Undeniable: A Cloverleigh Farms Standalone

by Melanie Harlow

  “What book is this from again?” I traced the script tattooed on her back as the steam rose in hot clouds around us.

  “It’s not from a book, it’s from a play, and I have told you that a million times.” She gave me a dirty look over one shoulder.

  I grinned. “Sorry. What play?”

  “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” She stood up taller and raised one fist. “O, when she is angry, she is keen and shrewd. She was a vixen when she went to school, and though she be but little, she is fierce.”

  I applauded her performance, and she turned around and curtsied. “Thank you. It’s the only thing I remember from high school English.”

  I wrapped my arms around her. “It suits you. I like that whole vixen part.”

  “I liked that part too. It was the only character in a Shakespeare play I ever related to.” She put her hands on my chest. “What was your favorite book in high school?”

  “I don’t remember anything from high school.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Come on. Not one academic memory? Nothing that left an impression on your young mind?”

  I tilted my head and tried to think back. “Oh, wait. There is something I remember. Mackenzie Williams sat in front of me in American Lit, and she sometimes wore this really short skirt. So every now and then, I’d drop my pencil and—”

  “Okay, enough.” She closed her eyes. “That’s not really what I meant, and I don’t think I want to hear the end of that story. You can stop talking.”

  “Fine with me.” I kissed the top of her head, inhaling the scent of her shampoo. She’d let me wash her hair, and then she’d washed mine. No one had ever done that for me before, and I couldn’t believe how good it felt.

  She’d let me soap her up too, and I got stupid hard running my hands all over her body and watching her rinse the lather from her skin. She’d done the same for me, and I loved the way her eyes widened at the sight of my erection.

  I was still hard. And she was staring down at it again.

  “Sorry. I’ve just never seen it in the daytime,” she said, letting it slide through both hands.

  “Don’t apologize. Does that mean you’re impressed?”

  She nodded. “I have to admit I am. It’s so tall.”

  “Thank you. But if you keep doing that with your hands, it’s not going to last.”

  “Oh yeah?” A devilish gleam popped into her eye. “Like how fast could I make it happen?”

  “Pretty fucking fast.” I clenched my jaw, determined not to explode like a teenager.

  “Do you think you could last five minutes?” She gripped me tighter, stroked a little faster.

  “Uh …” Fuck me, there was no way.

  “I’ll bet you can’t.” Laughing like the evil little vixen she was, she dropped to her knees. “I’ll bet you lose control in three.”

  “Three?” I croaked, bracing one hand on the shower wall as she rubbed her lips all over my cock.

  “Uh huh.” She took the crown in her mouth and sucked. “Mm. Maybe even two. I can taste it already.”

  “Oh, Jesus.” I wrapped my other hand around the shower curtain rod. “What are we betting?”

  She paused. “Now let’s see. How about this—if I can make you come in under five minutes, you make me CEO of Brown Eyed Girl. President, with a fifty-one percent stake.” She flicked the tip of my cock with her tongue. “Essentially, you work for me.”

  I fought for control. “And if I can hold out?”

  “Then you get fifty-one percent.”

  I groaned. “What if I don’t want to take the bet?”

  She laughed and looked up at me, pure delight in her eyes. “Oh, you’ll take the bet. I know you, Oliver Ford Pemberton. You can’t resist.”

  Damn her. She knew me too well. “When does the clock start?”

  “Do we agree on a gentleman’s clock? Or do I have to set the alarm on my phone, like you did?”

  “Fuck!” This was revenge. I could feel it. But I couldn’t say no. “Fine. Gentleman’s clock. Gentleman’s clock. Just … don’t stop.”

  She had both hands on my shaft and was licking the tip of my dick like an ice cream cone. She was making noises too—ridiculous, over-the-top noises that couldn’t be real and yet I fucking loved them. I knew she was putting on a show for me, proving a point just to win the bet, but I didn’t care.

