by Penny Ward
He needed to feel her.
Everything inside of him felt like it was going to implode upon itself if he didn't have her in the next ten seconds.
Pulling himself up over top of her, he positioned himself over her entrance and she held her breath waiting for him.
When Beau pushed himself inside of her, it was like sheathing himself in wet heated glory. She felt so good.
“Oh yes,” she moaned as he started to thrust into her.
He filled her deeply and the feeling of having him inside of her made everything in her body tingle.
Her hands ran up his bulging biceps and up his sides to grip his back as he thrust into her harder and faster.
Harper's breathing was coming faster again.
The bite of her nails digging into the skin on his back drove him on harder.
She cried out as another orgasm took her and her pussy fluttered around him, clenching him and releasing in a rhythmic pulse that added tightness to each thrust.
Looking into her eyes, he started to wonder how he could have ever been without her.
“Beau,” she said breathily as he thundered into her. “Yes, that feels so good.”
He could feel his own orgasm building inside of him.
Growing in power as the sensation tightened his balls and traveled to the root of his cock.
“Yes,” he groaned. “Yes!”
He took control of her.
“I'm gonna cum,” he whispered before thrusting harder and faster into her.
Harper's legs wrapped around his ass, pulling him in harder with each thrust, urging him on and pulling his body deeper into her as he erupted and filled her with spurt after spurt of his hot seed.
His cock throbbed with each explosion as he groaned and froze, unable to move for the power of the orgasm coursing through his body.
Her hips rocked and her body stroked each drop from him.
Beau leaned down and crushed his mouth to hers his tongue parted her lips and filled her mouth. Harper's hands buried themselves in his short hair, pulling him in and kissing him deeper.
A sheen of sweat covered them both as they tried to catch their breath.
“I need you to be mine, Harper,” Beau said when they sat up.
He pulled her into his arms and she lay her hair on his chest, listening to his heart beating wildly in it's cage.
“I am,” she said moving closer.
He held her tight and they drifted to sleep together on the couch, entirely worn out from such an emotional and exhausting night.
Chapter Nine
Beau woke up and found Harper still asleep on his chest. His arms still wrapped protectively around her as she slept.
Looking up at the clock, he saw it was almost seven in the morning.
“Babe,” he whispered “Harper.”
Beau rubbed her back slowly and she started to stir.
“Hmm?” she mumbled and curled back into him.
“It's morning.”
“It was morning when we went to sleep too,” Harper said, trying not to wake up.
“True, but now it's the time of morning where you and I need to be at work,” Beau pointed out.
'Work' - Harper thought in a sudden panic. She had forgotten about having to go to work the next morning after everything that had happened the night before.
“Don't want to,” she said and buried her head into his lap.
The position of her mouth to him made his cock start to stir and harden.
“Unless you want that in your mouth, you should probably get up,” he warned her.
“Who says I don't want it?” Harper asked playfully without looking up at him.
He could feel her cheeks on his stomach as she tried to hide her smile.
“As much as I want that, we need to get up.”
It was one of the hardest statements he had ever had to make.
Harper groaned.
“You were a difficult child, weren't you?” he laughed and pulled her up into the sitting position.
“Maybe,” she said, opening one eye and looking at him.
“Well, how about I bribe you then?” Beau asked.
“I'm listening,” she said, trying to avoid the urge to lay back down in his lap and stay there for another six or seven hours.
“Donuts and coffee on the way to work. My treat and I'll drive. Not that you could drive since your car is still at the office. But I'm using that as part of my bribe never the less.”
He brushed a loose strand of her hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear.
“Deal,” Harper said getting up and walking lazily to the shower.
Watching her walk across her apartment naked and warmed with the heat of his body had him hardening the rest of the way into full, throbbing erection.
He sighed and gave himself a few longing strokes thinking about the way her body moved.
'This woman is something else,' he thought pulling his clothes back on and picking up his belt from the floor.
He wondered if the guys would say anything about him coming in wearing the same clothes he had had on when he left last night. Beau decided he didn't care what any of them had to say and pulled his belt through the loops of his pants.
Harper came out of the shower looking like a goddess. Dressed in a little yellow dress that clung to her curves and showed off every asset her body had to offer and heels that made her legs stretch out for miles.
Beau whistled at her.
Harper laughed and blushed and twirled sending the dress billowing out around her in a little circle and giving him a sneak peek of her thighs underneath.
“Hmmm,” he said.
“What's wrong?” Harper asked picking up her purse and stuffing her keys in the pocket.
“If we don't leave now, I'm not going to let us go in today after all,” Beau opened the door and followed her out.
