by Piper Lawson
I’ve seen Harrison King ruthless. I’ve seen him angry.
I’ve never seen him desperate.
I’m a different woman than I was a year ago. I’m stronger and weaker. I hurt more and I love more. I didn’t think it was possible to be both of those things.
He taught me how.
We’re connected in a way that will never end. Out here, where I feel as if I met the real Harrison King for the first time, I can’t deny it.
I shove off his jacket and toss it toward the shore.
“You missed,” he murmurs against my open mouth.
“Did not.”
I wind my arms around his neck as he reaches beneath the water to cup my ass, molding me to the hardness between his thighs.
His mouth closes over mine. It’s hungry and powerful, and he pulls my bottom lip between his teeth and bites down until I gasp.
I slip my hand under the water, and when I close it around that blazing hot hardness, he groans. The sound is primal and raw and goes straight to my core. I massage him, lifting up on my toes to get a better angle, and his hold on my ass tightens.
The sea tries to drag us away, but Harrison is my anchor. Steady. Relentless.
“Tell me you love me,” he rasps against my ear.
Before I met him, I never let anyone in. It wasn’t living, not really. But the way I felt about him, I was open. Raw.
“I loved you once. More than I thought I could love another person.” The words stick in my throat, and his fingers still on the zipper at the back of my bodysuit.
“Then love me again.” He leans his forehead against mine.
My heart squeezes. “Harrison…”
I understand why he left the way he did. That doesn’t mean I’m ready to start down this path once more. I have the career I want, friends I care about, a life I built myself. When he vanished from it last year, I realized how deep in me he’d been.
I could say that I want to love him, but the world is fucked up. That while I’ll stand shoulder to shoulder with him and stare down the devil, I’m afraid to do that with my heart on a string attached to his.
I can be brave, but not when everything I am is tangled up in him.
His jaw clenches. “Until you do, I’ll love enough for both of us.”
He’s holding out hope. I don’t know if it’s well founded or completely foolish, but I can’t help admiring him for it.
I reach for his pants.
He exhales his frustration but presses aside the panel of my outfit. The water tickles my bare skin, and I gasp as he brushes his fingers where I’m already hot and wet.
“I want you in my bed,” he murmurs, playing with my slickness. “I want you in my life.”
My nails dig into the muscles of his shoulders, the shirt spattered with drops of spray. He presses a finger inside me, and I moan into his mouth.
All my resolve flees, chased away by his words and the rhythm of his finger. I’m get wetter, even under the cold water.
His touch, his words, it all hurts in a way that’s so damn good. Because I can’t deny it, just like I couldn’t deny it a year ago.
This is coming home.
The realization flips a switch, and suddenly, I’m the demanding one.
Every second he’s not inside me is too long.
I reach into his underwear for his cock, thick and hard. I wrap my fingers around him, rub my thumb over his crown.
“Raegan… fuck.”
He lifts me effortlessly, and I hitch my legs around his hips. His cock presses where I’m aching. I take a breath, change the angle, and he slides inside in an endless stroke.
He’s everywhere. His big hands hold me, his cock fills me. His mouth finds mine, and it’s like he’s finally home, too. There’s nothing gentle about what we’re doing, and I drag my nails across his skin, mark him.
For tonight, he’s mine. I want him to know it.
He moves fast, our mouths still pressed together. The world is spinning around us, the faintest hint of dawn teasing the sky.
He’s me. We’re inseparable. There’s nothing but us and the water washing over our slick skin.
His rough breathing falls on my lips. “Only you. Always you.”
His conviction has my heart swelling against my ribs.
The ocean ebbs and flows around us, but Harrison sets his own pace. One for us.
When we come, the sea trembles.
16
Harrison
It’s possible to fall in love anywhere. But here, in the dark, I understand why it’s possible to fall here.
She’s floating on her back, and I’m holding her by the hand, both of us swaying gently with the waves.
I keep touching her, but it’s leisurely and not desperate like before.
I could touch her forever. The curves of her body, its secrets.
When I saw her tonight, I was pissed. And proud.
She’s stronger than I ever gave her credit for. This past year, she’s gotten stronger still.
My Queen.
I understand why she’s wary with her heart. She was before I met her, and now she has reason to be. I gave her reason to be.
“I realized something tonight.” My voice cuts through the rhythmic sounds of the beach.
Rae turns toward me, shifting so her feet are rooted in the sand once again.
I tuck a wet piece of hair gently behind her ear. “If Mischa keeps us apart, he’s already won. I don’t want to keep you at a distance.”
She exhales but doesn’t answer.
The water flows around us, between us.
“I found my mother’s wedding ring the other day. Sebastian and I did, technically. It says, ‘Through everything.’” I don’t know what they went through, what choices they made. But God, did they love one another.”
“You envy them,” she reads.
“I respect them. Because I know how fucking hard it is,” I admit, threading my fingers through hers. “Last year, my entire past was called into question. If my parents weren’t good people, why the fuck should I be? I didn’t deserve more. I didn’t deserve you. After Kings burned, the only thing I could see a path to was vengeance. I thought I was doing the right thing, the noble thing. I thought I could win you back when it was over. But in trying to save our future, I gave it away before it had begun.”
