by Ally Blake
His hair was mussed, his eyes wild, and heaven help her she found herself so caught up in the heat of the man, she forgot for a second why he was looking at her that way.
Then he pushed to his feet and held out a staying hand. “Hang on a second. Could it be... Are you jealous?”
“What? No!” Harper took a deep breath. How had this turned so quickly? Persuading people to her way of thinking was her bread and butter. Why did Cormac Wharton have to be the one man who refused to drink the Kool Aid? “I’m not jealous. Not of them.”
“Then what’s the problem? Because I’m struggling to understand you, Harper. Try as I might. But every time I think I see a glimmer of humanity lurking beneath this slick, cool, ice-princess exterior you use as some kind of weapon and shield all wrapped up in one, the next second I wonder if I’m looking for something that just isn’t there.”
For all that his tone was even, his voice calm, his words hit Harper right at the heart of her.
Heartless. A robot. Out of touch with human emotion. Empty. Devoid. Not enough. Nothing at all.
Every bad thing she’d ever been called, every bad thing she’d ever feared about herself, every piece of her heart she’d closed in, tied off, cut away in order to protect herself, swam to the surface. And it was suddenly too much.
“Screw you,” she said, pressing him back so she could get the hell out of there.
He opened his mouth to respond, but Harper leaned in, pointing a finger in his face. “If you dare say any time, anywhere, I will hurt you.”
Harper was too fired up to catalogue his tells, to decide if his slow breathing was a sign of him being in control, or fighting as hard as she was to find it.
Either way, she turned, shot a rather unladylike symbol over her shoulder and made to walk away.
But Cormac grabbed her by the arm. “Wait.”
When she turned, glaring at where he held her, he eased off, but did not let go.
He swore beneath his breath. “You... I don’t know why, but you drive me places I never go. Places no one else has come close...”
He took a deep breath and looked deeper into her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Harper braced herself as the backs of her eyes began to burn. “I don’t care.”
“You clearly do. Which proves my last statement wrong right there. Should never have said such a thing either way. Blame it on the beer, or the heat, or my mother’s message, or that damn song. Or simply blame me.”
Harper’s lungs grew tight at the emotion in his words. At the wildness in his eyes. At the clutch in his voice as he said, “You do something to me, Harper.”
Harper’s knees gave way as if the ground beneath her feet had cracked.
Then he said, “You push my buttons in a way I can’t explain.”
When he saw he still had hold of her he let go as if burned, running his hand through his hair again.
You do something to me. How was she supposed to respond to that?
Her chest rose and fell. She could feel her blood racing beneath her skin. Hot and maddened.
“It’s fine,” she gritted out. “I mean, it’s not fine. But whatever.”
When he continued looking like a kicked puppy she slowly deflated, her anger leaving her in a trickle. It wasn’t as if she’d been sweetness and light, after all.
She waved a hand his way, in a kind of blessing. “You’re forgiven.”
With a twitch at the corner of his mouth, Cormac bowed ever so slightly. But his voice was still raw as he said, “Why, thank you, milady.”
When he straightened up she could have sworn he’d moved closer, for suddenly they were toe to toe. It would take nothing to lift a hand to his chest—that well-sculpted chest, with all that warm brown skin and its smattering of sun-kissed hair—to feel if his heart beat at anything like the pace hers did in that moment.
She watched, as if from a distance, as she did just that, her hand falling over his heart. She felt the throb, like a distant thud against her palm. Then she felt it quicken. Beat harder. Reverberating through her palm until it might as well have been her pulse. Her heart.
“Harper,” he said, his voice rough.
“Do I really do something to you?” She lifted her eyes to his.
Eyes that had gone so dark she couldn’t tell the chocolate from the black.
“You really do.”
From one heartbeat to the next, the hastily built wall she’d tried to construct between them fell away.
“Well, that’s...nice.”
He laughed, the sound rumbling from his chest to hers by some kind of sexual osmosis. “Harper, I can assure you, the last thing you make me feel is nice.”
Right back at ya, she thought, paying hard attention to the conflict in his eyes. The same conflict she felt riding roughshod through her entire body.
She’d wanted to touch him so badly. Wanted him to touch her too.
She wanted to keep scrapping with him. And boy, did she want to run.
His hand lifted to brush the hunk of hair that had been bothering her behind her ear, and there it stayed. Big and warm and secure.
His thumb traced the edge of her face, his eyes following the move. His chest rising and falling as he breathed deep.
She leant into his touch, just a little. Feeding on the unexpected tenderness like a woman starved.
When his eyes found hers, the blatant emotion therein made her ache all over.
But this was Cormac Wharton. He’d never looked at her, much less this way.
What if it was the beer? And the heat? And his mother’s message? And the song? She began to wonder if she’d simply wandered into a perfect storm.
Until his gaze landed on her mouth.
The hunger in his eyes was unmistakable. Specific. Real.
She was in grave danger of sighing. In grave danger of crying.