  Surely no Shakespearean actress was ever more magnificent in a performance. She moaned. She panted. She licked and sucked. She looked up at me with innocent wide brown eyes. She took me to the back of her throat. She slid a hand between her legs and touched herself as her lips glided up and down my cock over and over again.

  As for me, I cursed. I seethed. I yanked on that curtain rod so hard I thought for sure it was going to come down. I battled for control, and I battled hard—if I lost this bet, I lost control of Brown Eyed Girl. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Chloe, but once she knew the whole truth, she might not want it anyway.

  Fuck, I couldn’t think about that now. And I couldn’t think about her mouth on my dick. Or how badly I wanted to come. Or how my body seemed to be moving without my permission, my hips jutting forward, jabbing my cock in deep and fast, fucking her mouth like I’d fantasized about so many times.

  But no—no! I could hold out. I was strong. I was powerful. I was a man, and I was not going to go down without a fight.

  Desperately, I tried to focus on other things. Unsexy things. Terrible, boring things.

  Pemberton board meetings. Hughie’s kids’ piano recitals. Charlotte’s Nutcracker performances. Family dinners where my parents did nothing but praise my brother.

  I felt like I had this. I could hold out. It wouldn’t kill me. Much.

  And then.

  And then.

  I felt one of her hands wandering up my inner thighs. Playing with my balls. Sliding behind them.

  Oh, fuck. She wouldn’t.

  But she did.

  She kept up her vicious, glorious sucking on my cock and eased one fingertip into my ass.

  Not gonna lie. I came a little bit.

  And that fierce little vixen only went at me harder. Pushed that finger all the way in. Relaxed her throat and took me even deeper.

  Annnnd that was about it.

  I no longer had the capacity to care about bets or my company or the fact that she might not be speaking to me by this time tomorrow. I didn’t care that she was getting me back for what I’d done to her ten years earlier in a room at my parents’ summer house or that she probably wasn’t enjoying this quite as much as she pretended to.

  It had been nowhere near five minutes, and it had also been fifteen years.

  My vision—gone. My control—gone. My manners—gone.

  I took her head in my hands and emptied myself into her throat without a single regret.

  She took it. She wanted it. She’d asked for it. And when it was over, she sat back, smiling and gasping for air, dragging a wrist across her mouth.

  “That was fun,” she said.

  Not I win. Not you lose. Not I just sucked off a majority ownership in your company (which she had). But that was fun.

  My heart—gone.

  We had dinner at the inn’s restaurant, seated on the outdoor patio. Chloe wore a white sundress that showed off her tanned skin and long dark hair, and I could hardly take my eyes off her.

  After dinner we decided to head over to the dunes to watch the sunset. Holding hands, we ambled out along the wooden boardwalk and stood for a few minutes with all the other tourists capturing the moment with selfies, then posting them on social media. But neither one of us even looked at our phone. Tonight was ours alone, and I didn’t want to share it with anyone.

  We strolled back toward the dunes and took our shoes off to climb up. At the top of the bluff, we dropped down on the sand and watched the sun sink into the lake.

  “So beautiful,” she murmured with a sigh.

  I elbowed her gently. “Glad you came?”

&
nbsp; “Yeah. It’s been a long time since I did something like this—just sat and watched the sunset. It feels like there’s always something to be done at work or at home. No time to sit still.”

  “I know what you mean. Whenever I sit still, I feel guilty, like there’s something I probably should be doing.”

  “Exactly.” She shook her head. “I can’t even remember the last vacation I took. Or even the last date I went on.”

  “Good. Must not have been too memorable.”

  Laughing, she poked my shoulder. “Jealous?”

  “Always.” I reached for her, hauling her onto my lap, facing me. “From day one, I hated it when you’d talk about guys.”

  “I know. I remember. But you talked all the time about girls.”

  “Well, I didn’t want you to think I liked you or anything.”

  “God forbid.” The wind blew her hair around her shoulders, and she gathered it in both hands on one side. “We’d spent all those years building up animosity, we couldn’t throw all that away just because we were attracted to each other.”

