Chapter 29 I Can Smell Him On You
I straightened against the counter and folded my arms across my chest.
“You can’t come in here.”
He kicked the door shut behind him without taking his eyes off me.
“You picked the place, not me.”
“I was avoiding you.”
“I noticed.”
He moved closer until the sink pressed cold against my lower back. The sheer size of him should have felt intimidating. Instead my pulse kicked harder in a way that annoyed the hell out of me.
“Did you know there’s a video of you online fighting a guy twice your size?” he asked, voice flat.
I had suspected as much.
“I’m fine,” I said, meeting his eyes. “It was just sparring. The bruises will be gone in a few days.”
He closed the remaining distance. Suddenly I was boxed in against the counter, his hands braced on either side of my hips without quite touching me.
“You said no more bruises.”
The guilt landed heavier when he said it out loud.
“I know,” I replied quietly.
The air between us thickened, heavy with everything we weren’t saying.
“You know,” I murmured, letting my voice drop, “this whole overprotective thing you do is starting to get dangerously hot.”
His expression didn't change. “Harper. I’m serious.”
I held his gaze and slowly ran my hands up his chest, feeling the tension coiled there.
“I know you are.”
He didn’t pull away, but his breathing changed. I leaned closer, pressing my body against his, and brushed my lips along the underside of his jaw.
“Still worried?” I whispered.
His hands flexed on the counter. “Yes.”
I kissed the spot beneath his ear, then bit down lightly. His breath hitched.
“Harper…” It came out rough, half warning, half plea.
I slid one hand into his hair and pulled his mouth down to mine. At first he stayed tense, trying to hold onto that worried edge. Then he groaned low in his throat and finally gave in, kissing me back hard, like he was angry and relieved at the same time.
When we broke apart, his forehead rested against mine, breathing ragged.
“When you get hurt, it scares the hell out of me,” he said, voice low and raw.
The words settled somewhere deep in my chest.
Instead of answering, I kissed him again, slower this time, teasing. My hands slid under his shirt, palms flat against his warm skin. I felt him shudder.
That was when his control snapped.
He hooked his fingers into the waistband of my leggings and dragged them down my thighs along with my underwear in one rough motion. Then his hands slid under my thighs and he lifted me onto the counter. The tile was cold against my bare ass.
“Here?” I breathed, startled.
“I can’t stop,” he rasped, already fumbling with his fly.
He freed himself with impatient hands, lined up, and pushed inside me in one hard thrust. We both groaned at the feeling. Then he started moving, deep and urgent, like he needed to feel every inch of me to believe I was really okay.
“People will hear us,” I panted against his mouth.
“I don’t care,” he growled against my lips. “Let them hear.”
He fucked me harder, one hand gripping my ass to pull me into every thrust. I bit down on his shoulder to muffle the sounds I couldn’t hold back. The bathroom filled with our ragged breathing and the wet slap of skin on skin.
Pressure built fast, sharp and inevitable, until the orgasm crashed through me. I clenched around him, shaking, face buried in his neck. Jackson followed right after with a rough, broken groan, hips stuttering as he came deep inside me, holding me like he never wanted to let go.
For a long moment we stayed locked together, breathing hard.
Then reality crept back in. Jackson pulled out carefully and looked at me, his expression softening in a way that made my chest ache.
He cleaned me up with paper towels before helping me down from the counter and straightening my clothes. A stray piece of hair had fallen loose. He tucked it behind my ear, his fingers lingering for a second longer than necessary.
When we finally stepped out of the bathroom, the hallway had thinned out. Lectures had already started, leaving only scattered groups of students. A couple of guys near the water fountain smirked and elbowed each other. One girl blushed and quickly looked away.
Lia was walking toward us when she spotted us. Her steps faltered, nostrils flaring as our combined scent reached her. Her gaze flicked from me to Jackson and back, realization settling across her face.
I turned to him, caught his shirt, pulled him back for one more kiss, then let him go.
Let her see. Maybe then she'd finally get the message.
For a split second, something ugly crossed Lia's face. Then it was gone.
“Jackson,” she said evenly. “We’re late.”
“You didn’t have to wait,” he replied, still looking at me. His thumb brushed lightly across my cheek before he stepped back. “See you at lunch.”
He headed down the hall. Lia followed without another word.
I watched them disappear around the corner and let out a long breath.
