by Tracey Ward
“You’re my family,” I reply robotically. “Yes, I love you.”
“Stop dancing around it.” She takes a step toward me, invading my space. Invading the world and making it smaller than it’s ever been before, pressing the dark of the night sky against my chest until it hurts.
“Dancing around what? What do you want from me?”
“I want the truth.”
“Why would I tell you the truth when you’ve been lying to both of us for years?”
“I’m they liar?!”
“You think you’re not? That makes you a better liar than I thought because you’ve even got yourself convinced.”
“Fuck you.”
“No, fuck you, Harlow!” I shout, losing it. All of it. Every bit of everything I’ve kept buried down deep since I woke up that morning three years ago to find her gone. “Fuck you for not figuring us out when I did. Fuck you for running off with Devo. Fuck you for leaving me that night. And fuck you for walking into the gas station and starting this bullshit up again! I was fine without you! I was over it and now look at me! I’m going out of my goddamn mind over you!”
“Just answer me!”
“Yes!” I practically scream at her. “I fucking love you! I’ve been in love with you since we were kids! Since before I even knew what love was, I loved you! I’ll die loving you, Harlow! Is that what you want to hear?”
She stares at me, her eyes warm and wet with tears she’ll never shed. Not even for me. “I fucking love you too.”
I lurch toward her, my body out of my control for half a second. I stop myself just short of her, our bodies kept apart by the barest thread of my self-control.
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” I breathe hotly over her. “You love me but you’re not leaving him.”
She blinks rapidly, shaking her head. “I don’t know.”
“You never do, ‘Low. You never fucking know.”
“I want…” She licks her lips, her eyes burning with determination and desire.
“Say it.”
“I want you.”
It’s all I want to hear. All I’ve ever needed from her; to know she needs me the way I need her. Like air. Like water.
Like love.
“Say it again,” I demand roughly.
“I want you, Josh. Just you.”
Those words hit me harder than when she told me she loved me. They decimate me, forcing me forward. Crumbling me down around her.
I kiss her to ground myself. To find myself. I kiss her to prove that this is real, to both of us. To send that feeling through my body down into hers. That fire. That lightning. It sizzles between us, sparking and arcing until I’m afraid to touch her. I’m worried I’ll burn her alive, but I’m too damn desperate for her to really care.
I put my arm around her waist to pull her against me. My other hand threads through her hair at the base of her neck as she moans into my mouth. She doesn’t let up. She doesn’t show any signs of satisfaction. Her kisses continue, deepening. Darkening. Her hold on me tightens, her nails digging into my shoulders as she tries to pull me closer.
“Don’t stop,” she pleads. Her eyes latch onto mine in the shadows, wide and entreating. “Please don’t stop.”
I spin her around to push her up against the door. Her arms I pull up high over her head, ripping her shirt off easily and casting it aside. I drag my hands from her wrists down to her neck, over her breasts, across her stomach. Her breathing is ragged, her body trembling under my touch as I pull down on the waist of her pants. They’re a soft, thin material that stretches easily over the round of her ass. When I let it go, it pools in a puddle at her feet, dark as the blood that’s staining the floor.
She helps me undress, practically taking my head off with my shirt. Her hands are fast and efficient. Desperate. Her long nails cut my skin like knives, her hand diving inside my boxers before I can get them all the way down. But once she’s in there, her hold on me is surprisingly soft. It leaves me breathless, boneless. I fall against her, pressing her body harder against the door as she runs her hand up and down the length of me, touching every part of me with her silk soft palm.
Our breaths echo through the empty house, shallow and desperate. When I slide my fingers between her thighs, I hear her gasp everywhere; in full surround sound. The high, needy trill in the back of her throat bounces off the floors, the ceiling, the walls, and reverberates inside my brain, driving me wild. I’m addicted to it, like the first kiss of heroin in the vein. I can still hear it but already I want it again. I want it bigger, louder, screaming my name.
