by A. C. Arthur
“You needed to be treated fairly,” Garrek said.
Harper was grateful for his interruption because emotion was swelling in her chest. The buildup to what she ultimately wanted to tell him was real; the anxiety about how he was going to react when she said it was terrifying. All because she’d gone and done something she’d never thought she would do.
She’d fallen in love.
Willing her fingers to stop moving over the napkin that she’d now folded and unfolded three times, Harper shook her head and squared her shoulders. She looked directly at him and knew what had to be done.
“The end of my junior year, I was so tired of the whispers and the insults that I just agreed to go to one of the year-end parties. I let Nancy pick out a dress for me, and one of her cronies did my hair and makeup. I stood on the patio of the house where the party was held for the first forty-five minutes I was there. Then he appeared.”
She bit her bottom lip and then clasped her hands in her lap and cleared her throat.
“He played football and was wearing his jersey. He was cute and I was probably tipsy.” She stopped and then shook her head. “No. I wasn’t. I’d nursed that one glass of spiked punch since it had been slipped into my hand two minutes after I walked into the party. I could taste the liquor in it, but I hadn’t drunk enough to feel any different than I had when I arrived.”
Garrek waited for her to continue.
“His name was Len. Leonard Ruffin III. He said he liked my hair, and he invited me upstairs to his room where it was quiet. I went because he was a football player and he’d noticed me out of a houseful of other girls. I thought, So this is how it feels to like a boy. I’d never felt that before, so I assumed it was a good thing.
“It was all a joke,” she said, feeling her heartbeat quicken. “The minute he closed the door to his room, he was on me. Kissing me, touching me, pushing me toward the bed. I told him to stop, more than once. At least ten times, I’m sure. That’s how many times it took to really piss me off. That’s when I recalled everything Marlon and Craig had ever taught me, and I kneed Len in the balls. He was on top of me at that point and I was struggling to get off that bed, so it wasn’t with as much force as I intended. It didn’t stop him for long. My hair was no longer pretty. I was now the teasing slut. He came after me again, but this time I was ready. I kicked him in the groin and jumped up the moment he stumbled back. As he was going down on his knees I punched him in the face. Blood splattered everywhere. He yelled and I kicked him until he fell flat on his back.”
“Good for you,” Garrek said tightly.
Harper shook her head again, one tear slipping down her cheek. She hurriedly wiped it away and tried to smile. “His friends kicked down the door and held me while they called campus police. They took me out of the house and to their security office on campus. I was held there until late the next afternoon, when I was told Len and his family had decided not to press assault charges against me. When I told them that he’d sexually assaulted me, they laughed and advised I take the Ruffins’ generosity as a gift and finish my last year in silence.”
Another tear threatened to fall, but Harper blinked to hold it back. She stood and turned away from Garrek because this was much harder than she ever thought it would be.
“I came home to Temptation for the summer, worked on the farm and built a new chicken coop for my dad, because he’d strained his shoulder while trying to wrangle one of the horses into the stable during a thunderstorm. I painted my bedroom and bought my first truck with the money I’d made tutoring throughout the school year. In August I packed up my bags and drove back to school. I finished my senior year, graduating in the top five percent of my class. I came back to Temptation and accepted an internship with the Yankin Group, one of the largest construction companies on the East Coast. I eventually accepted a job offer as project manager with them and stayed for three years. I was ready for my own company by then, so I came back to Temptation and opened Presley Construction.”
“And you never told anyone else about what happened with Ruffin, did you?” he asked.
Harper could only shake her head in response. This was something that she’d carried for the last seven years. It was her experience, in essence her introduction to the real world. So no, she hadn’t shared it with anyone, not even her father. Especially not her father. And it wasn’t that she was ashamed of what had happened. She knew it wasn’t her fault. But the thought of bringing even more negative attention to herself—after enduring the taunts and disrespect for the majority of her life—had been too much to bear. She knew that it was probably cowardly on her part, but she’d taken the road that was easiest for her to make it through.
“I decided not to file another report after telling the security officers that first night. Len’s father was a college football coach. Somewhere on the West Coast, I think. But he had pull in the collegiate world. His son was probably going to go on to play in the NFL. I was the skinny, unattractive girl from a town called Temptation. I already knew what the outcome was going to be,” she said.
Now, all these years later, she wished she’d been as strong as she felt right now.
Harper jumped when his hands touched her shoulders, but she settled immediately as he pulled her back to him. Harper felt his strength as if it were literally oozing from him and pouring into her. When he leaned in and kissed her hair while wrapping his arms around her, she felt his compassion and melted into the comfort.
“You are beautiful,” he whispered. “And strong. And smart. I am honored to know you, to know all of you, Harper Presley.”
Harper turned in his arms then. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest, breathing all the years of fear and regret she’d felt into him. Tears spilled from her eyes, and she didn’t try to stop them. She just let them fall. And Garrek held her while she did so.
