by Abby Knox
But it never did.
She didn't run away. Instead, she sat up and turned around, splashing yet more water over the side of the tub.
"OK. We need to talk," she said.
He gave her a slight nod, and she continued.
"It's like this," she said, running her hands up his arms and resting them on his shoulders. He wished if she were going to end this—whatever this was—that she would do it without a lecture. But around Harper, one was never far from a lecture.
"I'll do whatever you want me to do, but I need some kind of heads up. You know, I've never done breath play before, and that's a huge learning curve for me. I'll do it, but it will take some time to get used to, and I'll need to do some research to make sure I do it right."
"I hear you. I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable."
She stroked his hair and smoothed the back of her hand over his cheek. "Not uncomfortable, just surprised."
"I should have thought before I said that."
She nodded. "Yeah, but we all say things and get carried away."
"We'll save that stuff for another time then. Now that I killed your lady boner real good."
She smiled at him and gave a soft laugh. "You didn't."
"I didn't, huh?"
She shook her head.
"Show me."
Dash had never paused in the middle of sex to discuss research, mechanics, and all of that stuff. He would have thought it would kill the mood quicker than one of Holden's cats throwing up a hairball in the middle of the night. But that was not the case at the moment.
"Now?"
She nodded. "For one thing, we're face to face, so…that's a start."
Dash walked her through the proper procedure, where to put her hands and where to squeeze. He gestured along the length of his throat. "Technically, you're only supposed to squeeze here, and not here, to ensure that I can still breathe. But I'm cool with a little bit extra risk."
Harper reared back. "Well, I'm not."
"Oh. Okay. I mean, if you're not into it, you're not into it."
"Look me in the eyes, Dash."
He'd been staring at the tiny drips from her hair landing into the water. "Yeah?"
"As much as I would love to strangle you some days, I don't want to do anything to put you in danger, and anyone who does is an asshole."
Dash blurted out a laugh. "All these years, I thought you were dying to squeeze my windpipe."
"I kinda was," she laughed. "Well, no. That's not true. I don't hate anyone. I just find you supremely aggravating. So much so that it's…maybe a little bit unhealthy."
Dash had never considered that Harper might have been thinking about him as much as he thought about her.
Hey, dummy, you'd better say it back.
"The same for me," he started awkwardly. "I…think about you all the time. I thought it was because we're supposed to be enemies."
"Well, let's see here, big guy. We're both naked in the tub together; we sure aren't exactly the sworn enemies we thought we were."
Dash laughed again. "How about nemeses? That word has a much sexier ring to it."
Harper answered by pressing a kiss to his mouth, sucking in his bottom lip, and nibbling it with her teeth. He closed his eyes and groaned. "I thought you didn't want to hurt me."
"I said I didn't want to put your life at risk. I still want to throttle you senseless."
"Why does that still sound like a sex move?"
"With us, it probably is."
The two of them laughed together. The ice between them had not simply melted; it had shattered with violent force.
Earlier that night, when Dash had come to her window, he had only been focused on one thing. He had needed to fuck her. He needed to clear his head of all thoughts about her. Several orgasms later, they'd accomplished that together.
He knew he would enjoy her; he didn't think it would be like that. He didn't think he would develop real feelings for her.
He'd never felt more clear about anything or anyone.
"And now I need to talk to you."
She nodded and stared back at him with her wide eyes. "Would you lie back on my chest? It might be easier for me to talk about this if you're not staring me down like that."
"I'm not staring you down…"
"Will you…just, come here."
Dash pulled her in close, and Harper leaned in, finally. With her red curls splayed out on his chest and his arms wrapped around her, he finally felt that she was safe. He didn't know why, but it was easier to talk like this.
"I want to keep seeing you. I want to see you and nobody else. It's crazy because up until yesterday, you couldn't stand me, and I couldn't stand you. But the truth is, I don't want you to date anybody else. And I know what you're like. You have a lot going on. You probably see lots of guys. I don't want to cramp your style. But if we're going to keep doing this, I need to be exclusive. Will you…I mean, are you into that?"
She took a deep breath and asked, "Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?"
He kissed the top of her head. "I'm asking you to be my girlfriend. Yes. I can't believe I'm saying it but here we are."
A thrill spiked through him as her hand traveled across his arm that enfolded her. "I think we were already there in our subconscious, but the sex was just pointing the way."
"My girl is so profound."
Harper snuggled into him. "I like the way that sounds. Yeah. I'm into it. It fits."
"Good."
Dash's wicked fingers traveled down under the water to once again caress the curve of her hips.
"I believe I still owe you something," he murmured, reaching his other hand down under the surface of the water. He nudged her thighs apart and massaged her sex. Harper sucked in a breath. "Yeah, you do."
Finding her clit, Dash worked circles around it with two fingers. Her face turned up toward him, and she moaned into his neck. He watched her face as she came; she looked like a goddess, feeling her power. She had so much power over him. Maybe she always had, and he was just now realizing that fact.
