Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
HARPER
M y door swings open with no warning. I jump off the bed, startled, as Declan walks into my room. His hair is dripping, and sweat rolls down his neck. He must have just come back from practice without showering in the locker room.
The look on his face is pure anger as he stalks toward me. It should scare me; if it were anyone else, I think I’d cower and hide. But Declan makes me want to grow claws and fight. It’s toxic, but I love the electricity that runs through my veins knowing we’re about to have it out.
“Ever consider knocking?” I ask primly, crossing my arms.
“Nope.” He prowls into my space. “Can’t say that I have.”
“I could have been doing something that required privacy.”
“You lost that privilege.” He holds up his hand, showing me a screwdriver. “That’s why I’m here to begin with.”
My brow furrows as he turns and closes the door, beginning to loosen the screws on the hinges. He works quickly, pocketing each loose screw. “You are quite literally unhinged.”
“Yep. Just like your door is about to be.” He doesn’t stop.
I was going to apologize to him. To take responsibility for running off and explain why I did it. But screw that and screw him.
“What are you trying to prove with this stunt?”
“I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m trying to keep you safe.”
“By eliminating my privacy?”
I catch a glimpse of Emerson through the crack in the door as he pauses to check out what’s going on. Thank goodness, someone to talk some sense into Declan right now. He needs to be checked.
“Emerson, stop,” I call out. I push the door open, squishing Declan between it and the wall. He doesn’t stop what he’s doing. “Tell him he’s being ridiculous.”
Emerson pokes his head around the door and looks down at Declan. “What are you doing?”
“Taking her door off.” He leans back and looks up at Emerson. “Will you hold it while I get this last screw out?”
Hope rises in my chest but quickly deflates when Emerson looks at me. “Sure.” His large hands wrap around the edge of the door, steadying it for Declan as finishes the last screw. “Where do you want me to put it?”
“Lock it in the attic storage.”
My mouth drops in shocked outrage. “You cannot be serious. Emerson.”
He looks at me and shrugs, taking off with the door in his hands.
“What is wrong with you?” I turn back to Declan.
He sets the screwdriver down. “What’s wrong with me?” Venom swirls in the dark green depths of his eyes. “I don’t know, Harper, let’s count my grievances.” He holds up a finger. “One, I woke up to find you not in bed beside me.” He adds another finger. “Two, I find out a video of us being intimate was shared over the internet.” Another finger. “Three, I go downstairs to find your phone on the floor and vomit in the sink.”
“I’m sorry about that,” I interrupt. “I should have cleaned it up myself. I wasn’t thinking.”
His eyes narrow as storm clouds gather in his eyes. “I don’t give a fuck about you getting sick in the sink. It could have been all over the walls and ceiling. The only thing I care about is you.” He holds up a fourth finger. “Which leads us to number four. You left without your phone.”
“I had my purse.”
“Five, you drove Cy’s Ducati all the way to Athens.”
“He’s been giving me lessons, surely he told you that.”
He brackets my face with his palms. “I don’t care if fucking Evel Knievel taught you how to ride. I’d never not worry.”
“Why?” I look up into his eyes, not understanding why he’s so wound up. It’s so extreme.
“Six.” His voice is lowering in volume. “You choose to go to someone else for comfort you could have found from me, from us.”
“Stop.” How can he not understand that Banks has been my person for years? Before we were even together, Banks was my person.
He shakes his head. “Seven, and worst of all, you left without saying goodbye.”
“You were sleeping?—”
He pulls my face toward his, so close our lips nearly brush as we speak. “I don’t care.”
“So you’re going to hold me prisoner in your home with no privacy as punishment?”
“If that’s how you want to think of it.”
“This doesn’t endear me to you. You know that, right?”
“Ask me how many fucks I give.”
“I’d say at least seven.” I drag in a breath as he backs me against the wall. Heat floods my veins, lust and anger mixing into a potent cocktail.
“Who would have thought the preacher’s meek daughter could grow such sharp claws.” He presses his hips against mine, and I feel every hard inch of him.
I drag my nails down the exposed skin of his sides hard enough to leave marks. If it’s claws he wants, I’ll make him bleed. My core floods with desire when he gasps, his eyes darkening to nearly black.
He bends and grabs me by the back of the thighs, lifting me effortlessly. I’m tossed on the bed just as easily bouncing as I land, and he rips the sleeveless cutoff shirt he was wearing off, tossing it aside. He lays over me, grinding his cock between my spread thighs. I slide my hands under his shorts and inside his briefs, digging my nails into his ass.
He bites down on the spot where my shoulder meets my neck as I arch up against him. How can I want more when I just had sex with Cyrus in the bath an hour ago? His hands hook in my shorts, yanking them down in one motion. He pulls my panties to the side and spears me with two fingers.
I cry out as he pumps them in and out of me with brutal speed and strength. There’s nothing gentle about us right now. I bite down on his jaw and drag my nails from the globes of his ass around his hips and up his abs.
He inhales sharply against my lips as my pussy flutters around his fingers. Before my orgasm can crest, he withdraws his fingers. I push his shorts down until his cock bobs free.
I can’t help but admire it in the light of day. The shaft is long and thick, the crown wears an angry red flush. A deep purple vein throbs along the length, tempting me to trace it with my tongue.
He watches as I slide off the bed and down to my knees before him. Hesitation flickers in his eyes as I stick my tongue out and lick the path of the vein. He grabs my hair by the roots and pulls me away.
“If you don’t stand up right now, I will fuck your face. It won’t be gentle. It won’t be romantic. It will be brutal and fast.”
“I can take it.”
“Fuck.” He slams himself into my mouth, still holding my hair.
