Of Happiness (16 page)

On my bare waist, his hands feel like they set my skin on fire. I slide my own hands inside his jacket to his broad shoulders. I push the tailored garment off, it pools around his feet, so I move to pick it up. His fingers dig into me slightly, silently instructing me to leave his clothing where it lays. 

Still without words, he continues his sensual assault. His hands leave my hips and move to my hair. One by one he plucks the pins from my scalp. Once my hair has fallen, he carefully arranges the tresses around my shoulders.

Finally he speaks.

“This hair is meant to be spilled across my pillow,” he murmurs huskily.

“Yes,” I throatily agree.

Hastily, I begin to release his shirt buttons, eager to feel his skin on mine.

“Slowly, baby,” he instructs. “I don’t want to rush.”

Crouching slightly, he palms my ass, urging me into his arms. My legs find their way around his waist, losing shoes in the process. Then he’s carrying me, shirt halfway open, into the bedroom.

He sets me on the edge of the bed, but stays so close that the leg of his pants brushes against my knees. Then he finishes the job himself, letting his shirt fall to the floor.

I lift my hands to his belt buckle and unfasten the leather, pulling it from his waist and tossing it next to his forgotten shirt. When I raise my hands back to completely undress him, I find that’s he’s already halfway done. He pushes the remaining clothing and shoes, standing before me completely bare.  

Unconsciously, I drag my tongue across my dry lips.

“Like what you see?”

“You know I do.” I’m just as confident. 

His grin quickly falls away when I drag my nails along his outer thighs, drawing dangerously close to his throbbing sex.

“Tonight is all about you, baby,” he says, taking my hands and returning them to my sides.

“But—”

“You,” he demands as he places his hands on my sides and guides me backward toward the middle of the bed. I ease my bodyweight back on my forearms. One of his legs parts mine, resting between them. From this position, his stark erection presses into my thigh and I nearly moan with desperation.

He nuzzles my throat, lips ghosting across my exposed neck. I drop my head backward, allowing him greater access to my taut skin. His fingers flirt with my inner thigh, then skim up my side. Lazily, his pointer finger drifts in circles around my navel. My back arches, body begging for more. He heeds my silent pleas, brushing his hand along my back until he reaches the clasp of my bra. With one hand, he deftly unhooks the strapless garment and moves it out of the way.

Harris shifts his body, so he’s on top of me, balancing his weight on his forearms.  I lay back flat completely, though my hands reach up to stroke his broad chest.

The temperature of the moment is discernibly different from other times that we’ve been together. Everything, down to the sweep of skin on skin, and our eye contact now is more intimate than ever before. The weight of barriers between us, secrets, silent confessions, disintegrate.

He captures a nipple in his lips, gently tugging at the hard nub with his teeth. I can’t contain my groan of pleasure. My hands fly up to the short hairs on his scalp to urge him closer. His free hand reaches up to play with my other exposed nipple, twisting and teasing it between his fingers.

A heated sigh escapes my lips. “Harris.”

Our eyes connect. Emotion radiates in his gaze. I can see his lust, but also a tenderness.

“Kiss me,” I plead.

Instantly, he devours my lips, his tongue expertly exploring my mouth. My hands twine around his back, then pull as close as our bodies can get. He pulls back slightly, removing his tongue from my lips. But he doesn’t end our kiss, just continues with intense closed-lip kisses. I can feel him smiling against my mouth as he presses kiss after kiss to my lips.

“What’s that smile about?” I ask, tilting my head to stop the contact.

He angles his face, so it matches mine and droops his head down, so our lips brush against each other when he speaks. “I’m just so happy,” he whispers the words I used with him once before.

“Me too,” I breathe back.

I release my clutch on his back when he drifts downward, kissing and caressing my body into a feverish jumble of tingling arousal. At my hips, he hooks his thumbs into the waist of my panties, dragging them down my legs at a tortuous pace.

Harris’ fingers circle my ankles, then he pushes my legs, so that they’re bent at the knee, my feet flat on the mattress. With his shoulders, he spreads my legs wide enough apart that he can fit between them.

“Give me what I want, baby,” he says. Instinctively I know he means to drape my legs over his shoulders, and he lowers himself into the apex of my thighs. Gently he nibbles at the sensitive skin, causing me to squirm in excitement.

Like a whisper, his tongue flickers across my tender skin and I hiss my pleasure. My hands fist the sheets as I writhe underneath his touch. Harris worships my body with an unspoken reverence.

The teasing strokes send me drifting closer and closer to the edge of pleasure. He flicks his tongue back and forth, toying with me until he hits just the right spot and I’m soaring through the air, consumed by pleasure.

I don’t realize he’s leaning over me, watching me intently until I fight to control my panting breaths and steady my stuttering heart many moments later.

“You take my breath away.” His intense eyes shine with desire.

His hot hands find my hips, repositioning me closer. He then braces his hands on either side of my head, our eyes meeting in another intensely intimate moment. With unhurried movements, he glides himself inside me. I lift my legs to wrap them around his lower back, encouraging him to thrust harder, deeper, faster. At first, his movements remain slow and controlled. And I’m whimpering, begging for more.

“Harris,” I groan as my sex clenches the length of his arousal, gaining momentum toward another orgasm.

Steel-gray eyes melt into silver as he loses himself in the moment, just as I had. He pumps relentlessly, groaning my name as the walls of my core contract again.

He reaches down to collect my body, pressing my breasts into this chest. My arms find their way around his back and I cling to him like he’s the only real thing in this world. The room shrinks, the pleasure, the sacredness of this coupling overwhelming my senses.

Controlled Harris from earlier has left. The man clutching my body to his is feverish with passion.

Then I’m crying out his name again, unable to contain the climax.

