Chapter 21 #2
This is what it feels like to be present. To not be trapped in my head.
This is what it feels like to be free.
I suck in a breath. Can’t help it. The sensation shoots straight through me.
“So you are awake,” she murmurs against my ear, voice low and amused.
“Oh, I’m awake.” My voice comes out rougher than intended. Every instinct screams at me to flip over, grab her, and put everything I learned this afternoon into practice. Show her exactly what I’ve been imagining. My body trembles with the control it takes to stay still and let her lead.
“You’re shaking,” she whispers. There’s mischief in her tone but something else too. Something that sounds like genuine care.
“It’s taking everything I have not to turn around and—” I cut myself off, jaw clenched. “It feels so good. Just you here. Touching me.”
She makes a pleased sound, and I can hear the smile in her voice. She sounds more like herself, less like she’s performing some role. Good. I don’t want seduction games. Don’t want her armor. I just want Harper—real, here, choosing to be with me.
“I like it when you touch me,” I manage as her fingers drift lower, tracing the waistband of my pajama pants. “Like this.”
“Yeah?” Her fingertips walk along the elastic, teasing. “You like it when I play like this?”
My breath catches. “Yep.” The word comes out tight. “Definitely yep.”
She giggles—actually giggles—and the sound nearly undoes me. Then her fingers dip beneath my waistband, and I jerk toward her hand involuntarily, all that carefully maintained control evaporating.
“I think I like it too,” she murmurs. “You’re so responsive.”
That’s it. I can’t take another second of being the good boy who waits patiently.
I flip over to face her, grateful for the lamp I left on. I need to see her. Need to memorize this—her flushed cheeks, the curve of her mouth, the desire in her eyes.
I hook my arm around her neck and kiss her. I meant to start slow, soft, tender—but the second our mouths connect, something in me snaps. Slow can wait. Tender can wait. Right now, I need her like I need oxygen.
The thought hits me like cold water: We were supposed to talk. She said she wanted strings. But is she still planning to leave with Z? Is tonight just goodbye?
Fuck it. I’m too far gone to stop now. If this is all I get, I’m making it count.
She throws a leg over my waist, pressing against me, and—oh God—she’s under the covers with me. When did that happen? Her thighs part, and I press forward instinctively, grinding against her through too many layers of clothing.
The pressure, the heat, the friction—it’s exquisite torture.
She must feel it too because her hands are yanking at my shirt, pulling it up and over my head. My arms get tangled in the sleeves, and we both laugh, breathless and muffled.
Harper slaps a hand over my mouth, eyes dancing. “Quiet. Can’t let them hear.”
“I know how to keep you quiet,” I say against her palm, then kiss her again before she can respond.
This time, she reaches for her own shirt. Bold. Confident. She pulls it off in one fluid motion and—
Holy shit.
She’s not wearing a bra.
I freeze.
For a second, I can only stare at the universe’s most perfect breasts. She’s beautiful. Perfect. Her breasts are small, round, and plump, with dark, peaked nipples pointed straight at me.
My hands rest on her waist, trembling. I’m frozen like every circuit in my brain just overloaded.
“You can touch me,” Harper says, amused but with an edge of something else. Nervousness? Vulnerability?
My hand shakes as I reach up, cupping her gently.
Soft. Warm. So impossibly soft. My thumb grazes across one peak, just like I read about in the library.
The book said this was a major pleasure center, and judging by the way Harper’s back arches, her breath catching, the literature was absolutely correct.
That small success gives me courage.
I drop my mouth down to replace my thumbs, and her reaction is immediate. She gasps—high, breathy, uncontrolled—and her back arches into me like she can’t help it. The sound shoots straight through me like lightning.
Nothing we’ve done before compares to this. To her. To the way she’s responding to my touch.
“God, Harper,” I breathe against her skin. “You’re so—”
“Enough,” she gasps, hands fisting in my hair. Not pulling away. Pulling me closer. “Caleb. I need—I need you. Now.”
She reaches down, shoving at my pajama pants and boxers in one decisive movement. I freeze, but Harper’s unfazed. She’s not looking—just feeling, confident and certain.
Her small hand wraps around my cock, warm and certain, and I have to close my eyes against the intensity of sensation suddenly overwhelming my body.
Her other hand cups my jaw, forcing me to look at her.
“I have an IUD,” she whispers, voice steady but eyes burning. “And I’ve never been with anyone else without protection. So if you’re clean and you want to…”
Want to?
My cock jerks in her hand involuntarily, and she smiles.
