I close the space between us as my doorbell rings. “It’s my mother,” I say softly. “She’s going to go off on me about you.”
He arches a brow. “You want me to leave?”
“No, I want you to stay, but I don’t trust her not to repeat everything to your father.”
“You want to save her but you don’t trust her?”
“She’s not logical with him.”
“I’ll choose my words with that in mind.”
“Sorry about this.”
He cups my head and kisses me. “Make it up to me.”
I smile. “I will,” I promise, and I love that he’s being so easygoing about this.
I hurry back to the door and open it. My mother is standing there, looking stunning and far younger than her forty-six years, her ivory skin pale perfection, her black pantsuit sleek and elegant, her dark hair in waves around her shoulders. “Why haven’t you called me back?” she demands.
“Come in, mom,” I say, backing up to allow her entry.
She steps into the foyer and her eyes lock on Eric. “What the hell is he doing in your house?” she demands and then looks at me. “Don’t you know why he came here?” She looks at Eric. “I know why you’re here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Harper
“I know what you’re doing,” my mother snaps at Eric again, and my God, she charges at him so quickly that I barely have time to put myself between them.
“Mom!” I shout urgently, my hands catching her arms. “Stop. Stop it right now.”
“Why is he here?” she demands. “Why?”
“If you mean why is he in my house, it’s because I invited him. If you mean, in general, the same answer applies. I went to New York. I found him. I asked him to come here.”
“Then you’re a fool. We are the ones who have something to lose, and he has everything to gain.”
Frustration and anger shorten my patience. “He’s a billionaire, mother. He doesn’t need anything from this family.”
“He’s not a billionaire.”
“Yes,” I say. “He is.”
“It doesn’t matter what he is or isn’t. We are your family. He is not.”
That pisses me off. Now, she’s doing what the rest of this family has done to Eric and that’s not the person I know. She doesn’t hurt people. “He’s family. He’s a Kingston. He’s blood. We aren’t. Don’t act like them. You’re not one of them.”
“We are them,” she says, driving home every accusation Eric has ever made toward me.
“We are not them.” And because I don’t want her to say anything else to hurt him when this family has done nothing but that, I turn to face Eric. My hand settles on his chest, my need to touch him, to let him know that I’m with him, not them, absolute. “I’m sorry,” I say, my eyes meeting his, my hope that he sees the truth in my words, in all that I have told him, in them.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” he says softly.
“Yes, there is,” I say, wishing he’d touch me. I really want him to touch me, especially since I know I have to speak to my mother alone to get her to see reason. “Can you give us just a minute?”
“Of course,” he says, his tone and stare unreadable, that hardness that is so a part of this man, back and etched in his handsome face. His blue eyes cold, ice I know is meant for the Kingstons, and now I’m a Kingston to him again. I hate that ice. “I’ll be in the kitchen,” he adds.
“Don’t leave,” I whisper urgently, my fingers closing around his shirt and I don’t care if my mother hears. I add, “Please. Her words are not mine.”
The ice in those eyes of his, warms, the hard edge of his mood softening as he covers my hand with his. “I’m not going anywhere.” He tightens his grip. “Let me know if you need me.” He releases me and turns to walk down the hallway.
“Are you sleeping with him?” my mother snaps at my back with Eric still within hearing distance. Honestly, I’m fairly certain he will hear everything from the kitchen anyway.
“That has nothing to do with this,” I say, whirling on her.
“That’s not a no. You are.”
“He’s helping us. How about being glad that he’s that kind of man? That he actually came here to help.”
“He didn’t come to help. Your father says—”
“My father is dead. Gone. And your husband is letting everything he worked for, including your future, get wiped away. You could go to jail.”
“We are not going to jail. No one did anything wrong.”
“You could actually,” I say. “People died, mother. If there were choices made that ignored risk to human life—”
“Stop,” my mother says now. “Stop right now. That didn’t happen.”
“And you know this how? Because even Gigi is scared. She wanted Eric here.”
“Gigi hates him.”
“Gigi was afraid of him when she should have embraced the one person in this family that has his shit together.”
She closes the space between us and actually grabs my arm, lowering her voice. “Gigi treated him horribly,” she whispers. “I didn’t know he was a billionaire, but I knew he was powerful. He’ll try to take everything. Don’t let him use you to do it.”
“Don’t turn him into the monster. People didn’t die on his watch.”
“You don’t know what you’re diving into here,” she warns. “You have no idea.”
Those words come with such conviction that I narrow my eyes on her. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“There’s nothing to tell,” she says. “You’re creating problems that don’t have to exist. My God, Harper, fuck him out of your system and send him home. Please. I beg of you.”
I feel those words like a slap. My mother doesn’t say things like that. Ever. “What aren’t you telling me?” I repeat.
“I have done nothing but love you and take care of you and so has this family. Treat us like it.”
“This family has done nothing for me. You are another story. You are my family. I’m trying to protect you.”
“You’re trying to ruin my life. Your father—”
“Stop calling him that. Please.”
