Chapter 13 #2
The space between us feels too big and too small all at once. I move closer and sit beside her on the bed. Close enough that I can see the flecks of gold in her eyes and hear the way her breathing has gone shallow.
Tonight, I won’t be a coward.
“I think you’re perfect,” I say quietly. “Just as you are. Right here. Right now.”
My hand lifts to her face like it’s being pulled by gravity. Her skin is soft under my palm. Warm. Real.
“That’s just because you don’t know me very well,” she whispers.
Then her arms slide up my chest and around my neck.
The world tilts.
She’s climbing into my lap, pushing me backward, and I’m falling. We’re both falling back onto her bed.
I’m so stunned by the feel of her suddenly in my arms—and how amazing her gorgeous body feels, touching so much of my body—
There’s no checking. No counting. No breathing pattern.
Just her.
All my carefully maintained systems—gone. Every ritual and pattern and protective measure I use to keep the world in order just... evaporates.
She’s straddling me.
All that dangerous energy focused entirely on me, and—
I should be panicking. My brain should be screaming about loss of control, about breaking rules, about the fact that I haven’t checked on Mom yet tonight, haven’t verified all the locks, haven’t—
But Harper’s straddling me, and I don’t care about any of it.
For the first time in years, my brain goes completely, blissfully quiet.
Fuck.
Fuck.
This is happening. This is actually happening.
“Come on,” she says, and her voice has gone husky. “I’m gone in seven days. Let’s make—” Her voice breaks off, and then she starts again. “Let’s have some fun while I’m still here. We’ve both wanted this.”
Her eyes lock onto mine.
“I see how you look at me.”
Wait. She’s wanted this, too? And she saw how I—
But then all thought evaporates because she kisses me again.
Harper Tucker is kissing me.
And oh god. Oh god.
For two seconds—three—I forget everything. My brain goes completely offline. My mouth opens under hers, giving in to what both our bodies clearly want.
Her kisses are desperate, and my mouth follows her just as hungrily.
Like we’ve both been starving for this, even though we couldn’t dare admit it.
Oh my god, she tastes so good.
My hands find her hips, and my fingers clutch the supple curve that I’ve noticed developing there. I hold on like she might disappear if I don’t. She feels exquisite. Fucking perfect as her body presses down against me like this, and—
She makes this sound. This small, needy sound in the back of her throat that nearly destroys me.
I kiss her harder. Can’t help it. My hands slide up her sides, mapping the dip of her waist. The line of her ribs.
I can’t help how hard I’ve gone underneath her as I feel her breathe against my palms.
Her fingers tangle in my hair and pull—not hard, just enough to tip my head back so she can deepen the kiss even more.
Jesus Christ.
I’m drowning. I’m dying. I never want this to end.
She shifts her weight, and the friction makes me groan into her mouth. My hips buck up involuntarily before I can stop myself.
She gasps—breaks the kiss just long enough to catch her breath—and the sound goes straight through me like lightning.
“Caleb,” she breathes against my lips.
My name. She said my name like that.
I’m lost. Completely lost.
My hands are under her shirt now—when did that happen?—feeling the warm silk of her skin, the ridges of her spine. God, her skin is so fucking soft. I never felt anything so soft in my whole life.
She arches into my touch, and I can feel her heartbeat racing, matching mine.
She kisses down my jaw. My throat. Finds my pulse point and starts sucking there, hips moving against mine like she’s—
“Harper.” It comes out wrecked. Desperate. “Wait—”
But she’s not waiting. Her hands are working at the buttons of my shirt now, surprisingly deft, and I should stop her. I know I should stop her. But then her palms are flat against my chest, her fingers spreading, and—
Jesus.
Jesus Christ.
I catch her wrists. Try to. She twists free and slides her hands down to my belt instead. She’s my stepsister, and her hands are now on my belt. Alarm bells ring somewhere distantly in my head.
Off-limits.
“Harper, hold on—”
“Do you have to argue about everything?” she pants, and there’s heat in her voice, challenge. “Is this a debate thing? I’m trying to get you laid, Caleb. Isn’t that what guys want?”
Her fingers work my belt buckle. The metal clinks. She gets it open and—
Every nerve ending in my body lights up.
God yes.
Lust slams through me with devastating, embarrassing intensity. My body knows exactly what it wants, screaming at me to shut up and let this happen, to stop thinking and just feel—
I catch her hand. Stop her before she can go further.