What the hell had I gotten myself into?
By lunch, half the school seemed to know about the sparring video. And the bathroom.
I noticed the whispers and sideways glances. Cassidy noticed too.
“Okay, what did you do?” she demanded as we crossed the cafeteria. “You’re getting a lot of looks.”
Before I could answer, Jackson intercepted us. One hand gently caught my elbow while the other redirected Cassidy by her backpack strap.
“Sit with us,” he said, already steering us toward the large table his group usually claimed near the windows.
Cassidy blinked. “Uh… sure? I guess we’re doing this now.”
“There’s more room here,” Jackson said when I shot him a look.
“There’s also significantly more testosterone,” I pointed out.
“You’ll survive.”
Debatable.
I slid onto the bench beside him. The second I settled, Jackson’s arm curled around my waist, his hand spreading possessively over my hip as he pulled me closer.
“God,” Cassidy muttered, glancing around the table. “This is like accidentally walking into a men’s cologne commercial.”
The rest of the guys arrived a moment later, loud and chaotic as always. They caught Jackson’s scent on me and smirked like idiots. Rick fist-bumped him under the table, about as subtle as a brick.
Cassidy blinked between them. “Okay. What did I miss?”
“Nothing,” I said.
She squinted at me. “You’re lying.”
“Jackson’s just happy Harper finally likes him back,” Rick said smugly. “Like, a lot.”
Cassidy’s jaw dropped. She leaned in close, cupped a hand around her mouth, and whispered — not nearly quietly enough for wolf hearing, “This is exactly the kind of secret-language behavior cults do.”
Jackson’s shoulders shook silently against me. Rick choked on a fry. Jason snorted into his drink.
“Cassidy, eat your sandwich,” I said.
She took an aggrieved bite, still eyeing Rick with suspicion.
Jason pointed his fork at him. “Congrats, man. You’ve officially become the villain in her documentary.”
Rick threw his hands up. “Why am I the villain?”
“Because you have villain eyebrows,” Jason said.
Jackson huffed a quiet laugh beside me. The table dissolved into familiar bickering and half-hearted insults, the kind that only came from people who had known each other for years.
Their easy noise stirred something in me I usually kept buried. What would my life have looked like if that night had never happened? Maybe I would have stayed softer. The kind of girl who apologized when someone bumped into her. The kind of girl who believed people before she suspected them.
“Harper?”
Jackson’s voice pulled me out of the spiral. I blinked and forced a breath. “Sorry. Long day.”
His hand tightened once on my hip, but he didn’t push.
Jason leaned forward. “Half the school is talking about the tiny demon who can hold her own against a guy twice her size.”
Jackson’s expression darkened at the reminder.
“You really did a number on him,” Rick said around a fry.
Cassidy perked up. “Wait. Is this about the video everyone’s whispering about? The one I still haven’t seen because I apparently have the worst cafeteria Wi-Fi on the planet?”
“You don’t need to see it,” I said.
“Which means I absolutely need to see it,” she countered.
Across the table, Lia finally spoke up. “Everyone’s trying to tag you in it, but you’re basically a ghost online. You don’t have any social media at all?”
I felt the shift at the table. More ears tuned in. I shrugged. “I don’t like the fakeness of it.”
“That’s it?” Lia pressed.
“Do I need more?” I countered. “People post their entire lives. They post pictures of their kids without thinking twice about privacy. It’s dangerous.”
I stole one of Jackson’s fries.
Rick frowned. “Dangerous how?”
“Take a picture of your dog and post it,” I said. “If you don’t strip the metadata, anyone can pull the GPS coordinates and find your house. Zoom in on Google Maps, and suddenly some creep knows exactly where you live.”
Rick looked genuinely horrified. “No fucking way.”
“Oh, absolutely,” I said. “Most people don’t even know EXIF data exists. They use ‘password’ as their password. Post their birthdays. Share locations in real time. People treat cybersecurity like it’s optional.”
“That’s incredibly disturbing,” Jason muttered, already pulling out his phone.
Rick looked shaken. “I feel like I need to delete my entire existence.”
“That would honestly improve your online presence,” I told him.
Cassidy snorted into her soda. “God, I love you.”
Across the table, Lia’s smile had tightened at the edges. She picked up her fork again and said nothing more. But her eyes stayed on me a beat too long.
I smiled like I didn’t notice.