“Jeff,” she bites out. “He’s not pleased that it’s my daughter that brought this problem to his door.”
“He’s a solution, not a problem, and one day you’ll thank me for this. And I hope you’ll thank Eric as well.”
“Get rid of him. I beg of you. No. I order you. End this tonight.” She turns and opens the door and exits, slamming the door behind her.
I stand there and the room seems to weave around me. I’m trembling, I think. I don’t tremble, but my mother is my world. She’s all I have and she’s never talked to me like this, but Eric—he’s the one helping her and me. It’s then that I dare to admit that he matters; he’s the guy that could hurt me. He’s the one that I could trust and be burned alive because I did so. He’s that guy for me. He always has been.
His footsteps sound behind me and I turn to find him standing in the archway. We stare at each other, the room weaving again but this time with this crazy connection I share with this man, and questions between us again that I don’t want to exist.
“Could you hear it all?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says, his expression unreadable still, but he closes the space between us, stopping a reach from touching me but he doesn’t. He doesn’t touch me. “I could hear everything,” he says. “What do you want right now?”
My hand presses to his chest. “You. I want you.”
“You want to fuck me out of your system?”
“I tried that. It didn’t work.”
“Do you think I’m here to hurt you?” he asks.
Tension crackles between us. My body aches everywhere he’s not touching me. “No, I don’t. And I hate that she acted that way. I hate the things she said to you. I know they hurt you. I know you could hurt me because
they hurt you but I can’t seem to care. I know we’re just fucking, but—”
He drags me to him, his fingers tangling in my hair. “Sweetheart, if we were just fucking, I wouldn’t be here.” His mouth closes down on mine, his tongue stroking deep, and I feel it everywhere. I feel this man everywhere. I want him everywhere and I need him to know that and more. I just need and need with this man.
I press my hand to his chest. “Eric—”
“Harper,” he murmurs. “Forget what just happened. We’re here. We’re now. Be in the moment with me.”
We’re here. We’re now. Something about those words both pleases and taunts me in a strange combination that I never get the chance to understand. He’s kissing me again, drugging me with the taste of him, spicy, male, demanding, and suddenly he’s scooping me up and walking under the archway toward the living room.
The next thing I know, I’m on the couch on my back and he’s coming down on top of me, his legs aligned with mine, his hands at my face. “Ask me what I want, Harper.” His voice is this low, raspy seduction that is both silk and satin on my nerve endings.
“What do you want, Eric?”
“You,” he says, “from the day I met you. You. I’ve fucking wanted you, but you were the enemy.”
“And now?”
“And now this,” he says, and then his mouth is back on mine, warmth spreading through my body, consuming me the way only he can. He does. He consumes me. It’s terrifying. It’s addicting. He’s addicting.
What do I want?
More.
Him.
More of him.
And despite it perhaps being the definition of insanity, I know there will be a price to pay, but I don’t care what he costs me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Eric
There is something about this woman that burns through me like sunshine on a winter’s day, warming even the cold of this city, this family. She is why I’m here. Hell, she’s always been in my fucking head, burning me with memories of touching her, with wanting her. I mold her close, drinking her in, the taste of her on my tongue, the scent of her—a sweet floral spice—wrapping me in the spell that is this woman. She cast a damn spell on me at the pool the night we met, one that time and space didn’t erase.
“Not a princess,” I murmur against her mouth. “A witch.”
Her fingers curl on my jaw. “Not a princess. A witch. What does that mean?”
I roll her to her back. “It means,” I go to my knees and pull her upright with me, yanking her jacket down her shoulders to hold her arms captive, “you cast a damn spell on me or I wouldn’t be here.”
“No, I—”
I kiss her, my tongue stroking away her objection before I say, “You did or I wouldn’t have thought about you for six long years.”
“You thought of me?”
“Yes, Harper, I did and I resented you for it. For that power over me.”
“I thought of you, too. Let go of my arms. Please, I want to touch you.”
There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to let that happen. That doesn’t want the crazy way she affects me to steal my damn control, because she does. No one else can, but she absolutely does. There is something in her voice, in her eyes, a vulnerability, a need I haven’t sensed until tonight. A vulnerability I know comes not just from my ability to affect her situation. It’s about her mother. It’s about how painful I know that conversation she just had with her was, and I get it. My mother and I had so many fights driven by the family. I lost her and though Harper’s mother doesn’t have cancer to drive a suicide like mine did, Harper is still worried about her safety.
I kiss her again, the taste of her, the feel of her, is sweet honey on my tongue that I’ve craved every day since I left it behind. “You, woman,” I say when I tear my mouth from hers, and just barely touching my lips to her lips.
“You,” she whispers. “You. Eric.”
Eric.
She’s telling me she sees me, not the bastard. “Harper,” I whisper, making sure she knows I see her, not them. I stand up and she follows me, this tiny, feisty, beautiful woman. She tosses her jacket and kicks off her shoes. I turn her and unzip her skirt before sliding it and her panties down her hips and lifting her to kick them away. I drag her blouse over her head and toss it. My hand goes to her belly, pulling her to me, while I unhook her bra and then cup her breasts, holding them in my hands. She leans into me, her backside pressed to my cock, my fingers tugging at her nipples. She moans and I bury my head in her neck, inhaling that sweet scent of her, just breathing her in. I’ve never done that with any woman but this one. I never wanted to savor a woman instead of fuck her. I want both with Harper and I don’t even know what to do with that.
