Her words hit him hard in the chest. “That is not what this is.” Then it really sank in. “You think now that I’ve fucked you, I’m over it all? That’s what I’ve been going for and now that I got it, I don’t want you around anymore? Or that it wasn’t good enough, and now I’m trying to get out of doing it again?”
“Shh!” She glanced into the back seat. “You’ll wake him up.”
James shifted the truck into reverse and backed out of Bea’s driveway. She thought he was over her now? Fuck that.
“You really think that all of this has just been my way of getting you into bed?” he asked as they drove the dark streets back to the apartment. “This is pretty fucking elaborate, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think you had someone deliver a baby to your front door as a ploy to get me into bed, no.”
She said it calmly. Which further irritated him.
“So what do you think? I’m an opportunist who thought, ‘Well, hell, now I have a kid, but at least maybe the professor will take her panties off this time?’”
She sighed. “Of course not.”
“Then what?” He looked over.
“I told you. This all got real at Bea’s. We’ve been playing around at the apartment, in the shower and everything. You and your friends were hanging out after that. At the restaurant, it was more of a date than it was about Isaac, really, especially because it turned out not to be Megan. But now, you pulled up to pick the baby up from the babysitter, loaded the car seat, got the casseroles, had to think about things like the fact this is long term and how hard it’s going to be to even make meals and clean the apartment and do laundry and… it got real.”
“Okay, it got real,” he said. “And I realized that you didn’t sign up for this. Something’s been happening between us for six months—and don’t fucking say it hasn’t been.”
She didn’t say a word.
“I realized that all of this chaos is mine and that I love having you in the midst of it and that the sex with you was the best I’ve ever had, probably because I fucking like you more than I’ve liked any other woman, ever. You make everything easier. And more fun. I’ve loved having Fred with you, and well, gee, a baby will be even more of that, right? Then it hit me that holy shit, that’s unfair. I should tell you that I want to date you and take you out and dance with you and yes, fuck you in every position, on every surface, over and over and over again, and you don’t have to change one poopy diaper at all. I’ll figure out a way to do all of that.”
She said nothing, and he didn’t take his eyes off the road. He just let all those words hang in the air between them, his heart pounding, as he finally pulled onto their street and into his space in front of the building.
He shoved the truck into park, shut the ignition off, and started to turn toward her. But before he’d even shifted his weight, his lap was full of woman.
Harper straddled his thighs, took his face in her hands, and kissed him.
He gripped the back of her shirt, holding her in place, opening his mouth, not sure who was devouring who but feeling her rocking against his cock, her tongue tangling with his, her hands in his hair, almost desperate to be against him.
He knew the feeling. He pressed her down against his instantly hard cock, wanting to take her right now, hard and fast. The baby was asleep in the back seat, the street was quiet and dark, and hell, he didn’t care if someone saw them. This woman was everything, and if she wanted him right here and now, she could have him. She could always have whatever she wanted from him, whenever she needed it.
Her thoughts seemed to be going in the same exact direction because a moment later, her hands were at his fly, unbuttoning and unzipping. He reached down and hit the lever to send the seat shooting back, giving her plenty of space to move. She opened his pants and freed his erection, her hands squeezing and stroking.
“Fuck, Harper.”
“Yes. God, yes. I need you.”
“Right-hand pocket.”
She dug for the condom, opened it and rolled it on then hiked her skirt up, pulled her panties to one side and then guided him home.
She sunk down on him, and they groaned together.
She wasn’t naked. He couldn’t see anything but her face. But this was perfect. Her face said it all. Her gaze was hot and locked on his. Her mouth was open as she breathed fast, her hair was escaping the messy bun. The frantic pace, the way she’d climbed into his lap, was all too damned good. This was about more than the pleasure and sex, more than their bodies. This was a connection. A promise. An I’m-here-for-this moment. After everything he’d laid out, his buttoned-up linguistics professor was fucking him in the front seat of his pickup. It was the hottest, most important sex of his life.
