He gnashes his teeth. “Trust me, I’m plenty fucking hot right now.”
With a firm hand on my hip, he flips me onto my stomach and rips my panties down to my ankles with one impatient move. His strength has me biting my lip to prevent the most embarrassingly loud moan from echoing off the walls.
But when his hand lands on my cheek with an audible smack, there’s no way I can restrain my sounds.
“That’s right. Scream for me, princess. I want my ears to be ringing by the time I’m done with you.”
He keeps doing that, I’ll burst his ear drums.
He smooths his hand over the burning area, soothing and comforting. Then his fingers dip down to rake over my soaked folds, spreading my moisture, readying me for his penetration.
“She recognizes my touch,” he muses, sounding almost proud. “She’s already inviting me in with all that juice. Jesus, how much of this has been wasted on your own fingers over the past three months?”
My hips start bucking involuntarily against his prodding digits. “I wouldn’t exactly call it a waste. It’s better than being unfulfilled.”
“If you got off while thinking about me when I was only twenty feet away and more than capable—and willing—to give your pussy what it needed, then it absolutely was a goddamn waste.”
“How do you know I was thinking about you?”
He bends over my back and speaks in a dangerously low voice next to my ear. “The same way I know you wore that bra and those panties for the sole purpose of hoping I would see them by the end of the night. You bought them recently, just for me.”
“Maybe I’ve had them a while and you’ve just never seen them.”
He chuckles darkly. “Princess, I learned every inch of your underwear drawer during those three weeks. This set is new. And since we still live together, you knew there was a better than decent chance I’d eventually see it.” His hands on my ass tighten their grip. “Unless you’re telling me you bought it for someone else?”
“No.” My response is immediate. “I know black lace is your favorite.”
He makes a sound of approval and straightens. “Good girl.”
Another crack against my upturned ass. Another soothing hand. Another moan from my mouth.
“What was that one for?”
“For all the times I’ve been forced to come in my own hand when I could have been crammed deep inside you. For forcing me to settle for the grip of my fist instead of the one from your tight heat when it’s wrapped around my dick. That’s a waste. Goddamn travesty.”
Another smack.
“And that one?”
“Because I fucking can,” he growls.
It’s only when his bulge rubs against my entrance that I realize he still has on those cumbersome briefs. Taking him by surprise, I push up to my knees and reach behind me. When I palm him through the material, he blows out a breath, sending strands of my hair fluttering. I peek over my shoulder to see his head has fallen back on his shoulders, his eyes squeezed tightly shut.
“Penny for your thoughts?” I ask coyly.
“Your ass is going to be so sore from my hand if you make me come too soon,” he warns.
“Your threats don’t scare me.”
Placing his arm just below my breasts, he pulls me back against his hard chest, his mouth trailing kisses over my shoulders. “Maybe not. But they excite you.”
I thrust my hand inside his briefs and push them down below his balls. Starting at his tip, I slowly slide my hand down his thick girth until I’m massaging his base.
“It seems I’m not the only one.”
“Guilty. The thought of turning your ass red makes me hard as fuck. What the hell do you think I was imagining all those times I had to use my own hand?”
“Well, you don’t have to rely on your imagination tonight.”
I spin around before he realizes what I’m doing and lower my head over his jutting shaft. After pushing his briefs down to his knees, I—
“What are you—”
Take him into my mouth.
“Oh, fuuuuuuck.”
I can tell he wants to take control and thrust, but he’s holding back. To encourage and let him know it’s okay, I grab both of his cheeks and use them to pull him deeper into my mouth. And I do it again and again, until his hips are pumping at a steady rhythm, in and out, in and out. It doesn’t take long before they’re moving of their own volition, and I can go back to concentrating on swallowing him down as far and as hard as my throat can handle.
“You always suck me so damn good,” he groans. “Even better than I remember. Better than in my dreams.”
I moan when his tip reaches the back of my throat, sending vibrations up his length.
“Shit.”
His fingers bury themselves in my hair, flexing, directing. My head bobs, my lips tighten, my tongue—
He pulls out so abruptly I have to catch myself on my hands.
“Christ, no more. Time to get inside.”
He shoves me back until I’m lying flat. Staring up at him, I see the effort of his restraint reflected in the tense lines of his face. Veins pop out on his ripped arm as he reaches for the drawer of his nightstand and produces a condom. He tears it open with his teeth and rolls it down his shaft, the head shiny with pre-cum. Then he’s bringing that tip to my throbbing, waiting entrance.
“There’s no getting rid of me after this,” he says with total and complete resolve. Absolute certainty. “You understand? Even if we hadn’t been living together, I’d still have found you again. I’ll always come after you, Harper.”
With those words lassoing my heart, he punches his hips forward, plunging so deep inside. My eyes roll back as I revel in the rapturous pleasure of feeling connected to him so intimately once again. It feels like a homecoming.
In fact, nothing has ever felt so right in my life.
“You have to keep your eyes open for this,” he whispers.
Unsure of his meaning, I slowly pry my lids apart.
“I need to be sure that every part of you is here.” His words overflow with emotion. “That you’ll remember this. I need to know that it means something.”
