Jack (For The Love Of A Good Woman Book 1)

by Giulia Lagomarsino

  “Harper. Come on. It’s time to get up.” She groaned and mumbled something about letting her sleep longer. I shook her again, but she swatted at me like a fly.

  “I’ve got a surprise for you,” I said in a sing song voice. She rolled over and stuffed her face into the pillow. This would take some finesse. I moved her hair away from her neck and started kissing her neck and her earlobe. She moaned and I continued kissing down her back and over to her hip. Then I rolled her over and started placing wet kisses on her stomach. I trailed down to the juncture between her thighs and started lapping at her pussy. Soon she was moaning and writhing on the bed. I licked and sucked until her legs were shaking and her knees were squeezing my head. Her legs dropped down to the bed and I placed another kiss on her belly, then crawled up her body and gave her a hard kiss.

  Looking into her eyes, I knew I would never meet another woman like her. She was everything to me and her smile made my day better. I saw the same thing in her eyes. I placed a slow, sweet kiss on her lips.

  “I love you, Harper.” She smiled brightly at me.

  “I love you too, Jack.”

  It was the first time either of us had said it. I had every intention of pleasuring her and then yanking her out of bed when I started this, but now I had to have her. I stood and shucked my pants, then climbed back over her and nestled between her legs. She wrapped her legs around my waist and I slid slowly inside her. I thrust in and out until it drove us both mad. Harper was begging and pleading with me to make her come again. My mouth moved to her nipple and I sucked it into my mouth and laved it with my tongue. I could feel Harper tightening around me and I started to move faster. As I came, I slowed my thrusts to a lazy pace and stopped, still seated inside her. I was panting hard and laid my forehead against hers while I caught my breath. I could feel her heartbeat slow to a normal pace as I pressed soft kisses against her lips.

  “Let’s get up. We need to shower and get ready to have the best Thanksgiving ever.” Her smile dimmed slightly.

  “Jack, that’s sweet, but remember, we don’t have all the stuff we need.”

  I smacked her ass as I stood. “Don’t worry, babe. I got us covered.”

  I winked and walked towards the bathroom. We showered quickly and dressed for the day. It was six thirty, so I knew Mom was downstairs already. What I didn’t expect was my entire kitchen to be filled with people. Mom was at the counter handing out directions to Anna for chopping.

  “Luke and Sean, you run over to the Walmart and pick up the last few items on the list. That should take you no more than three hours. That’s an hour and fifteen minutes there, a half hour to shop, and an hour and fifteen back. I need those ingredients fast. I’m timing you so move, move, move,” she said clapping her hands at them. They glanced at the clock to calculate the time, then headed for the door. She was like a drill sergeant. She turned and faced Sebastian and Cole.

  “You two, go get the decorations out of the attic and put them up around the house and decorate outside. I will be coming out periodically to check on you, so you’d better do it right the first time.” Then she turned to Ryan and Logan.

  “Ryan and Logan, get the leaves for the dining room table out of the closet. Put them in and then go help the boys hang decorations outside. You’ll probably have to do the decorating on the house so these numskulls don’t take off a finger. Lord knows construction isn’t their area.” As she finished, the guys all stared at her wide eyed. “Well don’t just stand there. Let’s go! Chop. Chop!” They took off in various directions to complete the tasks given.

  “So, Mom. What can I do to help out?”

  “You can go get Harper and bring her out to start helping. Just make sure she’s taken care of today and that will be enough.” She held out her cheek for me to kiss, which I did. I set off toward the bedroom to get Harper and ran into her in the hall. “What’s all the yelling? Is someone here?”

  “Baby, everyone is here. They came to help out. We’ve all been assigned tasks by Ma and she’s requesting your help in the kitchen. Harper flung her arms around my neck and gave me a good, long hug.

  “Thank you so much, babe. I love you.”

  “I love you too. Now let’s go get started before Ma sends out a search party.”