“Whoa. Wait.” I’m breathing like I’ve run a marathon. “Not so fast.”
She frowns, confused for half a second. Blinks down at me. Then understanding clears her expression, and she actually smiles—this satisfied, almost predatory smile that makes my stomach flip.
“Oh. Right.”
She leans over, still straddling me in a way that’s making coherent thought basically impossible, and digs through her backpack on the floor.
The shift in her weight. The way she moves. I have to close my eyes. Have to press my head back into the pillow and grip her hips to steady both of us and try not to think about how close we are to—
She rights herself, triumphant.
“Ta-da!”
A condom. Shiny foiled square.
My eyes snap open. My heart hammers against my ribs.
Holy shit. She wants to—right now. She actually—
“Harper—”
“I know.” She rips the packet open with her teeth—with her teeth—and my brain short-circuits completely. “Don’t worry. I’ve got it covered.”
She reaches for my jeans again. This time, when her fingers brush the skin just above my waistband, my whole body jerks.
She pauses. Looks down at me with something hungry and pleased in her eyes.
“Unless you don’t want to?” Challenge in her voice. “Is that it? You don’t actually want this?”
Off-limits.
“No. I—fuck. I want—” I can barely get words out. Can barely think. “Can we just... can we slow down? Please?”
“Slow down?” She rocks her hips slightly—probably not even on purpose—and I nearly lose my mind.
“Please.” I press my forehead against hers, anchoring myself, trying desperately to think through the fog of want. “You’re going from zero to sixty, and I just need a second to—”
“What’s wrong?” She shifts on top of me again, and stars explode behind my eyelids.
“Nothing’s wrong.” My voice cracks. “I just—you’re—”
Deep breath. Try again.
“I find you insanely attractive,” she says, like she’s explaining something obvious. Her fingers play with the button of my jeans now, toying with it, not quite opening it but making it very clear where this is heading. “And you clearly want this too.”
She’s not wrong. God, she’s not wrong. My body is making that abundantly, humiliatingly clear.
“I do,” I manage. “I really do. But—”
Her hands slide against my chest again and drag down. Palms flat against my stomach, fingers spreading, exploring, and—
Jesus.
Jesus Christ.
I catch both her wrists. Hold them still, even though touching her is somehow making this worse. Making me want to just give in and—
No. No. Think. I need to think.
“Harper, wait. Just—can we talk about this for a second?”
“Talk?” She pulls one hand free and frames my face, searching my eyes. “You want to talk right now?”
“I just—” I’m trying to be responsible here. Trying to think past the lust. Trying to— “This is—We need to—”
She kisses me again.
And I’m done. I’m fucking done trying to resist.
Fuck limits.
My hands slide into her hair, and I kiss her back with everything I have, pouring every ounce of want and need and desperation into it. She makes that sound again—that perfect, broken sound—and I swallow it, pulling her down against me until there’s no space between us at all.
Her shirt rides up. My hands find bare skin again. She arches into my touch, pressing closer, and the friction is—
I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can barely remember my own name.
This is going to happen. This is actually going to happen. In about thirty seconds, I’m going to stop thinking entirely and just let this happen, because she wants it, and I want it, and we both—
And then what?
The thought cuts through the haze like a blade.
And. Then. What.
Seven days. In seven days, she’s gone. She leaves, and I never see her again, and this—whatever this is between us—it just... ends.
Like it never mattered.
Like she never mattered to me.
Like I never mattered to her.
No.
No.
I break the kiss, turning my face to the side even though it might actually kill me.
“Wait. Stop. We have to stop.”
“What?” She’s breathing hard against my neck, confusion and frustration in her voice. “Caleb—”
“We have to stop,” I repeat, stronger this time. The words break through the haze, and suddenly, my brain is back online.
Firing on all cylinders. Every system rebooting at once.
Rules. I have rules for this. I wrote rules. Where are the rules?
Rule #— fuck, what number is it? I can’t remember. Somewhere in the 800s?
My hands are still on her waist—I can’t seem to let go—but I’m not pulling her closer anymore. I’m just... holding.
Counting her heartbeats against my palms. One-two-three-four. One-two-three-four.
She’s breathing hard. Four counts in. Three counts out. Uneven. My brain catches on to it. Tries to fix it. Make it match. Four in, four out. Four in, four out.
