by JA Huss
My heart does that now-familiar thump. “Ask me what?”
He slips out from under me and pulls me up to a sitting position as he drops to his knees on the floor. I cover my mouth to hide the smile.
“Harper Tate,” he says. “Will you trust me?”
My whole face goes hot and tingly and I look away to hide my reaction.
James guides my gaze back to him again. “Don’t turn away from me, please.”
I stare down as he gazes up. And then I notice how naked I am. His bare chest is pressed up against my knees. His breath is tickling the inside of my thighs. My heart beats faster as all these senses crash together like I’m caught in a wave. Suddenly I’m trembling.
He slides his hands up my thighs and grabs my hips so he can scoot me to the edge of the bed. He places himself right in the v of my legs and then looks up at me, awaiting my answer.
“I don’t know…”
“Just give me a chance, OK? Get to know me a little, and give me a chance.” He leans his head down to kiss my belly. “You have to trust me.” His eyes dart back and forth as he searches for doubt inside me.
But he doesn’t find it. I might not know what’s really going on. I might not understand what he’s asking. But I do know that trust can be easy if you want it to be. You either do—or you don’t. You believe in the love and loyalty and good intentions—or you don’t.
“I don’t trust anyone, James. Except Nick.”
He gets up and sits on the bed. “So why’d you come here?”
I stand, unashamed of my nakedness, and move across the room. It’s too small so I reach the wall with only a few paces between us, and then I’m forced to turn and look at him. “I don’t know. I’m tired of waiting for things to begin, I guess. I have no idea why I’m here.”
He’s nodding his head as I talk and then he stands up and covers half of the distance between us. “Keep going,” he says. “Tell me, just find those feelings, those words… and admit it to yourself and then to me. Tell me why you’re here.”
I stare at him. His scent is different now, the sweet scent of soap lingering on his bare chest. I want to touch him so bad. I want to run my fingertips down the hard muscles of his chest. I want his hands to cup my face as he kisses my mouth. I want my legs wrapped around his waist as he pushes himself deep inside me. I want, I want, I want…
“I want you,” I finally admit. “I waited for you to come back, but you didn’t. And I’m so tired of waiting for people. I’m so tired of being everyone’s afterthought. So I had this address in my head. The text came in while we were together, and I memorized it.”
“This place could’ve been anywhere, Harper. It was a big risk.”
“I need a little risk in my life, James. I’m tired of standing still.”
“Then”—he steps forward and the gulf between us evaporates—“take a risk on me. I’m on your side, Harper.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “You’re on no one’s side. You’re only here for your own interests.”
He stares back at me for a few seconds and nods in response. “You’re right. But baby, the only thing I’m interested in right now is you.”
I don’t have anything to say to that. The talk is over. The truth is on the table. I can either play another card or fold out of the game. And I’m a terrible decision-maker, so I opt for both. “I want you. I came here because I want you,” I say as my hands touch the top of his shoulders, resting over the curve of him, like they have always belonged there. They cup the hard muscles, then slide down a little and James pushes me backwards until my knees reach the edge of the bed and I am forced to sit.
His large hands grip under my knees and part my legs as he settles in front of me.
And then his mouth is on my pussy.
Chapter Twenty-Four - Harper
It’s a long, slow—so agonizingly slow—lap of his tongue up my slit. He pauses at the crest of my sex and flicks his tongue back and forth until my hips come right off the bed. My fingers weave through his hair and then they grasp hard, pulling his whole face towards me. He sucks on my clit, just a slight suction at first. But that’s enough. More than enough. I’m grinding now, unable to control my desire. And the orgasm is coming fast, it’s building to a climax that might be monumental in scope, that’s how fucking astonishing it feels to have James’ mouth on me. I wait for him to pull back, to deny me like he did last time.
But he doesn’t. He thrusts his tongue against my clit, alternating with sucking and lapping, until I’m writhing and the only words in my mouth are his name.