  Agnes, Harper, and Anna spent the morning preparing for dinner, which would be at three o’clock. With all three of them working on it, all the prep was done in no time. Agnes had made the pies the night before, so they had the rest of the morning to relax. Harper and Agnes made a huge breakfast for everyone, while Anna excused herself to the living room. She said she wasn’t feeling well, possibly coming down with the flu. They shooed her out of the kitchen and when breakfast was done, we all sat down to a buffet style breakfast. When everything was cleaned up, the guys brought out the beer and sat down to enjoy pre-game shows.

  I watched my mom laughing with Harper in the kitchen about something. I wanted to make her that happy all the time. If she wanted a big, splashy Christmas, that’s what I would give her. I realized in that moment that I would do anything for Harper. She was definitely the woman I wanted to settle down with, but our relationship was pretty new. I wanted to give us time to be just us before bringing up marriage.

  Mom and Harper laid out munchies for everyone, then came to watch the game with us. We drank beer and yelled at the TV, generally lazing around the house for the afternoon. The girls got up to finish dinner in the middle of the game and we all grumbled when they called us to the table. When we saw all the food, we all shut up and sat down for the feast.

  Harper raised her wine glass in a toast. “I want to thank all of you for being here with Jack and me to celebrate today. I wanted everything to be perfect and yesterday, it didn’t look like that was going to happen.”

  Sean interrupted, “Only woman I know to be charged with assaulting someone with a turkey.” Harper glared at him. “What? Too soon?” That got a few chuckles from the table.

  “Anyway, aside from the unfortunate turkey incident, this has been the best Thanksgiving I’ve ever had, so thank you for being here.”

  I stood and kissed Harper on the cheek, then turned toward the table.

  “Actually, Harper has some pretty exciting news to share with everyone. Her last book has been doing pretty well, so next week will be her last week at O’Malley’s and she will be writing full time.” A round of applause erupted at the table and everyone shouted out their congrats to a very red Harper.

  When the applause died down, Luke stood. “Well, since this is the time for announcements, you all know that Anna and I were hoping for a spring wedding, but it looks like that’s not going to happen.” Everyone’s faces showed shock. “Anna is expecting so we’re eloping to Vegas on New Year’s Eve!”

  “Expecting what,” Logan asked with a face of pure confusion.

  Ryan smacked him on the back of the head as he stood. “A baby you idiot.” Then he reached over to shake Luke’s hand. Harper had already made her way over to Anna and they were hugging.

  I wondered if Harper wanted kids. I didn’t have anything against them, but I didn’t really want one of my own. We all sat down and started to dish out the food. There was turkey, gravy, a crock pot stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, corn bread, garlic green beans, orange cranberry relish, crescent rolls, apple pie, and pumpkin pie. Everything was delicious and there were no leftovers with this group of guys. We made a chain clearing the table, rinsing, and loading the dishwasher. After everything was cleaned up, we all went outside to play touch football.

  We broke up into teams, the same ones as in paintball. I knew that Harper didn’t know too much about football, so I threw the first couple of passes to Cole or Sean. Harper tried to block, but she was no match for any of the guys. The dog was even doing a better job playing than she was.

  “Throw me the ball, Jack.” Harper came up to me panting. Frankly, I wasn’t sure she was going to be able to stand much longer. She was wheezing and I was seriously con
sidering telling her to go sit down before she fell down, but Harper was stubborn.

  “Are you sure? You kinda look like you need a break. Do you want to sit down?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. I want to try.”

  “Baby, there’s no shame in sitting this one out.” I lowered my voice so Cole and Sean wouldn’t hear.

  “I said I’m fine. I can do this.” She huffed over towards the sideline and got in position.

  The ball was snapped and she sprinted down the field. She turned to catch the ball, but I could see it was a lot closer than she thought. She put up her arms to catch the football, but wasn’t fast enough. The ball hit her on the outside of her eye and she dropped like a sack of potatoes. She lay on the ground in an unmoving heap.

  Shit. I ran over to her and knelt down beside her. Guilt washed over me and I knew I should have made her go sit on the sidelines for a while. She was tired and wasn’t ready to play with the guys. We were rowdy and played rough.

