Chapter 28 Glow UpBlow Up
Glow Up or Blow Up
Isighed dramatically. “Are you ever going to grow up?”
The click of my boot heels across the floor came to an abrupt halt at the snarky comment falling from Natalia’s bitter lips.
Why this woman insisted on showing up to watch her kid practice with the team every single time was beyond me.
From what I’d seen, her daughter barely gave her the time of day. At first, I felt sorry for Natalia although, karma, right?
But then I found out her daughter is actually nice, and my empathy transferred to her.
Regardless, after what I’d learned from my mom about her book club ladies, Natalia’s insults weighed on me less and less. Perhaps not everybody in town saw me the way the Brady Bunch did.
In any case, I had no time and zero fucks for her this morning.
Daire was meeting me in my office for the world’s fastest coffee break before having to return to his classroom, and I wasn’t about to waste precious minutes on her bullshit.
Natalia tipped her chin down and offered a fake smile. “Grow up or glow up?”
Brittany snickered. “Some of us glow up. Some of us just keep growing. I guess I’d call that a blow up. Are you still struggling with your weight, Harley?”
My face burned.
Where was Daire? Did he hear what they said? Would he look at me differently? See what they saw?
The look of triumph in their eyes soured my stomach.
And steeled my resolve.
I tilted my head to the side. “You know, I used to feel sorry for you back when I wondered if something happened to twist you into these bitter, dried-up, Botox-ridden, overgrown teenagers. But now I know you’re simply an asshole, Natalia.
And you, Brittany, are simply this asshole’s bitch.
” I smiled brightly. “And now I don’t expend any energy on you at all! ”
Brittany’s mouth opened comically wide while Natalia’s lips pressed so tightly together they formed a straight line.
I didn’t bother to wish them a good day.
Five minutes later, Daire knocked softly on my door before closing and locking it. “Come sit with me for five minutes.”
“Don’t you want a coffee?”
“Nope. I just want to cuddle you for five minutes before I head back to work.”
“Really?” I teased as I walked around my desk. “You slept with me last night, woke up with me this morning, you’re having dinner with me at my parents’ house tonight, and I assume you’re sleeping at my place, haven’t you had enough?”
“Nope.” He grabbed my hand and tugged me onto his lap. “Never going to get enough of you.”
Tucking my head against his shoulder, he palmed my thigh.
My nose to his neck, I breathed him in. He was beginning to smell like home to me. Safety. Pleasure.
Love.
The tips of his fingers pressed into my fleshy inner thigh.
“Skirt today,” he rumbled, his hand drifting back down to my knee.
“Don’t be getting any ideas, Professor,” I teased.
“Oh, it’s far too late for that.” Nudging my thigh, he hooked my knee over his and spread his legs wide.
“Oh, boy,” I chirped.
“Mhm,” he hummed.
“I’m at work,” I protested weakly.
“I see that.”
“Somebody could walk in at any time.”
“They could.”
“My parents…”
“I happen to know your parents are headed to Mistlevale to pick up the new Christmas linens she ordered.”
I attempted to spin around to face him.
His hands tightened on my thighs, his voice firm. “Stay put.”
A low moan built in my throat. “Are you going to—”
“Going to what?” He spoke low in my ear, his voice sending chills down my spine and arching my back.
I swallowed. Dirty talking was not in my wheelhouse. “Make me…feel good.”
“Mhm. How good do you want to feel?”
“Very?” I squeaked.
“Repeat after me: make me come, Daire.”
“Make me come, Daire,” I repeated in a small voice, my face flaming at the utter audacity of the demand.
“Good girl,” he breathed, his hands running up the inside of my thighs. One hand tore my panties to the side while the other slid along my slit, testing my wetness. “Very good girl,” he rumbled.
I rocked my hips, pushing my pussy into his hand.
He chuckled behind me, his erection prodding my backside.
Despite my doubts, his arousal assured me he was exactly where he wanted to be.
“Put your arms up and hang onto the back of my neck.”
I did what he asked.
“Oh, yeah, little spitfire. Look at you spread the fuck out on my lap.”
I smiled and pushed into his hand again, his words giving me even more confidence in his enjoyment of my body.
“Look, Harley,” he insisted.
I looked up at him then followed his line of sight to the framed picture hanging behind my desk. And our muted reflection.
I looked utterly wanton.
“Look how beautiful you are,” he breathed. “Now watch me make you come.”
I’d always liked sex but never considered myself sex worthy for lack of a better term. Like perhaps those women at the sex club must have been.
But now? Seeing myself spread the fuck out on Daire’s lap?
I met his eyes in the glass, our image blurred just enough to keep me comfortable.
“Daire,” I breathed. “Make me come.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he muttered, his fingers dancing along my slit, working my arousal up to my sensitive clit and circling gently.
The fingers holding my panties dug harder into my thigh, the small bite of pain making me moan.
“Quiet, spitfire,” he growled low in my ear. “Those sounds are mine and mine alone.”
I nodded quickly. “Don’t stop.”
“No intention of stopping.”
He slipped two fingers inside me.
My hips bucked up.
“That’s it, baby. Ride that.”
Fingers inside me, palm pressed to my clit, I pressed my fingers into the back of his neck, tipped my head back, and rocked against him.
“Fuck, you’re a sexy girl, Harley.”
I panted.
