Chapter 27 #2
Check the distance between us: increasing. Three feet. Four feet. Six feet.
No. No no no.
“Harper, wait—I’m sorry—”
Too late.
She whips around and comes back to the open passenger door, glaring at me, and I swear I feel the heat of it across my skin.
“You think just because I fucked you, you get to have an opinion on my body? Or who I gave it to before you ever existed in my life?”
Each word lands like a punch.
Because she’s right. Of course she’s right. Fuck. What’s wrong with me?
“Fuck you, Caleb Graham,” she spits, and hearing my full name in her mouth like that—like a curse—hurts.
“No, Z and I never fucked but not for lack of me trying when I first met him. I bet you’re still the kind of bitch-boy who’s gonna fixate on that forever.
So congrats—you and me are over. Not that there was ever really an ‘us’ to begin with. ”
The door slams.
She’s stomping away, furious, like she’s trying to get as far away from me as she possibly can as fast as she possible can.
I sit there frozen, hands glued to the wheel. Every organ in my chest feels like it’s been replaced with wet cement.
No. No no no.
Then I’m moving.
Out of the car, jogging after her before I can think.
“Harper, wait!”
She doesn’t turn around. Doesn’t acknowledge me at all.
But I’m able to sprint in front of her just in time to pin her against the hood of the car.
My hands find her waist. Even pressure. Both sides. Balanced.
The hot engine beneath my palms. Her warm body between my hands.
“I’m sorry.”
Two words. Not enough.
“I was jealous.”
Three words. Prime number. Still not enough.
“I’ve never felt like this before for anyone, and it’s making me stupid and jealous and out of control when I’m always in control—”
Control. The word tastes more and more like a lie.
Because I have no control around her. Never have.
Her eyes flash furiously, and I rush to keep talking before I lose her for good. “I’m so, so sorry. Because you’re right. No one but you has any say about what you do with your body.”
She’s breathing hard, her chest rising and falling in a way that I’m trying really hard not to get distracted by.
“If you really believed that, you wouldn’t have me pinned to this fucking car.”
I lean in, forehead to forehead. “If you didn’t want me to pin you to this car,” I whisper heatedly, “you would have shoved me away already.”
Her hands immediately come to my chest, and I feel the pressure of her beginning to push.
I start backing away, but then her hands are fisting the front of my shirt, and she’s pulling me back in against her.
And then she’s kissing me.
“Stupid fucking boy,” she whispers before deepening the kiss.
My arms wrap around her warm, soft body, and my mind goes blank of everything except her.
The feel of her hips beneath my gripping fingers.
The taste of her strawberry lip gloss. The way her tongue is so insistent against mine, licking in and out, mimicking the way my cock—
Dammit, I’m about to lose control, and we’re on the side of the fucking road. I drag my lips away, pressing my forehead to hers when she makes a little whine of protest. Jesus, it kills me to stop when her lips are glistening, so close and warm and wet.
But I have to get this out. “I know we haven’t even talked about what this is.
And we’ve barely even started.” I swallow hard and make a gesture in the small space between our chests.
“But you’re all I want, Harper.” My hands curl in the hair that’s fallen around her face.
“If you don’t want to be exclusive, I understand.
You’re your own person. Your body is yours.
But I want you to know—you’re it for me. I won’t be with anybody else but you.”
She’s shaking her head fast, and I can see tears glistening in her eyes. God, it kills me when her walls go down like this and I can see straight through to the real her. I press in tighter, caging her in so that we’re all each other can see, lost in the world of one another.
“You don’t know that,” she whispers. “You think that now. But then you’re going to go off to college and meet so many smarter, prettier girls—”
“It’s not possible.” The conviction in my voice surprises even me.
But she just scoffs. “And they’ll be there, and I’ll be...” She waves a hand. “…wherever Z and I end up.”
I try to ignore the jealous fire in my belly. “Come with me then.” Why haven’t I thought of this earlier? I’ve been so focused on living in the moment, dreading her birthday and her leaving for East Texas. But now a vista of possibility opens up before me.
Her mouth falls open. “What?”
“Come with me to Massachusetts. We’ll get an apartment.
” The plan forms as I speak, each piece clicking into place with startling clarity.
“Mom said you’re thinking about community colleges for your first year.
Apply to one in the area. Or take a gap year while you figure out what you want to study. We’ll make it work.”