“James.”
He gripped her hips and thrust up into her. She was so tight, so perfect, so fucking hot and wet. “Harper.”
She gripped his head, her fingers sunk deep in his hair, and started moving. Up and down, taking him deep, the sweetest pussy he’d ever felt milking him, sucking everything from him.
“God, this is so good.” She breathed out. “So, so good.”
He squeezed her ass. “You are amazing.”
He couldn’t wait to spread her out and really see what he was doing. He’d put her back on his bed, legs wide, every gorgeous inch on display as he made her come again and again. Or he’d lay her out on his kitchen table, push her knees to her chest, and watch his cock move in and out of her. He’d bend her over the back of his couch or put her on her knees, gripping his headboard and take her from behind. So many ways to take her.
And none of it would be quite like this. This felt like a commitment.
He needed to cool it. He needed to slow down. Take it easy.
He couldn’t.
She started moving faster, her deep muscles gripping him. He met her with upward thrusts, loving the breathless gasps and little moans.
James felt his climax building, and he reached under her skirt, finding her clit and circling with his thumb.
“Oh fuck. Yes, James.”
That was pretty damned close to what he’d wanted to hear from her. He put his thumb to his mouth and sucked on it. She watched, her eyes wide, clearly turned on. Wet and slippery, he returned his thumb to that sweet spot, rubbing and pressing.
“Fuck me, Harper,” he said gruffly.
She did. Riding him hard and fast, making sure she kept the angle that would keep her clit against his thumb, she took him deep over and over, until she cried out, clamping down on him and making his balls tighten hard and his own climax rip through him.
“Harper. Fuck. Yes. Holy hell. Yes.” He chanted and praised as the pleasure overtook him.
He wrapped his arms around her waist, putting his forehead to her shoulder, dragging in deep breaths of her scent and the scent of them together.
They stayed like that for several long moments, ripples of pleasure fading slowly.
Finally, she stirred and pulled back to look down at him.
He looked up.
Fuck. He was in love with her.
It hit him in that moment, and he had to bite his tongue, literally, to keep from blurting it out.
“And as I was saying,” she told him, still a little breathless. “Everything just got a lot more real.”
Well, that was the biggest understatement ever. He nodded. “Agreed.”
“But you let me go that first night, James,” she reminded him. “I went to the store and got the stuff, but I went back to my apartment. I was the one who came over and climbed into your bed. So you need to stop with this crap about you making me be there for all of this. I’m very capable of telling you when I don’t want to do something.”
He didn’t totally believe her. He didn’t think she would be able to say no to Isaac. Or him, honestly. If he needed her, she would be there. But if she understood that he knew she didn’t have to be doing any of this, then that was a good place to leave all this. Probably.
It was very hard to think straight with his cock still buried inside the body he never wanted to leave.
“Say okay, James,” she told him, her voice soft. “Say you trust me to tell you if I’m not okay.”
“Okay.”
“And say that you’ll tell me if you’re not okay. Because this is going to be hard sometimes.”
“I’ll tell you.”
She smiled. “You won’t. You’re the guy who takes care of things.”
He liked that. He liked that she thought that. That she didn’t think he’d been showing up at her door because he was a fuck-up. “I do. But I also know that I can’t always do it alone. The fire station has taught me that. The band has taught me that. I’m a great piano player, but it all sounds a hell of a lot better when everyone is playing.”
Her smile grew. “I like that. Okay, then. We’re on the same page.”
“I like this page,” he said honestly.
“Me too.”
“And I really like the make-up sex.” He squeezed her ass.
“Me too,” she said enthusiastically.
If he’d liked her before with her books and tea and the pencil that was sometimes tucked behind her ear when he’d interrupted her in the middle of correcting student essays, he loved her when she was wanton about sex with him.
