Mister O (20 page)

I
go
to the movies with Wyatt that night, checking out a spy flick that numbs my brain with two hours of explosions, knife fights, and one badass motorcycle chase down a never-ending set of stairs.

He doesn’t once ask about Harper or Spencer when we grab beers and burgers after the credits roll. I’m thankful for that, even though I don’t know what to do about my buddy. I’ve got to hope Spencer will understand that the way I feel for his sister isn’t cause for eyebrow-dyeing or hair-shaving.

Even if I haven’t been upfront with him.

I push those thoughts away for tonight. Always the chatterbox, Wyatt tells me about his business expansion plans and how he needs to hire a new assistant. It’s one of the rare occasions when we don’t give each other crap the whole time.

I’m grateful, too, that I’ve survived the first day in the countdown to bare. When I return home that night, I head straight to my standing desk and draw a puppet with a stopwatch. He stares slack-jawed at the hot mechanic, who fixes brake pads in nothing but a cape.

I title it
Countdown to Bare
.

I know, I know. I’m pretty fucking brilliant. But as they say, a dirty mind is a terrible thing to waste. I turn off the screen, and when I slide under the sheets that night the last thing I do is check my phone. Again, karma loves me, because there’s a photo from her. A close-up shot of her fingers, sliding under the waistband of her cranberry-red lace panties.

I swear, this woman will be my undoing. She’s so goddamn perfect for me.

* * *

O
n Sunday morning
I wake to my phone rattling on the nightstand. Must be another message from Harper. I grin in anticipation as I grab the phone.

A note from Serena pops up on the screen instead, with a picture of a baby sleeping.

S
even pounds
of torture and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Meet my baby boy!

A
n even bigger grin
spreads on my face over the good news, and because I know Harper will like this picture, I forward her the note.

I freeze.

I just sent her a photo of a baby. To make her happy. What the hell has my world become? Who is this dude inside my skin texting pictures of a newborn? To a chick who sent me a dirty photo last night?

That’s when the Road Runner drops the anvil, and Wile E. Coyote gets smacked with ten tons of obvious, and his head rings, and stars spin, but then everything becomes crystal clear. I want Harper to be happy in every way—in bed and out of bed. I don’t just want to give this woman ten thousand orgasms. I want to see her smile more times than I can count.

Because . . . I’ve fallen in love with her.

I groan and flop back against the mattress.

This woman has upended my world. Once I only wanted to send her soaring, to bring her pleasure, to screw her out of my system. Now I want to make her feel joy in every way. I, Nick Hammer, self-avowed serial monogamist and Magellan of the female orgasm, have become a love-struck fool.

I wish there was a clue in the Sunday puzzle as to how to give voice to this madness taking over my heart. Knowing how to touch Harper, how to kiss her, and how to deliver ecstasy to every square inch of her body seems easy compared to reckoning with this strange, new foreign object occupying space in my chest. What do you even say to a woman you’ve fallen ass over elbow for? I scratch my head, coming up empty. Sex is my classroom, but love is a language I barely understand.

I close my eyes, letting my mind wander to all the things I know about Harper. She loves to entertain, to tell jokes, to spend time with her friends and family, to help people she cares about. She loves autumn, and cake, and bowling, and beating me in competitions. She likes taking care of Fido, and learning new magic tricks, and she loves to give gifts.

Most of all, she likes being understood.

I flash back to one of the texts she sent me. A non-dirty one.

I want to look into someone’s eyes and feel like he knows me, gets me, understands me. I want him to see my quirks and accept them, not try to change them. I want to know what that’s like.

This is a girl who has definite quirks. I latch on to something. Bits and pieces of our conversation back at Peace of Cake. Something she said about cheesy moments. What was it?

I rub my thumb and forefinger together, as if that can stir the memory to the surface. It works, and I smile inside as I remember her offhand remark.

Does she write those cheesy sex scenes where the guy tells the girl he loves her while he’s inside her or right after?

I might not know what to say, but I definitely know when
not
to say it. I get out of bed, brush my teeth, pull on my workout shorts and a fleece, and go burn off some of this energy, running all the way downtown to Spencer’s house, where I feed Fido, trusting that this cat and his master will have to be okay with this turn of events, because I’m going to be so damn good to Harper. I’m going to treat her like the royalty she is to me. All I have to do is tell her.

