Secrets to Hide 2: Naughty Little Christmas (25 page)

When her thighs tightened and Harley knew she couldn’t wait a moment longer, she ditched the shirt and reached for Damien. His cheeks were hollowed with the suction he applied, bristly with the evening growth of his beard. She cupped them, pulled, raising his gaze to hers. “I need you. Now. Don’t make me go alone.”

Damien nodded, eyes unreadable. He fished his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans, withdrew a condom, then lowered his zipper. Harley nabbed the condom before he could open it. “Your shirt,” she said, wanting to see him, needing him as bare to her as she was to him. By the time his shirt was off, she had his jeans around his thighs and that beautiful hard cock in her hands. She stroked, admiring the bulging flesh, the angry red cap that wept at her touch. Damien moaned at the circling of her fingertips in the clear drops of precum, and Harley smiled, but only when he was pumping into her hand the way she’d pumped against him did she rip open the condom packet and sheath all that hard masculine flesh.

“Ready?” he asked roughly. He didn’t wait for her nod. His tip met her wetness, slid up, then down, and the next second he was in to the hilt. Harley bowed backward at the intense pressure, body frantically pulsing with the need to adjust, and Damien took advantage of the position to suck a still-taut nipple deep into his mouth and draw hard on the sensitive bud. Harley screamed behind closed lips, conscious only of the shattering pleasure and Klio’s sleeping presence down the hall. Damien eased the concern when his lips met hers in a thorough kiss as he began a rough pound and grind between her open legs.

Harley met him thrust for thrust, not knowing how it was possible but needing him even deeper. She sucked his tongue and grabbed his ass in both hands, pulling as he pushed, until Damien hit so deep inside her it hurt—and she crashed over the pinnacle once more.

Damien rode her through every spasm, every contraction, then pinched her nipples to induce more. When she sagged, wrung out, he thrust once, again, and the strain of orgasm shook his body. His weight fell on top of her, and she welcomed it, welcomed the affirmation that he was still with her even after the sweetest of pleasures had passed. When he scooped his hands under her and lifted her even closer against him, it felt like the rightest thing in the world.

Long minutes passed like that, their sweaty bodies glued together, before Damien stirred. His lips tickled her ear as he whispered, the words slow, hesitant, “What now?”

Her heart skipped a beat until it recognized the lack of anger. He sounded as uncertain, as worried as she was. So she lifted her hands and dug into his hair, holding him as fiercely as he held her. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I know we can figure it out. I want to. Do you?”

“I do.”

No prevaricating. No blame. With two simple words, the rails of their relationship were straightened back into place. They might not know where they went or what the scenery looked like, but they’d find out. Together. As Damien lifted her completely in his arms, his sex still hard within hers, and walked toward her bedroom, Harley buried her face in the crook of his neck to hide the hot wash of tears she couldn’t hold back.

* * * *

She’d been quiet since they had sex. Very quiet. Damien couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he knew something wasn’t right—something more than the tears she’d cried that night. He’d felt them on his skin, in the shaking of her body as he’d carried her to bed and then snuggled in beside her, but he hadn’t trusted himself to speak. Words had caused them a whole helluva lot of pain. Best to just leave them out of this and speak with his body. She couldn’t have missed the pleasure she’d given him.

But now, he didn’t have a choice; he had to use words. As he watched Harley cuddle Klio in the rocking chair and feed her a morning bottle, he knew he couldn’t wait any longer. So he finally spoke.

“My family is coming today.”

Harley turned the shade of the milk she was giving Klio. “What?”

He grimaced. “I called them yesterday while you were at Thrice. They want to meet her.”

“Today?”

Much as he still had the instinct to loom over her, assert his dominance, he knelt at her feet instead and laid a calming hand on her knee, rubbing gently. “It’s okay. They aren’t ogres, ya know. They won’t bite.”

“You, maybe,” Harley grumbled, but he could hear the worry under the words. “Do they… Are they aware of what happened, with Klio and…?”

“They know Sonny is her birth mother, that she died, and that you have custody of Klio.” The basics. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt anyone, himself included. If his mother learned about how he’d treated Harley… He shuddered.