She had no idea when he carried her to the bed and lay down beside her, because the tears had still been flowing. She’d still been purging herself of the darkest time in her life, the lowest she’d ever felt—and the moment she knew it was time to let it go.
Chapter 13
Garrek woke with a start.
His quick movement had Harper shifting in his arms, reminding him that he hadn’t been sleeping alone. Staring down at the top of her head, he remembered what she’d told him last night, the thought making him hug her closer. She had one leg twisted between his, her head on his chest, her arm around his waist. Garrek rubbed one hand over her back and the other down her hair as he kissed the top of her head. When she snuggled closer to him, guilt threatened to choke him.
He closed his eyes to the constricting sensation in the hope of some relief. It didn’t work. Closing his eyes only brought back the dream he’d just had. The one where he’d turned into his father.
His mother had sat in her favorite rocking chair on the back porch of their Pensacola Bay home. The house was an old Cape Cod–style dwelling surrounded by Spanish moss–laden oak trees. It had been built in 1928 and had four bedrooms and four bathrooms. The back porch was enclosed by a screen and looked directly out onto the bay. Olivia would often sit there with her cup of coffee just before dawn.
In his dream Garrek had been sitting there with her, a cup of coffee in hand, too. He’d sipped and smiled at the familiar taste.
“You need to tell her,” Olivia had said after they’d sat in silence for a few minutes.
Garrek had lowered his cup, still holding it in both hands as he stared out at the water. The first burnt-orange rays of impending sunlight had begun to shimmer over the horizon.
“If you plan to give her your heart, you need to start with honesty,” she continued.
“I didn’t plan any of this,” he replied.
“That’s how it is sometimes,” she said and took another sip from her cup. “We make plans and He changes them.” She chuckled.
Garrek felt his heart clench at the memory of the sound.
“I used to laugh when my grandmother told me that, but now I know. I didn’t plan for this, and yet I’ve been able to find some happiness here in Florida. Some peace. And me,” she said wistfully. “I found me down here, away from your father.”
“I don’t want what the two of you had.” Garrek said what had been on his mind for years.
He’d never wanted to fall in love with someone and give them the power to rip out his soul when they left. It wasn’t an option for him.
“We had six beautiful blessings,” Olivia told him. “For those reasons alone, I would do everything with Theodor over again without a second thought.”
Garrek did not speak.
“You’ll miss the bigger blessing if you keep trying to play it safe. You’re falling in love with this woman and she’s falling in love with you. She told you about her painful past. Now it’s time for you to tell her about yours.”
“Before it’s too late.” Theodor’s voice had interrupted the quiet morning on the porch with his mother.
When Garrek turned in his rocking chair, it was to see his father lying in his casket, hands folded over his chest, eyes wide-open.
“I waited too long to admit that I still loved your mother. I wanted to show her and prayed she would take me back when she saw the house. But I took too long and she left here without me ever telling her,” Theodor said.
Garrek stood from the rocking chair and moved closer to the casket. The warm summer morning that had accompanied his conversation with his mother changed to a cool breeze, and he turned back to see that Olivia and her prized view of the bay had disappeared. There was only this sterling-white room now, with the charcoal-gray casket where his father lay.
“Don’t make my mistakes,” Theodor said. “Be a better man than I could.”
“The money,” Garrek said. “Where did you get that money?”
Theodor hesitated, and Garrek moved closer until he could clench his fingers on the side of the casket.
“Tell me where you got the money!” he insisted.
“Tell her!” Theodor said. “Tell her that you love her and that the past will not predict your future. Tell her now!”
The white room went completely dark, and Garrek was instantly alone.
That’s when he’d awakened, fearing that he would always be alone.
The feeling of Harper’s hand moving over his lower abdomen yanked him firmly into the here and now, and he blinked to clear his thoughts.
Her hand moved farther down, pushing past the elastic band of his boxers. Sometime during the night he’d gotten up and taken off his clothes. Harper had cried for a while, and then they both must have dozed off while he’d been still dressed. Now, her bare leg was moving slowly down his and her hand... He sucked in a breath as her fingers closed over his awakening length.
She didn’t speak, and Garrek was rendered speechless as her ministrations continued. While one hand moved, bringing him completely back from his dream state, her other hand pushed his boxers farther down his thighs. He helped by lifting up and then kicking them off the rest of the way as she moved between his legs.
Garrek looked down at her tousled hair and ran his hands through the soft strands, pushing them back. He wanted to see her face. She looked up then, both her hands moving over him now. Her eyes were a gorgeous shade of brown, like a cold glass of root beer. She had long lashes and a pert little nose. She also had high cheekbones and freckles and a pretty tongue that was now snaking out from between her lips. She continued to watch him watching her as she lowered her face close to her hands, her tongue touching the tip of his erection.