I don’t have a plan, a skywriter, or a bouquet of flowers, and frankly, I don’t think she’d be impressed with any of those. That’s not the kind of person she is.

But I know the most important part of my plan—there’s no way I can let these lessons with Harper end. Not until I tell her I want to be so much more than friends with her, more than her teacher, more than her love coach. I want to be hers.

Too bad her train is really late that night. She texts me at ten to tell me it’s stuck in Bridgeport for some sort of engine repair.

I write back immediately with the only possible solution.

I
’ll come pick
you up.

You have no idea how much I want to see you.

Yes. THAT MUCH.

SHOUTY CAPS ARE MANLY. Get over here, woman. I need your naked body under me.

I DON’T CARE. JUST GET HERE. How’s this? I’ll order a car service. I’ll send one to you. Whatever you want.

Now you’re really turning me on, talking
Harry Potter
and magic spells. But seriously, princess—can I send a car for you?

Um, I like your legs. Please refrain from all chewing of limbs.

A little later, I check the time. It’s eleven, and a new text says she should arrive in Grand Central by midnight. I figure fifteen minutes in the cab will put her at my door at twelve-fifteen. I take a quick shower, brush my teeth, and wrap a towel around my waist.

A new text from her lands on my screen.

My reply is instant.

N
O FUCKING WAY
.

I
lie down
, read a book, and drift off to sleep.

* * *

T
he ringing
in my apartment is loud. I wake with a jolt, sitting upright in bed. I rub my eyes, orienting myself. I grab my glasses. It’s a little after one. I get out of bed, and answer the phone. The doorman tells me I have a guest, and I say to send her up.

I pad out of the bedroom, then slide the lock off the chain, crack the door a sliver, and peek down the hall.

The gears on the elevator crank, then slow, and the lift opens.

She turns and heads to me. Her hair is in a loose ponytail, and she wears jeans and her pink jacket. Her eyes widen as she nears me. They turn planet-size when she’s inches away, and they drift down my body.

I glance down. Oh. Seems I’m wearing my birthday suit.

“I should always show up after midnight if this is my greeting,” she says, her eyes roaming my naked body.

“You play your cards right, and that can be arranged,” I say, raising an eyebrow. She doesn’t know the half of it, though. She doesn’t know how true that statement is. If she wants me, she can have me any time, all the time.

I grab her hand and tug her inside. She drops her bag to the floor as the door clinks shut.

I waste no time. I kiss her as if it’s been weeks. Her tongue slides between my lips, and her hands travel down my chest, across my abs, down the happy trail, and I’m oh so happy that her journeys have taken her there. She skims her palm over my dick, and my breath hitches.

Her touch is spine-tingling. She dips her head to my neck, kissing me. I shudder, then bite my lip, because I can’t let on all that I’m feeling for her yet. She kisses up my jawline, then to my ear. “I have to run to the little girls’ room and pee. Wait for me in bed.”

I salute her and retreat to the bedroom, following orders. I take off my glasses, set them on the nightstand, and park my hands behind my head. Slivers of moonlight slice through the blinds, and my room is cast in shadow. The water runs in the bathroom sink, then it’s silent again. Her heels click on the floor, and three seconds later she stands in my doorway, illuminated by the moon.

She strikes a pose. If she was surprised by my attire, then color me ten shades of shocked by hers.

“
H
oly shit
,” I say slowly. My jaw might be on the hardwoods.

Her hair falls loose on her shoulders. She’s wearing a black cape, stilettos and white lace panties with pink polka dots. That’s it. No bra. My mouth waters. My dick imitates the floor and is hard wood, too. My heart does a wild foxtrot as I sit up in bed and scrub a hand over my jaw.

I am so crazy for her it’s ridiculous.

I stand up, walk over, and scoop her up. “You are my dream girl,” I say roughly, and I carry her to the bed and toss her on it.

She squeals playfully as she lands. “So that’s a yes then? The cape is good?”

I straddle her. “Let me put it this way. The way you look in that cape is scorching enough to launch a thousand new dirty Tumblr feeds. The Hot Redhead in the Cape. Wait.” I shake my head then bring a finger to her lips. “Don’t tell a soul. That’s going to be the name of my next show. Only it’ll be so hot it has to run in the early hours of the morning. On Cinemax.”

