8. Harper
HARPER
What the fuck am I doing?
It was what had been playing through my head during the entire conversation with Elliot.
These kinds of arrangements weren’t new to me, but they were something I had said I never wanted to be a part of.
Which is why I am here in Chicago, alone, trying to make my way instead of back home in New York, with my father.
I could rationalize that what I was doing could eliminate this tension and energy between Elliot and I.
I knew he wasn’t someone who would settle down and I never wanted to be one of many, I didn’t want to live like a lot of women do in our world.
Men were almost expected to have mistresses on the side, while the wife was to remain perfect and wait for her husband to return home to them.
No thanks. I didn’t want that for me, and neither did my father. Which is why he agreed to allow me this time to figure out what I wanted without the added pressure of who my family was.
Our easy banter and the chemistry between us was off the charts. I could do this. I could be with Elliot for the term of this arrangement and then walk away.
He set his glass down and loosened his cufflinks, a fire in his eyes that made me want to squirm.
“I am going to fuck you now,” he said with not an ounce of humour. He was… serious.
My lips parted on an exhale, and I almost choked on my words. “Are you?”
Elliot was locked onto me with an intensity that made me think… could someone orgasm from that look? He started unbuttoning his shirt. “Harper Vale…”
My eyes widened instantly, and my heart rate kicked up to a dangerous rate. Did he do that deliberately? Call me by his last name… or was that a slip?
He continued with no reaction to calling me by his last name, “... will you grant me the pleasure of letting me fuck you tonight?”
I couldn’t help it; I burst out laughing. Elliot Vale could get under my skin, and I needed to remember this wasn’t real.
He moved toward me slowly, his baby blue eyes tracking over my features as if he was gauging how I would react to him moving closer.
My heart was in my throat when Elliot pulled me to him, his large hand sliding against the silk of my vintage dress, and the feel of the warmth of his hands through the cool silk made my breath catch.
As he lowered his mouth toward mine, his eyes focused on mine.
Fuck, I wanted him to kiss me so badly. Which is why I needed to follow the rules and not get lost in the ‘what if’ of this whole situation.
So I swallowed the need to have his lips on mine and turned my head so his lips grazed my jaw instead and then reinforced my rule. “No kissing.”
Elliot exhaled a laugh against the curve of my jaw, groaning. “You are deeply frustrating.”
“You like it.” I replied, fighting against the need to turn my face ever so slightly and kiss him like we did that night.
When I turned myself, giving him my back, I infused as much confidence as I could. Brushing my hair over my shoulder, exposing where the hidden buttons were in this dress. I swallowed down the feelings I did not want to have right now and said, “Undo my dress, Elliot.”
I heard a groan that almost sounded like a growl from him.
Then I felt his hands lift, felt them trail over the silk and pause at the edge of the fabric.
Most of my back was exposed, with just a few hidden clips at the base of my spine to keep the dress at my lower back and then a haltered style high neck with pearl buttons in the same colour as the dress.
Elliot paused, and I felt his warm breath on my bare back. I felt a brush of his nose first before his lips gently met my skin. My whole body shivered in response, and goosebumps broke out over my skin.
“So responsive,” Elliot said to my skin, and it took everything in me not to spin around.
His fingers trailed across the threshold of the silk and trailed slowly up my spine. One touch and suddenly my brain stopped functioning like a capable adult woman with a successful career and started functioning like a hormone-driven idiot who read too many romance novels.
His lips, his fingers… just on my back had my mind spinning, and that was a problem.
This was exactly why I didn’t do things like this. Exactly why I avoided men like Elliot Vale.
Men who looked at you too intensely and made bad ideas sound fun. Men who promised the world only to pull it out from under you without notice.
Elliot's fingers made it to the pearl buttons at my neck, and I felt the silk loosen around me inch by inch until the dress started slipping down my body.
His hands settled against my hips, steadying me as I stepped out of it, and the warmth of his palm felt far more intimate than it should have.
The dress pooled at my feet, leaving me in a cream-coloured thong and my heels.
The city glittered beyond the windows, and I was standing mostly naked in Elliot Vale’s penthouse, trying not to think about how good he smelled.
I needed to take some control and make sure my heart knew the truth of what was going on here.