"I don't want to inflate your ego or anything," she said. "But I've never come that many times in one night."
"Well, it was one time last night and then two or three more orgasms after midnight, so…"
"Oh my god, are you mansplaining how clocks work?"
He shook his head. "No. No, I am not. I have stopped talking now."
"Good."
Chapter Ten
Harper
* * *
Her pop-song alarm ringtone woke her the same as it did every morning, but today, she had a tall, lean, tasty man in her bed. So today was a new day.
Dash started awake at hearing her ringtone. "What the fuck was that?"
Harper grinned and shrugged. "It starts my morning by making me smile? What's wrong with that?"
She waited for that familiar grouchy face to emerge. His wrinkled forehead, his knit-together brows. He surprised her with a broad smile that spread across his face in a look that was pure sunshine.
The smile changed everything. The Dash she knew was wound so tight he could have been ready to snap at any moment. This new Dash was going to take some getting used to.
"I like seeing your smile first thing in the morning," he said. Dash rolled his warm body over top of her as she lay on her back, grinning up at him.
"I didn't think you were a morning person," she said. "I was going to get up and make you breakfast in bed."
He looked down at her curiously and said, "But you already did."
Before she could follow up and ask for some clarification, Dash's head disappeared under the blanket. "Oh," she said, "I—oh…OK, then."
Nothing shut her up quite like Dash's mouth and the delicious bristle of his beard. When his mouth went south, that statement was at its most true.
That morning, he didn't bother with the buildup. He was ready. One noisy, sloppy deep kiss between her legs wiped out every day she had ever felt numb in her li
fe. The sensation was so much her brain shorted out. Dash was doing to her pussy the same moves he used on her mouth—making out. There was no other phrase for it.
The more he stroked with his tongue inside her cunt, then dragged it flat up to her clit, the more every cell in her body lit up like a Christmas tree.
Some men were happy to oblige eating pussy. Some men enjoyed it. Dash? Fucking loved it. He devoured her noisily, hungrily. He only paused to breathe, and when he did, he would whisper sweet nothings to her pussy. Most of the time, she could not tell what he was saying.
When Harper's climax exploded through her, Dash drank her down throughout her release, and she thought, in her orgasm-drunk haze, she heard him murmur, "There's my girl, squirting for me and only me."
The talking pulled a shattering aftershock out of her.
Dash kept up his soft words of adoration even after she completed, after she was utterly spent.
"That was…"
"Good?"
She nodded. "So good."
She had so much more to say, but that could wait.
Harper looked down at her plate of blueberry pancakes and smiled up at Dash. "I don't know how you managed to whip this up with what I had in the kitchen, but I'm very grateful. And starving."
"Eat, and stop talking."
She ate with gusto, careful not to drip butter or syrup on the shirt she wore because it belonged to Dash.
He noticed her acting extra careful about taking small bites over her plate and dabbing her mouth. "Don't worry about the shirt. I want it to smell like you; it needed to be clean."
"Is me funking up your tee-shirt some kind of mating ritual I don't know about?"
Dash lifted one shoulder and leaned back in Harper's kitchen chair, eyeing her. He'd consumed his stack of pancakes in less than five minutes and then sat back and watched her eat with the same look on his face that men have when they're watching a stripper, she imagined.
Like he wasn't finished with her and wanted to repeat their morning activity all over again.
"I like the way you smell."
She answered, "It's just gonna go back to smelling like you whenever you rewash it."
"I'm okay with that," he said. "I just want it to smell like you while I'm working at Crow Bar tonight."
Her mouth fell open. "You're not going to wear this while you're at work!"
He smirked. "Why not?"
"Because that's…that's…" Her mind wandered. "You'll probably get sweaty, which will mix all up with my funky smell."
He lifted an eyebrow. "Yeah. That's the point. Your scent is hot as fuck, and I want to wear it to work while we're not together."
She spoke with a mouthful of pancakes. "I could just come with you." She swallowed. "Sorry. Terrible table manners."
He lifted his chin. "Hanging around the Brute Squad too much. Bad habits arise. But no. You're not coming to work with me."
Harper reared back. "Why not?"
"Don't start."
"Listen. I know you didn't want me there before because you could not stand the sight of me. But if you think I'm going to keep up some kind of facade around your friends, you're dead wrong, buster."
Her fork clattered to her plate when suddenly her chair moved on its own. Of course, it wasn't actually moving on its own. Dash had reached around the table, grabbed the leg of her chair, and yanked her right up next to him.
"Look at me, Harper."
"Do I have a choice?"
"You're my girl, and I'm not embarrassed about it. Do you understand? But you can't come with me to Crow Bar because you need to be protected."
"Protected from what?"
"What do you think? I have a hard enough time keeping an eye on the women who come in there strutting around in front of Girardi's wise guys."
"Well, I would have thought you'd want me as close to you as possible."
"That's the problem. You're going to be sneaking around asking questions and making trouble for yourself."
"Probably," she said.
"Which is why you need to stay at your moms' house tonight."