“I’m going to kiss you now, Harper,” he said, his voice ragged. “Just so you know.”
There was time to pull a Harper and make light. It would allow her to save face. To keep her distance. To have the chance of getting through the rest of this week in one piece.
But this was Cormac Wharton. The boy who’d once held her heart.
The boy who’d broken it too.
No, she remembered as he shifted closer, as his spare hand stole around her back, as his hand delved deeper into her hair. As his body pressed up against her own, all muscle and heat.
This was no boy.
Cormac Wharton was all man.
Thank goodness, she thought as his lips closed over hers.
She’d imagined this moment more times than she could count. Imagined how he would taste, how he would feel. How she would feel.
As Cormac sipped on her mouth as if it was the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted she felt struck. Every cell jolting as one. Like lightning unable to find earth.
Cormac soon turned her to nothing but sensation. Heat. Pleasure. Somehow she found the wherewithal to slide a hand around his neck and another into his hair.
It was thick and soft and perfect.
Her lips opened on a groan. And Cormac took complete advantage, sliding his tongue over the seam of her lips, seducing them open. Not that he had to try too hard. She was all in.
Feeling it, Cormac hauled her closer, wrapping her up so tight she felt the evidence of exactly what she did to him.
Swamped by need and heat and desire so rich and warm, she felt it take her under, every thought dissolved into mist.
Until her leg wrapped around his, and her skirt pulled too tight against her thigh. While in a bar. In Blue Moon Bay.
Harper came back to reality with a thud.
Her eyes snapped open. She squinted against the brightness of the dome of light above the bar.
Cormac must have felt her freeze, as with
one last kiss that made her insides go into free fall he pulled back. Looked into her eyes. And her heart squeezed so hard it hurt.
“Ow,” she bit out.
And Cormac quickly stepped back, holding her lightly as if knowing exactly how boneless he’d left her.
“You okay?”
The only bit of her that hurt was the big, throbbing muscle behind her ribs, so she said nothing as she carefully extricated herself from his hands.
“Are you okay?” he asked again, and she shot him a look.
“Of course I’m okay.”
Something acute flashed behind his eyes. “Okay.”
“Just...” What? What could she possibly say? That she was shaken by how easily he’d taken her apart? That her whole body now ached for the lack of him? “Just, don’t do that again.”
A beat slunk by. His voice went deep as he said, “Which part exactly?”
“All of it.”
“All of it? Right. Okay. You bet,” he said, stepping away. Giving her space. Putting his hands in his pockets and leaning against the bar as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
You bet? Really? As if it was nothing? As if he’d felt nothing? As if it meant nothing?
It had been as if he’d known her. Kissing not only with his mouth, but also with his touch, with his mind. She felt rearranged. As if her atoms were no longer where they had been before.
She wished she could simply turn and walk away, only her knees were no longer in optimal working order, so she had to regroup.
Harper stood tall, as tall as she could with the backs of her knees tingling like crazy and her heart threatening to beat right through her ribs. And she pointed a damning finger Cormac’s way.
“You might be Gray’s best man, and I might be Lola’s maid of honour, but that does not mean we have to fall into some cliché by getting it on this week.”
“Getting what on?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know that you kissed me.”
“You kissed me!”
Cormac’s smile said, You know it. But you kissed me right on back, sweet cheeks. He pressed away from the bar and took a step her way.
Harper’s first instinct was to take a step back, knowing deep in her heart that, despite her demand not to kiss her again, if he came close enough for her to get even a whiff of his scent she’d be back to climbing him like a tree.
But her next instinct—her stronger instinct—forged from necessity and experience, was to be strong.
For Harper never flinched. Even if it killed her.
So she stood her ground as Cormac crooned, “I’ve never been a best man before, so I’m not sure of the rules.”
“There are no rules.”
“Glad to hear it. Because that kiss has been coming for days.”
Years, Harper thought, then bit her lip to stop that gem from spilling free.
“How about this, then: now that’s out of our systems, let’s agree to play nice for the rest of the week? I’ll endeavour not to bite back if you push my buttons, while you can...”
Cormac waved a hand in front of her, as if incorporating every part of her in whatever it was she was doing wrong.
“So you’ll try not to bite. While I’ll try not to be quite so me.”
He leant back and smiled, as if she had it in one. “Truce?”
Truce? Truce? The damnable man held out a hand. As if expecting her to shake it!
If it meant she could finally extricate herself from the hash she’d made of the evening, what the hell else could she do?
Harper grabbed his hand, shook it twice and blurted, “Now I’m going to dance. Out there.”
“Go get ’em, tiger.”
“I shall,” Harper said, before turning on her heel and blindly disappearing into the crowd.
On the dance floor she found a spot on her own, closed her eyes and danced. Numb with the fact that fighting with Cormac was better than making love with any other man.
And if that wasn’t the most messed-up thing she’d ever admitted to herself, she didn’t know what was.
* * *
In the wee hours of the next morning, after the girls had wobbled into the Chadwicks’ house together, Cormac whistled for Novak, who came bolting through the front doors of the manor before sticking to him like Velcro.
