by J. H. Croix
He moved swiftly, gripping my hips and holding me against him as he arched into me, before hooking his hand under the edge of my shirt and lifting it off in one swoop. It sailed to the floor, landing in a soft rumple. His palm swept up my back in a heated pass, pulling me to him. He took my lips in a fierce kiss. There was no hesitation. He met my reckless need with his own. Our kiss was rough, deep and wet. Meanwhile, his hands roved over my body. I didn’t want soft and slow. I needed more to slake the restless need beating inside me like a drum, drowning out everything but the feel of Alex against me. My bra was thrown aside, and he rolled my nipples between his fingers before sucking one into his mouth and driving me near to insanity with licks and nips as he alternated between them.
I managed to yank his shirt off somewhere along the way, savoring the feel of his hardness in contrast to my softness. My hips had a mind of their own, rocking against him, chasing after the sharp streaks of pleasure with the friction between us. He muttered against my skin where he’d been leaving a wet trail of kisses between my breasts and lifted his head.
“Bloody hell, Harper. You’re driving me mad.”
He lifted me off of him and yanked my jeans open, shoving them down roughly. I kicked my legs free and went to return the favor. He let out a rough groan, the sound alone pebbling my skin and tightening my nipples, when I freed his cock and curled my palm around its hot, velvety length. Any thought I’d had about drawing this out fled. I needed him inside of me. Now. I moved to straddle him where he sat with his jeans open and barely off his hips.
“Not so fast.”
Once again, he was quick. His hand curled around my hip and held me still. Before I had a chance to speak, he leaned forward and slid a finger through my folds. I was so wet, the insides of my thighs were damp. My knees almost buckled, and I gasped when he nudged my thighs apart with his knee and sank a finger knuckle-deep inside of me.
I looked down and couldn’t take my eyes away as another finger joined the first, stroking in and out. I was so close to release, little shocks of pleasure hit me in waves. Just when I thought I might die from the need to find release, he drew his fingers out and dipped his head, dragging his tongue across my clit—once, just once. Just enough to nearly send my flying. He leaned back, his hot gaze on me, as he yanked his wallet out of his pocket. Tugging a condom out sent his wallet tumbling to the floor. He smoothed it on with one hand.
So frantic to have him inside, I was straddling him inside of a second. Yet again, he held me back, both of his strong hands gripping my hips. Restless, I rocked into him, a little moan escaping at the feel of his cock, so hard and hot, sliding against my folds.
“Harper. Look at me.”
I whipped my eyes open to find his waiting—dark and intent, a fierce tenderness there that grabbed me by the heart. I felt suddenly vulnerable, the depth of need beating between us running so hot and fast I couldn’t ignore it.
He eased his grip on my hip and reached between us, positioning his cock at my entrance. In one surge, he flexed up as I sank down, crying out at the feel of him filling me. I couldn’t look away, his magnetic gaze held mine as we started to rock together. My skin was damp, my breasts rubbing lightly against his chest as we moved. I loved how strong he felt, how fluid every motion was. He rocked deeper and deeper into me, letting me set the pace. I lost myself in the rhythm, lost myself in the moment of joining with him. Pressure gathered within, spiraling tighter and tighter until I was teetering and breathless. He stroked between us, sliding his thumb across the slick nub of my desire, and sent me flying. Pleasure arrowed through me, little shocks reverberating as I drifted down. He held me against him as he drove deeply one last time and then shuddered, emitting a rough groan as his head fell forward into the dip of my shoulder.
I curled against him when he slipped his arms around me and rested there in his embrace. Right then, I didn’t want to move. Ever.
Chapter 13
Alex
I could feel Harper’s heart beating against my chest, the rhythm fast and steady, matching my own. She was relaxed against me, and it felt so fucking good to hold her I didn’t want to move. My heartbeat gradually slowed as we sat there. I felt her skin pebble against mine and reluctantly lifted my head.
“You’re cold. Let’s get you warm.”