“James. James. James.”
My back buckles as the sensations crest and crash, over and over again, and James never stops. He rides the wave of pleasure with me until, after almost a minute, the aftershocks subside enough to allow me to breathe again. “I’m so jealous,” I finally say once I’ve calmed my racing heart. “I’m so jealous of all the other women you’ve given this kind of attention to.”
“Well,” he says as he unbuttons his jeans and kicks them off, “you’re goddamn lucky you were a virgin when I came along, otherwise I’d have a hit list for anyone who ever touched you.” Before I can tell him that’s an inappropriate joke, he sits down and grabs my shoulder. “Flip over. We do it my way now.” Before I know what’s happening, I’m face down on the bed.
I peek over my shoulder to watch him fling his jeans across the room. He shoots me a crooked grin and I start to get worried. He said something about—“Ow!” My train of thought is obliterated in one swoop of his hand as it smacks down on my ass cheek, leaving a sting behind. Before I can put together a coherent objection, he’s straddling my upper thighs and massaging the sting away with his rough hands.
“That was a love tap. Just to warm you up.” He rises up on his knees, then places his hands on my outer thighs and pushes my legs all the way together.
The fingers search for my pussy again, but this time they slide right past my ass. That feels so fucking good. I moan.
“You like that, Harp?”
Before I can answer his finger drags the wetness leftover from my orgasm up into my perfect pink bud. I brace for the pain I felt back at the beach apartment when he tried this same thing. But this time he’s slow. And gentle. And he goes back several times for more of my slick juices. “Will you—”
“No. Not tonight. I just want you to know how good it can be. I want to take my time, make you want it. Make you beg for it.”
“What if I want it now?” I chew on my lower lip as I try and look over my shoulder at him again, but he leans his chest over my back, trapping me underneath him. He lifts his hips and one hand goes to his cock. He flicks it back and forth, still dragging the wetness from my pussy to my ass, and every few seconds, he stops to push his thumb against the tight muscle at my entrance… until… it slips right inside.
“Ohhhh,” I moan. And it’s not a bad moan. It’s not a moan of pain or pleasure, but some elusive mixture of both at the same time. I’m throbbing again, and it’s like James can read my mind, because even as I become distracted by the new sensations, he’s twirling my clit with his fingertip. Dragging, dragging so, so slowly, up and down the crease of my opening, all the while he pushes his thumb farther inside me.
“Do you want my dick in your ass yet, Harp?” he asks, pressing his lips up against my ear, sending a jolt through my entire body.
“I’m ready to beg for it.”
He presses his mouth into my neck and kisses me, getting mostly hair for his efforts, but he’s chuckling, so I know he doesn’t care. “I do love you, Harper. I’ve loved you for so long. But now I want more than love and sex. I want to know you.” He lifts his hips again, but this time, his cock finds his mark and he thrusts himself inside my pussy. He rocks back and forth, still teasing my asshole with his thumb. He repositions himself so he’s straddling my upper thighs now and this changes everything. All the feelings I just experienced pale in comparison to the sensation of his dick sliding p
ast my ass cheeks as he fucks me from behind.
“Your fucking ass is beautiful. The way it hugs my cock as I take you.”
Oh God. That’s the only thing I can think of. Oh God, oh God, oh God!
And then he flips me over again and before I know what’s happening, he’s pushing me down to the ground. I hit the cold tile floor and the sting on my knees registers for a brief moment, but then James pushes his cock towards my mouth and I open for him. Everything else is forgotten as I look up into his eyes.
Now. Now I can see the truth in him.
“Fuck me,” I whisper.
He doesn’t wait for a second request. His cock slides past my lips and I flick my tongue along the underside of his shaft. My eyes never leave his and even though he’s definitely the one in charge right now, even though he’s one of the most dangerous men in the world, and even though I’m the one on my knees—I have the power.
He gives everything to me when he throws his head back and explodes down my throat.
I have the power.