Only to find Gray leaning against the hood of the car.
His friend didn’t waste any time getting to the point. “So you kissed her.”
Dammit. “You saw that, huh?”
“You guys sucked up so much energy the lights flickered in the bar.”
He’d have believed it too. For that kiss... Hell. He’d not meant to, even if he’d wanted to. He’d fought it, even as every word out of her mouth roused him. But the fever in her eyes, the way her breath caught whenever she found him watching her, the way she lifted her face to his, like a sunflower to the sun...
Cormac scratched the back of his neck. “Did Lola—?”
“Nah. I had her well distracted.”
“Good.” He opened up the car and Novak leapt in, taking up her usual spot on the back seat.
“Not so fast,” said Gray, holding the door before Cormac could close it. “Wasn’t it only a few hours ago you told me nothing was going to happen there?”
“Yeah.”
“So, what happened?”
Cormac closed the door and leant against the car beside his oldest friend. “You want details? Need some pointers for your wedding night?”
Gray coughed out a laugh, before shooting Cormac a single hooked-eyebrow glare.
Cormac looked towards the house. Lights on in several rooms. Not Harper’s; hers was around back. The fact he knew that spoke volumes as to the trouble he was in.
“She said stuff. Asked questions. Brought things to the surface. She talks. A lot. Only way I could think to shut her up.”
“Fair enough,” Gray shot back. “And if she says stuff again, talks too much again, what’s the plan?”
“I think it’s pretty clear there has not been a clear plan for me where Harper is concerned.”
“You think? Look, you tell me it’s just a best-man-maid-of-honour thing and I’ll leave it well alone. More power to you both. We can look back on this in years to come and laugh and laugh. But if it’s something that I need to worry about, something that might rebound onto my darling soon-to-be bride in any way, then I might have an opinion on the matter. Fair?”
Cormac hadn’t been kidding when he’d said Gray was all heart. The guy rarely had strong opinions bar when to eat and who his people were. But when he did, he meant it.
Cormac nodded. “Fair.”
Gray nodded back. Slapped his friend, hard, on the back and pressed away from the car. “All righty, then. See you at the lunch tomorrow?”
“Yeah, about that. I was hoping to beg off.” A break from the partying, and from Harper, time to shake off the effect of her, would do him good. “I know your folks forbade me from going into the office this week, but they have an international business that needs running...”
Gray held up a hand as he backed away towards the house. “You are not sending me in there on my own, buddy boy. I will see you tomorrow at twelve. Don’t be late.”
“Aye-aye, Captain.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
FORGOING A TRADITIONAL rehearsal dinner, the bride and groom had booked the entire See Sure restaurant for a family and friends lunch.
It had taken a shovel-load of concealer and mighty amounts of water to make Harper look and feel human after the night they’d had.
That, a killer navy halter dress held up behind the neck with a big satin bow, and her favourite fringed ankle-boot heels had her poised to meet Gray’s mighty collection of guests, as well as Lola’s far more meagre set, for a seafood buffet.
Harper had to admit a more stunning locale could not have been procured if she had been around to find one herself.
Abundant swathes of sheer white chiffon and tiny fairy lights were draped from the moulded ceiling, leaving glimpses of whitewashed walls. Small bowls of lush succulents had been scattered down the long table, while white and gold place settings glinted and sparkled in front of the fifty-odd rustic wooden chairs.
It was fresh and casual, with glints of sophistication. It was Lola. Not Lola of the yoga pants and baseball caps, but exactly as Harper saw her.
Someone else had done this for her. Someone else who knew Lola that well.
Harper had been struggling since she’d arrived, owing to a sense of inevitability as the days rolled forward until Lola would no longer belong only to her.
Only, looking around at the smiling faces of those Lola deemed close, Harper realised that moment had long since passed.
Harper could live with that, so long as she knew for sure that this was the best possible path for Lola’s future.
Today, her focus would remain sharp. If Lola showed even the slightest tell that she was anxious—twitchy gaze, tight voice, fingers tripping over one another as a way to disperse excess nervous energy—she’d instantly find a way to tell her the truth about the Chadwicks. And about their father’s last days at home.
Harper kept her radar on as she met Lola’s yoga friends—high on holistic health and Insta-fit likes—as well a couple of Lola’s mates from her incomplete university degree.
The rest of the women at the table were already familiar to her. There was maudlin Marcy, ditsy Dana and sly Serena—the über-rich girls of Blue Moon Bay High and members of Gray and Cormac’s high-school clique.
No tenacious Tara, though, Harper noted. Interesting. Except, not. What did it matter to Harper if Cormac and his high-school girlfriend were still tight or not? Not a jot!
As for Cormac, he sat sideways on his chair at the other end of the table, cradling a coffee rather than a beer, as if he too was doing what had to be done to recover from the night before. He listened intently as the guy beside him told a story, suit jacket over a dark T doing him all sorts of favours.