And when she was lifting his baby boy out of his car seat and cooing to him as she carried him inside, and when she was loving up his dog that had been left alone far too long—in the dog’s estimation, anyway—and when she was letting his bearded dragon sit on her shoulder while she made two cups of tea.
7
“One of the women you… dated… is a photographer?”
James grinned at Harper’s hesitation over the word dated. They both knew he hadn’t dated this woman. He thought her name was Kylie, but it might have been Kaylie. He hadn’t told Harper that part.
“A photographer’s assistant,” he corrected as they headed down the sidewalk toward Angie’s photography studio.
“And you met her how?”
“Shooting the firefighter’s calendar for next year.”
“Of course.” Harper didn’t roll her eyes.
But he could hear in her voice that she wanted to.
“I’m Mr. July. That’s an important one,” he said, inserting just enough cockiness into his voice that she’d know he was joking.
“Wow, I’m shocked,” Harper said. “Hottest month of the year? That just doesn’t fit at all.”
They were holding hands, and he pulled her close, kissing the top of her head. “Oh, yeah? Because Caleb is August, and he claims August is the hottest month of the year.”
“Hmm…” She seemed to be thinking about that. “Caleb is—I mean August is—really hot.”
James looked down at her with an eyebrow up.
He was exhausted. So was she. Isaac had decided that his nap at Bea’s and in the car had been enough to sustain him until about one in the morning. James needed to work tonight, and Harper had tried to insist they could put this visit off. She'd also offered to go to the photography studio alone and find out if anyone there had been pregnant in the past few months as she had at the restaurant so he could sleep. But he hadn’t been able to let her go.
So not only were they on their way together, working on very little sleep, but they had Isaac in tow. He was currently in the sling carrier across James’s chest. In part because they hadn’t wanted to leave him with a sitter again so soon and in part because, as James had mentioned last night, if they walked in and the mother saw the baby with James, they would get a reaction that would be hard for her to cover, and it would give her away before they had to ask many questions. It hadn’t felt fair to do that to Megan in such a public place, but Kylie-Kaylie’s workplace was a lot less crowded. And honestly, this would really cut down on the time it would take tiptoeing around the issue with subtle questions.
Even though they had both been yawning their way through breakfast, and he had a long shift ahead of him tonight, he felt energized. Having Harper there while they’d tried to get Isaac to sleep again last night and lying in bed with him while he fed the baby at four a.m. and waking up with her this morning—even if it was to the sounds of an angry, wet baby—had been awesome.
“Be good or I won’t reenact my pose for the calendar for you,” he told her.
“What was the pose?” she asked.
“Me in my uniform pants, unzipped, kind of sagging on my hips, shirtless, wet from a hose—of course, because we always run around half-naked and spraying each other with the water hoses—and…” He trailed off. “Nah, I don’t think you could handle it.”
Now she looked up at him with an eyebrow raised. “You’d be surprised what I can handle.”
He wouldn’t, actually. There was nothing he’d put past her. She was capable and smarter than hell and willing to just take a deep breath and go for it. He loved that about her.
He was also getting more comfortable with the L word in relation to this woman. Very quickly, as a matter of fact.
“Okay,” he said. “Remember—half naked. Wet. Glistening, even.”
“Got it,” she said with the eye roll she’d hidden earlier.
“And holding a Dalmatian puppy.”
She stopped walking. Right in the middle of the sidewalk. A dangerous undertaking on even most of the side streets in the French Quarter. The people a few steps behind them dodged them, one shooting them a frown.
“You okay?” he asked her with a smug grin.
“I think my panties just melted off,” she told him.
“Yeah, I thought that might be a problem.”
“I mean, seriously. How am I supposed to walk around the rest of the day like this?”
He nodded, trying to look solemn. “I warned you.” He glanced around. “I mean, I could put you up against a wall here and take care of you, if you need it. Maybe we could get that guy to hold the baby.”
