Secrets to Hide 2: Naughty Little Christmas (3 page)

Holding out a hand, Harley waited. Remembering his refusal to shake with her earlier, Damien reached out, knowing it was a mistake, knowing he should avoid touching her at all costs, and grasped her slender hand in his. The power of the contact shocked him—and her, if the gasp that escaped was anything to go by. For a single moment, their eyes met, and he saw his own overpowering attraction reflected back at him. Then Harley blinked and the moment was gone.

“Good night, Damien. I’ll see you Monday morning—without the purple hair.”

Chapter Two

“He agreed to a trial run,” Harley said.

Cassie nodded, whether in approval or encouragement to keep talking, Harley couldn’t tell. Her friend kept her eyes on the sleeping baby in her arms, swaying lightly back and forth in a graceful rhythm she’d had to teach Harley after Klio was born. God, she’d been clueless then.

Cassie had been a godsend from the moment they met in a local bookstore’s parenting aisle. She’d taught Harley to change diapers and combat colic, how to get Klio to sleep and eat and poop when necessary. She’d babysat when the details of Sonny’s funeral had overwhelmed Harley, had kept Klio tucked away from the chaos even when she didn’t agree. And now she was signing on full-time as Klio’s nanny so that Harley could work with Damien. Harley could never repay her.

“I start Monday, but it will probably be irregular hours for a bit. Will it be possible for you to keep a schedule like that?”

Cassie raised her big brown eyes, seeming to sense Harley’s need for reassurance. As much as she’d disapproved of this plan from the beginning, she never left Harley hanging. “Don’t worry about the hours. You know I’d do anything for you and Klio,” Cassie said, her smile as soft as her voice.

“I do know.” Cassie had proved those words over and over.

Glancing down, Harley took in the picture her adopted daughter made in Cassie’s arms. Three months old. Three months since Sonny abandoned the baby in the hospital. Three months since Harley had gathered the tiny girl with the tuft of dark, downy hair into her arms and taken her home. A month later, Sonny was dead, and Harley and Klio were on their own. As she watched the baby’s bow-shaped lips suckling an imaginary bottle, the similarities between Klio and the man Harley met tonight struck her broadside.

“So what was he like?” Cassie asked.

Shifting her purse higher on her shoulder, Harley tried to give herself time to think. “A real dickhead at first.” She snorted at the memory of the way she’d shaken in her high-heeled boots those first few moments after meeting him. “But I wore him down.”

Cassie laughed quietly. “I had no doubt you would.” She traced a finger along the sweet curve of Klio’s pudgy cheek. The baby would be almost four months old, holding her head up and maybe even rolling over for her first Christmas and, really, Harley’s too. It wasn’t like anyone had celebrated holidays when she was growing up.

Cassie’s voice brought her back to the present. “So…father material or not?”

Harley thought about her answer as she watched Cassie sway, the movement hypnotic, enticing her to spill all her secrets, even the ones that disturbed her too much to reveal. Like the fact that whether Damien Adams was appropriate father material had been superseded by the fact that he was the most attractive man she’d ever laid eyes on, and she had the inappropriate desire to take him to bed. Inappropriate because, a year ago, he’d been her twin’s one-night stand.

And he was Klio’s dad.

“I don’t know,” she told Cassie honestly. She wanted to say so much more, to talk out the conflicting emotions surging inside her, but she was too used to keeping it all in and really, in this instance, that was probably for the best. Instead she eased Klio into her arms, checking that the baby was warmly bundled, cooing as Klio stirred. “Time for bed, little one.”

Klio settled back into sleep. When Harley looked up, her gaze met Cassie’s. The knowing look she found there made her squirm, but Cassie didn’t question her further. “Time for all of us to be in bed. Get some rest tomorrow. Text and let me know what time you’ll drop Squirt off Monday morning.”

Harley smiled gratefully. “I will. Thanks.”

“Anytime,” Cassie said. She scooped Klio’s diaper bag up on their way to the door and stowed it in the car while Harley buckled the baby in. Harley and Klio were on their way home in minutes.

Winter in Atlanta had been fairly mild this year. Still Harley welcomed the lack of traffic at four a.m. as she navigated the wet, darkened streets home. She kept the radio off, avoiding the repetition of the same five Christmas songs every station played. Instead she allowed Cassie’s question to return in the quiet, allowed herself to wrestle with her answer. Would she approach Damien about the baby? Much as she wanted Klio to have more than just a mommy, the certainty of what was best for her baby eluded her.