His hips piston back and forth as he uses my mouth for his pleasure and my punishment. With every muttered curse that falls from his lips, my pussy gets wetter. He hits the back of my throat, over and over. I can feel the blood pumping through the vein as I lave my tongue along it.
He hisses when I dig my nails into his hips and pull him further down my throat until my nose is nestled against the coarse, dark hair at his base. I swallow around him and feel the first wave of his orgasm cresting.
“Stick out your tongue.” He pulls his cock from my mouth and wraps a hand around it.
I follow directions and watch as he pumps himself once, twice, and then erupts all over my tongue. Ropes of cum land on my lips and cheeks as well. I watch mesmerized as his abs flex with each gasping breath he takes.
He stares down at me in a daze as he comes down from the high of his release. I’ve left my mouth open and tongue out for his inspection, not because he told me to, but because it feels right. He gathers his cum from my cheeks and lips with his thumb, pushing it into my mouth.
“Swallow.”
I do as I’m told, and a sense of power flows through me as I watch his Adam’s apple bob while he watches me. He might be angry with me, but he still wants me. I didn’t realize how much I want him, too, though. Or that I would want this kind of rough, debasing sex.
There’s a freedom in watching him use me. For some reason I stay right there on my knees while he gets dressed. I know I could stand, but I want him to tell me to do so. Or maybe just to help me up off my knees. I’m not really sure.
He holds out his hands and helps me up, wordlessly kissing my forehead and then walking out of my room. I watch as he goes, horny but oddly at peace.
“Emerson?” I knock lightly on his door. “It’s Harper. Can I come in?”
“Yeah,” comes his muffled response. He looks up from the books spread over his bed as I enter the room. “You don’t have to say it’s you when you knock. You’re the only one in this house who does.”
I give him a half-hearted smile. “Okay.” I gesture to his bed. “I can come back if it’s not a good time.”
“What’s up?” His face is a mask of indifference. Not a single drop of emotion is visible as he looks at me from behind his glasses. It’s unnerving.
“I wanted to apologize.”
“For?” he asks after a beat of silence.
“I should have cleaned up the sink before leaving. I was just—” I shake my head to clear it. “It’s all kind of a blur, but that’s no excuse.”
“So you’re sorry that I cleaned up your vomit?”
“Yeah, I mean no, not just that.” His indifference is harder to handle than Declan’s vitriol.
He tilts his head and watches me as I stumble around this apology. Who would have thought that the calmest one of the guys would make this the hardest on me? He sighs and closes all the books around him, setting them to the side.
“Sit down.” He points to his bed.
“I’m sorry.” I drop down on the edge of his bed.
He crosses his legs and leans back against the pillows waiting for me to continue.
“I shouldn’t have left without leaving a note.” My eyes meet his. “And you know damn well if I had come up and gotten one of you to let you know, you guys wouldn’t have let me go. I needed Banks, and I’ll never apologize for that.”
“I wouldn’t want you to.” He pats the spot beside him and waits until I’m settled there to continue. “Can you explain your thought process or what exactly happened this morning? I want to understand.”
I blow out a breath and sink back into the pillows. “I don’t really know. I went into almost a trance, like I was instantly numb. When I get like that, I’ve always gone to Banks. He’s been my person for so long, it’s almost an intrinsic urge now. He’s my safe place.”
Emerson nods as he takes in my explanation. “You were in shock.”
“I guess.”
“Does that happen a lot?”
“Only when something really bad happens. It started when my father would punish me. I would just kind of fold into myself, go numb to everything around me.”
“It’s a trauma response.”
“I guess. I’ve never seen a therapist or anything.”
It’s not like my dad could send me to one and risk being outed for the abuse. Plus he claimed we didn’t need psychologists when we had the counsel of God through him. I play with a loose thread on my sweater.
“I think you should.”
His words pull me from my thoughts. “What?”
“See a therapist.”
The thought sends ice through my veins. On a logical level, I know I need it, but on a base level, it terrifies me. Opening my inner world to anyone I don’t know is more frightening than facing my father ever was.
“You seem hesitant.” He turns his body to look at me. “What are you thinking?”
“That I hate that question.”
“Because you guard your innermost self as it’s the only thing you’ve ever been able to control.”
His words hit me like a blow to the chest, stealing my oxygen and leaving me reeling.
“What kind of doctor do you want to be? A psychiatrist?”
He gives me a smile. “Pediatric oncologist.”
The blows keep coming. “I can’t imagine a harder field. Why?”
“I lost my youngest brother to childhood brain cancer. All I’ve ever wanted to do is save others from the same fate.”
“I’m so sorry.” I cover his hand with mine.
He immediately flips it and links our fingers. “Thank you.”
We sit on the bed together in a sort of somber silence. Each of us lost in thought as the minutes tick by. I yawn while his thumb brushes over my knuckles.
“Do you want to take a nap? It’s been a wild couple of days.”
“You know, that actually sounds really good.” I start to get up, but he pulls me back down.
“Stay here?” His eyes implore mine.
“Okay.”
He reaches down and pulls up a soft gray blanket while I lay down. The pillow beneath my head smells like Cyrus, and I can’t help but turn my head into it. Emerson gives me a soft smile while he tucks the blanket around me.
“It smells like him, doesn’t it?” He tucks my hair behind my ear.
“Yeah.” There’s a wistfulness to my tone that I see reflected in his eyes.
He leans down slowly, giving me plenty of opportunities to object as his lips near mine. My eyes fall shut as he presses his mouth lightly against mine. My lips part to allow him entry, which he takes. His kiss is feather light, his tongue lightly stroking against mine. Before it can deepen any further, he backs away.
I let my eyes close as I hear the spine of his textbook crack when he opens it. My thoughts calm as I listen to the sound of pages turning. The smell of his highlighter mixed with the lingering scent of Cyrus’s shampoo lulls me into a peaceful sleep.