, spraying water at our shins now.
I slumped into him and he held me tight to his body.
A flood of feel-good chemicals coursed through me as I shook against him, and all my foggy mind could think was that love was taking root.
Love was letting someone see you at your wildest, trusting them to hold the deepest, most raw parts of yourself with care.
And the scariest part of all was, he did.