Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Harper
W hat on earth had possessed her to say she would sing? Harper’s stomach threatened to rebel. She never sang her own songs to anyone other than Isla, and never once they’d been recorded.
She used to love singing when her mother was alive. The three of them—Isla, Harper and their mom—would sing along to the radio in the kitchen, dancing around with wooden spoons as pretend microphones while their mom baked or cooked dinner. Harper tried not to think about her mom. When she died, Harper had stopped singing. The kitchen that had once been filled with music had turned silent.
And then two years later—when Harper thought she couldn’t bear living in that house a moment longer—Isla won a reality television singing competition that skyrocketed her career.
Their dad sold the house that had become a shrine to their mother, and Harper hadn’t been sorry. She’d wanted to forget and move on with her life.
She sighed, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
The late afternoon sun was dipping low in the sky, a slight breeze tickling the leaves in the trees into a slight rustle. It was so quiet here. The gentle hum of insects competed with birdsong. Harper forced her shoulders to relax from where they had lifted, rolling her head to ease the ache in her neck.
“You don’t have to sing,” Logan said.
He had been quietly watching her from the other side of the stairs, rolling his beer bottle between his hands. He was a welcome distraction from whatever it was that had blocked her all damned day.
He’d pulled on a clean tee shirt since he’d come home, covering up that glorious expanse of muscular chest, solid shoulders and bulging biceps. A sad state of affairs. If she couldn’t touch, then at least she could look. And look she did.
Her eyes narrowed as she read the script on his shirt before bursting into laughter. “Ask me how to get Wilde outdoors?”
Logan looked down at his chest. “Ah, shit. Sorry. I forgot that was on this one.” He looked up at her and shrugged. “My sister made them as a joke for Rhett’s business.”
“Oh?” Harper barely managed to get that out between her laughter.
He shrugged and leaned back on his hands, the shirt pulling even tighter across the muscles of his chest. “Yeah. So we called her bluff and wear them.” His lips twitched as he watched her laugh.
Harper found that once she’d started, she couldn’t stop giggling. “So, Logan. Tell me. How do you get wild outdoors?”
“It’s a bit of a local secret, princess.”
She snorted. “Uh-huh. Tell me.”
Logan’s lips spread into a smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling and one side of his mouth lifting, making him look years younger. He slowly unfolded himself from the step, leaning forward until he was almost touching Harper.
“Are you sure you can handle it?”
Harper’s breath caught in her throat. “Try me.”
Why did her voice have to wobble?
Logan leaned a touch closer, one of his big hands gripping the stair next to where Harper sat. If he just moved his thumb slightly, he would touch her thigh. The heat of his imaginary hand on her skin sent goosebumps over her legs. She barely suppressed a shiver, and Logan’s smile deepened.
My god, he’s looking at me like I’m a meal.
“The first step is to be outdoors.”
Logan stood and held a hand out to Harper. She looked from it to his face.
What the hell. Gobble me up.
Harper placed her hand in his and he pulled her to her feat with surprising ease. She gasped and stumbled, her hands landing on his chest, her thighs pressed against his. She tilted her head up to look into his face.
“Aren’t we outdoors now?” She asked, her voice sounding breathy and faint to her ears.
Logan shook his head. “Ideally we’d be out of sight of any buildings, but this will have to do,.” He guided her to walk a short distance onto the grass before the water.
“What’s step two?”
He still hadn’t released her hand, her fingers warmed by his touch. He ran his thumb over her knuckles and that one point of contact, palm to palm, was her universe. The sounds of the water lapping against the rocks faded.
“This.” He turned to face her.
Logan released her hand. He reached for her, sliding his work-roughened fingers up her arm and over her shoulder. Harper leaned into his touch, closing her eyes and biting back a moan. Logan’s fingers slid into her hair at the nape of her neck, and he pulled her gently toward him.
“I want to kiss you, princess.” His voice was deeper than she’d heard it, and his words sent a thrill through her.
He wanted to kiss her. She blinked up at him, her warm brown eyes meeting his piercing green ones. But he didn’t move closer, just stroked the back of her neck with the thumb of the hand that was buried in her hair. The soothing rhythm of his fingers on her skin was pure bliss, and the last of the tightness in her shoulders that had plagued her all day gradually released.
