Heated Manipulations

by Aiden Bates

  This bad batch of pills had already taken so much from Nick. His foreseeable future. Any plans he might have had for it. His chance at doing this whole baby thing the way he’d wanted. And now, Josh as well. A man he’d trusted. A man he’d called a friend.

  I didn’t want it to take me away from him too, I decided. Wasn’t right, breezing in and out of his life like this just as we were settling into a groove.

  One more night.

  One more night couldn’t hurt.

  16

  Nick

  We cleaned up the dinner dishes together in the comfortable, domestic way we’d settled into. I washed. Harper dried and put away. But every time our knuckles brushed against each other as I handed him a handful of silverware or a wet pan, I felt my heart race a little—just not in a way that I liked.

  I’m close to leaving Fort Greene. The words echoed over and over again in my mind, like a repeating playlist with only one shitty song on it. It was the emotional equivalent of “Let it Go” from the Frozen soundtrack—only, I wasn’t letting it go. I couldn’t. I wasn’t able to bring myself to a point where I could stop thinking about my time here with Harper. Couldn’t stop caring that it had an expiration date—one that was growing closer with every new break he had on the case.

  “When you leave…” I finally began, handing Harper a dripping chef’s knife. “When this case is finally closed, what happens then?”

  Harper paused as he took the blade from me, turning it over in his hand. “Head home, I s’pose. Hadn’t thought of it much.”

  “And Fort Greene isn’t home.”

  “No.” Harper leveled the word at me like I might as well have slipped the knife between his ribs. “Hasn’t been for a long time. Maybe it never really was. Josh loved it here, but me…”

  I forced a laugh. “Right. You’re a big city boy. Miami Vice.”

  “I do look pretty good in a pair of white slacks,” he deadpanned. “But yeah, guess so. I’ve got clients back in Miami that’ll be waiting for me to return. Good reputation out there. Plenty of work to be done.”

  “I can imagine.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  Harper worked his dishtowel over the blade, drying it three or four times more than he actually needed to. “You know, you could…”

  “Could what?” I blurted out the words with a little too much anticipation. Now my heart was skipping a beat for whole new reasons. Could come with him? Could make a new life out there? Or, probably, Could fuck off and stop asking such depressing questions, more likely than not.

  “Nah. Nothin’. Forget it. But…I’m not just going to disappear, Nick. We could, I dunno, stay in touch.”

  “Yeah,” I said softly, turning back to the final plate left in the sink. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

  We washed and dried in silence for a little longer. It felt like we were both being more meticulous about the way we took care of the dishes now. Did them over, then over, then over again. Savored the moment. Started really taking our time.

  “It’s been nice having you here,” I finally admitted, breaking the heavy silence hanging over us. “Having someone around the house, I mean. Before you showed up, I was feeling so unsafe here…but even before that, it was feeling pretty lonely.”

  “Yeah. I feel that. Gets lonely in Miami, too.”

  I smiled. “Maybe you should get a dog or something when you head back there. Golden retriever or something. A breed that’s good with kids.”

  “Don’t think knocking up some poor, unknowing Omega back in Miami will cure my loneliness any better than a dog would,” Harper joked. “Unless you’re fixing to come out there and visit me sometime. Once the baby is born and all.”

  I handed him the final plate, holding it for a moment longer as his fingers curled around it. “Would that be so bad?”

  Harper’s green gaze bore into me as he tugged at the plate, feeling my grip stay. Then, he laughed. “No. Not at all. I mean, Miami isn’t any place for raising kids—but there’s touristy stuff to do. Museums, nice restaurants, the beach… Wouldn’t be bad at all. Might even be nice.”

  “Nice?” I returned his laugh with one of my own as I let go of the plate. “Slow down there, Harper. Your enthusiasm is going to get the best of you if you keep throwing around words like nice.”

  Harper chuckled. “It’d be great, then. Perfect. You tell me the day you’re planning on showing up on my doorstep, I’ll look forward to it for months.”