I grab Harlow behind her thighs, lifting her up above me. Her golden hair falls around her face in a curtain of silk as I slide her down on top of me. Hot. Wet. Bare. Her green eyes go sleepy, closing on a sigh I feel against my face and in my chest. An impossible relief, like coming home.
“I’m not letting you go again,” I vow, kissing her chin. Her cheek. Her lush pink lips that tremble as she takes me to the hilt. “I’m never letting you go.”
She mewls softly, her fingers threading into my hair at the nape of my neck. Her head falls back, her mouth opening wide. I quicken my thrusts, drawing another moan from her. Another gasp. Another broken song I want to hear her sing for the rest of my life. When I reach down to run my thumb across the wet, slick head of her clit, she shakes violently around me.
“Yes. Fuck, Josh, yes,” she pleads, her grip on my neck tightening.
I circle my thumb slowly, sending that thrill through her body again and again. She bucks against me, clawing at my neck and back, her breasts bouncing in front of me. I bury my face in them, letting the scruff on my cheeks and chin rub the delicate skin roughly. I manage to catch one nipple in my mouth, sucking it hard so I can taste that salty tang of her skin.
“I’m gonna come,” she whispers rapidly. “I’m gonna come.”
“Do it, babe. Go. Let me feel it.”
She lowers her face to look down at me, her eyes wet and glistening. Begging. “I wanna wait for you.”
I grin, taking my thumb off her clit and driving into her harder. Faster.
Her head falls back again, her mouth sending staccato prayers to the sky. She’s begging and praising as I worship her from the inside out, losing myself in her. Our bodies are slicked with sweat in the hot room. Goosebumps break out on my skin as I feel faint from the heat inside me. I feel sick and insane as I fuck her and I know nothing will ever feel like this again. Nothing else will ever be so right and so wrong. So consuming that I lose track of her breaths and mine, her soft center and my hard shaft; it all blends together in my mind until there’s no sense of self anymore. Nothing is hers. Nothing is mine. It’s ours, it’s us.
It’s how it always should have been.
She comes before I do. It doesn’t matter. The clench of her body around me sends me over the edge and two thrusts later I’m right there with her. I’m spilling inside her as she digs her nails so deep into my skin I feel it break. I feel it bleed.
I feel fucking amazing.
***
Harlow turns to burrow her face into my neck, breathing in deeply. “You smell good. How do you always smell so good?”
“Basic hygiene, I guess.”
She giggles silently, her body shaking against mine in a girlish kind of way that feels foreign for her. Lighter than she’s ever been.
She’s laying on top of me on the couch; naked and warm. Soft and supple in ways I thought were just a dream. I can feel her laughter against my body. Her voice vibrating against my skin. Her heart beating into mine.
“Before you got your power and water back, where did you shower?” Harlow asks curiously.
“At the school gym. I work out in the morning six days a week and shower afterward. And before you ask, I used to shit at school too.”
“I wasn’t going to ask,” she laughs,” but thanks for that.”
“Yep.”
She surprises me when she licks a slow, hot line from the base of my ne
ck up to my ear.
My eyes close, my heart racing.
“You taste good, too,” she hums. Her lips brush against my earlobe. “Like a long day and whiskey.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s delicious.”
Harlow sucks the tender lobe into her mouth. She sighs contentedly, hot and slow. “You taste like a man.”
“I’m gonna roll you over and fuck you like a man if you keep that shit up,” I warn her tightly.
“Promises, promises,” she murmurs, but she lays down, going still.
It’s an empty promise. I’m spent. We’ve had sex three times already and I was all foreplay on that last round. It’s pulled taffy down there. Not a hint of hard.
If having a woman like Harlow laying naked on top of you can’t get you up, you’re beyond hope.
“I should go soon,” she tells me quietly.
I can’t explain all the ways that sentence fucks me up. I don’t want her to leave, ever. I don’t want her to walk out that door and change her mind about this. About us.
I don’t want her to go back to her life with Devo.