Her face is scrunched with indecision. “What about Z?”
The question hits like a cold shower. For a moment, I’d forgotten about Z entirely—busy picturing a future where it was just Harper and me, building something real together.
But if Z comes as part of the package... if that’s what it takes...
“All three of us can get an apartment.” The words taste like sawdust, but I force them out anyway, nodding. “I’ll learn to love him like family, too.”
And I will.
Mom’s friends are always talking about toxic masculinity and how jealousy is just insecurity wearing a different mask. I can be better than that.
For Harper, I can face my own insecurities and whatever attacking thoughts come with it.
She’s staring at me like I’ve grown a second head. “You don’t mean that.”
“For you, I’ll do anything. I do mean it. Every word.”
“Stop being crazy.” She pulls away, looking angry, but I can still see the longing in her eyes, and her hands are still fisted in my shirt. I close mine around hers, locking gazes with her. Intensity burns between us in an infinite loop.
“I’m not crazy. I know we’re young and we just met.” Her green eyes flick back and forth between mine as I talk. Like she’s terrified. And hopeful. And terrified of being hopeful. “But when you know, you know. And I know you’re it for me, Harper.”
She throws her arms around my neck again and kisses me madly.
I’ve barely started kissing her back, the singing feeling of connection striking like lightning down my spine. A car whizzes by on the road behind us, but I can’t even care with Harper’s arms around me and her lips on mine.
But maybe she does because a half-second later she’s pulling back and grabbing my hand. Then she’s yanking me forward so abruptly I stumble in my hurry to follow her.
“Where are we going?” I laugh when she drags me past the hood of the car and toward the woods beyond the edge of the road.
“You’ll see,” is all she singsongs over her shoulder.
“We’ll be late for school.”
“You’ll get over ruining your perfect attendance record, Boy Scout,” she giggles, sliding out of her leather jacket as she skips ahead through the underbrush before finally spinning around and dropping the jacket to the ground.
She’s right. I will.
Because this—her hand in mine, leading me into the woods, her jacket dropping to the ground—this is worth more than any record.
New rule.
Rule #917: Some rules are meant to be broken
“Unless you want to go back to the car and skip getting a blow-job before second period. Because it’s going to be awfully embarrassing walking around campus with that hard-on.”
Then she drops to her knees beside a large cedar tree and reaches for me, tugging me in by my pants leg.
I can only stare down at her, mouth dropped open. But I do step closer when she reaches for my belt and undoes the clasp.
I’m dumbstruck at her ease with sexuality. And embarrassed, frankly, when she reaches into my unzipped pants and pulls out my hard cock.
We’re outside, for Christ’s sake, in the open air. I look over my shoulder. I can still glimpse the car through the break in the trees.
But then I feel her mouth close over the head of my cock, and I choke a little with how good it feels. I tip forward with my hand out to balance myself against the trunk of the cedar because I’m not sure I could stay upright otherwise.
“H-Harper,” I stutter out her name. “Christ, your mouth feels like heaven.”
There’s no other way to explain it. Her mouth—and that thing she’s doing with her tongue, right at the tip, back and forth, oh fuck—
A choked groan erupts from my throat, and I’m about three seconds away from—
But I grit my teeth and shake my head. Not like this. I don’t want my second time with Harper to be—
I drop down to my knees so I can kiss her again. I don’t care if I get stains on my khaki pants. I don’t care that now my bared cock is bobbing awkwardly between our bodies.
I need her mouth. I need her to know how grateful I am for the gift of her mouth and how good that just fucking felt.
She hooks an elbow around my neck and kisses me so deep. My cock grinds against the belly of her prepschool shirt, and for some reason, the fact that she’s dressed in her school uniform turns me on even more. I reach underneath her skirt, between her thighs.
“Caleb,” she moans in a little whisper, adjusting her legs wider. That little movement—the invitation of it—makes my cock twitch against her stomach.
When my finger glides beneath her little silk underwear, I die a little at how wet she is.
My thick middle finger slips right inside her. Just like that. The second one doesn’t take much more prodding to work in, either, and she wriggles on me, rocking her hips back and forth and whimpering when my thumb finds the little swollen bean at the top of her sex.
“Awwww, fuck, your pussy is so sweet,” I whisper between kisses.
“Don’t say pussy,” she whimpers, lids fluttering. “I can’t handle Boy Scout Caleb Graham saying the word pussy while he fingers me.”