Garrek sucked in a breath a moment before her tongue stroked him once more, and then her mouth opened to take him inside. She moved slowly, tentatively—expertly, in his opinion. His eyes closed involuntarily, and his fingers clenched in her hair.
What was she doing to him?
Killing him, that was what. Slowly but surely Harper Presley was killing the man Garrek once thought he was, and awakening someone he’d never dreamed he’d be.
With each up and down movement, each languid lick of her tongue, she was tearing him apart. He wanted her to stop, wanted this whirlwind that he felt his life had been to slow down and let him catch his breath. But it didn’t. She didn’t, and he did nothing to try to make her. In fact, his hands were now guiding her head, his hips pumping slowly in sync with her movements.
It was heaven. A glimpse of what sheer bliss could be. Her mouth was so hot, her hair so soft, face so pretty. This was a perfect beginning to a day. And if he didn’t stop her soon, it was going to be a perfect ending—for him at least.
Garrek gently nudged her head so that her mouth eventually released him. He rolled off the bed and fumbled with his pants to find his wallet and a condom, rolling it on faster than he ever recalled in his life. Harper was on her knees, watching and waiting, so that when he climbed back on the bed she quickly pushed him down on the mattress.
She was on top of him before he could speak, her legs straddling his waist. He reached up to touch her then, pushing her nightshirt up over her hips while she once again wrapped her fingers around his length. Garrek lowered her over his arousal, groaning as first his tip slipped in, and then every inch in the most excruciating pleasure he could have ever imagined.
Harper began moving immediately, riding him until dreams, confessions—hell, even his name—vanished from his mind. There was only her now. Her measured thrusts and slim fingers that scraped along his thighs and between his legs as she cupped his sac. Garrek gripped the sheets in an effort to hold on. It was futile, because the more she moved, the louder her little moans grew, and the instant her thighs clenched and her body began to tremble, he knew he was lost.
Done.
Complete.
Finished.
And dangerously close to admitting he was in love with this woman.
* * *
This was Harper’s first time showering with a man. Actually, this morning had been the first time she’d done a couple of things. The smile that ghosted her face as she stood beneath the shower spray said she wasn’t displeased by any of them. The way Garrek was slowly dragging the soaped cloth over her back, down and over the curve of her bottom and lower, said he was pretty pleased with her first endeavors as well.
“Now the front,” he said, and Harper turned to face him.
“I don’t know how we would get anything done if this was an every-morning ritual,” she joked.
His reaction was quick—the hesitation like a knife to her skin. To his credit, Garrek rebounded just as fast. He smiled at her and continued to move the cloth over her body. He took his time, not missing one inch of her, and soon she forgot to be hurt by his momentary rebuff.
It wasn’t until after their shower, when they returned to the room wrapped in towels, that her conscience insisted she press forward. She’d told Garrek a lot about herself last night. Things that she’d never told anyone before. In the light of a new day, she realized she needed to know a little about his past life as well.
“I know that Gray didn’t plan on staying in Temptation when he came back, but now he has a family there,” she started as she moved to her bag. “What are your plans, Garrek? Are you staying in Temptation?”
Straight to the point. That was the only route she could afford to take. She was invested in this relationship now. She’d given of herself physically and emotionally, and if she were going to take another step forward, she had to have full disclosure. Garrek was keeping something from her, and possibly from his family, too. She wanted to know what it was.
“That’s not why I came back” was his response.
When she turned, it was to see that he was once again staring down at his phone.
“You came back because your father
left you a house,” she said. “You’ve decided to restore that house but don’t know if you’ll sell it or keep it. But you have to be thinking of what comes next. What about your career in the navy? How is that affected by your father’s gift to you?”
He looked up from the phone to stare at her.
The white hotel towel was wrapped around his waist. His chest was bare, muscled and mouthwatering. Harper gripped the clothes she’d pulled out of her bag and dragged her gaze back up to his face.
“I don’t know what comes next,” he replied. “Honestly, when I came to Temptation, it was with one thought in mind—to bury myself in the business of handling the things my father left for me.”
“And now?” she asked. “Are you still not thinking about what comes next?”
He reached down for his bag and lifted it. “If your real question is, am I thinking about what comes next with you, the answer is yes. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that.”
Now, that was what she wanted to hear. Wasn’t it? She wasn’t sure. Or rather, she was certain she felt relieved and excited by the fact that he was thinking of her with a future in mind. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was so much more going on with him than just the house and her. More that he apparently did not trust her enough to share.
“I’m gonna go get dressed so we can head out. We don’t want to be late and give that idiot at the tile shop any ammunition to stiff you on your product,” Garrek told her.
Without waiting for a response, he took his bag and headed back into the bathroom. Harper hurriedly slipped into her clothes and packed. She was heading back to the nightstand to get her phone and charger when a vibrating sound came from it before she could reach it.