She opened her eyes on a sigh. “I don’t want to move,” she said with a small smile.
“That makes two of us, but no sense in you getting chilly.”
I heard motion behind us and realized Stanley must’ve woken from his nap over in the corner. Another moment passed and his distinctive steps reached us, his cold nose bumping my hand.
Harper giggled, and I was beyond relieved she wasn’t tensing up. The other night had been mind-blowing and sublime, but I hadn’t forgotten how she’d gotten edgy afterwards. We’d had the convenience of a late hour and a bed we were already in to make it easy to curl around her and go to sleep. Now though, it was only late afternoon with the sun shining through the clouds outside and into her living room. If Stanley being nosy would keep her from starting to think too much, that was fine with me.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want her to think at all. More that I didn’t want her to start worrying. I sensed she was on questioning ground when it came to us. I figured she had plenty of reason for that, so I was prepared to be patient. She leaned back and looked at me. Lifting a hand, she ran it through my hair. “Let’s shower,” she said suddenly.
“Whatever you want,” I replied, meaning it on multiple levels.
A shower sounded perfect. It would chase away Harper’s chill. She carefully climbed off my lap, and I missed the feel of her instantly. I gave myself a mental shake and stood, following her into the bathroom off of her bedroom. She had a half-bath beside the living room and a rather luxurious bathroom adjacent to her bedroom with a large oval-shaped bathtub and a walk-in shower.
I tossed my condom in the trash and kicked my jeans off, following her into the steamy shower. I was quickly discovering that any time Harper was near me, my body was on notice. It didn’t matter that I’d just spent myself inside of her. Nope. I took one look at her—her skin slick under the water with soap running all over her—and I wanted her again.
I shackled my needs and took the soap from her when she handed it to me. I couldn’t manage to keep my hand from sliding down her back and over the curve of her bottom.
***
Monday rolled around, and as instructed by Coach, I met him at his office for a meeting with a lawyer after practice. At my knock, he called for me to come in. I stepped inside to see him at his desk as usual, idly tossing a mini basketball in a hoop mounted to the wall beside his desk. Coach wasn’t one to sit still. He had a variety of fidget toys on his desk and was usually playing with one of them. He glanced up at me with a smile.
“You’re doing better at blocking shots in the far left corner,” he said by way of greeting.
The far, upper left corner of the net was the one and only place a few goals had slipped past me last season. As such, Coach had assigned the offensive players to attack that corner every time we practiced. End result: only one goal had gotten past me this season. I threw him a grin. “That’s the plan, eh?”
“That it is.” The ball swished through the hoop and bounced back into his hands. He set it on the desk and spun to face me. “Okay, let’s deal with the mess. Management sent a lawyer our way, but forgot to give me a name. We have attorneys on staff, but criminal defense isn’t what we hire them for. Whoever this lawyer is will be here in a few minutes. You either have more sense than most, or you’re really good at playing it cool. Which one is it?”
I shook my head, puzzled. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
Coach barked a laugh. “More sense. If you’d listened to or read the news, I figured you might not be too happy about it.”
Truth be told, I didn’t pay much attention to the news, at least not anything that even brushed up ag
ainst gossip. I’d seen the damage it did to teammates before, so I mostly tried to live a life that was so damn boring, I wouldn’t even blip on the radar. I wasn’t so stupid as to think punching a guy on the sidewalk wouldn’t be news for a player on our team, I was just studiously avoiding thinking about it. There was the fact I didn’t want to worry about something I couldn’t control, and I preferred to focus on Harper. I was doing my damnedest not to interpret too much, but I’d lucked into another night with her after being all but ordered over to Liam’s for Olivia to chew me out.
Olivia was none too happy about what had happened, although in between every sentence, she kept saying how much Joe deserved to get punched. Liam finally interrupted and pointed that out, only to get a pillow thrown at him. I sat through her lecture because I knew why she was worried. Harper sure as hell didn’t need anyone to stir up the past for her, and I’d gone and done it.