There was a street performer standing on a beat-up milk crate, juggling a shoe, a plastic bowling pin, and a rubber chicken. He wasn’t bad. The chicken was a nice addition.
“But he’d have to put his stuff down,” she said. “Those three minutes could cost him a buck or two.”
No one was dropping money in the guy’s jar. But that wouldn’t stop him. A lot of the performers on the corners in the Quarter did it for money, for sure, but they also did it because they enjoyed the attention and being in the heart of the fun craziness that was the French Quarter. They were part of the ambiance, and a lot of them actually felt as drawn to that as they were to the money.
“Three minutes?” he asked. “You think that’s all I can last?”
She eyed the building beside them. “Against those rough bricks? I think that’s all I can take, big guy. You’re gonna have to just get to it and get it over with.”
“Big guy,” he repeated. “I like that.” He stepped close. Of course, Isaac was fast asleep now. Now, while they were wide awake. Which was clearly an instance everyone had been telling them about where they should have been sleeping along with him. But that simply didn’t always work. They had stuff to do. Maybe they should try to wake him up and show him the world. James honestly didn’t know. At the moment, however, the fact that the baby was sleeping worked well, because it allowed him to pull Harper in and run a hand up the back of her leg to her ass, pulling her skirt up a bit with it. “How about we revisit the wet and glistening conversation later when we’re back home? Maybe see which of us can get the other wet first.”
Her pupils dilated a little even though she said, “You’ll be at work.”
Dammit. This would be his first work shift since Isaac had showed up. Which really did seem to indicate that whoever had brought him to James knew about his work schedule. “We should go home now,” he said.
She laughed, put a hand on his chest, and pulled back. “We need to go to the photography studio.”
They did. They needed to get to the bottom of all this.
If Kylie-Kaylie wasn’t the mom, he was going to take Harper to the club when he was off again. One of the bartenders there had introduced him to the third woman on his list. James didn’t know how well Marcus knew Caroline—he was sure of her name, thankfully—but he was hopeful Marcus would at least know how to get ahold of her. She was from Wisconsin. Or Wyoming. One of the W states. Fuck, Washington. It could also be Washington.
“How many states start with W?” he asked Harper as they started walking again.
“Four,” she answered promptly.
“Wyoming, Wisconsin, Washington, and?” he asked.
“West Virginia,” she said. “The closest one, by the way.”
Right. Yeah. But no, it wasn’t anything with a direction in it.
“Why?” Harper asked.
He sighed. She already knew a lot about him and his previous sexual habits. He wasn’t proud of it, but she was still here, helping, so maybe she wasn’t horrified. Though he was starting to feel a little horrified.
He was ready to be a one-woman man.
With Harper.
“The girl we need to find if this one isn’t her,” he said. “She’s from somewhere that starts with a W.”
“Ah.”
“Ah? What’s that mean?"
“That’s maybe a little more complicated.”
“To find her? Yeah.”
“Not that. She’s here. Or at least she was a couple of nights ago,” Harper said. “But the fact that she’s from another state might make custody difficult.” She shrugged. “Though I don’t know. If she’s just willing to drop him off, she might be willing to sign over rights, and it won’t matter where she’s from.”
He hadn’t thought of all that. Dammit. Whoever the woman was, when he did finally find her, she was going to get a piece of his mind. This was their child. Didn’t she realize he might need to know a few things? That if she wanted James to take care of him, he’d need at least a few details? He looked at Harper. At least his taste in women had improved. Harper would have never just dropped the kid off like that.
“Maybe she wasn’t the one who dropped him off,” James suggested. It bugged him that a woman he’d been involved with would do that. But he hadn’t really known any of these women. He’d probably spent the most time talking with Megan. Kylie-Kaylie would have been second on that list. They’d gone to dinner after the photoshoot and talked for an hour before she’d suggested going back to her apartment. Of course, once they hit that doorway there hadn’t been much talking, and he’d headed back out of that door about two hours later.
Getting Off Easy Page 15