“Where are you going?”
“To Lila’s. Bear told me to stay with her and Vanessa tonight for safety.”
“You could stay here with me instead.”
“I wish I could, but the girls would know.”
“Would they tell?”
Harlow is silent for a long time. I wish to God I knew what that silence meant, but as well as I know her, I don’t know this part of her. Does she feel guilty for cheating on Devo? Does she regret it?
“Lila’s not a good liar,” she answers eventually. “And Vanessa’s not that close of a friend. If I ask her to lie to the guys, there’s a pretty good chance she’ll say no.”
“Why do you have to lie at all?”
It’s a risky question. I felt it when I asked it, but I’m not backing down from this. I meant it when I told her I’m not letting her go again.
“I have to lie because I don’t want anyone getting hurt,” she answers carefully.
“You mean you don’t want Devo to get hurt.”
“I don’t want you getting your ass kicked again. What do you think will happen to your deal with the Due if they find out about this? And Raw. You guys are friends but Devo is his brother. If he finds out you fucked Devo’s girl, he’ll help him paralyze you. They have your drugs. They know your hookup. They’ll take your business from you and leave you with nothing.”
I smooth my hand up and down her back slowly. “I’d have you. That’s all I want.”
“Be real, Josh. You need money. Not just for you and school but for Pops. You think I want to see you risk him for me?”
“Money’s coming in. I’m getting my feet under me again.”
“And if you lose your connection to the Due, you’ll have them knocked right back out from under you.” She sits up to look down at me, her hand braced against my chest. Over my heart. “Act like you know what’s really happening here. Don’t make it sound so simple and pretty, like we’re all we need. I’d lose my job. I’d lose the club, and maybe that doesn’t mean a lot to you, but they’re my family. I love every single one of those assholes and I seriously don’t know what I’d do with my life without that place. If I had time to figure it out, I could do it, but you have to give me that time.”
“So what’s the end game? You’ll go back to Devo and the club tomorrow and then what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to stay in the trailer with him? Keep sleeping with him every night?”
“I don’t know.”
I slide abruptly out from under her to stand. I run my hand through my hair, shaking my head. “Jesus, Harlow, it’s a pretty big fucking detail to not know.”
“Do you have all the answers?” she fires back angrily. “I’d love to hear them.”
“Leave Devo. Be with me. Done.”
“Oh, it’s that easy?”
“Yeah, from where I’m standing, it’s pretty dick simple.”
She stands, wrapping the blanket around herself haughtily. “Well, from where I’m standing, it’s pretty goddamn complicated. This is my life, Josh!”
“Harlow, if you feel—”
“I don’t,” she interrupts sternly. “I know what you’re going to say, but you don’t have to bother because I don’t feel bad about this. Not even a little. And maybe that makes me a shit person, but it is what it is.”
“You’re not a shit person.”
“I don’t think Devo would agree with you.”
“I don’t give a fuck what Devo thinks.”
She sighs, closing her eyes. “I’ve put up with Devo fucking other women for years. He doesn’t care about any of them, but you – The way I feel about you, the way that I…” She takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly as she opens her eyes. “There’s no comparison. And I don’t feel guilty about it, but I do want to be careful. I want to handle this the right way, but I don’t know what that is yet. I’m asking you to give me time to figure that out. For both our sakes, because it’s not just me who stands to lose the club tonight. It’s you too, and you can say it doesn’t matter, that you’ve got me and that’s all that you need, but you’re lying to both of us. You said it yourself – you’ve found somewhere that you belong with the Due. You’re happy with them and I don’t want to watch you lose that.”
She’s making sense. I get where she’s coming from, but at the same time I’m looking at her and I’m thinking about her laying down with Devo, and that makes me sick to my stomach. I want to put my fist through the window. I want to beat Devo into an early grave.
It’s probably the same feeling he’d have about me if he found out where she is tonight.