But that’s not what makes me happy. It’s the way I receive the power that makes all the difference.
I have power because he gives it to me.
Chapter Twenty-Five - James
I’m out of bed in an instant, reaching for the gun that’s not there, as I try to wake up from a night of sex-induced deep slumber.
Where the fuck is my gun?
Harper is standing next to me, pulling on her top. Her shorts are hanging off her hips, half-zipped, a phone sticking out of each pocket. Before I can make sense of what I’m seeing, she whispers, “What was that noise?”
“The Smurf?” I answer as I find the gun on the floor and check the chamber and the mag. The FN Five-SeveN holds twenty rounds.
Twenty is more than enough.
A scream jolts us into action and we bolt for the door at the same time. I push Harp back. “Stay here,” I growl down at her. “I’m not kidding.”
I don’t wait for an answer, just open the door and press my back against the hallway as I maneuver towards the living room. Where the fuck did we leave the Smurf? Outside?
But no, the TV is on, cartoons are playing softly. There’s wrappers and stuff on the coffee table like she’s been helping herself to food.
I notice the open back door in the kitchen and hear the whine of a dirt bike engine at the same time.
“Fuck!” Harper’s next to me and we hop down the porch steps in tandem and run for the garage.
“Get in,” I bark at her. The keys are in a magnetic holder to the left of the tailpipe, so I grab those, get in, and start it up. “Where did they go? Did you see where they went?” I pull forward out of the garage.
“That way.” Harper points behind us, to the desert beyond the back yard. There’s a cloud of dust. “Did someone take her?”
I ignore her. This kid isn’t going anywhere without me until I say so.
I gun it. “Hold on!” I yell to Harp over the roar of the engine as we bounce along the scrub. I glance in the rear view and there’s a trail of decimated yucca plants.
“Oh my God,” Harper says as she grabs the handle above the window. We gain on them and the biker looks over his shoulder at us, then increases the throttle and pulls away on a flat stretch of hard-packed sand. The sun is just starting to rise and the glare blinds me for a moment, but it blinds him too, and he swerves west to avoid it.
Harper has her head out the window pointing at something up ahead. “There’s something up there. What’s he heading for?”
Mesquite trees are lined up in the distance, signaling there’s a dry river bed up ahead. They are thick, big enough to possibly stop the Hummer if I try to plow through them. “If he can make it to the river bed he can lose us. Harper,” I say, pointing to the gun tucked under my thigh, “grab the gun. When I pull up next to him, you shoot out the tires, OK?”
“What? No! I don’t shoot guns! I’ll hit Sasha!”
“How the fuck do you not shoot guns?” But the conversation drops off when I hit a good-sized ocotillo plant. Instincts kick in and we both shield our eyes from the onslaught of flying limbs that splatter against the windshield. “Fuck! The ocotillos are everywhere!” It’s like someone planted the tall twiggy bushes on purpose to keep off-roaders away. “Harper!” I grab her by the arm. “You drive, herd him towards that wall of ocotillos over there! I’ll shoot out the tires and even if he gets away, the thorns will—”
“James! I can’t drive!”
“What the fuck? How the hell?” But the biker is on to me and he swerves. I head the opposite direction, anticipating his evasive move, and direct him back where I want him.
“I don’t see Sasha! What if she’s back at the house?”
She’s right. Fuck.
“There’s a scope in the back, Harper, get it out and look. I think she’s slumped over on the tank.”
Harp climbs in back and starts fishing through a box of gear on the floor. A few seconds later she gasps. “She’s on the tank, but she looks dead!”
I swerve again to keep the biker going towards the ocotillos and not towards the line of mesquites. He guns it, mistaking the dried stalks as dead tree branches, and throttles through the wall of thorns. I follow, but unlike him and Sasha, I’ve got a windshield to protect me. The bike swerves severely, and they are going forty-five or fifty miles an hour at least, so for a moment I panic, thinking he’s gonna kill the Smurf with a wipeout.