I’m pretty sure it means everything.
But those words don’t come out.
I gaze up into his soulful brown eyes, overwhelmed by how full of him I am, in all ways. “You’re the only person it’s ever meant anything with, West.”
It may not be exactly what I want to say, but it seems enough to reassure him. Please him.
Falling to his elbows, he begins to drive forward at a shockingly hard pace. With the angle he’s placed himself in, I know thrusting from this position can’t be easy. But he seems determined to keep our faces close, only centimeters separating our mouths. He breathes for me, I breathe for him. It’s as if putting anymore distance between us is unacceptable in his mind.
It’s heady. It’s intense.
I’ve never felt so in tune with another human being in my life.
I feel his heart beating against mine. I hear every hitch in his breath, can practically absorb the movement of his lungs expanding with every inhale he takes. It’s as if his body is an extension of mine. His limbs are controlled by my brain’s commands. Sweat beads on his forehead the exact moment it breaks out on mine. I wouldn’t be surprised if our innermost thoughts are running in the same direction.
The only thing I regret—the only thing that would complete the perfection—is if he’d never bothered with the condom.
Right now, it’s the only means of separation between us, and I want it gone.
By the time we reach our releases and ecstasy claims us, we’re both too exhausted to move. It seems to take all of his effort to just roll off me, toss the condom in the trash, and pull the sheets over our perspiration-slicked bodies. I think he’s already halfway asleep when he flings his arm across my waist and tugs me against his body in a spooning position.
That is, until he says, “You’re never going bac
k to the other bedroom, princess. This is your room now. You try to go back over there, I’ll be right behind you. Or I’ll throw you over my shoulder and drag you back. And no more locked doors from now on.”
Instead of inducing panic, those words lull me into the most peaceful sleep I’ve had in months.
“How can you not like that song?” I ask Shae, aghast. “The melody is so catchy, and the lyrics are genius.”
Shae waves me off, shaking her head. “It’s blah. I’m sorry, but if you can’t dance and shake your ass to it, it’s not going to find its way onto my playlist.”
“All you have on your playlist are pop workout tracks,” I point out.
She just stares at me, eyebrows raised. “And?”
“There’s not even real instruments, let alone real voices. Autotune has ruined the music industry.”
She scoffs. “Who cares about instruments? Nothing is real anymore. Everything is manufactured by technology these days, from music to movies to the freaking human face. Get onboard with it, Harp. It’s the wave of the future. Authenticity is going out of style fast.”
“I disagree. The movement to bring back the old days and return to our roots has been on the rise the past several years.”
“Society progresses for a reason,” she argues. “It’s unnatural to move backwards. At least my music is upbeat and energetic. Nothing like the folksy, alt rock, slightly depressing stuff you love.”
She cushions that statement with a grin, which brings one to my face. These regular debates of ours strangely don’t bother me. They’re familiar, almost comforting. No matter what’s going on between us, we can always find some subject to discuss and usually agree to disagree on. It feels like our own way of putting a lighter spin on our many differences.
“Careful,” I say, still grinning. “You’re showing your millennial.”
She raises her cocktail glass at me. “And proud of it. Don’t be disloyal to your own generation, Harp.”
I sip from my own cocktail as the lyrics from my favorite “folksy, alt rock” song get stuck on repeat inside my head. And I can’t get them off repeat because the song reminds me of West. Hence why it’s become my new favorite.
“What is with you?”
I’m looking out at the water of the Ashley River from our outdoor table, lost in my thoughts, when her question jolts me from my internal utopia.
“Sorry, what’d you say?”
She pushes her sunglasses on top of her head and stares me down. “You’re smiling like a kid who just won a free pass to Disney World.”
I am?
Then I realize that yes, the muscles around my mouth do ache a little because yes, I have been smiling for God knows how long. But sitting on the deck of this waterfront bar and grill near the Charleston marina, with the sun shining, as memories from the past two weeks with West click through my mind like a PowerPoint presentation… It’s hard not to be euphoric.
“Is that a bad thing?” I ask, slightly affronted by her accusatory tone.
I can practically see the wheels turning behind her narrowed eyes. But that’s the problem with Shae. You never know where those wheels are headed or where she’ll end up because her moods fluctuate like a pregnant woman’s hormones. For example, the fact that we were just smiling and laughing like the old friends we are, and now, she’s looking at me like I just stole her favorite toy. How she can seesaw so abruptly from happy and chill to back-against-the-wall argumentative, I’ll never understand.
She slowly shakes her head. “No, I suppose it’s not. It’s just different. I haven’t seen you smile like that since—” She pinches her mouth shut.
“Since what?”
She hesitates. “Since you and West were together. He’s the only one who’s ever made you smile like a schoolgirl with a dirty little secret.”
“Again, I’m failing to see how that’s a problem.”
“Oh, my God.” She points her finger at me. “You guys hooked up, didn’t you?”