“Aren’t you going to kiss me?” She asked, confused.
“Only if you want me to.”
Harper swallowed and nodded. The response she got in return was a twitch of his lips and lifted eyebrow. He was going to make her say it, wasn’t he?
“Please kiss me, Logan,” she said. It wasn’t a hard thing to say, but she had never been brave when it came to men. Telling Logan that she wanted him had her cheeks flaming with heat.
But something had changed in Harper. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but she was certain that the woman she had been even a week ago didn’t exist anymore. So when he bent down to her and touched her lips gently with his, she slid her arms up his chest and around his neck, pressing herself closer to him.
Why shouldn’t she make the most of this? Make the most of Logan obviously being into her?
Proof of his interest was making itself known against her stomach, sending a shiver through her.
She slicked her tongue against his lips, teasing him, and felt a thrill when he groaned and opened his mouth to deepen their kiss. Her head swam, and she finally understood why women in those old black-and-white movies would kick their leg up when they were kissed.
She felt like she was floating away.
Logan pulled away, chest heaving, to rest his forehead against hers. Their eyes met, and Harper gave him a tentative smile.
“You alright?” He asked, his voice husky.
This was the first time in days that she’d felt completely, perfectly alright. She was brilliant.
“Yes. Are you?”
He barked a laugh, pulling away to throw his head back. “Oh, princess. More than alright.” His hand slid out of her hair, and he cupped her face, his thumb gently brushing over her cheek.
Logan’s eyes were hot with promise as he kissed her again and again.
The light was dropping further, the sounds of the breeze in the trees a soothing backdrop to the passion burning through her. Her heart felt like it would burst free from her chest it was pumping so hard.
One of Logan’s hands slid down her back to pull her closer to him, the hard bulge of his erection as it pressed against the soft swell of her stomach all the evidence she needed of how she was affecting him.
His lips trailed over her cheek and down her neck making her head swim. Her eyes closed, she dropped her head back and leaned into his arms.
It felt so good to be enveloped in his arms. Surrounded by his strength. Like nothing could get to her.
Safe. She was safe.
Harper sighed as he brushed the back of his fingers gently over her collar bone and down the slope of her shoulder, slowly making his way south until he brushed the side of her breast. She wiggled against him and smiled, eyes still closed as she tugged him closer.
She ached for him.
“Ah, princess. What you do to me.”
He shifted slightly, and she whimpered at the loss of his hands on her, before she was lifted into his arms.
Her eyes flew open in alarm. “Logan! No, I’m too heavy!” She gripped him around the neck, clinging tightly as her worried eyes met his laughing ones.
“You’re not too anything, princess.” His words were easy, and she relaxed against him.
She’d never been carried like this, but the way he moved so easily, as if she was as light as a feather, had her settling into his arms.
He carried her, bridal style, toward the house and up the stairs to settle on the outdoor sofa.
“You really don’t mind carrying me,” she said, a note of awe in her voice.
Logan looked at her with a quizzical expression. “Why would I mind?”
Harper flushed waved a hand to gesture at herself. “Because I’m not a small woman.” She looked away, not wanting to meet his eyes. Wiggling slightly, she tried to shift off his lap.
“Princess, I’m not a small man.”
She rolled her eyes. “But that’s different.”
Logan gripped her chin and turned her face gently so she met his eyes. “I’ll say this as often as you need to hear it. If that’s every day, so be it.” He dropped his head a little lower so their noses almost brushed. “You are perfect. You don’t need to be anything other than the way you are.”
Tears welled in Harper’s eyes.
“That means more to me than you’ll ever know,” she said softly.
He shifted her on his lap, lifting her by the waist so she faced him and straddled him, knees on either side of his legs.
Harper squeaked in surprise at being moved around so easily, then laughed. Hands on his shoulders, she practically purred at the feeling of his thick, muscular thighs under hers.
“Come here, princess,” he practically purred, tugging her closer so she was nestled on top of where his erection was straining at the denim of his jeans.
“Oh,” she sighed, closing her eyes and rolling her hips in a way that had him dropping his head back and groaning.
“You’re killing me,” he said, but he was laughing.
“Is that step three?”
“Step three?”
Harper opened her eyes to see his confused green gaze on her.
“You know, in how to get wild outdoors?”
They were still laughing when her phone began ringing.