  “Ow,” she said as she lifted her hand to her face.

  “Baby, you okay?” I was hovering over her face, moving her hand to inspect the injury. “I am so fucking sorry. I didn’t mean to throw it so hard.”

  “Maybe next time you should do a gentle underhand toss.”

  Logan, always the smart ass just had to open his mouth and be a jackass. I shot him a death glare.

  “Fuck off, shit head.” I turned back to Harper. “Harper, how do you feel?”

  “It’s not bad. Just feels like I got hit with a water balloon.” I reared back in disbelief.

  “Seriously?”

  “No, not seriously you moron! I got hit in the fucking face with a football. How do you think it feels?” Okay, I should have seen that coming. Harper was notorious for lashing out when she was injured, uncomfortable, or pissed off. Mom was rushing over with a bag of peas with a worried look on her face.

  “Here, Harper. Let’s get you up and over to the lounger. You can put this on your face before it swells to the size of Texas.” I followed her over to the lounger, sure that at any second she would fall over. I went inside and grabbed a fleece blanket off the back of the couch and made my way outside.

  “Here, pretty girl. I got you a blanket to keep you warm.” I laid the blanket over her and crouched down next to her. Moving her hair out of her face, I inspected the bruise that was forming. She had a pretty sizable lump around her eye and it would be black tomorrow.

  “He’s gonna need a new nickname for her. Pretty girl ain’t gonna work with a third eye sticking out the side of her head.” I walked up to Logan and punched him in the jaw.

  “Shut the fuck up, man.” I was seething with anger. My friends could be real douchebags at times. I turned at the sound of Harper’s laughter.

  “Jack, lay off. He was just joking. Calm down.” She had a big grin on her face for all of two seconds before she grimaced in pain and put the bag of peas back on her head. “Jack, I’m a big girl and I’m fine. Just go play with the guys. I’m gonna hang here with Betty Crocker and preggers.” Maybe she had hit her head harder than she thought. Since when did she use pet names for people?

  Ma didn’t seem to care. She beamed at the nickname and Anna blushed at being called preggers. Women. I didn’t understand them. We went back out onto the field and played for another hour. Fortunately, no one else got hurt the rest of the game. I walked back over to where the girls were sitting and found an empty bottle of wine and a second that was almost gone. Harper obviously wasn’t feeling any pain. She was laughing so hard, she fell out of the lounger. I walked over and picked her up, setting her back on the lounger.

  “Baby, how much have you had to drink. Anna can’t drink, so you and Ma finished off these bottles in an hour?”

  Her cheeks were rosy from the cold and she had a silly grin on her face. She tilted her drink back and took a large swallow.

  “When in Rome.” Anna rolled her eyes and Ma was laughing just as hard. Her glass was almost gone and I had seen her drink only a handful of times in my life. She was wasted. There was no way she was driving home tonight. She could have the guest room.

  “Ma, you can stay with us tonight. You aren’t driving home.” Harper turned to me in confusion.

  “Are you sleeping on the couch? Because there is no way all three of us will fit in that bed.” She was slurring slightly and I was pretty sure she drank most of the bottle herself.

  I sighed, “Harper, we have a guest room with an extra bed. She can sleep there.”

  “Thank God. For a minute there, I was worried about you.” She picked up the bottle of wine and poured another glass. I plucked it out of her hands before she could drink anymore. She would have a terrible night if she kept drinking.

  “I think that’s enough wine for the night. Maybe we should get you inside.”

  Harper put her hands on her hips. “I worked hard for that wine. I had to food all the cook for you and do all the preparing stuff. And don’t you forget, I beat a woman with a turkey and got arrested so that you could eat turkey for Thanksgiving. I earned this wine.” She stomped her foot as she said it and I really couldn’t argue with that, so I gave her back her glass. The guys were all chuckling behind me. Anna stood up from her spot with a big smile on her face.