Her troubled eyes search mine. “Your past can only define you if you let it. If there’s a chance for us—if,” she goes on as if she can feel my jaded heart leap, “we need to be equals, Harrison. You can’t make decisions without me.”
She presses up on her toes, her full lips coaxing mine. I taste her, the faintest hint of my favorite whisky, but under it is strength. Resolution.
When I pull back, I murmur, “You’re a force.”
“So are you. Unafraid of jerking off in a tux with a club full of witnesses.”
My lips curve to match hers. “You enjoyed that.”
I recall how she looked on stage, daring me with her eyes, full lips parting with appreciation when I started.
“Not nearly as much as you did.” Her teeth flash white in the dark.
My laughter rumbles through my chest. God, I love this woman. More than I knew I could love anything.
“A cottage,” she says.
My brows rise. “A cottage?”
“Somewhere quiet. With a lake. No paparazzi. No work. That’s where we’ll go when this is all over.”
“Ahhh,” I say, getting into the possibility. “No internet either.”
“But how will you watch Great British Bake Off?”
“Unnecessary,” I contend as I stroke the back of her hand. “We’ll pack our bags—“
“I own one—“
“Which I’ll buy to replace the god-awful one you have. We can walk Barney in the mornings—“
“Mornings?”
I splash her, and she laughs in protest.
“Early afternoon,” I concede when her laughter dies. “Though you won’t
be playing any late gigs, so you won’t need to sleep in.”
“I see. And what will I be doing?”
“Swimming. Reading. Me.”
Her dark eyes search mine. “It’s one thing to fantasize about it, another thing to do it.”
I have a ton of work to do to win back her trust. I dug myself a deeper hole than I knew, but she’s worth it. She’s worth everything.
“I’m taking you on a date,” I decide. “Dinner tomorrow. I might not find a taco truck, but it’ll be the next best thing. I’ll answer anything you ask me. We can talk about the future. And I want you to move back in with me,” I go on as her brows pull together. “I’ll line up additional security. I hate knowing you’re on my island and under some other man’s roof.”
She trails a hand along the surface of the water, lips curving. “Maybe it’s my island now.”
Fuck. She’s a different woman than the one I fell in love with. An even stronger, more fascinating one.
“Come back to me, Raegan. Nothing is the same without you.”
It’s a minute, an eternity, as I wait her out.
“We can try.”
The knot in my chest loosens a degree. But when she starts toward the shore, I catch her hand.
“I need to go back to the hotel tonight,” she says.
“Not yet. One more time.”
Raegan’s the one to run her fingers through my wet hair and rub her swollen lips on mine.
This time when I drag her against me, I’m not thinking of yesterday.
I’m thinking of tomorrow.
17
Harrison
A shadow falls over me as I hang up my call.
“You look awfully cheerful this morning.”
I look up from my café table down at the marina and gesture to the chair opposite. Sebastian drops into it.
“My roommate came home around five this morning,” he goes on. “Know anything about that?”
I stretch out my legs, picturing Raegan crawling into her bed sore after the night we had at the beach. “A gentleman never tells.”
“Right. I trust from the phone call that you were ordering new testicles to replace the ones Raegan’s been carrying in her pocket.”
“I was arranging additional security for Raegan and myself.” Two for Raegan, two for me.
“Where’s my security?”
“Even I can’t afford what it would take to have trained ex-military mind your arse once they realized how irritating you are,” I gripe.
He rolls his eyes. “Well, I’m glad things are going well between you.”
“Some things are still unresolved.” She’s guarding her heart, and as frustrating as it is, I can’t blame her. “But I will do whatever it takes to keep her with me.”
Starting with a date tonight, where I will prove how committed I am to our future.
The waitress delivers my coffee, and I gesture to Ash, who orders one too.
A notification buzzes on my phone—a shipment notification for Sawyer’s AI. One is destined for London, one for Tokyo, and the third for Debajo here in Ibiza.
I hold up the phone so my brother can see it.
“Nightclub robots?” he demands. “Do they twerk?”
“You’re in a good mood too,” I observe. It’s rare that we can have such a mild conversation, and I’m not foolish enough to believe one heart-to-heart over our dead parents’ things erased years of tension. “You sleep like the dead. Which means if you were up when Raegan returned, you had company. Who is she?”
His smile fades. Sebastian flexes his hand on the table. “It wasn’t a she.”
The waitress returns with his coffee, giving me a few beats to study him. When she leaves, he takes a slow sip, holding my gaze over the rim.
It’s a surprise, and also not. I had a suspicion my brother wasn’t as enthusiastic about the opposite sex as I was, but he’s never said as much, and I’ve never made it my duty to pry. Perhaps I should’ve.
Perhaps this was part of why his teenage years were so hellish to suffer through alone.
“Who is he?” I ask evenly.