"My moms? What is this curfew? Am I 16?"
"Harper, come on. I'm serious."
"I am too."
"I know, and it's adorable that you think you can tell me what to do and where to be."
There he was. The grumpy old Dash she knew and…well, not loved…but somehow could not stop provoking.
He took a deep breath. "I don't want to argue with you. So I'm asking. Will you please, for the sake of my peace of mind, stay with your moms tonight?"
She twisted her lips while she thought. "You know, we've never been close until now, and yet, I've spent every night alone. Never once been in danger."
"And you've never been openly trying to get people to talk about the missing girls."
She cocked her head. "I tried to get the story, but Greg, my boss, wouldn't give it to me. Ainsley is working on it."
Dash looked at her. "Don't bullshit me. I saw the way the mayor was looking at you when you got by his handlers. You weren't interviewing him about anything fun."
"What do you know about me openly trying to get information about a story that's not even mine?"
"Harper."
"How do you know me so well already?"
"You forget, I've known you my entire life."
She smirked. "Yeah, but we hated each other."
"The only people we pay attention to more than the people we love are the people we hate and the people who annoy us."
"Which category do I fall into now?"
"Guess we'll find out," he said. "In the meantime, let's just enjoy what there is of the weekend together."
"What did you have in mind other than lots of boning?"
Dash chuckled and leaned down for a kiss, which she tilted her head up to receive. He was such a deep, fierce kisser. He put his full self into it. His kisses were as hot as his temper, which was often on full display at work. Between the misbehaving drunks and Billy's smart mouth, Dash could seethe and then explode like an ancient volcano.
He shrugged. "How about I take you out on a proper date?"
Chapter Eleven
Dash
* * *
He had never seen a quiet and demure side of Harper before and started to wonder if she was secretly planning something he needed to know about.
Twenty-four hours ago, he would not want to know. At that moment, he was waiting for her to get ready for their first date? He wanted to know everything she was up to.
She exited the bathroom wearing a pair of jeans ripped at the knee, the material hugging her shapely thighs. Unlike the bulky layers she usually wore, the fitted turtleneck sweater showed off every dip and curve of her shape.
"I've never seen that before," he said.
"You've never noticed it before. You've rarely seen me outside of my parka or my industrial apron at the distillery."
"Not true. Last summer, you wore the purple bikini to the beach."
She blushed. "It's a tankini."
"I don't know what the fuck is a tankini. All I know is it showed too much bare skin, and I had to keep my eye on you all day, especially when the beach was crowded."
Harper slinked over to where he sat on the edge of the bed and straddled him. "Lynwood Dashell Fitzgerald. You really were obsessed with me."
For once, she said that without any fear or confusion or judgment. She stated the facts.
"Correction. I am obsessed."
He watched the red flush hit her cheeks, making her freckles pop out in contrast. Just to drive the point home, he slid his arms around her hips and cinched her close.
She ground against his pelvis, pulling a groan from his throat.
"I like this view. I'm gonna enjoy fucking you like this later," he growled.
She leaned in and kissed him close to his ear. "Why wait?"
Dash groaned. He had a plan for that day, and as much as he would love to keep Harper cooped up in this house with
him all weekend, he wanted to do this right. If this was a real relationship, there needed to be more than sex.
"Because then we'll miss the 10 a.m. boat."
"Boat? What boat?"
"It's a nice day, the snow is melting, the river is flowing again, and I want to do the architecture tour with you."
Her eyes narrowed. "But it's freezing."
"We'll take a blanket, and I'll keep you warm."
She thought about it. "Sure. I've always wanted to do the boat tour."
"And then we can have lunch on the Riverwalk, and don't even try to tell me it's too expensive because I don't want to hear it."
Harper pursed her lips and tried to look innocent. "I wasn't going to protest," she said.
"Let's go, or we'll miss the boat."
Wrapped in a fleece blanket, Dash and Harper spent the rest of that morning learning about some of the most historic sites in Newcastle. Dash heard so many names of architects and schools of architecture, it made his head spin.
They had the entire boat to themselves but stuck close together under the fleece blanket. The tour guide seemed hesitant at first to proceed with a tour for only two passengers but then livened up when Harper started asking lots of questions.
What was supposed to be a one-hour tour soon bled into two hours, as the guide told them dozens of stories about local lore. At one point, the guide drove the boat under one of the bridges that connected the north and south sides of the city. "I'm not supposed to show you this, but since there's no one else here…"
Dash gathered Harper closer as the boat veered straight for the concrete wall that ran along River Drive. They idled close to the wall, next to what looked like a vent.
"If you look very closely, you'll see something strange."
The guide shone a light into the vent, and that's when Dash realized it wasn't a vent at all.
"That's…what is that, part of the sewer tunnels?"
"Nope," said the guide. "That's the original entrance to the tunnels used by the liquor smugglers during Prohibition."
Dash had never heard about such a thing, but he felt intrigued. Harper, of course, seemed to know all about it.