My thumb skirted over her hip. “Sure. Pandora and I talked about getting married, and I can’t say I know why we didn’t go through with it. We were both about to go off to college and maybe we knew we’d be compounding one mistake with another.” It had been the right decision. “Not that Amanda was a mistake. Just the pregnancy wasn’t planned. Clearly.” Harper glanced up at me and I smiled at her. “Pandora and I were good friends, and just before graduation one thing led to another . . . It was never meant to be anything more than a good-bye.” I sighed. “It bound us together forever.”
Harper pressed her lips against my chest. “She never wanted to get married, not even after Amanda was born?”
I kissed the top of her forehead. “I don’t think so. She met Jason when Amanda was about a year old.”
“Did that bother you?” she asked.
“No, not at all.” It genuinely never had. I liked Jason. He was good to Pandora and my daughter. “I think her parents were worried, but I always wanted Pandora to be happy. We’d been friends a long time. And it didn’t stop me from wanting to be the best dad I could be.”
Harper didn’t respond but I could tell she had more to say. I was content to stay wrapped around her in silence.
Eventually she sighed and said, “I agreed to come shopping because I assumed Amanda would be miserable going shopping with you. I assumed you took as much interest in Amanda as my father did in me.”
I pulled back slightly to look at her. “Really?” I said. “She loves shopping. Doesn’t mind who she’s with but I like to take her. I think since Pandora left, she misses. . .” I almost said her mother but I didn’t want Harper to misunderstand what I was saying. “You know, the girl thing. And Scarlett is dating like a dozen men and Violet is—”
“Violet?” she asked.
“My other sister,” I explained. “And both grandmas want Amanda to stay a little girl for as long as possible. So, we have mutual aims and objectives there.” I pulled her close and she pressed her cheek against my chest. “She loved having you there. Didn’t stop going on about you when we got home—it certainly raised some eyebrows.”
“It did?” she asked. “What kind of eyebrows?”
“The busybody kind. I guess because we work together and live in the same building. I think my sisters believed . . .” What had they thought? That we were dating?
“Is Violet younger than you?” she asked and I was grateful she had gone in a different direction.
“Yes, and a complete pain in the ass. Always interfering in everyone’s business. She’s a meddler.” I chuckled as I realized it might be a genetic thing. “She’s a lot like Amanda in that way.” Amanda dressed her constant whining about wanting a baby sister as self-interest but I was pretty sure she wanted me happy. “They have a lot in common.”
“Sounds like you have your hands full. Even without King & Associates.”
I sighed. “They occupy two different spaces in my brain.”
“Maybe,” she said. She wiggled her body against mine, and I rolled us over until she was on her back and I was looking down at her.
“You’re the exception,” I said. “You seem to have taken up residence in both spaces.” I brushed my nose against hers and pulled back to look at her. “I realized it in the cab today. I liked that we could just be together, near each other. No talking, no touching.”
She nodded very slightly.
“This is new to me,” I said. I wasn’t sure what this was. If I was just having a personal relationship with someone I worked with, or having sex with someone I knew more about than just their last name. Or was it the fact that whenever I saw her, whenever I thought about her, whenever I touched her, I wanted more. It was all new.
I dipped my head to kiss her nose as she wrapped her legs around me, pulling me close until my cock pushed against her.
I’d fucked a lot of attractive women with nice, firm asses; long, lean legs; and huge tits. Harper was attractive, gorgeous even, but with her, the stuff that made me hard, that had me moaning, was more than just the physical. I liked the way the silences were comfortable, the way she could make me laugh, the way she seemed to open up as I drove into her.
“You want some of this?” I asked, rocking against her. She grinned and I shook my head. “Insatiable,” I said as I lowered myself onto my forearms and licked along her collarbone. She threaded her hands through the back of my hair, setting goosebumps off across my skin. I took her breasts in my hands, grazed her nipples with my tongue and then again with my teeth. She arched against me as my nips became careless and harder. My dick throbbed at her reaction, but it wouldn’t find relief any time soon. Winding up her lust got me hard, her desire towing me along.