by J. S. Scott
Our bodies moved in sync. She ground up against me as my cock entered her slick, tight sheath. Our sweat-slick bodies slid together erotically as she shuddered beneath me, close to orgasm.
Thrusting an arm between our bodies, I stroked her clit with enough pressure to get her off. “Come for me, Harper. I need you to come.”
I could feel the pressure building, my body ready to explode.
Her head thrashed back and forth, and she screamed incoherently. Relief flowed over my body as I felt her climax begin, her nails digging into my back, marking me. And I loved every damn moment of it. Her ferocity and her passion flowed back to me, and I kept thrusting into her over and over, letting her orgasm trigger mine as her already-tight sheath milked my cock.
She clawed at my back as my fiery release rocked my body. Grasping her hair to make her head stop thrashing, I kissed her with a primal intensity that I couldn’t control, desperate to somehow mark her as mine.
We laid there in a heap of tangled limbs, both of us trying to catch our breath. I rolled off her, but kept her close to me, my arms tightly around her shaking body as I struggled for air.
Eventually, I had to disentangle myself from her to go to the bathroom and remove my condom, and I frowned as I saw the blood, Harper’s blood, on the rubber surface.
I tossed it, feeling both shame and awe that she’d given me something so damn precious.
Me? Blake Colter?
Nobody had ever really given up anything for me, and it made me want to keep Harper close to me just that much more.
Cleaning up quickly, I returned to the bed to find Harper fast asleep, her breathing deep and even. I climbed into the bed carefully, sliding in beside her, trying not to wake her up.
I propped my head up with my elbow on the bed and watched her sleep. Her hair was half covering her face in disarray, but she’d fallen asleep with a sweet smile on her angelic face.
And God, she looked beautiful.
She looked like…she was mine.
I slid under the covers, and Harper instinctively searched me out, sliding a leg across mine and pillowing her head on my chest.
My arms came around her, holding her protectively as she slept. I fell asleep soon after, never moving as my exhausted body gave way to the darkness of sleep.
“You sure you don’t want me to go in with you?” I asked Harper anxiously as we pulled up in front of her house.
The storm had passed during the night, and we’d been able to fly back home by helicopter. She lived in the next town over from Rocky Springs, so we’d driven from the airstrip on Colter property to her house.
She shook her head slowly. “No. This is definitely going to get emotional, and it’s something I need to do with my parents.”
“Call me then,” I said insistently, having already written my number down for her and slipped it into her pocket. I’d entered my own cell into her phone, only half joking when I titled the number “My New Boyfriend.”
“I will. Thank you for yesterday and last night.” She undid her seat belt and leaned over to kiss me sweetly. “I’ll never forget it.”
“Not enough,” I grumbled, and then pulled her back for a longer, more sensual embrace.
“I’ll call you soon,” she said breathlessly.
“I hope so,” I answered in an intense tone.
I watched as she got out of the car, dressed in another one of my T-shirts under her jacket and a pair of jeans.
“Hey,” I called just as she was getting ready to close the passenger door.
“What?” she asked curiously.
“Merry Christmas, Harper.”
She gave me a tremulous smile before she replied. “Merry Christmas, Marcus.”
It took me a moment to let her comment sink in, and by the time it did, she had already sprinted to the door and was slipping inside.
“Marcus? She thought she was fucking my twin brother?” I mused aloud.
Angry and hurt, I started to go up to her house, and then stopped myself because I knew she’d be having it out with her parents. It was a situation we could easily clear up. But it rankled that the first time she used my first name, she’d used the wrong one. Not that it was her fault. Maybe because I was her first, I was feeling possessive. Really possessive.
Granted, my older-brother-by-minutes looked exactly like I did, but I sure as hell didn’t want Harper calling me by his name.
Shit! I really should tell her. I don’t want her to keep thinking she was with my brother.
I put the car in gear and pulled away from her house, knowing I’d have to resolve the situation quickly, and hoping she’d call me pretty damn soon.
Harper
“I love after-Christmas sales,” I told my sister, Danica, as we strolled along Main Street the next day.
I’d already had a very long discussion with my parents, and we’d ended it with a lot of healing tears. They trusted me by returning my car and my credit cards, and I was determined never to take what I had for granted ever again.
I was going to college, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my future now.
“You don’t seem all that interested in shopping,” Dani accused. “Something wrong?”
Before I knew it, I found myself spilling everything that had happened between me and Marcus Colter.
“Call him,” Dani urged. “He’s probably dying to hear from you.”
“I will. I just need to clear my head.”
“Harper? Danica?”
My sister and I both turned our heads to see who was calling us. I smiled when I saw that it was Aileen Colter, Marcus’s mother. “Hi. It’s good to see you again,” I answered as we all stood in front of the leather goods store she’d just exited.
After a brief hug, Aileen looked around and then finally sighed. “I wanted you to say hello to my son, Marcus, but it looks like he’s…occupied.”