“Edith.” He exhales my name heavily. Then he squeezes me together as he reaches his own orgasm. It’s powerful, ripping through him so vibrantly that it’s almost as if I’m experiencing his pleasure, too. I’m left gasping for breath, staring deeply into the depths of his gray eyes when he lies me flat on the mattress.

Our silent exchange is pregnant with emotion, an unspoken vow.

When he’s calmed, Harris rains random kisses along my hairline, my cheek, neck. Gently, he extracts himself, wiggling down to my waist until he can rest his cheek to my stomach.

We relax in silence, both panting with exertion.

Tell him.

I can feel my pulse slowing, my body melting into the comforter beneath us. My eyes start to flicker shut, my earlier resolve to confess my feelings for Harris nearly forgotten when he props his chin on my stomach and meets my gaze.

Tell him.

“Hi.” I smile softly as I look down at him.

“Hi.” He drops a kiss to the spot right above my navel.

“Harris.” Where did that knot in my throat come from? My voice sounds thick, garbled. The short hairs on his scalp prickle my fingers when I run my hands through them tenderly. “Why did you go to all this trouble for one night?”

His brow furrows. “I thought the signals were sufficiently uncrossed by now.”

“They are. This whole trip, all the planning that went into it, it’s the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me and, I guess, I want to know why you called Greg and my dad and—”

“Edith, don’t you know?”

He lifts his body up, moving so he completely covers me like a human blanket. Harris’ hands cradle my cheeks and he meets my eyes with a penetrating, soul searching gaze. “I love you,” he murmurs huskily, “and I would do whatever it takes to put a smile on your face, ease pain in your heart, make you mine forever.”

My lips part in surprise. The words literally take my breath away as I stare at him in shock. It’s not that I thought he’d be unwilling to make this type of confession, but I did imagine I would be the first to reveal the depth of my emotions because of his past skittishness.

“I love you so much that I’m willing to wait however long it takes for you to feel the same way. Edith, my darling Edith…”

“I am yours and you are mine,” I confirm, “because I love you too. I’m endlessly, inexplicably, wildly, mind-numbingly in love with you, Harris Grant. “

His lips curl upward, mine follow, and then we’re smiling shyly at each other. I don’t think I could stamp mine down for anything.

“Why did we wait so long to say this?” I wonder aloud.

“There were some obstacles to overcome first,” he reminds me, serious again.

“There were,” I agree, “but we’ve overcome them. Together.”

“We’re one,” he whispers against my skin.

T
he next morning a jangling cell phone wakes Harris and me from where we cuddle close in the bed. He spoons me from behind, his left leg pushed between mine.

“I purposely didn’t set an alarm. Let it go,” he says sleepily against my ear.

“It’s probably Sarah.”

He sighs, and then flicks his tongue against the shell of my ear. In retaliation, I wiggle my ass against his morning arousal.

“Don’t start something you can’t stop.”

Giggling, I push my way out of his arms and cross the bedroom to retrieve my purse from the living room floor where I must have dropped it last night. Sure enough, it’s Sarah who called thirty seconds ago and who lights up the phone in my hand at this very moment.

“Good morning, bride,” I answer.

“I don’t want to waste any time talking on the phone when we could be talking in person. Light Lounge in thirty?”

“My, my, the newly engaged lady is feeling very Type A this morning.”

“Thirty minutes, Eddie! There’s too much on our agenda to linger.”

Laughing, I agree to meet her and hurry back through the bedroom and into the bathroom. I reach inside and turn on the shower.

“What’s the rush?” Harris asks from where he stands filling up the bathroom door with his massive body. He props a shoulder on the doorframe watching me scurry around.

“Sarah wants to meet in thirty minutes and I wasn’t sure what time we’re leaving. I don’t want to waste too much time.”

“Flight’s at one. I’ll have Patrick pick you up. Where are you meeting Sarah?”

“A coffee shop not too far from here. I can just take a cab, Harris. Don’t bother Patrick.” I slip into the shower and begin the hurried tasks of washing my hair and body.

Harris lets out a very ungentlemanly snort. “Right. You’ll take a cab. Where are you going?”

From behind the glass door of the shower I make a face at him. “You’re being overbearing.”

“You’re forgetting about my control issues.” All it takes is a raised eyebrow and a slightly self-deprecating grin from him and I relent.

“Light Lounge in Dupont Circle,” I say, knowing it’ll be a losing battle to fight with him.

Abruptly he turns from the doorway and I finish my shower. A few frenzied minutes later and I’m dressed in a pair of denim shorts and a billowy tank. I’ve done my wet hair braid routine and rubbed moisturizer on my cheeks.

“No makeup, please,” Harris demands from behind me. He slides an arm around my waist, hugging me backward. “I love you without it.” I careen my head backward to grin toothily up at him.

“Okay.”

“Patrick’s waiting. I’ll be here working, but if you need me for any reason, call me.” By the way his eyes tighten, I know he’s referring to Jared. But my spoiled ex-boyfriend never liked the funky coffee shop that Sarah and I frequent. There’s not much concern that I’ll running into him there.

“I will,” I reassure him.

“And Patrick will bring you back, no cabs.” His eyes meet mine, and in them I see genuine unease.

The fight in me fades away. “Yes.” Turning fully to face him, I rise up on the balls of my feet and give him a lingering kiss. “I’ll be back soon.”

“And I’ll be waiting.”

I’m slipping out of his embrace when he yanks me back, encircling my waist with his arms.

“You forgot something.”

“I did?”

He sweeps me off my feet, so we’re up close, face to face. “Tell me.”

Slowly I smile, realizing what he wants. “I love you.”

“And I love you, Edith Neff.”

Then he sets me back on me feet and I’m on my way, surely with a spotlight of happiness lighting each step I take.