Damien didn’t know it, but he’d done himself no favors, professionally or personally, when he displayed such a sexist attitude toward her at first. It bothered her, but then he’d done a one-eighty later. People made mistakes; maybe this was his. Maybe he’d had a bad day and her interruption was the last straw. Maybe he only liked women for one-night stands but not for business. She didn’t know. Giving him the benefit of the doubt seemed the wisest course right now, but she wouldn’t risk him finding out about Klio until she felt certain of the man. They’d faced enough shit in their life; no way would she add a shitty dad to the mix. Better for Klio to have no dad and a mother who loved her unconditionally.

She glanced in the rearview mirror, meeting her own eyes but seeing Sonny’s. Her identical twin was gone. Harley still struggled to believe it. That Damien hadn’t felt even a glimmer of recognition just emphasized the fact that Sonny was no longer a part of her. Though her twin had preferred the party life to responsibility and maturity, she’d been Harley’s only connection to family. Sonny’s death untethered Harley in a way she hadn’t quite experienced before—and piled a hell of a lot of responsibility on her shoulders. She was building a new family, a new life. Her little girl depended on her. Harley was determined not to let Klio down.

And that led her right back to Damien Adams. When she adopted Klio, she hadn’t known the father’s identity and hadn’t cared. Sonny never mentioned him. Harley assumed her twin didn’t know who Klio’s father was, but after Sonny’s death she’d found a diary and, in its final pages, the name of the man Sonny had slept with. A typical hookup. Neither had been looking for more, and Harley didn’t blame Damien for that. He was an adult; if he wanted to sleep with a woman, he didn’t have to justify it. But his DNA might give him rights to Klio that would override Harley’s adoption.

She couldn’t risk it. He would never find out about Klio unless Harley deemed him worthy, and what better way to find out the kind of man he was than to work with him day in and day out? Very few people could hide the truth of who they were in a situation like that, not for long. Harley would learn what she needed to, and she would act accordingly.

Minutes later she pulled into the driveway of her two-bedroom bungalow. Twinkling white lights outlined the small porch and the two small windows on either side of the front door. Harley had always loved lights at Christmas. As a teenager she’d bought herself a tiny fake tree with a short string of lights and kept the thing next to her bed every night of December. She would fall asleep watching the reflection of the lights in the small, shiny balls decorating the tree, wondering when she’d have a real tree and a real family to go with it. Now she did. She had Klio, and looking into her daughter’s sleeping face warmed her in a way she’d never thought possible.

Harley kept the lights off in the living room, including the ones on the Christmas tree already gracing one corner. She made her way to the nursery in the darkness and settled Klio in her crib. The baby tucked tiny fingers between her lips, made a halfhearted sucking motion, and was out once more.

Harley sighed at the picture the baby made, so content. Safe. Warm. Tears pricked her eyes. How could Sonny leave such a precious gift behind? And for what? An elusive high? A quick fix? Harley couldn’t wrap her mind around her twin’s callousness. Klio would never know treatment like that, not with Harley around. She was a good mother. She just prayed if Damien ever found out about his daughter, that he would be a good father as well.

“Good night, little one,” she whispered before sneaking out of the nursery.

In her own room Harley stripped, sighing in relief as her body was freed from the strict confines of her clothes. She stepped into the bathroom and set the baby monitor on the counter, then turned on the water. When steam filled the air, she climbed under the spray.

A groan broke through, deep and heartfelt. The heat struck her aching body with force, digging into the muscles, cleansing away the grit of the day. She poured shampoo into her hand and lathered her hair, mimicking the water’s massage with her fingertips. As she cleaned, her mind whirled, refusing to give in to the fatigue that swamped her muscles. Scenes from tonight played through her mind, of watching Damien taking care of his business, his employees. She knew from a few mentions in the local society pages that he went through women like tissues, but his other clubs thrived just as much as Thrice. His life seemed so full.

And hers seemed so empty.

