Chapter Thirteen
CHASE
The world collapsedto a single point of contact where her hips touched mine. A kiss—deep and demanding—filled the void, our tongues moving in rhythm. I didn’t even realize I’d slid my hands into Harper’s hair until I felt her sigh into my mouth. I pulled back, breathless, her face a gorgeous portrait of desire. Then she gripped my shirt with a groan and kissed me hard. She pressed against me, and a sound was ripped from my throat. Helpless, needy. The kind of sound I’d never made before and didn’t think I ever could unless it was her making me do it.
We’d talked so much over dinner, laid it all bare, but this—God, this—was like stripping away the last defenses. I felt the slight shift in Harper’s weight, the tautness of her muscles as she pushed against me, and every other thought burned away. My hands slid down her back, grazing her skin as she arched into me with a moan. I wanted her so badlyit made me dizzy.
“Maybe we should go upstairs?” My voice was rough, almost a plea. She pulled back, her eyes finding mine, lips swollen and shiny, her face open, a little wild.
“Chase…” Her breath caught on my name, and she shook her head, not to refuse but to insist. Her fingers found my hair, and her mouth curved with a promise. “Right here. Right now.”
My pulse exploded, relief and hunger colliding in my chest. I eased her down, the couch soft beneath us, the cushions wide enough for two if we didn’t mind being tangled. She shivered when I skimmed my hands beneath her shirt and pulled it off, exposing her to the night air. The sight of her bare skin made me reckless with want, and I dipped my head, tasting her neck. She was warm and perfect against my tongue.
I reached her lips again, caught the sweet noises she made as I covered her. One of us shifted, then the other until we were a messy pile of limbs. We ended up with me on my back and her on top. She sat up, and a bolt of heat seared through me at the look she gave me.
“You’re incredible,” I murmured, awed. I’d meant it about what was between us, the way she made me feel—unraveled and exposed but completely right—but her flush deepened as if I’d complimented her body. As if the two things weren’t so deeply tied I could never separate them. She kissed me, a slow slide of lips and tongue that grew greedy fast.
Then her hands were at the waistband of my shorts. She undressed me deliberately, while I lay under her and fought for air. Thought turned liquid, poured from my head to somewhere lower, where it turned molten. Her fingers were warm and her motions assured as she pulled my shirt off. The sharp sound of a zipper, metal on metal, cut through the heavy night air. A wicked smile appearedwhen she saw my face. The cool night met my skin as she pushed my shorts over my hips and made me shudder. She grabbed both my hands and sat me up again with the cushions warm against my back.
Then she dropped to her knees, and all my thoughts evaporated at once.
“Shit.” I ran my hands through my hair, then pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes. I groaned when I felt her tongue, like I’d been starving for this, for her, forever. Her mouth, her hands. Everything about it was desperate and exactly right, and I didn’t know how long I could last. Didn’t care as long as she kept going.
With a playful glint in her eyes, she looked up at me and teased, “I hope I can fit all of you in my mouth.”
A taunt that felt like it would undo me even before her lips wrapped around my shaft and took me in, hard and close. “God, Harper.”
Everything about it, about her, was incredible. It was more than I could handle. More than I could hold on to. Then she took me deeper, the world splintering around the edges.
Just when I thought I couldn’t hold on a second longer, she slowly withdrew. A flash of teeth in the moonlight as she scrambled for my wallet and grabbed a condom. She sheathed me quickly, confidently, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. It was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen—the softness of her body as she stripped off her clothes, the smoothness of her skin in the moonlight. She climbed back onto the couch to straddle me, her legs on either side of mine.
“Come here.” My voice sounded wrecked. She leaned down and kissed me as she guided me inside, not giving me time to get my breath before she stole it.
“Oh, Jesus,” I choked.
Immediate pleasure, a white-hot bolt of it. I swore again and held her hips, feeling her thighs tense as she adjusted and began to move. She rode me slowly at first, controlling the pace, her fingers gripping my hair. I was dizzy with how much I wanted her, so badly it felt like falling. I held her tighter, careful to draw it out, feeling every shift of her hips as if it were happening in slow motion. I wanted this to last, to go on until we shattered into pieces so small we couldn’t be found.
Then her nails scraped my shoulders, and she whispered my name in a way that almost destroyed me. She lifted up, impossibly graceful, her head tilted back. I pulled her to me, bracing her back, arching into her.
“You feel so good.” My voice cracked, half-wild. “So impossibly good.”
She moaned as I thrust up to meet her. Slow and easy became fast and urgent. She gave back every bit of it and more. I drove deeper and heard her gasp, saw her eyes glaze, felt her body shudder. More than I’d dreamed of having until she was suddenly there, raw and unguarded andmine.
Her breathless words sent me spiraling at the intensity of it all. Wanting her so badly, feeling her everywhere, never wanting it to stop. My skin tingled, too tight all of a sudden. We were moving together, fast, frantic, nothing between us except the desperate need to be closer, closer, to hold on until everything broke apart. And then to hold on even tighter.
We came undone, our release filling the night with a different kind of heat. Loud. Primal. It was like stepping into the sun, all light and impossible fire. A bright, dazzling flash that left me blind and spent, melted. All I could do was ride it out, each thrust sending a shock of pleasure through me until the stars collapsed and we went still.
Harper’s head rested on my shoulder. My hands were shaking a little as I held her. I felt her breathing, felt the damp warmth of our skin pressed together, felt the stretch of silence as we sat in the moonlight, spent.
Felt it all in a way that terrified and thrilled me.
I buried my face in her hair and inhaled deeply, tickling at the slight prickle of it in my nose, licking the softness against my lips. As intense as everything had been, there was a shock of something even more powerful. The shock of rightness. Of being right where I needed to be, where I was supposed to be.
“You think the neighbors heard?” Harper’s voice was muffled against my shoulder, thick with laughter. “Or did we scare them off the island?”
I laughed with her, feeling it rumble through both of us. “Pretty sure they’re calling the National Guard right now.”
She pulled back, her eyes bright and teasing. “Should we tell them it was just an earthquake?”
