Page 47

Harper gasped, but I didn’t let her go. Neither of us moved except to breathe into the darkness. Only two things could happen from here: we could break apart, search for phone lights, flashlights, and candles, or…

Or.

My head tipped forward. I didn’t need sight to see her. I could smell her lavender scent get stronger, feel the rush of her choppy breaths land on my face.

“Tell me what you want, Harper,” I begged roughly; it was as close as I could get to admitting that it was what I wanted, too.

“I want you to kiss me,” she said the words in the dark where no one could see. Where no one else would know. Where there was nothing to stop me.

I crushed my lips to hers, kissing her like I was part of the darkness. Like I could swallow her whole.

Her mouth opened for me, warm and sweet and delectable just like her damn honey. I groaned into the hot heaven of her mouth. I knew this was how she would taste. I’d known it for more than a year now. I licked and tasted every inch—every corner of her like I’d starve without it. And she kissed me back just like I knew she would.

Her tongue stroked every lash of mine, coaxing me to kiss her harder. And then linking her arms around my neck when I didn’t do it fast enough.

Fuck. I groaned deep, feeling her breasts pressed to my chest, her hard nipples begging for attention.

My hands clamped on her waist, touching the sliver of skin between her shirt and bottoms. My fingers tightened, tempted to grab her top and pull it off her. To drop my head to those tits that had tempted me, small and perky, all fucking week, and then drop to my knees and taste the real honey she made for me. To bury my tongue in her creamy pussy until she was writhing and so fucking wet, I could jar up her sweetness like it was only made for me.

Was it?

Had someone else tasted her before?

Fucked her before?

A barrage of questions I never let myself consider hit me like a one-two punch. That was the problem with burying so many things—as soon as there was a path out, it was like opening Pandora’s fucking box.

Filling my palms with her ass, I lifted Harper onto the counter, wedging my hips between her thighs. The whole time, our kiss didn’t break. Lips and teeth and tongues tore at each other like nothing would be enough, and with Harper, I knew it wouldn’t. Not when she responded like this.

Her fingers clawed into my hair and she twined her legs around the back of mine. She pulled herself closer, bumping against my throbbing cock that punched against my jeans. Emitting a groan of pain, I bit down on her bottom lip to stop her—or at least stay her because I was rapidly losing all shred of restraint. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. She whimpered and started to rock her hips, grinding the heat of her pussy into me, I saw stars.

No, not stars. I saw the twin blinding lights of a freight train barreling toward me, packed with an explosive kind of lust. Take her. Fuck her. Breed her.

I drew back with a hiss, her gasp piercing my chest. Fuck. Even with the army of NDAs Wade had crafted for me to use, I still buried my fucking kink like a goddamn ghost in my closet. A kink that in the past had resulted with me ending up with a daughter I hadn’t known about for six goddamn years.

“Blaze…”

Grabbing the back of her neck, I hauled her lips back to mine, kissing her slow and deep and feeling my cock leak precum every goddamn second I spent inside her mouth.

“I don’t hate you,” I said against her lips, knowing that if I didn’t tell her in this moment, I might never get another chance. I might never give myself another chance.

I dragged my teeth along her jawline, tasting the thrum of her pulse, and then setting my mouth to the soft shell of her ear. “I want you, but I can’t have you. And that…I fucking hate that.”

“Why can’t you have me?”

Her soft voice broke a ragged sound from my chest, like something was slowly dying inside me. Maybe if I were looking at her—could see her—I would’ve found another way to answer. A harsher way so that she wouldn’t dare to ask again—to tempt me again.

But in the dark, I didn’t have to keep up the façade over my life that was tipped precariously close to ruin.

“Because my life is a mess. I have to win this lawsuit. I have to keep my daughter. It’s the only thing that matters,” I confessed, heavy breaths shuttling in and out of my lungs because even though we were talking, my hips pressed into her stomach—grinding my cock against her softness. That was the truth right there; I was so fucking horny for her I dry-humped her even as I told her I needed to keep my distance.

“I’m not asking to matter,” she murmured and an inhale pierced my chest, a double-edged sword of hope and anger.

My breaths stamped hard and fast on her skin. I wanted her so bad, even if we weren’t shrouded in pitch black, I wouldn’t have been able to see straight. I hadn’t been with a woman since I’d come to stay at the inn last year, and it was easy to levy that on the reality of the rest of my life, but the truth was, every time I thought about being with someone, I thought about her.

I thought about those midnight conversations.

I thought about the times I’d gotten so close to kissing her the way I had tonight. The times I’d held back because Harper was different. Because she was special. Because I wasn’t good enough for her, not even with all my money and fame. I wasn’t good enough for her yet and I wouldn’t kiss her until I was.