Yeah, I hadn’t exactly gotten to that part yet in our happy hour catch-up date. Before our music debate, she’d been too busy logging all the reasons why she still hates her job, while I listed all the reasons why she needs that job. I’m getting the sense that she’s fishing around, hoping I’ll use my connections to help her find yet another job. And that’s not going to happen. I’ve already pulled all the strings I can for her. I’ve vouched for her on too many occasions, only for her to burn bridges with her employers and make me look bad in the process.
No more.
She’s on her own when it comes to keeping a paycheck from now on.
“So, what if we did?” I challenge. “It’s not like it’s the end of the world. In fact, it’s been pretty…amazing.”
With jerky movements, she signals our waitress for another round of drinks. “You’ve got to be kidding, Harper. I thought you already decided that boy is no good. You said it yourself, you two didn’t fit.”
Protectiveness for West stirs inside me. “I never said he was no good. I just said we had a disagreement, and it didn’t seem like it was going to work out.”
“What’s changed, then? How is this time any different?”
I shrug, oddly not as concerned about this as I might have been a couple of months ago. “I think I overreacted before. Maybe we both did. Either way, there’s more between us than just really good sex and a couple of silly arguments. There’s a reason moving in with him after only three weeks felt right, and one fight hasn’t changed that. In fact, my feelings for him have only intensified over the last four months.”
She surges forward in her chair, a red tint rising to her cheeks. “Yeah, because you guys still live together! That’s called being horny, Harper. That’s all this is. Don’t be fooled by a pretty face. Your initial instincts are always the right ones, and yours told you there is no future with him.”
Quizzical, I study the girl who’s been in my life for over a decade. “Why are you so against him? You have been almost from day one. You should be happy for me, Shae. Because I’m happy. And I’m not being naïve or foolish. You’d think someone who knows me as well as you do would understand the difference.”
She sighs, acting reprimanded. But that usually never lasts long. She’ll soon strap on her saddle and hop back up on that angry horse.
“I’m just trying to look out for my best friend,” she insists. “He broke your heart once. I don’t want to see it happen again.”
This is one of those moments when I honestly can’t tell if she’s being sincere. Which makes my words just now a bit ironic. You’d think after how long I’ve known Shae that I would be able to tell the difference between when she’s lying or being genuine.
And a nagging voice inside my head tells me she might be doing the former. Though the voice has no explanation for why she’d lie about that.
“He won’t,” I say in a steady voice. “This time it’s for real.” I’m sure of that.
I can feel it.
She opens her mouth to say something else, but is cut off by my ringing phone. When I pluck it off the table and look at the screen, that giddy smile from before once again claims real estate on my face.
“Hold on one sec. I’ll be right back.”
She frowns, but I’m on my feet and walking over to lean against the deck railing before her expression can intrude on my good mood.
“Well, if it isn’t flyboy.”
His laughter booms over the line. “Ah, princess. If only your ass was right in front of me. That sassy attitude is going to earn you a spanking.”
“It won’t be much longer before it is.”
“Which is what I’m calling about. Don’t eat much at the bar, okay? I’m making dinner.”
I barely manage to kill the girly squeal bubbling up my throat. I guess I could have just blamed the sound on a seagull. “Oh, yeah? What’s on the menu?”
“Other than you, you’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Sounds delicious.
”
The noise he makes is a mix between a growl and a chuckle. “Take your time but hurry.”
“How does that work?”
The clanking of pots and pans comes through the phone, providing a vision of him standing in front of the stove in our kitchen, cooking without a shirt. And maybe without pants, too. Though that’s probably not the best idea—splatter and all that. But it’s the thought that counts.
“Take your time and have fun,” he clarifies, “but don’t take too long. My body has a limit before withdrawal symptoms start setting in.”
I laugh. “It hasn’t even been eight hours since we’ve seen each other.”
“Princess, when you’re the drug, the addiction is far more severe. It never takes long to crave my next fix.” He pauses. “Plus, if you leave me alone in this kitchen too long, I might end up burning the whole house down.”
“Good to know. Give me another half hour.”
“Let me leave you with a little extra incentive to hurry… Later tonight, we’re going to break rule number seven in a big way.”
Whatever’s been lying dormant in my belly since I left him for work this morning suddenly sprouts wings and takes flight.
Rule number seven: no loud noises after midnight on weekdays.
“Well played, sir.”
His self-satisfied laughter is the last thing I hear before we hang up. But I don’t immediately return to our table.
The fact that West didn’t so much as whisper Shae’s name isn’t lost on me. He knew I was coming here to meet her for drinks. It was the first time I dared bring her up since we got back together two weeks ago. He didn’t make a fuss over this happy hour date. Didn’t even really respond to me telling him where I was going except to say, “Relax and enjoy yourself.”
But I saw the way he stiffened as soon as I spoke her name.
So, he’s still not onboard the Shae train and may never be. But he’s making an effort to not bring his issues with her to the forefront of our relationship, like last time. I appreciate that.
What’s still unclear is why Shae is making this whole thing a problem. Why she’s dredging up her dislike for West all over again. She knows we’ve been living together this whole time, but she hasn’t once brought him up with me in the last four months. It’s as if she’d completely written him off, like he didn’t even exist.
The Six Month Lease (Southern Hearts Club Book 2) Page 16