My brother shifts in his seat, scanning the street behind me. “Another bloke from my club. It was a tough season. Gavin was there for me when I let my team down, reminding me I’m not defined by my performance on any given day. It’s easy to forget when you’re hounded by management and fans, every mistake hung out for everyone to see.”
“Is he good enough for you?”
Sebastian’s brows shoot up. “That’s not the first question I expected from you.”
“Well, it’s the one I have.”
He shakes his head. “Trust me. He’s good. We were still up when Raegan got back…” Then he looks guilty, as if questioning what he should say in front of me.
“I didn’t mean in bed.”
He rubs a hand over his neck. “I don’t know what it is or isn’t. We haven’t put labels on it. But until we do, the team can’t know.”
I stare out over the pedestrians strolling the street. I wish he’d confided in me sooner. “If you decide it’s something, you’ll tell the team?”
He frowns. “I don’t know, Harry. People will talk.”
“People will always talk.”
He shifts forward, rising, and I lay a hand on his arm before he can. I can’t help feeling protective of him.
“I don’t want them talking about you, but if they do? I’ll put them right.”
“Send an army of twerking robots after them,” he replies, deadpan.
I laugh, and he joins in after a moment.
We’ll get through this. I feel that possibility for the first time.
A call comes in, and the name lifts my spirits more.
“Hello, love,” I say when I answer. “My brother is with me. Thought I’d let you know before you start talking about how good I was last night.”
It’s Sebastian’s turn to snort.
“So, please, don’t be shy. Let’s set the record straight on which King is the best lover. I’ll even put you on speaker.” I hit the button, grinning, but there’s nothing at the other end.
Finally, Raegan’s voice comes over the phone. “Harrison, the woman we took from Bliss to the hospital after she overdosed? I asked the doctors to let me know if her condition changed, but hadn’t heard anything, so I went by the hospital. I figured we could find out if she saw anything that would help us.”
I don’t love the idea of her playing investigator, but I go with it. “And?”
“Her condition changed. She’s dead.”
RAE
After playing Debajo and spending the rest of the night with Harrison, I was riding a high until I got word of the woman’s death.
She was a stranger, but Harrison’s fury and grief over her death proves how far he’s come since I met him. I can’t picture the man he is now turning his back on people, even ones he has no responsibility for.
But when Harrison called a meeting for Leni, Ash, himself, and me at the villa, he was in control once again.
“He’s getting reckless, pushing bad supply through clubs that don’t even belong to him,” Harrison says, seated at the head of the table. “I want you all to be careful.”
Leni devours the spread Natalia fixed for us on short notice—fresh sandwiches on ciabatta with pastries for dessert. Plus wine, which Ash avoids looking at.
“Fine. So we lie low,” Leni says. “All I care about is that Mischa stays away from your venues. But what are you going to do?”
“Find a way to stop him. I spoke with Christian,” Harrison says. “He’s out of the game, and even he won’t cross Mischa. But there has to be someone who’ll talk. We just haven’t found them yet.”
Harrison rises from his chair and crosses behind mine. His strong hands move my hair before going to work on the knot of tension between my shoulders. It feels way too good, and I swallow the groan.
“Am I the only person who’s not worried about what we do next?” A
sh tears into his sandwich, and a few crumbs fall to the floor.
Harrison’s hands still on my shoulders. “If this conversation bores you, then you can leave.”
“That’s not what I meant. I’m worried about what he’ll do next.” Ash leans his elbows on the table, his jaw tightening. “If Interpol raided his club in London, even if they found nothing, you think he doesn’t know? You think he’s not pissed?”
Silence falls over the room.
Until a phone ringing makes us all jump.
Leni holds up a hand. “Right back. It’s Debajo.” She lifts the phone to her ear and heads for the living room.
Ash rises with his glass, bound for the kitchen.
A low whining from the floor has me looking under the table. Barney licks crumbs off his nose. His brown eyes shine with hope. I take a piece of meat off the platter, offering it to him.
“Sucker,” Harrison murmurs so only I can hear.
My hand closes over his, my fingers stroking his palm as I tilt my head back to peer up at him behind me. “He’s your dog.”
Harrison’s expression softens, his mouth curving up despite the weight of the day. He bends closer, his nose bumping my chin as he kisses me. My fingers thread into his hair, holding him to me when he starts to pull back, and I deepen the kiss.
Something shifted between us last night at the beach. He apologized for leaving, explained why he did, and I believe he wants to be better. I’m not throwing my heart in just yet, but for the first time in a long time, I have hope for us.
The coffee machine starts in the kitchen. “Anyone want…” Ash starts, but trails off when he spots us. “Yeah.”
“Never kissed a woman upside down before,” Harrison murmurs against my lips.
“Don’t worry. You’ll get better with practice.” I move my hands down his shoulders, not letting him back off as I smirk.
Harrison’s soft groan is tight.
A huff of breath and pressure on my thighs has me looking down. Barney’s planted his face between my legs, staring up.
Harrison chuckles. “I knew I was doomed the second my dog fell for you.”