I looked over at Coach and ran a hand through my hair, still damp from my shower after practice. “Figured it wouldn’t do me a bit of good to pay attention to the news. Anything I need to do about it?”
Coach leaned back in his chair and shrugged. “Meet with the lawyer and hopefully get those charges dropped. The media is completely shocked because you’re supposed to be the good lad from Britain. Good news is they’ve already dug up Joe Schmidt’s past, so he’s not looking too rosy. Bad news is your girlfriend was mentioned too. I had our PR guy check on the past stories because they don’t usually name victims when it comes to rape cases. Sad to say, she was named before because he released her name to the press and claimed the sex was consensual. Guy’s a damn asshole of the highest order,” Coach said flatly.
I stared at him, anger rolling through me in a flash. All I had were the outlines of what happened to Harper. Even when I’d gone to look up Joe, I hadn’t bothered to review all the stories from that time. I’d missed the details of why she’d been named publicly. Hard to admit, but I hadn’t thought much about how that came to be. I hadn’t ever considered the ramifications of someone in Harper’s situation before. I doubt many men liked to think about what it meant to be raped. Men were the lucky ones in the sense we didn’t have to worry about it much, not the way women did. Olivia had pointedly told me that most women had at least one friend who’d been through it. Hearing that Joe had been behind Harper’s name becoming public made me furious. I didn’t realize I was clenching my fists until Coach spoke.
“Calm down, Alex. Not a damn thing you can do about that. Honestly, he deserved a helluva lot more than a few blows to the face, but you can’t change the past. I’ve got our PR guys on it. They’re leaning hard to spin this for what it was. A good guy finally giving an asshole what he deserved. Now we just need to see what we can do about those charges. Let’s be clear: I’m not saying what you did was a good choice. Fists don’t usually solve anything. I’m just saying I understand how you felt.”
I stretched my hands open and took a slow breath before nodding. “Right. I know it won’t help, but bloody hell. It’s just…” I stopped, emotion knotting in my chest. It was so fucking unfair what had happened. None of it was right, and I wanted to make it so.
Coach’s gaze held mine, a flicker of something in the depths. “Life is most certainly not fair. Best thing you can do is be there for her,” he said gruffly.
I knew Coach had his own share of tragedy. He’d been flying high as one of the best footballers in the world when he was in a car accident with his wife and daughter. He lived, and they didn’t. He was hobbled by his injuries and never played again. He lost his family and his career in one day. I knew he knew precisely how unfair life could be. I met his eyes and nodded, unable to speak just yet.
At that moment, there was a knock at the door. At Coach’s call, a woman stepped briskly into his office. She strode straight to Coach’s desk. She was tall and imposing, her presence so strong I stood reflexively. She had to be close to six feet tall with auburn hair pulled back into a sleek knot and hazel eyes. I realized how far gone I was over Harper when all I could manage was a dispassionate acknowledgment that she was beautiful, if a little intimidating. What with her height and strong presence, she commanded attention and seriousness.
“Zoe Lawson,” she said, holding a hand out.
Her handshake was confident, firm and businesslike, just like her presence. After introductions, Coach gestured for her to sit in the chair beside me. We collectively sat, and Zoe immediately opened a file folder tucked under her elbow. Her sharp gaze swung to me. “Well, the good part is you’ll definitely win the publicity war here. You were avenging your girlfriend. No one will think you’re the jerk in this story. The bad part is you punched Mr. Schmidt twice in front of multiple witnesses, and you happen to be a public figure, so plenty of people recognized you. I’ve reviewed everything. I need to know how hard you want to fight the charges before we decide how to proceed.”
Zoe closed the file folder and set it on the edge of Coach’s desk before looking my way again. I was still absorbing the fact that first Coach and now Zoe had called Harper my girlfriend. I liked it. Quite a lot. Yet, I wasn’t so sure that’s what she was, nor how she viewed what was happening with us. I forced my thoughts onto the matter at hand.
“I guess I didn’t even think about fighting the charges. I mean, it definitely happened. I’m not about to lie about it,” I said.