Harley was quiet for a very long time, until Klio’s bottle was empty and the baby was on Harley’s shoulder, burping. Damien waited, rubbing the muscles in her leg as they went from tense to trembling to completely rigid.

“Do they know about…us?”

Her last word was barely a whisper, and he finally understood the tension. It would take a lot of courage to ask if there even was an “us” after the way he’d answered her last time. He rewarded her with a soft brush of a kiss across her lips. “No.”

Harley squeezed her eyes shut, and he realized how that must’ve come across. Shit, he sucked at this. Guess now it was time for him to find his courage, wasn’t it? “Not because there isn’t an ‘us.’ Because there is.” At Harley’s lack of response, his heart sped to double time. “Isn’t there?”

Even if she denied it, he knew the truth. But Harley had apparently learned something in the past few days as well, because she nodded. “Yes,” she said, voice still low, but pleasure glittered like diamonds in the word.

“Yes.” This time his kiss was harder, hungrier. When Klio squirmed, he pulled back. “I just didn’t want you to have that added pressure. My family can be…overwhelming, to say the least, for sheer volume if nothing else.” And they were all coming, his mother had assured him. Every last one of them, including his brothers and their usual asinine comments, no doubt. He’d definitely spare Harley that if he could.

“So it’s not because…you’re ashamed of me?”

“God, no!” Lifting Klio, he took a moment to spread a blanket on the floor before laying her on it. Her jungle gym caught her attention as soon as he settled it over her. He returned to Harley, pushing his way between her knees to rest hard against her, needing her touch, her presence while he said what needed to be said. She opened to him without hesitation, the action soothing him like warm milk on a sleepless night.

“Look, Harley.” He cupped her cheek, refusing to let her look away. “We have things we need to get past. I know that; you know it. But…”
Don’t say it; don’t say it! It’s too soon
. “But there’s been something between us from the beginning, and I don’t think it was Klio. Do you?”

Harley shook her head, causing the tuft of her hair sticking up from the clasp at the back of her head to bob. She’d put it up because he’d tangled it last night, running his fingers through it, gripping it in his fists, using it as a handhold to direct her where he wanted her. She hadn’t protested, hadn’t complained when the brush refused to glide through the sex snarls this morning. She’d just wrangled it up at the back of her head and gone to fix Klio’s bottle, her skin still glowing with the aftermath of their lovemaking—and lovemaking it was, not sex. Sex was what he’d had with Sonny, an overnight encounter easily fallen into and just as easily forgotten. What he and Harley experienced every time he touched her was something far different. He’d never have released his anger over Klio without it.

The thought surprised him. Since he’d seen Harley in the shower Thursday night and had the laughing fit to end all laughing fits, he’d felt lighter, happier. He’d chalked it up to a release of tension, especially after the night that followed. But not anymore. It was the aftereffect of letting go of all that anger. People made mistakes; if he could forgive his own, then he needed to look deeper into Harley’s motives and forgive hers too. He’d done that—and it felt damn good.

So did she.

Unfortunately Klio chose that moment to make her presence known. “Duty calls,” he said, a little disappointed.

“Damien…” Ignoring the crying baby, Harley clutched his hands where they still cupped her cheeks. “I—”

But that was all she managed to say. He waited, watched, even rubbed her trembling lips with his thumb, but nothing else came out.

Klio’s cry became a wail, and Harley released him with a sad little smile. He wished he understood it, wished he could get below her skin and figure out what was going on. Those hidden depths had always seemed like a secretive den full of booby traps waiting to snare him. Now they just seemed like treasures hidden away, waiting for the right person to understand the combination and unlock the door. Harley was afraid of being hurt; with her past, that made sense. But he couldn’t ease the fear if he couldn’t get inside.

He was changing Klio when he heard Harley stir, felt her come up behind him. Peeking around his shoulder, she laid a hand on Klio’s head. “You know, Damien, family isn’t my strong suit.”

Watching her with the baby, he’d have to disagree. Her family probably had more to do with their relationship falling apart than she did. Far more. “My family is going to love you,” he told her. Harley glanced up, and his breath caught.
Maybe even as much as I do
. But the words stuck in his throat, far too big, far too earth-shattering for him to force out. Not yet.