  “I wouldn’t be showing up like…well, like this, though.” I ran a hand down my stomach, settling it over my womb and imagining the way it would look when I finally started showing in a few months. Already, I felt the heavy fullness that had settled there. The presence of my child, always with me, always near. “I’d have a baby with me. Crying, screaming—”

  “Smiling. Giggling.” A little smile played on Harper’s lips. “You thought at all what you’re going to name it yet?”

  I shrugged, letting the water out of the sink and drying my hands on a dishtowel. “That’s up in the air until I figure out if it’s a boy or a girl, I guess. Still…Harper’s kind of unisex, right? Could go any way…”

  Harper raised his eyebrows, working his own towel over and over across the plate. “I feel bad for any kid who’s got me as a namesake.”

  “Middle name, then. As…I don’t know. A thank you.”

  Harper scoffed. “You don’t have to thank me. Haven’t done anything yet.”

  “That’s not true at all.” I curled my fingers around the edge of the counter, resting my weight against it as I looked up at him. “You’ve made me feel safe through what could have been the scariest months of my life.”

  “Probably still have been. Murderer on the loose and all. I haven’t caught the fucker—yet.”

  “But all of this could’ve been so much more terrifying. You… God, you have no idea what I was like before you showed up here.” I glanced toward the locks on the door to the backyard, remembering the way I’d installed them. I could still see the scrape marks I’d left on the paint with my screwdriver. “I was having anxiety attacks daily, Harper. Completely petrified. Frightened for my life.”

  “And I made all that go away, huh?” Harper placed the plate on its shelf, then shut the cupboard door behind it.

  “You did,” I assured him. “And then some. I was such a coward before I met you, and now…”

  Harper reached out to me, taking my wrist in his hand with a seriousness in his eyes. “You weren’t a coward.”

  “I felt like one.”

  “No.” Harper gave my wrist a firm squeeze, pulling my grip away from the counter and turning me to face him. “You could’ve run. Could’ve abandoned ship the second you realized what had happened to Josh. Your family is out in California. You could do your job anywhere in the world. You could’ve had your bags packed in a hot minute if you’d wanted to. Could’ve left Fort Greene behind. Instead…instead, you stayed.”

  “And you think that’s brave?”

  Harper smirked. “Nick Paulson, you are, without a doubt, the bravest man I’ve ever met in my life.”

  He pulled me to him slowly, like he was daring me to move away. I couldn’t have even if I’d wanted to, though. There was something magnetic in his gaze, something enchanting in his touch.

  I was completely under Harper’s spell—and that was before he kissed me.

  After…

  After, I’d never felt more head over heels before in my entire life.

  His lips moved against mine, focused and self-assured. Softly at first. Teasing me with his gentleness. With every tickle of his stubble, every warm breeze of his breath against my skin, until I was leaning into him to feel more.

  Then, he kissed me harder, placing my hand on his hip and squeezing my shoulder as he flicked his tongue out to meet mine. I was lost in him, in the smallest shifts of his mouth, in the way he moved, the way he tasted, the way he smelled…

  “Harper,” I breathed, breaking the kiss
to look up at him. “We shouldn’t…”

  “Why not?”

  “Because…because you’re leaving.”

  He nodded. “I am.”

  “Because I don’t want you to.”

  “But I’m not leaving yet.”

  “Because…” I sighed, diving in again for one last kiss.

  It was a mistake. I knew it the moment that he met my lips with just as much passion as I’d ever dreamed of, sucking my lower lip into his mouth and biting down on it just hard enough between his teeth to make my hips ache and my cock twitch.

  This time, Harper was the first to pull away. “Do you want me to stop?”

  I reached up to brush my fingers across my lower lip, wondering if it would bruise or not. Hoping, beyond all reason, that it might.

  “No,” I told him, a fire rising in my chest that couldn’t be ignored. “God, no. Not…not yet.”

  In an instant, his hands were beneath me, scooping me up with an effortless natural strength that left butterflies in my stomach and my breath catching in my throat. He placed me back down on the counter, settling between my thighs as he pulled my shirt away from my chest.