“That’s a yes?” Her voice is teasing, but underneath I hear the question. The choice she’s giving me.
“Yes.” My voice comes out strangled. “God, yes. But Harper—” I catch her wrist, stilling her. “Are you sure? Because once we do this—” I swallow hard. “Once I’m inside you, everything changes. You understand that, right?”
Her eyes widen slightly. Good. She should know what this means to me.
“I’m not going to be able to let you go after this,” I continue, holding her gaze. “So if you’re not ready for that, if this is just tonight, we should stop now while I still have the willpower.”
For a moment, she just stares at me. Then her free hand slides to the back of my neck.
“Stop thinking, Caleb Graham,” she whispers. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
It’s not a declaration. Not a promise. But it’s enough.
Oh fuck.
This is it.
We’re about to—
Because suddenly, she’s placing my cock there.
Right there.
Lining up the bulbous tip of my cock right up against where she’s wet and impossibly soft, and then—oh Jesus—
She shifts—a small, decisive movement to roll above me—and suddenly she’s positioning me right there. Right where she’s wet and soft and I’m hard and about to lose my mind.
“Wait,” I breathe, hands gripping her hips. “Slow. I need—”
I need to memorize this. Every second. Every sensation.
She holds my gaze as she sinks down, just the tip first, and we both gasp at the contact.
“Harper—” It’s a guttural moan. Oh fuck, I’m inside her.
“Don’t stop,” she whispers, nails digging into my shoulders. “Please don’t stop.”
Another inch. The heat, the pressure, the impossible perfection of her body accepting mine—I have to remember to breathe. And fight not to lose control immediately.
“Look at me,” I rasp, and her eyes flutter open. They’re wet. Overwhelmed. Mirror images of exactly how I feel.
“You feel—” My voice breaks. “God, Harper. You feel like coming home.”
She makes a sound—half laugh, half sob—and sinks down the rest of the way in one slow glide that makes us both shake.
For a moment, we just breathe.
Just feel.
We’re connected to each other in every imaginable way.
My hips jerk upward in spite of my determination to stay in control, and I groan as she rotates and grinds on me where I’m buried to the hilt inside her.
Holy fuck.
It’s nothing like they said it would be. Everyone talks about this like it’s just physical. They’re all liars. This is—
Everything.
My hands tighten on her waist, and she starts to move. Slow at first, testing. Her hips roll, grinding down, and I groan at the sensation.
“Is this good?” I manage to ask, watching her face. “Tell me. Tell me what you need.”
“You,” she breathes. “Just you.”
But I see how her body responds when I angle my hips a certain way, and how her breathing changes when I hold her tighter. I’m cataloging every reaction, every hitch of her breath—learning her in real time.
“That’s it, baby,” I murmur when she makes that sound again. “I want to hear every noise you make. Let me know exactly what will make you fall apart.”
My hands go to her waist, biceps bulging as I lift her up my length and then drop her down again, dying as she clenches and her body creates such delicious friction. Then I do it again. She assists with her knees and hips.
And then she falls on top of me, shifting positions so that I can saw my cock in and out of her with greater ease.
“You’ve got such a fat cock,” she groans, eyelids fluttering. “It hits my clit just with you fucking me, oh god.”
She rolls her hips again and again, grinding her groin against the top of my cock as I slide smoothly in and out of her.
“You’re so wet,” I breathe out, shocked at how smoothly I slide in and out of her in spite of the impossibly tight fit.
“You had me almost squirting when you were playing with my nipples,” she breathes out, hand tangling in the hair at the base of my neck as her pussy clenches hard, all but twerking on top of me as she chases her pleasure.
Holy fucking shit, she’s so hot. She’s the hottest fucking woman I’ve ever seen. And we’re having sex.
I’m having sex.
I’m losing my virginity to the most beautiful, sexy goddess I ever could have imagined—
“Come on, big boy,” she groans, needy as she starts riding me harder. “That’s right.”
The frustration on her face says her pleasure is close, but still out of reach.
She’s so confident and in control, but I can see the edges of her armor starting to crack. I can see the vulnerability she tries so hard to hide bleeding through.
Maybe she’s exhausted by always having to be the strong one. Always having to be so in control—even of her own pleasure.
So, on instinct—and with a little nudge from the notes I took this afternoon—I wrap my arms around her and roll us, landing with her beneath me.
Her eyes go wide.
I pause, both of us breathing hard, connected but still. “Is this okay?”
She swallows. Nods. Then lifts her arms around my shoulders and buries her face in my neck, legs wrapping around my back.