By that afternoon, he thought Harley would explode into a million pieces. Her nerves were so bad she was practically cowering. She wouldn’t let him hold Klio, just hung on to the baby like a lifeline and paced around the living room. He knew he would have to do something before his family arrived; at this rate he’d say the wrong thing, and he and Harley would be back to square one before he could even get his folks in the door.

Resolved to take one for the team, so to speak—although he couldn’t hold back a grin at the thought—he blocked Harley’s well-worn path through the carpet and held out his hands. “Nap time.”

Harley balked. “She can stay up just this once.”

He was already shaking his head before she’d finished the sentence. “No, she can’t. There’ll be a lot of excitement around here tonight. She needs to rest.”
And you need release. Desperately.

Tears began to shimmer in Harley’s green eyes, but Damien hardened his heart. He knew this was best—and Harley would too once his family got here. He simply waited until, with great reluctance, Harley passed the baby to him. He turned, heading for the hall and Klio’s room, but threw over his shoulder, “Why don’t you soak in a warm tub while I get our girl into bed?”

He didn’t turn to see if she took him up on his suggestion. If she didn’t now, she would when he insisted, after Klio was down for her nap. Which took far less time than it normally did. Klio was already mouthing her fingers and closing her eyes as he gently settled her into her crib a few short minutes later. Maybe the excitement—and tension—had worn her out as well. With the side of the crib raised and Klio tucked in securely beneath her favorite quilt, he turned off the light and cracked her door before squaring his shoulders and stalking his way toward Harley’s room.

Fantasies from the past two days teased him as he registered the sound of running water. He closed his eyes, let them fill him, knowing this was going to be fast and furious. His family was due in an hour, not long before Harley had to leave for her shift at Thrice, but that was plenty enough time to set loose all those stress-reducing endorphins and get his lover ready for the big reveal, so to speak. He stripped, palming the heavy length of his dick, then opened the partially cracked bathroom door and walked in.

Harley sat on the edge of the bathtub, bent over the running faucet, the beautiful curve of her spine arched to perfection. At the sound of the door opening, she glanced over her shoulder, but no surprise or outrage showed. Instead, anticipation glimmered in her gaze.
Smart girl.

“Are you here to do something about that?” she asked, nodding toward his erect shaft.

“Sort of.” He grabbed the stool she kept for reaching the top shelves in her walk-in closet and settled it near the faucet end of the tub. “Hop in.”

She raised a brow as, with seductive grace, she complied. “You aren’t going to join me?”

This time he chuckled. “Sort of.”

He settled on the stool, his body facing the foot of the tub where Harley now lay, half-submerged in the steaming water continuing to rush from the spout. Her breasts, still swollen, tips still a deeper pink than normal from his attentions the night before, bobbed on the swell of the water. Harley tipped her head back against the rim, a soft sigh escaping. The most beautiful sight he’d ever seen except for his daughter smiling up at him. Exquisite.

“Feel good?” he asked.

Harley nodded, eyes closed.

“Good. Now touch your breasts.”

Harley’s eyelids shot up. She stared in shock, her mouth opening as if to respond, but no words came out. He slid his palm roughly up his length, gave her a stern look, and said, “Now.”

Then she smiled. The sight took his breath away. “Yes, sir.”

Harley glided her hands up out of the water and across her belly. She grasped the full globes of her breasts and squeezed. His dick jumped.

Yeah, this was going to be quick.

“Touch yourself.”

Harley gasped when he squeezed the head of his shaft, already an angry red. Precum dripped onto his hand.

“I want you in my mouth,” she said on a moan. One set of fingers pinched and pulled a taut nipple. The other set was below the water, but he could see from the flexing of the muscles along her arm that she was circling something. When she arched, legs spread, he guessed it was her clit.

“Uh-uh. This is just to take the edge off,” he told her. “Tonight you can nurse me until I shoot, if that’s what you want, but right now I wanna see you go off.”

And she did. God, she was easy. The sight of her head thrown back, cries echoing around the room as her breasts bobbed and the muscles of her stomach rippled with contractions was more than he could take. He squeezed hard as he dragged his palm upward, and when he hit the end, cum shot from his dick. He groaned deep in his throat at the release. “That’s it, baby. Gimme more.”