I break away from her mouth to bite at her ear. “But it’s such a soft, pretty, wet little pussy,” I whisper right in her ear. “Wet just for me.”
I barely know what I’m saying, but I know I love the way she tightens around me in response to my words.
“Oh fuck,” she whimpers.
“Is that an invitation?” I chuckle.
Suddenly, all her whimpering and thrusting stop, and she looks me directly in the eye. “Yes.”
It takes me a second to catch up.
But then I do.
And apparently, the brain of my little head takes over, because before I exactly realize what I’m doing, some animal part of me takes over. With one hand behind her head, I bear her down to the ground, kissing her furiously even while my other hand shoves her panties aside and then—
We both groan in satisfaction—and need—when my cock makes contact, and I thrust inside her wet heat. And then I’m thrusting over and over and over again because she feels so fucking good and I never thought we’d get to do this again and fuck, she’s so goddamn perfect—
Her fingernails dig into my ass as she lifts one leg up to my waist. I grab it and push it up further until her ankle’s all but behind my head, taking her limberness for granted as she yields to me.
Holy shit, she’s so completely bared.
I stare down, mesmerized by the darker pink dusk of her upper middle thighs that leads to where my cock disappears into God’s most perfect pussy. With my palms down on the floor of crushed leaves on either side of her hips, I lever myself in and out of her clenching heat and oh, oh—
Fuck, pleasure lights up and down my spine. I’m about to lose it. Oh fuck, I’m about to go—
But not without her.
I shift my gaze back to her eyes, where I find her already watching me. And Christ, I’m skewered by how beautiful she is, with a slight sheen of sweat on her brow, bottom lip between her teeth, and her brow scrunched as she clearly chases her own pleasure.
I drop down to my elbows, not caring about the sharp twigs biting into my skin. Other than being grateful that the little bit of pain helps me keep a lid on my pleasure so I don’t tip over.
I kiss Harper gently, returning us to the sphere of intensity where it’s just me and her.
I roll my hips with my next thrust in that way that hits her clit, and her head drops back, mouth open.
I lick down her neck. “You’re so beautiful when you’re about to come, Harper.”
I bottom out inside her, body completely covering hers, and the rush of power and pleasure almost makes my skull pop. I roll my hips again, and her breathy little whine scrolls higher and higher up the octave scale.
“That’s right,” I croon, pulling back out and then thrusting in again with a lingering hip roll and extra thrust even though I’m already flush against her body, my cock as deep as it can go inside her.
Everything in me screams to yank back out and fuck her, but I hold off. No. This. This is everything. My body pinning her down while the base of my cock grinds her clit, every part of us as close as two humans can be?
This is ecstasy.
This is enlightenment.
This is Dante’s Inferno and the fifth realm of heaven all at the same time.
When I can’t stand it anymore, I pull out just so I can thrust back in to pin her there again.
She lets out little short, needy whimpers in my ear.
My chest is suddenly so full of emotion, in addition to the choking pleasure.
“I almost lost you,” I whisper.
She lets out a little spasm, clenching on my cock in a way that makes my jaw clench to hold back the tide. Her eyes open, and our gazes lock again.
I can’t help a small retreat and thrust, and we both let out a needy little moan. “Faster,” she demands impatiently. “Harder.”
“I love you, Harper.”
She swallows, but for once, she can’t win against the tears she’s fighting, and one falls down her cheek. “You’re just saying that because you’re balls deep inside me.”
“So stubborn.” I shake my head, smiling down at her. “Next time I say it, I won’t be.”
“Will you just fuck me already?” She glares, or tries to, but her eyes are so glossed over with pleasure because I’ve been doing my hip roll move the entire time we’ve been talking.
I drop down to kiss her neck, which has her making those short, needy little gasps again. “Anytime, anywhere, baby.”
And then I let loose, fucking her hard. Fast. Holding her hip with one hand so I can pound into her the way we both need, rolling my hips up at the end with an extra little grind against her clit in a way that has her elbows locked around the back of my neck, hips and body rolling up to meet me until—
Her high-pitched squeal is the only permission I need to finally—
I grunt as pleasure floods through my body in an explosive flash, cock spasming and hips grinding as I empty myself inside her.
Her entire body spasms around me as she comes with me, and all I can think as we gasp in the aftermath is—
God, please never make me let her go.