But he recovers and now that he’s through the wall of thorns, he’s got a straight shot to the riverbed where the wall of mesquites will let him slip by and stop us dead.
Harper opens the sun roof and sticks her head out.
“Shoot that fucker, Harper!” She ignores me, but she’s climbing up through the sunroof. “What the fuck are you doing? Get your ass back in here and get this gun!”
The bike is way out ahead now, more than fifty yards, and the whole thing is looking more and more hopeless when he begins to slow. “The tire’s going flat from the thorns!” Harp yells. “Pull up to him, James, pull up next to him and I’ll shoot the other tire.” She reaches down and grabs the gun, then lifts herself back up through the sunroof. But this time her legs disappear.
She’s on top of the fucking roof! She’s gone crazy!
Chapter Twenty-Six - Harper
“Pull up closer, James!” I yell down from the roof. I might not be able to shoot and I might not be able to drive, but I can fight hand to hand like a motherfucker. I’m not nearly as helpless as people think.
We swerve one way, then the other and my body goes sliding across the roof. My fingers latch onto the sun roof opening and my feet brace against the roof rack and I hold fast until James straightens out the Hummer. The dirt bike is slowing considerably now, but the wash is not far away. If the biker makes it through the mesquite trees and down into the dry river bed, he can ride that flat tire right into town. And then we’ll lose Sasha. Maybe I just met her, but she’s with us. And that means she’s important.
“Shoot now, Harper!” James yells from below. He’s pulled up close, within a few feet. “Shoot!”
I throw the gun down into the cab because there’s no way I can shoot that thing and not hit the little girl slumped over the top of the tank. She’s bleeding from the thorns, I can see that now. The biker has a helmet on, so he’s just fine. But poor Sasha.
“What the fuck are you doing?” James swerves as he yells and my body goes careening off to one side again. I grab the sun roof as I slide past and pull myself back to the driver’s side where I can see the bike. James has the gun now, he points it, but we hit a bump and the shot misses.
The Hummer and the bike slow at the same time once we all realize there’s a large gully less than thirty feet away. This is it. If he gets into that thing, we’ve lost. James swerves to avoid a spiky desert plant, and that brings us to within a few feet of the struggling bike.
I’ll take it.
I pull myself into a crouch, then
launch myself at them like a missile. I hit the biker in the back and he collapses forward on top of Sasha. The bike swerves beneath us and then we’re sliding sideways on the sand. My legs burn as millions of grains of dirt turn into an endless sheet of sandpaper, but I manage to keep his body between me and the ground.
The bike comes to a stop but I keep going for a few more feet. This gives the biker a chance to grab a gun from a shoulder holster. I feel nothing. No pain. The only sense I have at the moment is sight. The only thing I see is a killer with a gun. I scramble towards him at the same time he gets a shot off. The bullet passes so close to my shoulder I feel the breeze of luck.
And then I see red. I see red and my world is silent as the counter-move presents itself in my mind.
I breathe, once, twice, and then I’m upon him. He lands a punch square on my cheek and my head snaps to the side, but I compensate. I feel nothing in a fight. I only see. And what I see now is my opportunity. So while his fist is following through in an arc required by the laws of physics, my hands are wrapped around his helmet.
I squeeze tightly, and then…
I twist.
The span of a breath changes everything. I dislocate the head from the spine in less time than it takes to breathe one breath.
His body goes limp just like that. Life. Ended. It’s that easy. His head falls into my lap and then the red subsides and the rush of reality snaps back into my forward senses.
I hear yelling. James is yelling for me to stop.
I look down at my hands as they tug on the helmet.
“Stop!” he screams. “Do not take that helmet off!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven - James
“Stop!”
Fuck! I grab Harper’s arm and drag her away from the body before she can take that helmet off. “Over here, Harp. Over here!” Her eyes are wild with the fight and this is the moment when I realize something.