My eyes followed her gaze and then landed directly on Marcus Colter. Dressed in a custom suit and tie, he hardly looked like he had yesterday. It took me a moment to realize that he was flirting and kissing a beautiful brunette.
“Obviously,” I muttered under my breath. “He looks extremely busy.”
“New girlfriend that he met in college,” Aileen explained.
“Great,” I replied unenthusiastically.
I felt sick inside, and all I wanted to do was crawl into a hole and stay there.
“He has a girlfriend?” Dani questioned.
“Yes. She’s nice. I hope he holds on to this one for a while. Marcus changes girlfriends so often. I don’t think he even has time to get to know them.”
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the couple, reminded of just how sweet he’d been to me the day before.
“Really, let’s not worry about them. I’m sure I’ll see him another time.” I turned to my sister. “Dani, we need to be going.” I knew there was panic in my voice, but I couldn’t squelch it.
Dani shot me an understanding look. “I’m ready.”
“It was nice seeing you, Aileen.”
My sister and I scrambled back to my car and clambered inside. I didn’t look back, afraid I’d somehow end up seeing Marcus kissing another woman again, only a night after he’d taken my virginity.
I panted as I grabbed the steering wheel, barely hearing Dani as she told me angrily, “He’s an asshole. I can’t believe he got all intimate with you when he already had a girlfriend.”
“It’s fine,” I told her stiffly as I started the car. “It’s not like he made me any promises.”
“It’s not fine, and you know it,” she answered insistently.
I sat there for a moment, staring straight ahead at the parked car in front of me, my hands still shaking from the shock of seeing Marcus with somebody else. My feelings for him were too new, too fragile, too…
important. “You’re right,” I answered in a tremulous voice. “I’m not fine.”
I burst into tears, sobs of betrayal wracking my body as I put my forehead against the steering wheel, my sister trying to comfort me as I let go of all my pain.
Blake
I waited eight fucking days for Harper to call me.
No call.
No visits.
No news at all.
Not a single word came from the female who had rocked my world on Christmas Eve.
I had to head back to campus, but first, I wanted to find out what happened. I needed to know if she was okay.
I’d given her the space she’d asked for. But I was done with keeping my distance.
I knew I was lying to myself about just wanting to check on her. Truth was, I needed to see her beautiful face again. I wanted to kiss her good-bye and tell her that I was there to support her if she needed my help.
The primitive male inside me wanted to claim her somehow—before I left Colorado. I wanted to make sure we’d be together, even if there was distance between us for a while.
I rang the doorbell at her house, slightly nervous about how she’d act when she saw me on her doorstep.
Yeah, I’d known she had to have time to work things out with her folks, but I honestly hadn’t expected her to take this long to call me. It made me more than a little nervous.
The door swung open, and I looked hopefully at the female who answered. My enthusiasm died out as I recognized her sister, Dani.
I’d always considered Danica to be the “nice” sister. When we’d met as kids, she’d always been nicer and kinder than Harper.
However, the scowl on her face as she looked me up and down with disdain worried me.
“What do you want?” she questioned hostilely, like I was her worst enemy.
“I’m on my way back to campus. I wanted to see Harper before I go.”
“She’s not here. And believe me, the last person she’d want to see is you,” she answered angrily.
I frowned. “Why?”
“You broke her heart, asshole,” Dani answered, her voice icy with contempt. “You lied to her. You should have told her. We ran into your mother in town. She told us the truth.”
Oh. Shit.
My gut turned as I realized that my mother had probably told Harper that it wasn’t Marcus who offered to go into Denver to see if he could track her down. It wasn’t Marcus who fucked her. It wasn’t Marcus who was crazy about her.
“I wanted to tell her—”
“Save it,” Dani replied with a protective growl. “She doesn’t want to see you again. She’ll get over it and find somebody honest. She’s changed, and she needs a guy who can appreciate her.”
“I care—”
“Bullshit! You don’t lie to a woman you care about.”
“I didn’t really lie. She never asked,” I said defensively, wondering how I’d ever considered Dani to be the kinder Lawson sister.
“She shouldn’t have had to ask,” Dani retorted angrily. “She deserves better than you. Go back to campus and fuck every woman there. But leave my sister alone.”
I had to step back as Dani slammed the door in my face.
I considered hammering on the wood until she came back and told me where Harper was right now, but then I considered the fact that I really had neglected to verify if she knew exactly who was taking her virginity. I knew Marcus and I were identical. It just hadn’t occurred to me that she might not know I was…me.
“Fuck!” I cursed aloud as I jogged back to my car, angry at myself for not contacting her sooner. I should have known something was wrong, and every day that passed had me that much more tied up in knots.
I jumped into the car to avoid the bitter-cold winds that were blowing, and started the vehicle.
Hell, she’d been a virgin, and maybe it had been a shock to find out that the guy she’d thought had been her first was really a different guy altogether.
Would she get over it?
Would she eventually call me, understanding that what I did wasn’t intentional?
I gunned the engine, sliding a little as I did a U-turn on the icy street.
