“Say it. Say how much you want me.”
“I wasn’t faking it. I was joking when I said that,” she says on a pant.
“Tell me how much you want it all. Tell me how much you want all of my cock.”
Her hips shoot up. “I want you. I want you so much. Fuck me deep. I’m begging you,” she cries, and she is begging, and it is exquisite to witness her desperate sexiness.
I fuck her hard and deep, until she is out of her mind with pleasure. Until her cries turn hoarse. Until her eyes squeeze shut. Until she can’t stop saying my name as she falls apart once more. Multiple orgasms sound pretty damn good to me, too, so I join her, coming again with a shudder that jolts my whole body.
When I untie her, she raises a hand to my hair, drags it through, and kisses me. “I lied. That was the best time ever.”
“It gets better every time,” I say softly.
Soon, she stands and starts to gather her clothes. Spinning in a circle, she hunts for something on the floor.
“What are you doing?” I ask curiously.
“Getting dressed.”
“Pourquoi?”
“So I can go. Isn’t that the deal?”
I crawl to the edge of the bed and tackle her, arms around her waist, surprising her.
“What are you doing?” she shrieks.
I toss her on the mattress and tickle her.
She cracks up. “Stop it.”
I don’t relent. My fingertips race up her sides, making her squirm. “I’ll stop if you spend the night.”
“Mercy, mercy,” she calls out, and she’s smiling, as wide as the sea of stars in the sky.
I tug her to me, brush her hair away from her ear, and then whisper, “Will you stay?”
Her breath hitches. “Yes. You don’t care if we break another ground rule?”
“We’re still ahead. I mean, I don’t care, so long as you don’t try to kiss me the second you wake up.”
“Because of morning breath, right?”
I nod. “Not yours. Just in general.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Morning breath is an excellent new ground rule. I hate morning breath.”
“Me, too.”
“I don’t have a toothbrush, though.”
“I have an extra one. Never been used,” I tell her.
She places her index finger on her lips as if she’s weighing all the options. “But what flavor toothpaste do you have?”
A blush creeps across my cheeks.
She notices and points. “Don’t tell me you use bubblegum Crest?”
I shake my head. “No. I bought the kind you like. The minty Crest.”
Her eyes sparkle, and she brings a hand to her chest. It’s the sweetest thing. “You bought me toothpaste.”
She sounds happier than when I bought her the ring. My heart beats faster, and words start to form on my tongue. Words that reveal strange new feelings inside me. I part my lips so I can say something. Tell her how much I am starting to feel for her. How real it is all becoming.
I stop when she lowers her mouth to mine and whispers, “You really are my best friend.”
Friends.
Yes. That’s all she wants to be.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Harper licks lemon ice cream in a cone.
“This doesn’t make up for Santa,” she says, pointing at the treat as we leave her favorite gelato vendor. “But it’s a good start, and you’ve bought my silence for another few days.”
“Good. That’s all I need.”
“Saw the picture of you and Charlotte this morning.” She nudges me as we walk along Central Park, en route to a quick softball practice with our team’s star slugger, Nick. The three of us snagged the field for thirty minutes on a Friday afternoon before the actual game tomorrow. I’ve got my glove and bat, and Harper has her glove in her free hand.
“You really can’t stay away from me online, can you?” I tease her.
“I know. It’s a terrible addiction I have, my gossip fetish.”
“So it ran? The one from Sardi’s?” I ask, confirming what I suspected Abe would do.
“Yup.”
“That reporter from Metropolis is such a tool.”
She furrows her brow as she licks the icy treat. “Wasn’t in Metropolis.”
As we turn into the park, I ask, “Well, where was it?”
She shakes her head, bemused. “I really can’t believe you don’t look this stuff up about yourself.”
“Believe it. I don’t. Never have. Tell me.”
“It was Page Six.”
My eyes widen. Page Six is the big New York gossip outlet. I try to avoid Page Six.
“How’d that happen? I thought he worked for Metropolis Life and Times.”
“He’s an intern there,” Harper says. “Abe Kaufman. I looked him up. He’s in journalism school at Columbia, so he freelances for Metropolis Life and Times as well as Page Six. Looks like he sold the picture of the two of you to more gossip-centric one.”