The audience started to clap when the line of pumpkins and bats took a dramatic bow, standing up straight before bowing again. I smiled at Harper while we all clapped. When she winked, I felt it in my core for a moment before I was distracted by the rumble of feet hurrying off the stage.
“Hey, sweetheart,” I said when I got backstage to find Maddie. She spun around, clapping before she shuffled up to me. If her ankle had been bothering her at all, she wasn’t showing it.
“Daddy!” she shouted, jumping at me when she was close enough. I hooked my hands under her arms, lifting her and giving her a tight hug. She wrapped her arms around my neck, pressing her cheek to mine before she let go and looked at me with complete seriousness. “Did you see me dance?” she asked even though she had seen me sitting in the front row.
“I did! You were incredible.” I sat her back on the ground when she started to move too much. “A beautiful ballerina.”
Maddie spun in a circle. “I was! Thank you!” She spun again, looking up at me and then at Harper, and I couldn’t resist following her gaze. When I looked up and our eyes met, it seemed Harper had felt the same.
“I’m really sorry,” she said when my stare lingered. “I was wrong.”
“What?” I asked, chuckling when I realized that had to be what she was saying off-stage. I smirked, feeling satisfied when her cheeks turned a darker shade of pink.
Harper stepped toward me, nearly pinning Maddie between our legs. “I said I was wrong. I want this. I want you.” She put her hand on top of Maddie’s head. “I want you both.”
Butterflies in my stomach competed against my racing heartbeat. The look of regret and longing on her face mixed with Maddie’s excitement buzzing between us made me want to wrap my arms around her. The composure I had tried to regain in the car slipped away completely. “Harper…”
“Oh, comeon!”Maddie whined, interrupting the tension. “Daddy, can you just kiss her now so she can be your girlfriend?”
Harper blushed deeper, and the sweet color traveled down her neck. When she looked at me, my mouth dried out. “She does have a point,” I said, reaching for Harper’s hand. She offered it to me willingly, taking a step forward.
“A really good point.” Her voice was husky with the same need I felt.
“Are you going to be my girlfriend, troublemaker?” Her eyes fluttering was all the answer I needed, but she nodded anyway.
Harper looked at my lips and back up to my eyes. “Only if you kiss me.”
Chapter 23
Harper
“Are you watching? Harper,” Maddie said, raising her voice to get my attention and pull my stare away from her dad’s. “I’m going to do it again. Watch this.”
I watched while she stretched onto her toes, practicing the arabesque we had just started going over. She had been practicing it non-stop from what I’d heard.This makes me looklike a real ballerina.I giggled when she twisted her face in concentration to hold her balance and then smiled when she decided she had nailed it. Miles and I clapped lightly when she put her foot back down.
“How was it that time?” she asked, folding her fingers together and waiting anxiously for feedback.
“It was wonderful.” My chest fluttered when her face lit up at the compliment.
“It was?” Maddie stood up straight, ready to do it again. “Do you want to see me do it again?” She was so excited her leg started to come off the ground before I had a chance to respond.
Miles chuckled and then cleared his voice lightly. “Maddie, sweetheart. I think Harper needs a small break from all of the dancing. Why don’t you go up to your room, and you can keep practicing?” He winked at her and tightened his arm around me. “Then we can have a few minutes alone.”
Maddie scrunched her nose. “Do you want to be alone because you want to kiss her again?” She looked expectantly for an answer to her nosy question. I started to shake my head, but Miles interrupted.
“Yeah, I want to be alone because I want to kiss her again,” he said, and the butterflies in my stomach sashayed to my throat. I looked at him and my mouth dried out while Maddie giggled.
“Okay,fine.”She dragged out the word while she turned to skip out of the room.
When she was just out of earshot, I looked at Miles, taking in every focused crease in his face. “Oh, you want to kiss me, huh?” My voice was husky. I craved his lips on mine—I had since the first time I felt them. There was no denying it now. Not anymore. Not ever again.
“I do,” he said, leaning in until his lips hovered over mine.
“Then why are you still talking?” I wrapped my hands around the back of his head, pulling him to me and smashing my mouthagainst his. He groaned against my lips when I rolled into his lap and straddled him. If Maddie wasn’t in the other room, I would be more desperate for the bulge pressing against his zipper. His strained breath told me he felt the same way.
My breaths already heaved with the excitement and need that had been growing over the weekend since the recital. In that time, I had barely spent any time at home besides to change. “So this is really a thing, then?” I asked, resting my forehead against his.
“What is?”