“Quiet,” he reprimanded, his voice sharp, as he continued to strum my swollen sex.
I nodded but could not stop the soft moan that escaped my lips.
“Going to push you over now,” he breathed. “Going to make you come just like you so sweetly asked me to.”
The first flutter hit, and I spread my legs wider, pressing up into his hand as it quietly swept through me like a warm summer breeze leaving me liquid.
“Yes, baby,” he whispered, dropping sweet kisses against my temple. “Thank you.”
I smiled lazily. “You’re thanking me? Shouldn’t I be thanking you?”
“No,” he repeated firmly. “Not for that. Never for that.”
He smoothed my panties back in place.
Taking my wrists in his hands, he wrapped both our arms around my waist, and kissed the nape of my neck. “You’re everything to me.”
I pressed my cheek back against his temple, his name the wish on my lips.
He made me feel like the sexiest woman alive.
I was still flying high when I got to my parents’ house for Thursday night family dinner only to be grounded immediately by Hawkley’s reservations.
“Noelle mentioned our concern with Daire’s temper?”
“Yes.” I wrapped my arms around my brother. “He’s good to me, Hawk. Sweet, tender, and infinitely kind. You don’t have to worry. And I wish you’d be friendlier.” I drew back and looked up at him. “What is it you have against him?”
His heavy brows crashed down over his stormy eyes. “You’re happy? He makes you happy?”
“Extremely.”
His lips tightened and he gave me a brief nod. Which in Hawkley-speak, was a yee-fucking-haw.
“If I thought there was something to worry about, I’d say,” Max interrupted irritably. “He deserves better than what you’re giving him.”
“Yeah?” Hawkley challenged. “Well so does she.”
“She seems pretty happy to me,” Max pushed.
Max and Hawkley were tight. For them to be at odds like this was unfamiliar and uncomfortable.
When Daire walked in, his lips tightening as he took in the scene, I felt worse.
I pushed my way between Max and Hawk and went straight to Daire. Tilting my head back for a kiss, I met his surprised eyes.
“Why so surprised?”
His mouth curled into a slow smile. “I like that you’re willing to give me a kiss in your parents’ home. A public claiming. There’s going to be no holding me back now.”
He dipped and brushed his lips across mine.
“You’ve been holding back?”
“A bit,” he murmured.
“Don’t.”
His eyebrows rose. “All right,” he smiled slowly. “I won’t.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners.
“Anyway,” I laughed. “My mother loves you already and I think my dad is ready to be your best man.”
I clapped my hand over my mouth and stepped back as my eyes popped open. “Ohmigod. I didn’t mean it. It just slipped out!”
He stared down at me, his face serious.
I prayed the floorboards would open up and swallow me.
Dipping his knees, he took my hands in his and stooped to meet my eyes, his face serious. “Harley, there’s something you should know. Max is going to be our best man.” He broke into a grin. “But I like where your head's at.”
I rolled my eyes, my face in flames. “It’s too soon to even think about it,” I protested.
“I think about it all the time,” he admitted.
I stilled. “Really?”
“Really.”
Despite my assurances to Hawkley of my happiness, dinner was tense. More than once I caught bewildered looks passing between my parents.
Noelle studiously avoided talking much to anybody, while Max redirected the conversation time and time again.
I turned the problem over and over in my head like a puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit.
Cuddled up beside Daire in bed that night, I asked, “What happened between you two?”
He stiffened then sighed. “I’ll tell you one day soon.”
“Things were tense between you two at the beginning, then I thought they got better. Whatever it was, it seems to be rekindled.”
“No,” he shook his head adamantly and pulled me tighter into the cradle of his body. “It most definitely has not. He’s an overprotective big brother and I can’t fault him for that. But he’s way off base.”
“But there is something.”
He stroked the underside of my breast lazily with his thumb.
“You know how there are things that seem important at the moment but it’s only because of other factors that they get blown out of proportion?
This is one of those things. I promise you.
It’s nothing important. And when I feel it’s the right time, when you’re sure of your place with me, I’ll share. ”
“Will I think it’s a big deal?”
“If you do, you’ll be wrong.”
“Why won’t you tell me? You’re always telling me to be honest.”
“I’m honestly telling you that I’m afraid you’re going to blow it out of proportion because of your insecurities with yourself. And I’m asking you to let it go for now. But if you want me to tell you right now, I will. I don’t want to, but I will.”
He paused, then drew in a deep breath. “I’m asking you to trust me. Trust that what we’re building is good and right and perfect.”
“There’s no other woman between us?”
“No,” he exclaimed. “Harley, my God, no. Just you. Only you. I have zero interest in anybody else.”
“You don’t have kids or something? That wouldn’t bother me.”
He kissed my temple. “I don’t have kids. And if I did, I certainly wouldn’t hide them like they were something to be ashamed of.”
“Do you have a criminal record?”
He groaned and pulled away slightly. “Harley, honestly. I said it was nothing. Would a criminal record be nothing?”
He sounded tired.
He’d given me no reason to doubt him.
I thought about Noelle and how she didn’t give up on Hawkley when things were tough.
Every epic love story requires a leap of faith.
This would be mine.
“Okay.”
He wrapped himself back around me, tighter than before.
“You have to know, Harley. There’s no one and nothing more important to me than you. I won’t allow anything to come between us. Not even you.”