She fingers the satin of the cape. “I guess that means you want me to leave it on then.”

“For now,” I say, rubbing my dick against her panties.

In a second, that naughty, playful glint disappears from her eyes. It’s replaced by unbridled heat. She shudders and reaches her hands up to me, clasping my face. “Kiss me, please. Nothing turns me on more than your kisses, Nick.”

“Kissing you is my favorite foreplay, too.”

I bend to her and kiss her like crazy. She melts into my arms, just fucking melts like ice cream on a hot summer day, and she tastes even better. She’s warm and snug beneath me, and she murmurs in my mouth, sighing against my lips, and her fingertips play with the ends of my hair in a way that makes me groan. She sucks on my tongue, nibbles on my lips, and then brushes that sweet, soft mouth of hers all over mine. I’m awash in a desire so wildly intense that the only way to quench it is to be consumed by it. To let it overwhelm me, like this girl has taken over my mind, my heart, and my body. I want her with every part of me.

She grinds her hips up against my hard-on.

Yeah, that part, too.
Especially
that part.

Another thrust of her hips, and that’s all the kissing foreplay I can handle. A profound need crashes into me. The need to touch her everywhere, to kiss every inch of her body, to know her. I move down the bed and dip my thumbs into the sides of her panties. At the same time, she lifts up her hips.

My breath catches as she does that. It’s such a small move in the scheme of things, but it tells me everything. She wants me to undress her as badly as I want to be the one to take off all her clothes.

My mind hooks on to something she said at the Italian restaurant, something she said she liked.
Seeing you undress for me.
Her voice plays in my head, and I hear those words in a new way. In a way that threads deeper into my heart, that means more than getting naked for someone. That means this is the person you want to strip bare for.

As I tug her panties to her knees, then her ankles, then off, I know with a bone-deep certainty that Harper is it for me. The road starts and ends here—with this magnificent beauty in a cape in my bed after midnight.

Kneeling at her feet, I slide off her shoes, circle my hands around her ankles, and gaze up at her face. Her lips are parted, and her blue eyes hold mine hostage.

“Hi, handsome,” she whispers.

“Hey, beautiful.”

Our voices sound different. She has to hear it, too. Has to feel it like I do. I bend to her calf and press a kiss there. When I raise my face, she gasps from that little touch.

“Harper,” I say, my voice raspy.

“Yeah?”

“Want to know something I’ve learned about what I like?” I ask, repeating the words she said to me that night.

“Tell me.”

“Seeing you undress for me.”

“Oh God,” she moans, and I spread her legs wide, part them in a
V
, and then I bury my face between her thighs.

There is nothing quite like that moan on the first lick.

Nothing
.

Her sounds fall on my ears like the most gorgeous song, and I love that she’s learned how awesome oral sex is, because I can’t resist licking her. I want to fuck her so badly, but this is my favorite thing in the world. Going down on my girl. Tasting her sweetness on my tongue, my lips, my face.

I love how slick she feels, and how much wetter she gets the faster I go. The more I flick my tongue across her flesh, the louder she moans, the wilder she writhes, until she thrashes under me. She doesn’t even like fingers—all she wants is tongue and lips. She becomes this desperate, frenzied woman, her hands clutching at my hair, her legs widening then wrapping around my head.

I look up at her, and she watches my eyes dance between her legs, and then I do the thing she loves most. I dip my hands under her ass, and cup those luscious cheeks as I kiss her like crazy.

Oh God.

Yes!

That.

Oh my fucking God.

I squeeze and knead her ass as I kiss her pussy, and she’s in paradise. I grab those cheeks harder, spreading them a little bit with my thumbs, and she bucks up into my mouth. I love her ass, and her ass loves me. We fit in every way, especially when she curls her hands tight around my head as if she’s never letting go, and rocks into my face until she loses control and comes undone on a scream.

I slow my moves, letting her savor the aftereffects. Wiping my hand across my mouth, I crawl up her body, so ready to feel her in a new way. Her cape is all twisted around her, the tie yanked to her shoulder now. I quickly untie it, freeing her.

“I thought about you all day today. All night. All day yesterday,” I whisper, as I rub the head of my dick against her slick heat.

“You have to know it’s the same for me,” she says, reaching for my hips, pulling me closer.