  “I’m exhausted. I need to go home and go to bed.” Luke walked over to her and put an arm around her shoulder. “Do you need anything from us before we go?”

  “No, thanks Anna. We’re good.” I gave her a hug and shook Luke’s hand. Then I said goodbye to the other guys and guided Mom and Harper inside. I plopped Harper down on the couch and took Mom to the guest room, making sure she had everything she needed. Then I went back for Harper. She was passed out on the couch with one leg on the floor and an arm flung over her head. I carried her into the room and pulled her clothes off. For a moment, I considered getting her in pajamas, but her arms were going everywhere and it just seemed like too much work for me. She could sleep naked.

  The next morning, I got up and put on coffee. Lots of strong coffee. We would need it to get through this day, and I was talking about myself and Harper. A hungover Harper would be interesting to deal with. Mom was up first, looking only slightly worse for wear. She was in an overall good mood and said that she was going to start a good, homemade breakfast for Harper to start the day right. Ma was halfway through cooking when she looked behind me with eyes bulging. She schooled her features quickly.

  “Uh dear, perhaps you would be more comfortable with a few more pieces of clothes on.”

  I turned around and saw Harper standing in only a pair of panties. Shit. Harper didn’t even realize she was naked until she rubbed the sleep from her eyes and looked down. She grabbed the blanket off the back of the couch in haste, bumping into the low setting table to her other side and falling ass backwards over the table. She landed with an oomph. Her legs were straight up in the air.

  I had tried to grab her, but I didn’t reach her until she was already on the ground. I knelt down beside her.

  “Is this going to be our thing now? You on the ground and me kneeling over you?”

  Harper groaned, “I am never drinking again. Why am I naked and why didn’t you tell me your mom stayed the night! God, she saw me naked!”

  “Dear, I still can. You haven’t really covered up anything,” Agnes said with a chuckle. “Don’t worry. We’ve all been there. I used to have my fair share of alcohol too, ya know. This one time, I had drunk too much at a New Year’s Eve party and Jack’s father took me into the bathroom at his parents’ house, we were-“

  “Ma! I’m begging you not to finish that thought.”

  “Can you please help me up so I can get dressed?” I held the blanket up in front of her as she untangled herself from the table. Then, I wrapped the blanket around her body and walked her back to the bedroom. Harper stayed in the bedroom until Mom left and then ignored me the rest of the day.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Harper

  As Christmas approach
ed, I found myself feeling happier and happier every day. Jack had seemed to forget about what he said about only putting up a tree. We had been walking through some shops downtown and I had seen some beautiful wreaths hanging in the shop window. Jack looked at me and said something that shocked me.

  “Why don’t we go in and take a look at them. Maybe we’ll find one for the front door.”

  After I broke myself out of my shocked state, we walked into the shop to look at the beautiful wreaths on display. There were so many to look at and I found it hard to focus on one. One was green with a winter frosting covering most of it. There were holly berries placed strategically around it with pine cones near the bottom. There was shimmery red ribbon woven around the wreath with a few small snowmen to bring the whole decoration together. It was beautiful. I saw some others that I loved also, but that was the one I kept coming back to. Jack walked up behind me and wrapped an arm around my waist.

  “Is this the one you want?” I tilted my head and considered again.

  “I think so. It’s between this one and the one over there.” I pointed across the aisle to another equally impressive wreath.

  “Let’s get both. We can put one on the door to the garage.”

  “Are you sure that’s not too much?”

  “Nah. I think we need to add a few more decorations.”

  We paid for the wreaths and went down the street to a cute little craft store. This one had nutcrackers, wooden snowmen, Santas, nativity scenes, and other Christmas decorations. Jack suggested we stop in and my eyes bulged out of my head. Who was this man and what had gotten into him? We left that store with so many bags that we had to go right back to the car to unload. Jack asked me if I wanted a real tree or a fake tree and I thought a fake one would be best. I wanted to enjoy it for as long as possible and I didn’t want to deal with all the needles. He took me to Walmart to look for a tree because none of the shops in town had anything that was big enough, according to his standards.