I’d never been as irrational as I was right now, and I swore to myself right then and there that I’d wait her out. If she didn’t call me, I’d try to call her. I could be a stubborn bastard, and I wanted Harper so damn much that I’d wait…even if it took forever until she came around.
I headed back to campus because I had to, never in a million years considering that it would take twelve years until I saw my beautiful Christmas virgin’s face again. And that when we finally did meet up, we’d both be very different people and things would never be the same again.
Harper
Twelve Years Later…
“I don’t give a damn if the group is disbanded. Put it back together again. I need you to rescue my sister,” I told Marcus Colter irritably.
Honestly, it had taken everything I had to approach Marcus after all these years, but my love for my younger sister was much more important than my pride. So what if we’d had a thing over a decade ago? Danica’s life was on the line, I desperately wanted her to live, and it made the fact that Marcus had once broken my heart almost irrelevant.
“It doesn’t work that way,” Marcus remarked stoically as he took another sip of whatever amber alcohol was in the tumbler he was drinking from. I rarely drank, so I wasn’t exactly a connoisseur of anything alcoholic.
“It could work that way. I need you to run one more mission.” There was a note of despair in my voice that I hated, but I couldn’t back down now.
I’d never begged anyone for anything, and it was especially unpalatable that I had to do it to try to coerce Marcus Colter. I’d worked my butt off to get my education so I’d never have to rely on my deceased parents’ money. I didn’t ever want to be without a home or the basic necessities in life, and I tried to help the people who didn’t have it as good as I did.
So groveling to Marcus Colter after all the years that had passed without seeing him wasn’t going over well with me. I’d had to kick myself in the ass to seek him out, and pleading with him went against the grain.
It wasn’t that I’d gone back to being the prima donna I’d been before I turned eighteen. In fact, I’d become very independent. My brothers now called me the “quiet sister” and referred to Dani as the “troublemaker.” But I was pretty sure that had a lot to do with the professions my sister and I had chosen. Mine was generally something I did pretty much alone. Danica had to talk to people about controversial subjects.
Only my family could make me completely let go of my pride, try to forget that Marcus had decimated me twelve years ago, when I was barely an adult.
“Your sister was perfectly aware of the risks,” Marcus said unsympathetically.
My youngest sibling, Danica, had been aware of the risks when she’d become a foreign correspondent, but she was so damn passionate about her job that she simply didn’t care. Now, she’d been captured by terrorists, and after several weeks of begging the government for help, I was running out of options. Apparently, our federal government wasn’t even aware she’d been abducted until I approached them and were hesitant to make any hasty moves.
Dammit, the feds were anything but fast or foolhardy. I knew damn well my sister could die without some kind of quick intervention, and it didn’t seem to be coming soon from Washington.
It wasn’t their loved one who might be killed at any moment.
It wasn’t their sister, daughter, or friend who could be suffering unspeakable torture right now.
It wasn’t one of them who woke up in a cold sweat from dreaming about what might be happening to their sister in hostile territory.
Bastards!
I tried to control my fear and anger as I commented,
“Yes. She knew the risks. But that doesn’t mean she wants to die or that she deserves to die. All I’m asking you for is one more mission.” I was desperate, and Marcus looked completely unmoved, so I decided to mention something I’d sworn I wasn’t going to bring up. “Since you took my virginity, then came back to Rocky Springs and your girlfriend like it never happened, I’d think it was the least you could do.”
Oh, hell, I was playing my last decent card, trying to make Marcus feel guilty enough to put together his disbanded group of guys, PRO—Private Rescue Organization—back together again for one more assignment. It wasn’t like I was asking him to regroup forever. I knew that wasn’t possible. I just needed him to go out and rescue a captive—my little sister—one more time.
I hadn’t wanted to even bring up my past with Marcus. It was the last thing I wanted to discuss. For God’s sake, the incident had happened twelve years ago. But I was freaking frantic, and my fear for Dani was likely to make me get down on my knees and beg if necessary.
Thank God I felt absolutely nothing for this man anymore. Before I’d arrived at Marcus’s home in Rocky Springs, I’d half feared that I’d still feel that spark of attraction that I’d experienced so many years ago, a flame so hot that I’d had a one-night fling with him, my very first time that I’d never quite forgotten. An occurrence that later had broken my heart.
Now, I felt zilch for the man I was begging to rescue my sister—except impatience. To be quite honest, I found his calm demeanor rather annoying when I was strung so tight I could hardly breathe.
“Could you repeat that?” Marcus asked smoothly.
I glared at him. “No, I won’t say it again. You know exactly what happened.”
If he’s trying to get some kind of rise out of me to make me forget my objective, I’m not taking the bait.
“Remind me,” he requested.
Like he didn’t remember what happened?
If that was true, I’d spend a whole lot of time being hurt when the subject of that pain had thought the incident so insignificant that he couldn’t remember the circumstances.
“Just forget it. I shouldn’t have even tried to ask you for help,” I answered, my tone dripping with disgust.