Chapter 18
I’ve never been a huge fan of those words, so it’s time for me to don my own trusty shield. I unsheathe the sword of humor and brandish it. “You want to strip me naked and have your wicked way with me?”
She smiles and nods. “I do.”
Well, I’ll just keep up this tactic. Since that particular weapon, if you know what I mean, is all the way up. “Great. Start here,” I say, pointing to my belt.
She laughs and then grips my shoulders, lowering her voice as if she’s about to admit a secret. “But seriously. I have a confession. As soon as I learned her name, I read J. Cameron’s newest book.”
Sighing, I run a hand through my hair, unsure why we’re back on this topic. “You did?”
Her eyes dance with naughty delight. “It’s so delicious. It’s so hot. And it made me curious,” she continues, and maybe I don’t mind her bringing up the ex at all right now. Not if those books get her turned on rather than ticked off. Hell, maybe I should gift her some.
“What did it make you curious about?”
Harper sits up straighter on me, as if she’s about to make a Big Pronouncement.
“I know this may shock you, given how utterly cool you’ve seen I can be, what with getting my hair caught in a zipper and speaking in tongues,” she says, then stage whispers, “but I’ve never been tied to a fridge. Or done it on a desk.”
“And do you want that?”
“That’s the thing,” she says, an excited undercurrent to her words. “I only know what I like to look at. What I like to read about. I have an idea of what I might like. But . . .” She lets her voice trail off.
“But what?” I ask, because I’m dying to know what comes after that.
She takes a breath, purses her lips together, then speaks. “I was a virgin until I was twenty. None of the sex I’ve had was very memorable. None of it was on a counter, or the dryer, or even in a hotel bed,” she says, patting the mattress.
Maybe it’s the dark of the night, maybe it’s her, maybe it’s just that the only thing better than having hot sex with the woman you want is talking about hot sex with the woman you want. Or, just possibly, it’s that she’s opening up to me for real now. Perhaps that’s why I open up to her.
“I was twenty the first time I had sex,” I say, serving up a detail I don’t share with many people, because it’s personal.
Instantly, her eyes widen. “Are you serious?”
“No, I’m lying,” I say sarcastically.
She pushes my shoulders, nearly toppling me on the bed. “Stop it. I want to know the truth.”
“I was a sophomore in college when I finally ditched the V-card.”
“You were a late bloomer,” she says softly, something like wonder in her voice.
“Girls were a complete mystery to me before then. I didn’t know how to act around them, or what to say. Sort of how you feel sometimes, too.” I realize that maybe Harper and I aren’t that different. I just got over my awkwardness well before she did.
She gives me a sweet smile. “I guess we do have that in common. Among many other things,” she says, and my chest heats up as she inches closer. “Was she a sophomore, too?”
I shake my head and laugh. “No. She was a grad student. She was the teaching assistant in my animation class.”
Her eyes turn into moons. “Did she teach you everything you know?”
I reflect on her question, and the answer is a big no.
But she started my education in women. She was instrumental in showing me the ropes, and telling me every little thing she liked.
I was a good student. I followed her directions, and it was the best damn class I ever took.
Any guy who thinks he automatically knows how to please a woman is a conceited ass.
Every woman is one of a kind. Every woman has her own titillations and turn-ons.
From my teaching assistant, I learned the foundation—how to listen to a woman’s cues, how to give her what she needs, how to make her want more and more.
I don’t say that to Harper. I liked the conversation better when it was about us. “How would you feel if we stopped talking about other women?” I ask, echoing her sentiment from the train on the ride here. “I’d rather talk about what we just did, and what other things I can do to you.”
She swallows and takes a breath. “When I said touching your arms in Central Park was a thrill, I meant it,” she says, her voice impossibly soft. “But I want to know what I’m doing. I want feedback.”
I tuck my finger under her chin and lift her eyes to mine. “You were amazing, Harper. You rode me like a champion equestrian. I loved every second of it. Wait. I loved every millisecond of it.” I shake my head. “Make that every nanosecond.”
She grins, then erases the smile from her face just as quickly.
“Riding you was easy. But beyond that, I want to know what feels good to you, and what you want. And I want to know what I like. I can tell you what I think I like. My God, I love looking at dirty pictures, and sexy pictures, and naughty gifs, so I think I have a good idea.”
“So you’re not curled up at night with your deck of cards after all,” I say, fixing on a look of overdone surprise as I touch her fingers. “You’re saying you’ve done a lot of one-handed computer work?”
That naughty grin returns in force, shining at full wattage. “My web history is an homage to the hottest Tumblr feeds around,” she confesses.
“I’m going to need to see that. As part of this whole dating lessons thing. I need to know exactly what you’ve been looking at. And to look at it with you.”
“That’s what I’m getting at.” She stops to take a breath, then holds her chin high. “That’s why I kept asking you what you liked, and now I want to ask you something else, since you seemed to like what we just did.”