“We can go back to bed?” Harper asked semi-sleepily.
“Darling, if I take you to bed right now, no one is going to be getting any rest,” Beau laughed and wrapped his arm around her waist as they walked down the hall.
“I'm okay with that option too,” Harper teased.
“Don't tempt me,” Beau said and scooted her down the steps with a pinch on her ass that made her squeal and run down the stairs.
The next few days at work drifted along slowly and Harper and Beau spent most of their nights together after work either in her apartment or over in his apartment.
She broke the news to Beau that the team was five million dollars in debt and struggling to pay its loans.
Beau shrugged at the information, and seemed to captivated with Harper’s body to care about the money.
Most of the time, they stayed at his place because there was more room and it was closer to work, meaning they had less time to wait until they would be able to be together alone.
Sleeping in his bed and waking up wrapped up naked in his strong arms made her feel safe.
More than that, it made her feel cherished.
Harper was going to hold onto that beautiful feeling.
Chapter Ten
Things in Harper's life seemed to finally be working out the way she hoped they always would.
Since getting together with Beau, she had never been happier.
Everything seemed to be coming together like a puzzle with the missing pieces found under the couch.
After the weekend she had spent curled up in bed with Beau, talking about everything from their childhoods, their plans for the future and what they hoped would come from all of their hard work, to books and food and everything under the sun, Harper was beaming.
She walked around the office with a smile on her face every day and her happiness didn't go unnoticed.
Jill caught on to the change in her and the way she was spending more time with Beau and demanded details on everything.
“You are dating him, aren't you?” she asked curiously.
“Maybe… yes,” Harp
er admitted, smiling and trying to keep her friend quiet before everyone in the office knew about it.
“Oh my gosh!” Jill said in shock “I can't believe you and Beau Donovan!” She gave Harper the kind of look someone gives a newborn puppy and hugged her. “That's so cute.”
Harper laughed.
Sexy, fulfilling, happy? Yes. But cute? She hadn't thought of her new relationship in that way.
“I need to get back to work but if you want later we can catch up on things,” Harper said and Jill nodded as the phone rang and she rolled her eyes at it.
Harper waved and headed to her office to settle down and go over this weeks dividends and start working on payroll for the team and the coaches and then the separate payroll for the office workers and owner, managers and staff.
All she could think about was work being over and heading home with Beau.
She was planning on actually cooking dinner for him today.
That was a big risk when it came to her.
She didn't have much culinary knowledge and more often than not her attempts ended up in the trashcan.
They could always order a pizza if her experiment flopped.
When 10am rolled around, she noticed her coffee mug was pathetically empty and the dregs at the bottom of the cup were cold with coffee grounds swimming around in them.
Harper decided to head to the break room to see if there was anything to snack on there. Often someone would bring in donuts or muffins in the morning and leave them in the break room.
When Harper got there, she was disappointed to find that there were no baked goods but she was cheered up instantly when she saw that someone had made a fresh pot of coffee.
“Hmm, can't win them all,” she said, pouring the strong black coffee into her mug and digging around the container of sweeteners, looking for real sugar. The artificial sweeteners always gave her a headache and left a funny taste in her mouth.
The sound of female laughter caught her attention on her way back while she tried to keep most of the coffee in her cup.
Harper looked over to the reception desk, thinking it was Jill.
But Jill wasn't there.
Instead, one of the models from the promotional photo shoot this morning was throwing herself all over Beau.
She was sitting on his lap, tossing her long blond hair behind her and giggling at something he had said before she walked by.
The woman fit the stereotype of the ditzy blonde model.
She was stunningly gorgeous but full of nothing but hot air and diet coke.
Beau had a smile on his face.
He certainly didn't seem to look uncomfortable while she was cozied up in his lap whispering something in his ear that made his smile widen.
“Sure,” Harper heard Beau say. “How about sometime in the evening on Thursday? Say, seven?” Beau suggested.
“You're the best!” The model squealed and wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek, leaving a perfect pair of coral pink lips where hers had been.
Harper didn't need to hear anymore.
She wasn't about to stick around and listen to the rest while they planned their date.
She had heard more than enough.
She straightened her coffee cup, noticing that in her stunned state, she had nearly spilled half of it on the old blue carpet.
But the stains that covered the worn carpet told her it had probably seen worse things than a few drops of coffee that was still dripping off the side of the mug and her fingers.
Chapter Eleven
Harper scolded herself as she walked back to her office.
She should have known better than to put any faith in Beau and the hope of having a relationship with him. He wasn't the kind of man who was able to stick to one woman and be happy.
Of course not.
He needed to play the field... and stick to his soccer personality.