Zoe barely smiled and flicked her eyes to Coach. “What would the team like to see happen? You’re in the unfortunate position of having an honest player here.” Her gaze bounced to me. “No offense, but I’m used to dealing with sports stars who have some trumped up story about how someone walked into their fist, or whatever details need to fit what happened. I appreciate how honest you are, but as a criminal defense attorney, clients like you can make my job more challenging,” she said with a slight shake of her head.
Coach chuckled. “Alex is honest, and I’d like him to stay that way. How about you give us some feedback on how to proceed knowing that’s he’s the guy he is?”
I stayed quiet, but it was nice to know Coach appreciated me for who I was. Truth was, plenty of athletes were assholes behind their public façade. The media fawning allowed that to happen, and it was bloody annoying. It was good to have a Coach who had no tolerance for rubbish like that.
Zoe drummed her fingertips on the armrest of her chair for a moment and shrugged. “We’ll play it straight, but play up his history and what Mr. Schmidt said before you punched him.”
She slipped the file folder closer on the desk and opened it. “According to your police interview, he referred to Harper as an old friend. Then when you asked him if that’s what he called the women he raped, he said ‘Fuck you.’ Sound accurate?”
“It’s what happened and what I told the police,” I replied, wondering why she was repeating the obvious.
She closed the folder again. “Repetition is critical. I don’t doubt you for a second, but you need to get used to being asked the same questions again and again. I’m hoping we don’t even go to trial, but if we do, trust me, don’t get annoyed with being asked to repeat what happened a few hundred times.”
I bit back a sigh and ran a hand through my hair. I might not regret punching Joe. In fact, learning he was responsible to making Harper’s name public before only made me want to do it again, but it didn’t mean I wanted to deal with this circus. “Right then. Will do.”
“How likely you think it is he’ll go to trial?” Coach asked.
Zoe looked to him and shrugged. “Not very likely if the press keeps hammering the angle they already have. You look like the hero against a rapist who managed to barely serve any time.”
“But how does that help with the fact I hit him?” I asked.
“The longer this stays in the news, the more Mr. Schmidt has to be back in the public eye. I doubt he realizes it because guys like him usually don’t, but he got lucky before. I reviewed his court records. My guess is if Ms. Jacobs had wan
ted to keep dealing with a dragged out court case, he would’ve been convicted for the original charges, and she’d have been dragged through hell to make it happen. Rape cases are ugly for the victims. They have to testify about something terrible, reliving it over and over, and deal with cross-examination while they’re at it. It’s extremely unpleasant and the reason something like only three-percent of rape cases ever go to trial. I wasn’t there at the time, but I imagine the prosecutor offered a plea deal because Mr. Schmidt had a very aggressive defense attorney who was prepared to make it as ugly as possible for Ms. Jacobs. He got off easy. Now the whole sordid story is back in the news and he looks like the asshole he is. Not good for his professional reputation at all. He works in finance. I would bet his job might be at risk now because they won’t want any association with a former rapist who just called his victim an old friend. As far as I’m concerned, you let your PR team blow this up. Mr. Schmidt might end up wishing he’d never pressed charges against you. Does that mean it will completely disappear? No. Too many witnesses, but we can agree to a deal that probably means community service for you,” Zoe said with a firm nod.
Coach said something in reply, and they continued talking while my thoughts spun off wondering just how bloody awful the lead up to the plea deal must have been for Harper after Joe was charged. I didn’t like thinking about it. At all. In fact, thinking about it only made me angry again. Bloody hell. I’d been angry more ever since Olivia dropped this little bomb on me than I had since I was a lad. I’d thought my problems with my temper long gone.
Coach cleared his throat, and I looked back over at him. He leaned back in his chair and angled his head to the side. “You’re pissed again,” he said calmly.
I bit back a sigh and shrugged. “I don’t like hearing about what Harper went through. I especially don’t like thinking about how easy Joe got off. It’s a load of bollocks is what it is.”