That was why she’d been determined to keep Klio. Harley hadn’t been able to save anyone else. Her entire fucked-up family, gone to the consequences of their own actions—her mother to the search for fame, her father to a broken heart drowned in alcohol, Sonny to drugs. In her head she knew their choices had nothing to do with her, but in moments like this, when the silence rang in her ears and the meaning she sought remained hidden, she couldn’t help wondering what was wrong with her that the people who were supposed to love her had instead run far and fast. She wouldn’t abandon Klio that way. The child she’d cuddled in her arms would never wonder why no one loved her.

But sometimes, even knowing Klio was safe wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough to fill the emptiness inside her.

Damien’s face flashed across the screen of her closed eyelids. The man was beautiful and so alive. His eyes, a rich, dark brown, pierced to the depths of her soul. He’d walked across the club, those eyes fixed on her, and he’d become a predator staring down his prey. Ready to devour her. She remembered the way attraction had arced between them as their hands met, the memory heating her body with embarrassing swiftness. She wanted to feel like that again, wanted to feel like the center of someone’s universe, the sole focus of one man, one time. It was wrong, she knew, but she couldn’t stop.

Turning to face the spray, she closed her eyes and let the water pour over her head, let it curl her into a private cocoon of unreality. She centered on that feeling, on the electric need that had bitten deep at his touch, and her blood began to sizzle. She ran slick hands down her belly, her thighs, and back up until she cupped the weight of her breasts, pushing them into the water, offering them up as a sacrifice to the god of sensation. Pleasure centered in her nipples, bright sparks that zinged from breasts to clit, forcing a gasp from Harley’s lips. She wished a quick, mindless fix would do, but Damien was too potent, too raw. He made her hunger in a way no other man ever had. Her brain and body refused the easy out. They wanted to savor, to relish, behind her closed eyelids if not in the flesh.

With a frustrated shake of her head, she turned the water off and stepped from the shower, grabbed a towel with trembling hands, and dried fast, choking at the rasp of terry cloth against distended nipples. Unbidden, an image of Damien’s lips filled her mind, so full, so sensuous. Those lips promised pleasure, and somehow she didn’t think they lied. She imagined those lips tucking around the sensitive tip of her breast, those big hands of Damien’s cupping its weight, then the suction she knew instinctively would be destructive to any woman’s senses. A moan escaped. This was dangerous. It would just make the emptiness worse, but she couldn’t resist the phantom sensations of lips and teeth, pinching and tugging, sending a lightning storm of pleasure to the pit of her stomach and beyond.

Dropping the wet towel on her way, she walked into the bedroom. At the nightstand she opened the drawer and pulled out her vibrator. Only a heavy orgasm would push her into oblivion, not some light fingering release. She needed Damien. She needed to stop this hunger before it took a firm hold on her. The two desires warred in her head and in her body, driving her to desperation. Zings of sensation rolled through her, and she looked down, only to realize her fingers were gripping the taut tip of one breast, her breath panting with every squeeze of her nipple. She couldn’t wait.

Not even bothering to lie down, she crawled onto the bed on hands and knees, positioned the thick vibrator at her core, and thrust in hard.

“Unnhh.”

A twinge of pain added spice to the pleasure as she fucked herself. Her cheek met the soft slickness of the comforter, her back bowed, and as she pistoned the toy in and out, the pad of her hand struck her clit. Harley imagined it was Damien, imagined his cock inside her, his thumb on that most sensitive spot, his teeth digging into the engorged tip of her breast instead of her own fingers and nails. Rasping breaths and wet, sloppy smacks filled the air, mingling with Harley’s desperate cries. She needed. She wanted. She hungered.

“Not for him,” she whispered, her body seizing in prelude as the vibrator’s soft tip struck her cervix. “Not for him. No!”

The final word was a quiet wail as climax hit. Muscles locked, teeth clenched in refusal to utter another sound, she rode the wave, and if tears prickled behind her eyes, she told herself it was the intensity of the orgasm, not the fact that she was alone, no Damien to soothe her, when the rush faded away.

She lay for a moment, facedown on the bed, eyes closed, waiting for the world to return to normal. When her muscles firmed enough to stand, she returned to the bathroom and switched the vibrator for the baby monitor, which she plugged in on the nightstand next to the small, unlit Christmas tree. Naked, she collapsed into bed. The room’s silence wrapped her in its smothering arms, tighter and tighter, threatening to choke her very soul. She more plummeted into sleep than eased, and as she fell, her last thought centered on Damien, and she wondered if he too was alone in the darkness.