  “Do you want me to stop?” he asked again, his hands on my knees as his lips dipped toward my collarbone.

  I shook my head and was rewarded by a hot, wet kiss against my shoulder, followed by another, then another, then another still. Each delved a little lower on my chest. Each only added kindling to the flames that were already burning away at me from the inside out. He paused at my stomach, dropping to his knees to rest his head against it for a moment.

  “You’re going to look so fucking good in a few months, you know.” The next kiss came a little more gentle, placed just beneath my belly button where the tightness in my abs had begun to focus as the baby grew. “Hell—you already look so fucking good. Perfect, perfect thing you are.”

  My body ached for him in a whole new way then. This wasn’t like last time. I couldn’t pretend that this was just for fun anymore. Casual had been out the window ever since I convinced Harper to move in. By the time he finally made me face the briefness that was the reality of our situation, I’d already shattered any casual feelings I’d had for him into a million tiny, complicated little pieces. And the way he kissed my belly, resting his head against it like he was trying to communicate telepathically with the baby in my womb…

  A pang shot through my heart, reverberating in the bones of my ribs and the thickness of my skull. How many times had I imagined having an Alpha here with me who would do something like that? Show me the tenderness that I’d been so desperate for? Give me a little taste of the life I’d dreamed of, before a bad batch of pills had sent it spiraling out of control?

  But as Harper kissed lower still, my sense of control was spiraling in a whole new direction. Harper’s lips crushed against my hip bones as he pulled down my sweats, boxers and all. His mouth was searing against my skin, with little flicks of his tongue adding a dimension of sweet wetness to every pucker. His green eyes flashed up at me again as he caught the edge of my waistband on the hardness of my cock, asking me a question without words.

  And now? Do you want me to stop now?

  I could only whimper in reply, nodding furiously until Harper yanked my pants down completely, leaving my cock springing up toward him in their wake.

  His mouth fell on my tip, tongue greedily lapping up the precum that was beginning to pearl there. He sucked the head of my cock into his mouth with a low moan that became a growl as he plunged down on my shaft, sucking hard and only getting me harder with every inch that he took.

  “God, Harper…” I gripped the counter at my back, holding on for dear life as Harper swallowed my cock down in greedy gulps. His throat massaged my tip ruthlessly, sending jolts of need shooting through my body. “If you don’t stop that soon, I’m going to cum.”

  His eyes lit up, devilish and completely in control. He pulled off of my cock, slurping as he sucked the tip hard so it would exit his mouth with a soft little pop!

  “Do you want me to stop?” he asked again, blinking up at me innocently as his fingers teased between the cheeks of my ass.

  A little smile spread across my lips as I pushed his mouth back down onto my cock. If he wanted to distract me from how much I was going to miss him, it was working.

  “God, no,” I moaned, closing my eyes. “Don’t stop. Never stop.”

  My balls ached as Harper swallowed me down again, working harder and faster this time. I hadn’t been lying—he was going to suck every last drop of cum up out of my balls if he didn’t let up soon. And now, the intensity of Harper’s cock-sucking skills was amplified by the way his fingers were teasing at my ass, the tips running little circles around the sensitive pucker there until I could feel a searing heat rise against them, soaking my tight hole as my body prepared for them to enter. He moaned with pleasure as he pumped up and down my shaft—which nearly sent me over the edge entirely. Harper didn’t just suck cock idly—if the sounds he was making were to be believed, he fucking lived for it.

  And then I heard it—the clank of his belt. The yawn of his zipper as he undid his pants with his free hand, taking his cock out and stroking it while he sucked me like a cock-crazed madman.

  It was too much. My arms were shaking. My knees were going weak. I braced myself against the counter, doing everything I could to try to hold myself together. But Harper didn’t want that. I could feel it in every flick of his tongue against the ridge of my tip as he came up on me. In every clench of his throat as he pressed me up against the roof of his mouth, then past it, clamping down on my tip like he was trying to squeeze my cum right out of me.