  “Hell no. What fun would that have been?”

  She grinned. “You know, I used to wonder what would have happened on prom night if I hadn’t walked away.”

  “Um, I’d have popped your cherry about four months sooner.”

  “Maybe …”

  “Definitely. I wanted you so bad that night.”

  She laughed. “I’m glad we didn’t do it then. I think it would have changed everything.”

  “Probably,” I agreed, thinking back to the way events had unfolded over the years. We definitely didn’t have a conventional beginning. “Our story is sort of zig-zagged, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but it’s ours,” she said, giving up on holding her hair in place and wrapping her arms around me. “And it brought us here, so I like it.”

  I pressed my lips to hers. “Me too.”

  19

  Chloe

  Now

  Back in our room, I slipped off my sandals. “Today was magical.”

  Oliver locked our door and set his wallet and phone on the dresser. “It was.”

  “I’d forgotten how beautiful it is here. I need to come back more often.” I went over to the window and looked out toward the lake, but it was too dark to see anything.

  “We’ll come back later this summer.” Oliver came up behind me and wrapped me in his arms. “How does that sound?”

  “Good. Maybe we can go to South Manitou again. Maybe even when they’re planting the rye!”

  Oliver laughed. “Whenever you want. I’m glad you’re excited.”

  “I am. I really am.” Spinning around to face him, I rose up on tiptoe and looped my arms around his neck. “I haven’t been this happy and excited about something in forever. Thank you. For asking me to do this with you. For insisting I listen to you, when all I really wanted to do was punish you.”

  He tipped his forehead to mine. “I deserved it.”

  “You did. But I’m ready to forgive you and move on.” I smiled. “Maybe the timing wasn’t right before. Maybe we still had growing up to do. Maybe if we’d have gone ahead with the plans we made then, we wouldn’t be here today. And I think today is pretty fucking awesome.” I pressed my lips to his, then jumped up on him, wrapping my legs around his waist.

  “It is,” he agreed, walking over toward the bed. “And it’s about to get even better.”

  We went slow. Deliciously, torturously slow.

  With every article of clothing removed, we lavished time and attention on the skin revealed. The inside of his wrists. The small of my back. The lines on his abs. The curve of my hip. Calf muscles. Collarbones. Chests.

  He ran his hands over every inch of my skin as if he’d never touched anything as soft or sexy. He whispered sweet, dirty things in my ear that made me blush. He buried his head between my thighs and used his lips and tongue and fingers on me until I arched and gasped, writhing beneath him with my hands fisted in his hair.

  “So was that less than five minutes?” I asked, still panting as he crawled up my body.

  “I have no idea. I’m not in a rush this time,” he said, bracing himself with his hands above my shoulders.

  “Me either.” I reached down and took his hot, hard cock in my hands. “But don’t make me wait.”

  I didn’t have to worry—he was just as anxious to be inside me as I was to have him there. As his hips rolled over mine, my hands snaked around his back and down over his ass, pulling him closer, deeper, tighter to me.

  He went slow until he couldn’t hold back anymore, until I was begging him to fuck me harder, until our bodies were so overwhelmed by need they took over, bucking wildly against one another until the tension spiraled so tight and high it snapped, sending us spinning over the edge, soaring head over heels, exploding like stars.

  Afterward, we snuggled up with our arms around each other and my head on his chest. I was already falling asleep when I heard his voice.

  “Chloe.”

  “What?”

  “I need to say something.”

  “Okay.” I picked up my head and looked at him.

  “I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. And I’ve never been more sure that something is right. I know it was a risk for you to trust me, but I won’t let you down.” His crooked grin appeared. “From now on, it’s you and me.”

  Pure joy radiated through me. “Are you trying to make me fall for you, Oliver Pemberton?”

  He grinned. “We don’t fall. We jump.”

  I fell asleep with a smile on my face, positive that the risk had been worth it, that my heart had finally led me in the right direction, that people really could change.

  This was real. I felt it way down deep.