“This isn’t—I can’t—”
“Are you serious right now?” Her voice goes sharp. Defensive. She tries to sit up, and I let her, my hands falling away even though it hurts to lose the contact. “Don’t give me that shit about being stepbrother-stepsister. In seven days, you’ll never see me again, so what does it even matter?”
The words hit like a fist to the gut.
What does it matter?
“It matters to me,” I say quietly. I wrap an arm around her and force myself to sit up so we’re face to face, even though my body is screaming at me with her still in my lap. “Harper. Look at me.”
She does, but there’s hurt flickering behind the anger now. Confusion. Like she genuinely doesn’t understand what I’m doing. Why I’d ever stop this when clearly our chemistry is off the charts.
“You’re okay with that?” I ask, my voice rough. “With never seeing me again?”
Seven days. The number keeps looping in my head. Seven days. 168 hours. 10,080 minutes.
I could spend every minute with her. If I skip sleep, that’s 168 waking hours. If I’m efficient—meal times, studying together, driving to school—I could probably get 120 hours of actual quality time.
No. Stop. That’s not the point.
The point is that seven days isn’t enough. Seven hundred days wouldn’t be enough. And not because she’s off-limits. But because it’s her.
I watch her. Search her face, trying to catch her gaze and hold it. She keeps looking away, bouncing between my eyes and over my shoulder and—
“Yes,” she finally spits out. Defiant. Defensive as hell.
But I hold her gaze steady with both my hands on her face, gentle but firm, until the fire slowly banks into something that looks like pain. Like fear.
Finally, she breathes out. Softens.
“No,” she admits, so quiet I almost miss it. “But it has to be like this.”
“Why?” I pull her closer, desperate. “You know you have a home here. One I’m pretty sure you even like, no matter how much you pretend not to.”
She finally jerks off my lap like I’ve burned her.
“It’s not real!” She tosses her hands in the air as she twists back to look at me. “None of this is real! Helen. You. Dad’s going to betray you, and then you’ll hate us.”
“He won’t.” I stand, too, closing the distance she’s trying to create. “We won’t.”
“You don’t know him!” she shouts, barely audible over the music that’s switched to a loud, screaming track. “He’s a scorpion. And he always stings. It’s his nature.”
“Fine.” I cup her face in both hands again. Force her to look at me. “Let’s say he does. It won’t change how I feel about you.”
She shakes her head violently. Tears gather in her eyes—actual tears—before she yanks away.
“You won’t. You think you will, but you won’t.”
My jaw works. “You clearly don’t know me either, if that’s what you think of me.” The words come out harder than I mean them to. So I soften my voice. “But that’s okay. Give it time. You’ll get to know me. To trust me.”
I step closer. She doesn’t back away this time.
“Just... don’t leave next week. You haven’t had long enough here to see your full potential. Finish senior year. Apply for college. You’re smart enough to start at a state school.”
She’s shaking her head before I finish.
“I can’t afford college. That’s insane. I just need to get a job.
Z and I are going to hitchhike to Austin, get jobs, split rent, we have a plan.
And why the fuck are we even talking about this?
” she snaps, voice like a whip. “Jesus. I just wanted to fuck you and let off some pent-up... whatever this is between us.”
The pause hangs there.
She looks at me, and the offer is still written all over her face.
All I have to do is say yes. All I have to do is reach for her and this could be mine. She could be mine.
… For seven days.
What the hell are you doing? screams the voice in my head. She’s gorgeous. You’re so into her. She’s into you. No strings attached. Every guy’s dream, right?
“I want strings,” I hear myself say.
“What?” She looks genuinely baffled.
I close the distance between us one more time. Slide my arms around her waist. It feels so natural, so right, having her there. She sighs— in relief, in surrender, holy shit—as her body settles against mine like it was made to fit there.
I rest my forehead against hers. Let myself have this moment, even though it might be all I get.
“I want strings attached,” I say clearly. Firmly. “I don’t want to just hook up for a week and then never see you again. Maybe some guys are down with that, but it’s not how I’m built.”
My throat feels tight. I push through anyway.
“I want strings with you, Harper.”
She stares up at me. The gold in her eyes catches the light. For one perfect moment, I think maybe I’m getting through—
Then she shakes her head.
Pulls away.
There are definitely tears in her eyes now, and the sight of them guts me.
“Boy Scout,” she whispers, shaking her head.
Then she turns, runs into the bathroom and slams the door behind her.