Electricity crackles down my body as I start to push in. I fight back the urge to tell her everything I feel. To let her know that this isn’t just my first time without a condom.

That it’s another first.

A bigger first. One that means so much more than the purity of pleasure. One that could tip over my future and turn it into a whole new color.

I ease into her.

“Harper,” I groan. “This is . . .”

Words fail me. There just aren’t any to convey how immense it feels to slide inside her. She wraps her legs around me, and, like that, I fill her completely. I brace myself above her as the sheer intensity of the pleasure ripples through me. I stare down at her face—her lips falling open, her blue eyes glossy as she looks into mine. God, this is almost too much. But I crave it like oxygen, this connection to her.

I thrust, and she rises up. I stroke into her, and she takes me deeper. We find a perfect rhythm, wrapped in silence for the first time. For two talkers, we’re speechless, and I can’t think of anything else to say. I can only feel. The heat of her body. The beating of her heart. The softness of her breath on my face as I lower to my forearms. She hooks her ankles tighter, and I pump harder, deeper.

She moves beneath me, our bodies like magnets seeking their opposites. “What are you doing to me?” I say on a thrust.

“The same thing you’re doing to me,” she says, running her fingernails up my back as she arches her hips.

“Tell me you feel it, too.” I grit my teeth because it’s so fucking good, and I’m so goddamn close, and no way am I firing early.

“Yes, God, yes,” she cries out, and that’s as much of a confirmation as I’m getting or seeking right now. She rocks up into me, hunting for more, and I give it to her. I give her everything she wants, taking her harder, because I want it, too. This deep connection. The physical that’s so much more. I wrap my arms around her, and she pulls me even closer. We’re chest to chest as my hands slide up into her hair.

“I don’t want it to end,” she moans.

“Oh God,” I say, as a wave of pleasure crashes into me. Her words. They wreck me. They ruin me. “Please come. Please fucking come now.”

I quicken the pace as desire assaults me. She clutches my shoulders then my face, running her hand over my beard as I fuck her and make love to her at the same damn time. She’s so free with me, such a crazed little sexy thing, needy and hungry, as I ride her to the edge.

She buries her face in my neck, kissing me all sloppy and messy as her breathing turns wild, then she calls my name. The sound of it on her lips sends a charge across my skin. She cries out under me until she’s boneless, senseless, and falling into me. That’s how she feels. At last, I’m free to chase her there, and it’s such a relief as my orgasm pulses through me, rippling in waves, gripping me as my shoulders shake, and my whole body jerks.

I groan, still high on her, breathing out hard. Another exhale, as I start to come down.

“I don’t want this to end, either,” I say, and my mouth claims hers. If I don’t kiss her, I’ll tell her, and now’s not the time. She made that clear a few weeks ago, and I love her quirks. I swallow all the words with my lips on hers, but the whole time, they play in my head.

I’m so fucking in love with her, I can’t stand the thought of this ending.

A few minutes later, I roll out of bed, and head to the bathroom to clean up. Grabbing a washcloth, I wet an end with warm water and return to her, all stretched out and sleepy-beautiful on my bed. Gently, I clean her, and she shoots me a sweet smile.

“Thank you,” she murmurs and rolls to her side. I toss the washcloth in the hamper, slide into bed with her and pull up the covers. She’s spending the night with me for the first time, and I hope it will be the first of many. I loop my arms around her and bring her close.

“I have nothing left to teach you,” I say softly. “Maybe we’re done with the teaching and it can just be us?”

She murmurs something that sounds like yes, then in seconds she’s asleep.

I kiss her hair, run my fingers through it, knowing that tomorrow we can figure out what this means exactly. I can say the words in daylight, since I know that’s how she wants it.

When I tell Harper, there needs to be no question about it for her. Harper knows I love sleeping with her. Harper knows she turns me on like crazy. I can’t risk her thinking it’s the endorphins steering the ship. The words I want to say need the weight of the sun behind them, not the wispy dark of moonlight.

Tomorrow, I’ll tell her everything, and I’ll have to tell her brother, too, that I’ve fallen wildly, madly, relentlessly in love with my best friend’s sister, and I can’t imagine living without her.

As her breath ghosts over my arm in a steady, even pace, I practice. Kissing her hair, I whisper, “I love you, Harper Holiday.”