Chapter 11
ELEVEN
HARLEY
I lean against my car and stare at the house in front of me, waiting for a glimpse of Savannah. We agreed to meet at the pier for today’s little outing, but I was itching to get out and thought it’d be easier if I just picked her up.
A smile automatically pulls at my lips as the door opens and she runs toward me, her red hair blowing in the breeze, looking breathtaking wearing a pair of jeans and a tank top. But my smile soon dips when I see the look on her face.
“What’s wrong?” I demand as soon as she reaches me, hating the worried line between her brows and the way her gaze keeps going back to the house behind her.
I let my instincts take over as I pull her into my arms and hold her tight.
“Did something happen?” I ask against her hair before breathing her in.
Fuck, I love having this girl in my arms.
My words seem to shake her out of whatever was worrying her, and she pulls out of my embrace before forcing the fakest smile that I’ve ever seen. “Nothing. Let’s get out of here, huh?”
I frown at her, not believing for a second that nothing’s wrong, but decide not to question it further. If she wants to tell me, she will, and maybe getting away from here and whatever has her acting differently will be the key to that.
It worries me to see her so… shaken? Different?.
We’re silent as we drive toward the beach, but rather than our usual silence, this time it’s tense for reasons I’m not aware of.
Once we finally park up, I turn to her and find her biting down on her bottom lip. She’s not acting like herself and it’s really starting to freak me out.
“Talk to me, Sav,” I murmur and reach out to pull her lip away from her teeth. “What’s going on?”
She stares at me, a look of indecision on her face, before she finally blurts, “I’m scared.”
“About what?”
Her eyes dart out of the windshield before meeting mine once more. “I… I think I want to go on the Ferris wheel.”
I snort, unable to help myself. “Seriously? That’s what you’ve been acting so weird about?”
I know she said she’d never go on it, that she was scared, and the day she went on it was the day she lost the will to live, but this is really freaking dramatic, even by my standards.
I take a deep breath. Okay, clearly, she’s terrified of the thing and has been spinning herself round in circles about this, but I need to support her, not laugh.
That’s if this is what she’s worried about and she’s not just trying to change the subject.
Honestly, I’m not convinced it’s not the latter, but I have to trust what she says.
“Is there a reason you want to go on it? You don’t need to do this, Sav.”
Biting down on her lip again, she averts her eyes. “There’s no use living life in fear, Harley. I want to face at least one thing I’m scared of, and this is something I can control.”
And now I’m back to being worried…
“What else scares you, baby?”
I hate seeing her so vulnerable. I wish I could take away all of her worries, make it so she was never anxious again in her life, but there’s so much I don’t know about her, and that makes it difficult to help.
“The usual things,” she says cryptically before shaking her head. “Enough about this, let’s go.”
Before I can ever mutter a response, she’s out of the car and waiting for me a few feet away.
I guess that conversation is over.
We do our usual things, like walk along the beach, people watch on the pier, and eat lunch before Savannah brings up going on the Ferris wheel again.
We get in line for our turn, but during the entire wait, she’s nervous.
She bites her nails and shifts from foot to foot until I finally draw my arm around her and pull her to me.
“We don’t have to do this,” I whisper into her ear, and she glares at me.
“Yes, we do.”
“And why is that, pumpkin?” I ask, holding back a snigger. As expected, her lips pull down at the nickname, and I can’t hold back my laugh. Thank God I didn’t, because the wide smile that lights up her face finally breaks the tension I’ve been feeling all day.
When it’s our turn to step into the cab, determination takes over her, and I’ve honestly never been so proud of someone.
It may seem like a small, inconsequential thing to be doing, but this is clearly something that makes her uncomfortable, and to see her face it the way she is, makes me so goddamn happy for her.
As we start to go up, Savannah’s hand latches onto mine in a death grip, and when I glance down at her, I see her pale-faced, wide-eyed, and almost trembling.
Fuck, this was a terrible idea.
I draw my arm around her, pull her into me, and then squeeze her tight, letting her know I’m right here.
“Almost there, baby. You’re okay.”
“This is horrible,” she whines, making me chuckle breathlessly, and I press a kiss to the side of her head.
“I know, but it’ll be over before you know it, and then you can finally say you’ve been on one. It won’t be this big thing you’ve built up in your head anymore, and instead, it’ll just be a thing you and I did that one time. You’ve got this, and I’m so proud of you, Sav.”
Her wide eyes blink up at me in astonishment. “You are? You don’t think it’s ridiculous?”
I shake my head. When she first mentioned not wanting to come on here, I thought it was because she was afraid of heights, but it isn’t.
I asked her about it over lunch last week, and it turns out it’s just Ferris wheels in general that have always freaked her out.
Something about reading an article where one collapsed, and ever since she read it, she’s been terrified of them and always stayed clear.
It's a valid fear.
“Baby, nothing about you is ridiculous, and I wouldn’t ever lie to you, especially not about something like this.”
Her gaze is locked on mine, and then suddenly, so are her lips. This is no quick, chaste kiss like we’ve shared before. No, this is something else entirely. I moan as her tongue tangles with mine and take the kiss deeper, holding her close to me with my hand woven in her hair.
We don’t come up for air. We kiss and kiss, tasting and teasing and devouring each other until we’re both breathless.
We kiss until I don’t know where she ends and I begin.
We kiss until my mouth goes numb and my cock is painfully hard.
We kiss until the ride stops, and we reach the ground, pulling away from each other, panting and staring wordlessly.
Her pretty, dazed eyes meet mine. “You’re not who I thought you would be, Harley Thorn.”
Something about the way she’s looking at me fills me with pride, like I’ve finally managed to find a way past that high-as-hell wall she keeps up around her.
“And who did you think I was, baby?”
She blinks as though she’s trying to drive away her thoughts, and then an unfamiliar expression crosses her face. “I thought you’d be easy to walk away from,” she murmurs, and I wonder if maybe I was wrong. Maybe I haven’t gotten past her walls, but that doesn’t mean I’ll give up trying.
“So don’t walk away,” I say, though it’s more of a plea.
“I won’t, yet…” She trails off and mumbles something under her breath I can’t quite catch. Before I can ask what she said, the attendant opens the gate on our cab, distracting me, but that’s okay. I can always ask her later.