He knew the feeling. He pressed her down against his instantly hard cock, wanting to take her right now, hard and fast. The baby was asleep in the back seat, the street was quiet and dark, and hell, he didn’t care if someone saw them. This woman was everything, and if she wanted him right here and now, she could have him. She could always have whatever she wanted from him, whenever she needed it.
Her thoughts seemed to be going in the same exact direction because a moment later, her hands were at his fly, unbuttoning and unzipping. He reached down and hit the lever to send the seat shooting back, giving her plenty of space to move. She opened his pants and freed his erection, her hands squeezing and stroking.
“Fuck, Harper.”
“Yes. God, yes. I need you.”
“Right-hand pocket.”
She dug for the condom, opened it and rolled it on then hiked her skirt up, pulled her panties to one side and then guided him home.
She sunk down on him, and they groaned together.
She wasn’t naked. He couldn’t see anything but her face. But this was perfect. Her face said it all. Her gaze was hot and locked on his. Her mouth was open as she breathed fast, her hair was escaping the messy bun. The frantic pace, the way she’d climbed into his lap, was all too damned good. This was about more than the pleasure and sex, more than their bodies. This was a connection. A promise. An I’m-here-for-this moment. After everything he’d laid out, his buttoned-up linguistics professor was fucking him in the front seat of his pickup. It was the hottest, most important sex of his life.
“James.”
He gripped her hips and thrust up into her. She was so tight, so perfect, so fucking hot and wet. “Harper.”
She gripped his head, her fingers sunk deep in his hair, and started moving. Up and down, taking him deep, the sweetest pussy he’d ever felt milking him, sucking everything from him.
“God, this is so good.” She breathed out. “So, so good.”
He squeezed her ass. “You are amazing.”
He couldn’t wait to spread her out and really see what he was doing. He’d put her back on his bed, legs wide, every gorgeous inch on display as he made her come again and again. Or he’d lay her out on his kitchen table, push her knees to her chest, and watch his cock move in and out of her. He’d bend her over the back of his couch or put her on her knees, gripping his headboard and take her from behind. So many ways to take her.
And none of it would be quite like this. This felt like a commitment.
He needed to cool it. He needed to slow down. Take it easy.
He couldn’t.
She started moving faster, her deep muscles gripping him. He met her with upward thrusts, loving the breathless gasps and little moans.
James felt his climax building, and he reached under her skirt, finding her clit and circling with his thumb.
“Oh fuck. Yes, James.”
That was pretty damned close to what he’d wanted to hear from her. He put his thumb to his mouth and sucked on it. She watched, her eyes wide, clearly turned on. Wet and slippery, he returned his thumb to that sweet spot, rubbing and pressing.
“Fuck me, Harper,” he said gruffly.
She did. Riding him hard and fast, making sure she kept the angle that would keep her clit against his thumb, she took him deep over and over, until she cried out, clamping down on him and making his balls tighten hard and his own climax rip through him.
“Harper. Fuck. Yes. Holy hell. Yes.” He chanted and praised as the pleasure overtook him.
He wrapped his arms around her waist, putting his forehead to her shoulder, dragging in deep breaths of her scent and the scent of them together.
They stayed like that for several long moments, ripples of pleasure fading slowly.
Finally, she stirred and pulled back to look down at him.
He looked up.
Fuck. He was in love with her.
It hit him in that moment, and he had to bite his tongue, literally, to keep from blurting it out.
“And as I was saying,” she told him, still a little breathless. “Everything just got a lot more real.”
Well, that was the biggest understatement ever. He nodded. “Agreed.”
“But you let me go that first night, James,” she reminded him. “I went to the store and got the stuff, but I went back to my apartment. I was the one who came over and climbed into your bed. So you need to stop with this crap about you making me be there for all of this. I’m very capable of telling you when I don’t want to do something.”
He didn’t totally believe her. He didn’t think she would be able to say no to Isaac. Or him, honestly. If he needed her, she would be there. But if she understood that he knew she didn’t have to be doing any of this, then that was a good place to leave all this. Probably.
It was very hard to think straight with his cock still buried inside the body he never wanted to leave.
“Say okay, James,” she told him, her voice soft. “Say you trust me to tell you if I’m not okay.”
“Okay.”
“And say that you’ll tell me if you’re not okay. Because this is going to be hard sometimes.”
“I’ll tell you.”
She smiled. “You won’t. You’re the guy who takes care of things.”
He liked that. He liked that she thought that. That she didn’t think he’d been showing up at her door because he was a fuck-up. “I do. But I also know that I can’t always do it alone. The fire station has taught me that. The band has taught me that. I’m a great piano player, but it all sounds a hell of a lot better when everyone is playing.”
Her smile grew. “I like that. Okay, then. We’re on the same page.”
“I like this page,” he said honestly.
“Me too.”
“And I really like the make-up sex.” He squeezed her ass.
“Me too,” she said enthusiastically.
If he’d liked her before with her books and tea and the pencil that was sometimes tucked behind her ear when he’d interrupted her in the middle of correcting student essays, he loved her when she was wanton about sex with him.
And when she was lifting his baby boy out of his car seat and cooing to him as she carried him inside, and when she was loving up his dog that had been left alone far too long—in the dog’s estimation, anyway—and when she was letting his bearded dragon sit on her shoulder while she made two cups of tea.
7
“One of the women you… dated… is a photographer?”
James grinned at Harper’s hesitation over the word dated. They both knew he hadn’t dated this woman. He thought her name was Kylie, but it might have been Kaylie. He hadn’t told Harper that part.
“A photographer’s assistant,” he corrected as they headed down the sidewalk toward Angie’s photography studio.
“And you met her how?”
“Shooting the firefighter’s calendar for next year.”
“Of course.” Harper didn’t roll her eyes.
But he could hear in her voice that she wanted to.
“I’m Mr. July. That’s an important one,” he said, inserting just enough cockiness into his voice that she’d know he was joking.
“Wow, I’m shocked,” Harper said. “Hottest month of the year? That just doesn’t fit at all.”