I turned to face him and instantly regretted it.
His shirt hung open now, exposing warm skin, sharp lines and a chest that looked unfairly good under the low lighting.
His cufflinks were gone, his bowtie abandoned somewhere behind him, and his hair somehow looked even better messed up.
I stepped away from him and moved toward the island. Elliot’s eyes tracked the movement before slowly lifting back to my face, and there was something about the way he looked at me that made my stomach flip. Not like a hookup or an arrangement. Worse.
Like he was interested, like he wanted more than what he had propositioned me with.
Nope. Absolutely not. That was how women ended up crying on the bathroom floor.
I cleared my throat and forced my brain back online. “I’ll bring someone else onto the account.”
That seemed to surprise him enough to interrupt whatever terribly attractive thoughts he was having.
“What?”
“A junior manager. I’ll still manage Northwell directly, but someone else from the firm will be involved to manage anything to do directly with you.”
Elliot watched me carefully now. “Why?”
Because I was already dangerously close to blurring the lines.
Because I was trying very hard not to become another woman in Elliot Vale’s rotation.
Because I knew exactly how this looked.
I shrugged instead, saying, “I don’t want it looking like I’m being paid to sleep with you. I won’t be a whore for hire.”
Something shifted in his face, but it was gone almost instantly.
“That’s not what this is.” His voice had lost its teasing edge.
I looked at him carefully then, trying to decide if he believed that or if he just wanted me to.
“Then it shouldn’t matter.”
A beat passed before he nodded once. “Fine.”
That seemed to bother him. Why?
Elliot walked toward me slowly, and every instinct in my body immediately became aware of him. God, this man was a problem.
“You think too much,” he murmured.
“I am waiting for the fucking I was promised!” I retorted, keeping my walls up.
He laughed softly under his breath, and something about the sound wrapped around my ribs in a way I didn’t like. Or maybe liked too much. Neither option felt safe.
Elliot stopped directly in front of me, close enough that I could smell the scotch on his breath mixed with his cologne and something warm and masculine that made me want to make deeply irresponsible decisions.
Like kissing him.
But that rule existed for a reason.
Sex could stay physical.
Kissing was intimate.
Kissing was how women like me started imagining futures that didn’t exist.
“You’re doing that thing again,” Elliot whispered.
“What thing?”
“The overthinking thing.”
I exhaled softly. “Someone in this room has to.”
Elliot’s fingers traced lightly along my hip, and then he reached for my hand. “Let's move to my bedroom.”
Instead of following, I pulled my hand back and stepped away from him, giving him my back again as I bent over, pulling my thong down my long legs.
Elliot groaned, and I looked at him, bent in half, completely exposed, offering a cheeky smirk.
Then slowly I pulled myself up to standing, stepping out of my thong and moving back to the island before asking, “Condom?”
He chuckled and moved towards a drawer on the other side of the island. Then he pulled out a slip of condoms. I was so shocked that I said in the inside voice thing outside, “Condoms in the kitchen?”
Elliot shrugged like everyone kept an arm's length of condoms in their kitchen. “I keep them in almost every room.”
That was exactly the kind of reminder I needed, so I turned and leaned back on the island and looked at him over my shoulder, asking, “Are you going to keep me waiting?”
He slid the condoms across the island and moved toward me.
Elliot stopped right in front of me, still mostly clothed, while I was only in my heels.
Tapping his shoe on the inside of my heel to get me to open my legs, Elliot stepped between them.
The fabric of his pants brushing against my bare thighs.
He trailed one finger up my stomach, through the valley between my breasts, and then cupped my jaw with his hand, murmuring, “This is where you want it?”
I locked eyes with him and, with as much confidence as I could muster, said, “Yes.”
Elliot studied me for a moment, something moving over his features that I didn’t understand, or maybe didn’t want to. He stepped in even closer, his free hand finding my bare pussy and cupping me there.
We both groaned, and he slipped one finger into my already wet center. Elliot leaned in closer, saying, “I wanted to take my time with you tonight.”
I didn’t know if I could respond in words, so I rolled my hips and bucked, pushing his finger in deeper.
Elliot grinned and moved his finger in me, “So wet for me already. Did our verbal sparring turn you on as much as it did me?”