Long before she started working here, she had seen the reports over the last few years in the newspapers, tabloids and even on the nightly news about Beau Donovan being a playboy.
She knew the facts.
He is a player.
But she never once thought that she would have been gullible enough to fall for his charms.
He had always been one of the most sought after bachelors in the sports world. Women around the planet wanted him and he was more than happy to give them what they wanted, apparently.
Beau could have had his choice of any woman in the world any day of the week that it caught his fancy to do so.
What made Harper think she was special enough to change any of that or make him change his ways?
Sure, he had told her that women threw themselves at him for his money but did he really think she was stupid enough to ignore something like that when it was happening right in front of her eyes?
She had let herself get her hopes up that he was ready to move beyond all of that and settle down.
That thought was ridiculous.
A leopard didn't change his spots and Beau Donovan was the sneakiest kind of leopard there was.
He was the kind that would trick you into a false sense of security and then just as you started to believe that all of the tabloids had been wrong about you and who he really was he snuck up and showed you just how right they had been all along.
Harper had better things to do than stand around watching him pick out his next one night stand to pour his heart full of lies out to.
Maybe the next girl wouldn't be so trusting of him.
She had work to do.
Work that involved being in her office far away from the show going on in the reception area.
She had to figure out the finances and be able to keep the team going and keep her job.
Harper pushed the heavy office door closed behind her and leaned her back against it with a sigh.
Her chest hurt.
Despite knowing better – it still hurt.
Everything inside of her felt bruised and battered and broken.
“How could he do that?' she whispered out-loud, “After everything we had talked about and been through together and what I thought we had been building together... did all of it mean so little to him?”
Tears overflowed her lids despite her efforts not to let them fall and trailed down her cheeks.
“Of course it didn’t mean a thing to him,” she shook her head. “Bastard. All that bastard wanted was wanted sex. And I was emotionally shattered. He took advantage of me in a vulnerable situation. Bastard.”
Harper wiped the tears away angrily with the back of her shaking hand.
She wasn't the kind of girl who cried over being used and screwed over by a man.
“Just because he's had years of practice seducing women and sneaking off when they showed any sign of getting attached to him doesn't mean I need to get emotional about it,” Harper said to herself.
That was entirely a flaw with him and had nothing negative to say about her.
So what if she had given him her trust, her body and the secrets of her past?
It meant nothing to him.
And if it meant nothing to him then he was going to mean and be nothing to her.
Harper couldn't help but feel naïve to have fallen for everything he had said to her.
Every line he fed her, she gobbled up eagerly.
But she wasn’t about to cry about it.
Nope. No way.
Especially not at work where he was seen as a king.
She for one wasn't going to give him that power.
Men had been given more than enough power in her life over her and she wasn't going to add to the list with Beau.
That list was closing now.
This wasn't about to become a pattern in her life where men decided she was fun to sleep with for a while and entertaining to lead on and then the turned around and found someone else while she was caught completely unaware.
Harper sat at her desk and pulled out another stack of files from the
bottom left drawer and started flipping through them but she was completely unable to concentrate and felt like she had looked at the same bad numbers over and over again.
Now that she knew what she was dealing with when she got involved with Beau Donovan and his giant ego she was going to deal with appropriately.
Knowing where she stands with him was going to save her so much time.
Just because he was a celebrity athlete didn't mean he could get away with anything his backwards little mind dreamed up.
He may think that works on everyone else but it wasn't going to work on her.
The sport he played, the career he chose, none of that played into who we was as a person.
What he chose to do when he was in a relationship with someone most certainly did though.
Harper played second fiddle to no one.
She was done teaching that lesson to people. If he wanted to date other people that was fine, but she wasn't going to be one of the crowd.
Not again.
Not for that bastard.
Chapter Twelve
When Harper left that evening, she walked right past him without saying a word and got into her car.
In the rearview mirror, she saw him standing in the doorway of the building watching her drive away, looking confused.
Harper shook her head in disbelief.
“He really doesn't get it,” she said out loud. “What a prick.”
She turned on the radio and pumped up the first song that came on so that she could blast the thoughts out of her head. She didn’t want to think about him – she didn’t want to think about the rock hard abs, the delicious chest, or the charming, seductive eyes…
“Get out of my head!” she yelled in the car.
When she got into her apartment, she looked at her cell phone.
Of course she had a text from him.
They had plans tonight for dinner and she was supposed to have followed him over to his house after she went to the store to pick up what she needed to make her lasagna.
When she didn’t show up, he was apparently concerned.
Beau had no idea why Harper wasn't talking to him or why she had breezed past him at the office and driven off when he tried to talk to her.
