Her blatant exhaustion hits harder than everything else today. I straighten but don’t face her. If I do, I’ll say something I can’t take back. Or worse—I’ll say nothing, and she’ll think that means something too.
She steps inside, closing the door.
“We need to talk,” she says.
“No,” I reply. “We need to regroup.”
“That’s not what this is about and you know it.” Her words are sharp. “Damian, they humiliated you in there. And you let them. That’s not like you.”
She moves closer. I feel her presence like a second pulse under my skin.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” she says.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know who to trust anymore.”
The admission leaves me in a snarl before I can stop it. The truth hangs between us, vulnerable and ugly.
Harper stills and so does the air around us.
“Look at me.”
I do, slowly. Her eyes are full of hurt, desperate to understand.
“I’m not them,” she says quietly. “And I’m not her.”
There it is.
“You keep shutting me out. And I keep letting you. But today, Damian, today they tried to bury you. And I don’t think that if it happens a second time, I can stand there and watch.”
She steps close to me, her scent perfuming my lungs, ruining my already befuddled thoughts.
“You don’t have to trust me with everything. Just… don’t push me away.”
Her hand brushes mine. She doesn’t hold on to my palm, just lets it exist there like an offering.
Something in me snaps.
“Harper,” I say, low, rough, a clear warning, but she steps closer anyway, until her body is a line of heat against mine.
Her hand slides to my chest, fingers resting just above my heartbeat. She looks up at me with those defiant and worried brown eyes, and I’m gone. The push-pull tension between us ignites, dark and magnetic, pulling everything else out of orbit.
My hand slides up her jaw, cupping the soft skin of her cheek. Her breath comes as choppily as mine. I don’t know who gives in first, but our lips collide.
Her hands grip my shirt as my mouth finds hers. The world narrows to heat and urgency and months of restraint collapsing all at once. Her back meets the edge of the desk, papers scattering like startled birds.
Her fingers slide into my hair as her thick and shapely body arches into mine, yielding, claiming, choosing.
As we have our fill of each other, the flame between us burns, yet there’s passion bleeding in through every single move.
She leans back, her heavy tits heaving with each breath she takes. A few of the buttons on her shirt have disappeared with how I manhandled her, no doubt lying somewhere in my office.
The lace of her pink bra peeks through, and I rub my thumb over the material appreciatively.
“This one new?”