Fuck. She’s dangerous and I can’t seem to walk away.
She’s in only thigh highs now, and I press her to her knees on the couch, placing her backside in the air, and I stroke my hand over her hips, my cock throbbing, but it’s so fucking much more with this woman. My gaze rakes over her body and I lean over her. “Don’t move,” I order, scraping my teeth over her shoulder, cupping her breasts and then dragging my hands down her ribcage, before I straighten and pull my shirt off. I stand there then, watching her, making her wait and I tell myself it’s to drive the tension, to drive her to the edge, but another emotion claws at me, a need to control her, to control what she’s become to me. What she can do to hurt me, like the rest of this fucking family, but she’s not them.
Damn it.
I want to hate her.
I don’t.
Not even close.
I undress, pull on a condom, and sit down on the couch and take her with me, pulling her onto my lap. Her hands come down on my shoulders. Our eyes lock, and holy hell, I feel this woman in ways I can’t even describe. I lift her and press inside her. She takes me in a slow slide, and then she presses down, taking me all, straddling me.
Her teeth scrape her bottom lip and she moves back and forth, as if she just needs to feel me there, everywhere. I tangle my fingers into her hair and drag her mouth to mine. “Do you know what I want?” I demand.
“To hate me?”
“It would be easier that way.”
“What would be?” she asks, breathlessly. “Fucking me?”
“Everything,” I say. “Everything would be easier if I hated you like I do them, but no, I don’t want to hate you. I don’t want to forget you. Not anymore.”
“Then what do you want?”
“Everything,” I say, admitting out loud everything I feel with that one word. “Everything, Harper.” I drag her mouth to mine and kiss her. She sinks into it, our mouths, our tongues, colliding with hunger, that’s all I can call it—hunger. So damn much hunger, that we’re touching each other, kissing each other, moving together, a sway of her hips, a pump of mine, repeat. There is nothing but us, here, now, and this. Whatever the hell this is, but I can’t feel anything but her.
I pinch her nipple and she covers my hand on her breasts, kissing me even as we move. Everything. I want everything and more, I roll with her, pressing her back to the couch again and then I’m driving into her, pumping with a need that comes from somewhere deep, to the point that it’s clawing. “Eric,” she pants, and I kiss her, rolling to my side, and pulling her leg to my hip, thrusting as I do.
Her fingers dig into my shoulders and she pants my name again, and I thrust again. She buries her face in my chest and I can feel her quake before her body is spasming around me. God. I feel every moment of her orgasm, and it pulls me in, drags my release from me the way she pulls me to her and doesn’t let go. My balls tighten, a knot of tension low in my groin, and then I’m shuddering into release with such intensity that I damn near black out.
When I come back to the world, I’m holding Harper, and she’s holding me, our bodies molded intimately together, and I don’t want to get up. I want to hold her, but there’s a condom to consider. I pull back to l
ook at her, and the minute our eyes connect, the pull between us is just as strong as before we fucked, and I know I’m here to stay. This isn’t going to end like the other two times we were together. Because I’m not leaving. Not tonight. Not without her.
She’s mine now. She’s been mine since that night six years ago. It just wasn’t our time yet, but now, now is our time and I’m not walking away. Not from the mess, the family dragged her into and not without her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Eric
Still lying on the couch, still inside her, and still wearing the condom, I stroke a lock of hair from Harper’s face. “I should get up.”
“I know,” she whispers and there’s regret in her voice that stretches beyond this moment.
I cup her face and tilt her stare to mine. “I don’t want to get up. I’m not leaving, Harper.”
Her eyes soften, warm. “Good,” she says. “I don’t want you to leave.”
“Good,” I echo and kiss her. “But,” I say seriously, “if I’m staying, you have to feed me. I’m wasting away here.”
She laughs and it’s a sexy, sweet laugh that I could easily find addictive. “We can’t have that, now can we?” She shoves on my chest. “Get up and we’ll eat.”
I pull out of her and we both groan, with more laughter following. I help her to sit up and pull her to her feet. “I could hunt for the bathroom, naked but for a condom, or you could direct me to the right spot.”
“I could enjoy the naked and wandering around my house option but since you’re starving, there’s one by the front door.” She pushes to her toes and kisses me, the spontaneous act somehow as sexy as everything she just did when she was fucking me.
I pull her close and kiss her this time. “I’ll be right back.”
I scoop up my pants from the slate gray wood flooring, a color that matches the L-shaped couches that frame a stone fireplace, while the high back chairs by the window are a lighter gray. The décor is almost masculine until you add in the fluffy cream colored throws and flower-shaped light bulbs dangling from above. This space is Harper. This is her space and I want to know her space. I want to know her.
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