Chapter Thirty-Four Harriet #2
“Excuse me?” He keeps making these little digs at me, and I’m sick of it. “Of course I care. What the hell do you think I’m doing here if I don’t?”
He moves out from behind the desk, striding toward me. Suddenly, there are mere inches between us. Our eyes lock together, the green of his irises deep and silken. His pupils dilate, and my breath catches.
“Honestly, Harriet, I don’t know.”
I swallow. The heat of him, so close, is scrambling my thoughts. “I care,” I whisper.
I don’t know who moves first. Me, him, it doesn’t matter. His hand finds my cheek, my fingers running down his broad chest, his tangling into my hair. He yanks me closer.
“Harriet,” he breathes, and the sound of it—my name—sends me over the edge. Our mouths collide.
Finally.
I run my tongue along his bottom lip, so perfect and soft, and it’s everything I’ve ever wanted. Everything I want right now. He moans into my mouth.
My hands roam, up his muscled back into his soft, soft hair, and I pull him closer. I want to feel him. I need to feel him. All of him, against me.
His fingers dance against my stomach, tugging my shirt, my bra up as he finds my breast, my nipple, and then the tip of his tongue is there, soft and wet, running circles around my areola, his teeth scraping against it.
Oh god.
He scoops me up and sets me on the desk. “This needs to go away,” he growls, tugging my button-up shirt off over my head, then taking his off in one deft motion. His body is wiry and strong, muscled. A colored tattoo of a bushel of herbs winds down the smooth skin of his abdomen.
Then he’s back against me, his tongue on my neck, my chest, my breasts. His mouth, his lips. I’m on fire. He’s hard against my leg.
A moan escapes me, and he smiles. “You like that?” he whispers in my ear.
In reply, I snake a hand around his back, pulling him between my legs, my hips bucking into his groin, and he gasps.
“Jesus, Harriet.”
“You feel so good,” I murmur. “You feel so fucking good.” His mouth runs down the side of my neck. “Oh my god, Nic, I forgot how good this feels.”
He freezes, then pulls away, cold settling against my warm skin. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and steps back.
“What is it?” My hands flutter over my chest, suddenly self-conscious.
“What are we doing?” Nic’s voice is tight. He takes another step back, then another.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he says, “what the fuck is this, Harriet? You, me, this whole thing. Why are you writing that article? For Sara…or for yourself?”
I’m stunned into silence. What is he talking about? He still has his shirt off. I still have my shirt off.
I scoop it from the desk beside me and struggle back into it and my bra.
“I heard you, you know,” he continues. “Earlier today, on the phone with Frankie. You don’t actually care about me—us—at all, do you? All you care about is getting your job back. Leaving. You called me the brother.”
My heart drops. He heard me? He heard me and said nothing until now. The car ride back, when I thought he was quiet because of what I’d done. It was all because of that stupid phone call to Frankie.
“Wait, hang on. It’s not what you think,” I say, stumbling over my words. “Yeah, okay, sure, I guess when I first came to you, I thought you could help get me in front of Sara, but—”
His nostrils flare. “Exactly. You were using me.”
“Nic…” My palms are sweaty. I rub them against the front of my shirt. “Stop. Yes, okay, Frankie said if I wrote something good, there might be a chance…but I want to help Sara. I swear to god.”
“Sure.” He turns away, slipping into his shirt.
Anger shoots through me. He knew about this article from the jump. He was on board with it. And now he’s giving me shit?
“What is your problem? You’re mad because I might get something out of it too?” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I regret them.
His jaw muscle clenches. “Yeah, exactly. Here I was, stupid enough to think you were doing this out of the goodness of your heart. Because you…” He shakes his head. “Never mind.”
“Never mind what?”
He’s backing away, pushing a hand through his hair over and over until it stands on end.
“I’m not letting you do it to me again, you understand?
I’m not letting you waltz back into my life because it’s convenient for you and then disappear when you’ve gotten what you need.
You’re the same selfish person I knew back in high school.
The same person who fucking ghosted me after two weeks of—” He cuts off, shaking his head. “God, I’m dumb. Fool me once, right?”
“Wow,” I say slowly, his words settling into my center, heavy and painful. “Thanks. That’s how little you think of me, huh? Good to know. What’s next? Are you going to claim that I kissed you for my job too?”
His expression is unreadable.
A whisper in the back of my mind asks if he has a point. What was I planning to do here? Get involved with him and then…what? What was my endgame? If the article turns out well, my plan is to go back to the city.
Which would mean leaving him behind. Again.
Would I have told him before I left this time?
I feel sick. Like I can’t breathe. Like if I don’t leave this room right now, I’ll start to scream.
“I need to go.”
I turn to leave, but he grabs my sleeve. “Harriet, wait. I—”
I yank away. “Let me go.”
“But you’re my ride—”
Oh.
“You’re a grown-up. Find another one.”
I don’t wait to hear his reply. I hurry into George’s office and grab my things, my bag bumping against a stack of papers, toppling half of it to the ground.
If I stop to clean it up, there’s a chance I might fall apart right here on the floor, and I can’t—I won’t—do that with Nic around.
I’d rather die. I scrape the papers together, shove them into my bag, and hurry out of the office.
I don’t let the tears come until the elevator door shuts behind me.