  As his fingers finally pressed into me, a shock of pleasure tore through me. My chest heaved as I spasmed forward, twining my fingers into his hair and letting my hips take over. My balls tightened and released, leaving my shaft swelling as I pumped an entire load of hot, slick cum onto Harper’s tongue. He lapped it up like it was ambrosia, swallowing every rope of it as it came and sucking even harder than ever to claim more and more and more.

  When my body finally stopped shaking and my gasping stilled, Harper was looking up at me with delight in his bright green eyes.

  “Delicious,” he purred, slipping his fingers out of me and rising to press his lips to mine. I could taste myself on his tongue, salty and sweet all at once.

  Harper’s kisses were addictive. It was all too easy to get lost in them. The way he ran his fingers through my hair sent a shiver up and down my spine. When he took my wrists in his hands, I felt a dark passion course through me. A desire for roughness that I hadn’t felt since the night I’d gotten knocked up.

  Like he’d sensed that desire, Harper spun me around without warning. He captured my wrists in one hand, cupping my stomach with the other to protect my belly as he pressed me up against the counter and bent me over it.

  Playfully, I struggled against him, a little laugh escaping my lips as I twisted my wrists beneath his grasp.

  Harper echoed the laugh. “Now who’s trying to leave?”

  “Oh, don’t tease me about that.”

  “Mm. You know I would stay if I could, don’t you?”

  The little remark of reassurance took hold of the tendrils of pleasure still unfolding through my body in its post-orgasmic state and brought them to a whole new life.

  “And you know I could get away if I wanted to,” I countered, smiling as Harper held me firm.

  “That so?” Harper sounded half disbelieving, half impressed.

  “I’m double-jointed,” I revealed, turning my head to wink at him. “If you think you’re going to be able to hold me down and have your way with me, Harper King, just know that it’s only because I want you to.”

  Harper chuckled. “Double-jointed. I’d like to see that sometime.” He squeezed my wrists a little firmer, thrusting his hips against my ass as he tugged me closer to his body. “Suppose you don’t want me to stop now, then—seeing as I’ve still g
ot hold of you.”

  “Oh, honey,” I breathed, feeling Harper’s stiff, thick cock sliding up and down between my ass cheeks. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”

  Harper positioned his cock a little lower, thrusting it between the cheeks of my ass and bending me over a little more. I love the way he manhandled me, positioning me as he liked. I’d felt like so much had been out of my control since that night at Coda—three Alphas moving against me all at once in the alleyway out back, and my heat so strong that I couldn’t even stop to think if maybe a condom wouldn’t be a good idea. If maybe, I shouldn’t stop and at least catch one of their names. I’d felt like such a slut in the wake of it all, too. Dirty and debased. Ashamed. Used.

  But as Harper pressed the tip of his cock inside me, bending me over the kitchen counter like some kind of naughty househusband from a kinky porno, it made everything a little better somehow. I wasn’t out of control now—I’d given him control, and he’d taken it. I wasn’t a dirty, worthless slut—I was a sexual being, something to be desired. Something to be worshiped—hard. In exactly the way Harper wanted. In exactly the way I needed.

  He kissed the side of my neck, biting down gently as his hips started to move against me in slow, measured thrusts. He still held my wrists tight, but his hand on my stomach was soothing. Loving. He caressed my skin, feeling the barely-even-there swell of my belly beneath my abs and unleashing a growl against my ear, hot and humid as he let out a ragged breath.

  “Should’ve been me that got you pregnant.” He nipped at my earlobe, then slammed his cock a little deeper into my ass, wracking me with white-hot pleasure with every inch he gave me. “Should’ve been me. Always should’ve been me.”

  I gasped, half-stunned by what he was saying. I could imagine it all so clearly: Harper as my boyfriend. Harper as a safe space where I could be as horny and desperate for him as I liked. Harper, coming inside me on that night that I’d taken the bad pill, my heat turning us both into wild animals with only our need of each other in mind. If it had only been him, I wouldn’t have had to be alone through those first few weeks of pregnancy. I could have had him to hold me. Could’ve had him to love me, kiss me and tell me everything was going to be all right.