I sit down on the couch, gently gathering her into my arms. I take no small amount of joy in the fact that I can do that. That she’ll come willingly, happily. It’s such a change, it turns me inside out and I have to touch her to remember myself. I have to kiss her to feel real.
It’s not like it was by the door; rushed and desperate. This is another animal entirely. It’s passionate and slow, with all the years we’ve missed inside it. All the love I wasn’t allowed to give her because she wasn’t mine. I touch her face as I kiss her. Her hair. Her neck. I feel her, every inch of her, as I make love to her with my mouth, but it’s not about sex. It’s not about getting her off or getting hard. It’s about the feel of her that makes me alive. The dips and curves of her body that make me dizzy. I want to memorize every single one. I want to press this moment into her skin so she’ll never forget it. So she’ll carry it with her wherever she goes.
Every time the sun shines in her hair, I want her to remember my fingers wrapped inside it. Whenever her shirt brushes across her breasts, I want her to remember the heat of my palm against them. The tickle of my thumb on the back of her knee. The breathless want and worry of my fingers caressing her ass. I want her body to whisper my name as she walks, as she breathes. I want my scent in her hair, my baby in her belly. I want her now. I want her tomorrow. I want her forever.
But I know I can’t have it. I know before I end that kiss, before she opens her eyes and her mouth to tell me goodbye, that my wait for Harlow isn’t over. She still belongs to Devo, to the club, and no amount of sex in secret can take her away from that.
We aren’t where we were three years ago.
We aren’t even where we were three hours ago.
But even though she’s here in my arms tonight, we’re still a long fucking way from where I want us to be.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Josh
Knock. Knock. Knock.
I rap my knuckles on the door to Harrison’s apartment with slow, heavy precision. It’s the antithesis to the beat of my heart that’s racing in my chest, tripping over itself clumsily. The last few hours have been a rollercoaster, wild and unpredictable, and that’s exactly how I feel when I hear him call out nervously from inside.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s Josh,” I answer quietly.
He hurries to the door, his fingers making quick work of the locks inside.
When the door swings open, my fingers roll up tight into a fist ready to fly. I’m one second away from punching him in the face when I see someone already beat me to it. A deep purple bruise is forming under his left eye.
“Josh, I’m so sorry,” he rattles off immediately. “I fucked up, man. I fucked up big.”
My hand loosens, the race in my heart winding down. I push the door open wider, nodding for him to back up and let me in.
The place is trashed. Every drawer is open and emptied onto the floor. His couch is bleeding white clouds from long gashes cut across its cushions. There’s a crooked frame on the floor in the hall surrounded by a glittering sea of broken glass. A broom and dustpan lay discarded on its shore.
“I know you’re mad,” Harrison acknowledges anxiously. “I know I fucked up, but I’m glad you didn’t get hurt.”
I hold up my hand to stop him. “Slow down and tell me what the hell happened.”
“They broke in. They were wearing leathers but I couldn’t read the back. At first I thought they were the Devil’s Due, but I didn’t recognize any of them. They kicked the door in and when I stood up, one of them punched me in the eye. After that, everything was pretty blurry.”
“It was the Black Hawks. They’re an M.C. in Culver.”
“You know them?”
“Then what?” I push, my voice low and even. Dead.
“They told me they wanted the drugs. I told them I didn’t have any, that I never have it. It’s locked up somewhere that I can’t get to. That pissed them off. They started ripping the place apart looking for it but I kept telling them I didn’t have it. They searched for, like, twenty minutes when one of them finally gave up. He told me to take him to the drugs. I told him I don’t have a key. Only one person has the key.”
“That’s when you gave me up.”
Harrison’s face falls, his brow coming down so low over his eyes they look half-closed. “I didn’t want to, dude, but they brought out a knife. They said they were going to cut me. I was scared. I panicked.” He lowers his head, his shoulders slumping in defeat and self-hatred. “I texted you with a bogus order to get you to go to your house. I told them where to find you and where the key is. When they left, they took my phone so I couldn’t text you again to warn you.”
