“Oh, I’m sure that’s part of it,” she said with a smile. “And the fact that I want about a hundred more of those from you.”
His body reacted in spite of his brain trying hard to be reasonable and decent.
He wanted her. In his bed. Every fucking night. He wanted her in his apartment, the scent of her shampoo in his bathroom, her coffee cup in his kitchen sink, her shoes by his front door. And yeah, he wanted to come home to find her rocking his son to sleep.
That was not reasonable.
“Harper, you don’t have to do all of this. I… should have said this before. I should have thought this before. You don’t have to take all of this on.”
She frowned slightly. “What do you mean?”
“Isaac. Looking for his mom. The late-night feedings. The diapers and…” He shrugged. “Everything. This isn’t your responsibility.”
“I want to.”
Did she? Or was she just a good person who couldn’t say no? Or was she an uber-responsible person who didn’t quite trust him to not screw it up? Did she still see the guy standing in front of her with a tree that he didn’t even know produced olives, using it as a way to hit on a woman?
“Because you’re worried about me and Isaac?”
“Yes.” She didn’t even blink. “This is a lot for you to handle, James. You don’t need to do it alone.”
“I have a lot of friends who will step up.” As they’d proven.
“But I’m right there. And we’re a good team,” she said.
He could tell she was confused by this sudden resistance on his part and the way he seemed to be trying to push her away. She should be confused. He wasn’t sure where all this was coming from exactly, either.
On the heels of hot sex? Where the hell were his endorphins?
But that was it. He’d now had the best sex of his life with the bookworm professor across the landing, who was turning out to be so much more than that. He was already so comfortable with her in his life. He was already coming to depend on her in crazy ways. This all felt good. Great. Perfect.
He wasn’t pushing her away. At least he hadn’t been. But he maybe should be. If not pushing, offering her a way out.
“What’s going on?”
He looked into her eyes. “I’m just realizing that I’ve gotten very comfortable with you using the word “we.” I love it. I want it. And that’s not fair. This isn’t really a we thing. This is me, and I’ve been cajoling you into it from the beginning. Just like the tree and Henry and Fred.”
Harper looked confused and concerned. “This is sudden.”
He looked up at Bea’s front door. “It just hit me. You’re usually at home in your chair reading at this time of the night. It would be one thing if we were just at my apartment finally having hot sex, but we’re also here picking up my son from the babysitter’s and collecting casseroles from my friends.”
“Oh.” Harper sat back in her seat. “Oh.”
He wasn’t sure what the two ohs were for. But it didn’t sound good.
“What?”
“It just all got real and domestic to you.”
He frowned. “More real and domestic than changing poopy diapers? No.”
“Yes. The first night was all just crazy, and you were shocked he was even there, and you were—we were—kind of just going on instinct and making it through. Not to mention the being in bed together the first time and the shower and everything. It wasn’t routine or normal. But now this”—she gestured at the truck and the casserole dishes on the floor at her feet—“is a lot more normal, and you’re realizing that it’s happening really fast.”
“I’m trying to give you an out,” he said with a frown.
“Sure,” she said. “Because if I take an out, you’ll have an out.”
“Why would I want an out?”
“Because now we’ve finally had sex.”
Her words hit him hard in the chest. “That is not what this is.” Then it really sank in. “You think now that I’ve fucked you, I’m over it all? That’s what I’ve been going for and now that I got it, I don’t want you around anymore? Or that it wasn’t good enough, and now I’m trying to get out of doing it again?”
“Shh!” She glanced into the back seat. “You’ll wake him up.”
James shifted the truck into reverse and backed out of Bea’s driveway. She thought he was over her now? Fuck that.
“You really think that all of this has just been my way of getting you into bed?” he asked as they drove the dark streets back to the apartment. “This is pretty fucking elaborate, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think you had someone deliver a baby to your front door as a ploy to get me into bed, no.”
She said it calmly. Which further irritated him.
“So what do you think? I’m an opportunist who thought, ‘Well, hell, now I have a kid, but at least maybe the professor will take her panties off this time?’”
She sighed. “Of course not.”
“Then what?” He looked over.
“I told you. This all got real at Bea’s. We’ve been playing around at the apartment, in the shower and everything. You and your friends were hanging out after that. At the restaurant, it was more of a date than it was about Isaac, really, especially because it turned out not to be Megan. But now, you pulled up to pick the baby up from the babysitter, loaded the car seat, got the casseroles, had to think about things like the fact this is long term and how hard it’s going to be to even make meals and clean the apartment and do laundry and… it got real.”
“Okay, it got real,” he said. “And I realized that you didn’t sign up for this. Something’s been happening between us for six months—and don’t fucking say it hasn’t been.”
She didn’t say a word.
“I realized that all of this chaos is mine and that I love having you in the midst of it and that the sex with you was the best I’ve ever had, probably because I fucking like you more than I’ve liked any other woman, ever. You make everything easier. And more fun. I’ve loved having Fred with you, and well, gee, a baby will be even more of that, right? Then it hit me that holy shit, that’s unfair. I should tell you that I want to date you and take you out and dance with you and yes, fuck you in every position, on every surface, over and over and over again, and you don’t have to change one poopy diaper at all. I’ll figure out a way to do all of that.”
She said nothing, and he didn’t take his eyes off the road. He just let all those words hang in the air between them, his heart pounding, as he finally pulled onto their street and into his space in front of the building.
He shoved the truck into park, shut the ignition off, and started to turn toward her. But before he’d even shifted his weight, his lap was full of woman.
Harper straddled his thighs, took his face in her hands, and kissed him.
He gripped the back of her shirt, holding her in place, opening his mouth, not sure who was devouring who but feeling her rocking against his cock, her tongue tangling with his, her hands in his hair, almost desperate to be against him.