  We spent most of the morning in bed, looking at each other in the sunlight streaming through the window, running our hands along each other’s bare limbs, discovering freckles and dimples and scars in hidden places.

  “What’s this?” I asked, tracing a scar on his ribcage.

  “I gouged it on some big rocks in the lake one summer.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Yeah, it hurt. But I’d jumped in to save this one kid who’d fallen off the boat, couldn’t swim, and wasn’t wearing a life jacket.”

  I gasped. “Oh my God! Are you serious?”

  “No.” His crooked grin appeared. “But that’s a better story than ‘I was being a jackass jumping off a rock pile and slipped.”

  I slapped his chest. “Jerk. I believed you.”

  “I know. You’re so gullible.”

  “Do you even teach sailing to kids or was that bullshit too?” For a moment, I had a small panic attack that I was gullible, and Oliver was still a con man, a wolf in preppy sheep’s clothing.

  “Yes. I wouldn’t lie about that, Chloe. You can take that suspicious look off your face.”

  “Well, how was I supposed to know? You have to admit, you have a history of stretching the truth when it suits you.”

  “When did you get this?” he asked me, brushing his thumbs over the long, faintly purple line on my leg, which was hooked over his hips.

  “Well,” I said, propping my head on my hand, “when I was younger, I used to hang out with this kid who was always daring me to do dumb shit like jump off roofs.”

  Oliver kissed the scar. “What an asshole. Give me his name, I’ll kick his ass.”

  I smiled at him, narrowing my eyes. “Come on, I don’t name names. You know me better than that.”

  Grinning, he flipped around so that we lay the same way, head to hip to toe. “I do.”

  I traced the mark on his collarbone. “Funny how we both have a scar from that day. Think it was fate?”

  He laughed a little. “Probably. Or stupidity. One of the two.”

  “I wanted to impress you so badly,” I confessed.

  “It worked. I was so sure you wouldn’t jump.”

  “So sure that you bet something you didn’t even own,�
� I reminded him with a poke on the chest.

  He laughed again, and my heart trilled faster at the sound of it. “Sorry. I’ll make it up to you someday. Does the leg you broke ever bother you?”

  “Not really. I thought about getting a tattoo to cover the scar, but decided against it.”

  “How come?”

  “Well, for one, the scar is kinda badass, don’t you think?” I lifted my leg in the air and we both looked at it.

  “Definitely,” he teased. “If you were coming at me and I saw that scar, I’d think you were scary as fuck.”

  Slapping him on the chest, I lowered my leg and he caught it, tucking it between his. “And for another,” I went on, “it felt like a good reminder that I should look before I leap and all that. It’s a lesson I needed to learn. I’ve always been too hot-headed and impulsive.”

  “But I love that about you.” He threw an arm over my hip and pulled me flush against him. “Don’t change.”

  “Don’t worry,” I told him. “I’m still that girl on the roof. You dare me to jump, I jump—but you better come with me.”

  He smiled. “You jump, I jump.”

  With my heart about to burst from my chest, I looped my arm around his neck and pulled him on top of me. It felt like I’d never be able to get enough of this new Oliver, who had all the best of the old Oliver but who’d matured and changed in ways I could never have anticipated. My feelings for him were ballooning quickly—it was frightening and exhilarating at the same time.

  “Oliver,” I said breathlessly, when he was inside me again and I felt the last rope tethering my heart to my chest begin to fray. “Tell me it’s different this time. Tell me I have nothing to be afraid of.”

  He picked up his head and looked me right in the eye. “You have nothing to be afraid of. I promise. Everything is going to be perfect.”

  I believed him.

  Around eleven, we finally dragged ourselves from bed. Oliver held my hand as we walked to breakfast in the warm July sun, and I felt an inner calm I hadn’t felt in a long time—maybe forever.

  But in contrast, Oliver actually seemed a little nervous about something. He kept checking his watch, clearing his throat, rubbing the back of his neck. Over eggs and pancakes, I caught him staring into space with a concerned expression on his face.