And it clicks. It goes off like a starting gun. “Teach you. You want me to teach you,” I say, my voice raspy, full of want.
Her eyes twinkle with naughtiness. “I do.”
Her words echo back to another I do, one I heard earlier in the day.
We’re at her brother’s wedding, and I’m messing around with my best friend’s sister.
For the briefest of moments, a streak of guilt flashes like a warning sign on the highway.
Danger ahead. But hell, it’s too fucking hard to think of anyone except her when she’s with me.
Truth be told, it’s not easy the rest of the time either.
It’s like my desire for Harper hogs the remote control and flicks all the channels back to her.
Besides, Spencer takes off for Hawaii tomorrow, and what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Especially since Harper and I won’t hurt each other. We know the score, and everyone in our game wins.
I shake off any doubts.
I drag my hand down her chest, palming one perfect tit. “You want to kick our lessons up a notch and learn what feels good to you.”
“Yes,” she says, mirroring me as her fingers play along the front of my shirt. Damn, that feels fantastic. “And what feels good to you.”
“Let me think about it.” I sigh heavily and stare at the ceiling then back at her. “I thought about it long and hard—”
“Long and hard. It felt that way to me when I was riding you like a rodeo star.”
I give her an appreciative nod. “Oh, it is long and hard. Especially around you and that dirty little mouth of yours,” I say, running my finger across her lips.
She nips my finger. “I have a dirty mind, too. I just want to put it to use now. In every way.”
“You came to the right man,” I tell her. “And you came with the right man. And you will again, and again, and again.”
She shivers, then starts to unbutton my shirt. “But I want you to come, too.”
“Don’t worry about me. And yes, obviously, I’ll teach you anything.
” I can’t say anything but yes. It’s like an affliction, the amount of craving I have for Harper.
Any doctor would tell you the only path to recovery is to take a full dose of medicine.
In my case, that’s her. Maybe I’ll take several doses, just to be safe.
A few lessons and I’ll be cured, ready to return to us being buddies.
“I’ll teach you anything you want to know. Under one condition,” I say, arching a brow.
Her eyes widen. “What would that be?”
I clear my throat and adopt a teacherly tone. “I’m going to need your full commitment to the lesson plan for the next week,” I say, laying it on thick with the seriousness. “Can you agree to that, Miss Harper?”
She nods earnestly, sliding into her role in this impromptu game. “I’m a very good student. What else do you need . . . Professor Hammer?”
I smile approvingly when she bestows a nickname on me. “Proper focus. Diligent homework. Thorough preparation. And the willingness to be spanked if you deviate from the lesson plan.”
She moves in closer, loops her arms around me, and says in a deliciously naughty good-girl voice, “You can spank me even if I don’t deviate from the lesson plan.”
Oh holy hell. Harper Holiday is going to be a star pupil in my school of hot, filthy sex. “I’m giving you an A+ so far,” I say in my studious voice. “And I fully expect you to earn gold stars in my intensive course for the next week.”
She pulls back and speaks as herself. “But it’ll only take a week?”
I nibble on her neck. “When the cat’s away . . .” I whisper, hoping my meaning is clear. I speak in my own voice, so we're both on the same page. “It’s just easier for us to do this for the next week, right?”
“Of course,” she says quickly. “Makes perfect sense, Professor Hammer. Does this mean you’ll hammer me?”
She laughs, and I crack up, too, because at last the innuendo of my surname is being used with the right woman. “That’s a guarantee. In fact, I think we should start your coursework right now, and I have a very particular lesson in mind.”
“What is it?” she asks, a little breathless, a lot eager.
I lean in close to her and rub my beard against her cheek. “I want to strip you naked so I can taste every inch of your skin. I want to spread your legs, and make you come on my lips,” I say, as I bring her hand to my jaw and finish the thought, “and all over my face.”
She gasps, and her thighs clench against my legs. “Now,” she says, like a desperate order.
My fingers return to the zipper on her back. A new round of lust pounds through me as I slide it down, undressing her for the first time. But I only get a few inches when a loud trill sounds from the bed.
“Shoot,” she mutters and reaches for her phone on the mattress. “Let me just see who that is at two in the morning.”
She slides her thumb across the screen, falls to the bed, and throws her arm on her forehead, muttering, “Jen.”
She thrusts the phone at me. A text message flashes.
Everyon left. I thin I’m gonna b sick. Wrshping porcelain g d. H l p
I roll to my side, frustration thick in my veins.
“Go take care of your friend,” I say, even though I’m thinking Jen is winning the gold medal for cock-blocking.
“But tomorrow, Harper? Your first lesson is turning off your phone. Then you’re getting a full serving of multiple orgasms. Is that clear? ”
Harper grabs the collar of my shirt, pulls me close, and says, “Yes.” Then she gives me the hottest good night kiss ever.
I jerk off when she leaves.
Obviously.