Overlooked(1)(30)

“As long as no one else knows about it, we should be fine,” Zane points out.

“So is it a secret because you’d be ashamed to be with me, or because we’ve… I don’t know… like, known each other since we were babies and our parents are close?” I set down my beer as I ask the question. Maybe this late-night chat wasn’t such a good idea.

“I would not be ashamed of that,” Zane tells me, looking me directly in the eyes.

“No?” I hold his gaze for a long moment.

“Please. You’re hot, you’re smart, and you’re doing really well for yourself in New York. If anything you should be ashamed of hooking up with me.” Zane takes a sip of his beer and looks up at the sky for a moment.

I think about that and shake my head.

“This is exactly why we shouldn’t have even started talking about this,” I say.

For a long moment, we just look at each other.

And then Zane does it again — he leans in and kisses me. I respond without thinking, parting my lips and running my hand through his hair. Instead of him kissing me, I’m kissing him, not even paying attention to the beer that slipped from my hands or the one that was in his hands.

“Instead of talking about it, let’s do something about it,” Zane murmurs, and I can’t possibly agree more. I slide the tip of my tongue against his lips and he opens his mouth and then he’s pinning me to the ground, kissing me hungrily while my insides burst with tingles of excitement.

I let my hands wander over him, exploring the lines of his back, sliding down his chest in the front. I can feel the ridge of his hardening cock against my hip, and the only thing I want is to get his clothes off and feel him inside me again. But we’re in the little space between where his parents’ house meets my parents’ house and I know better than to think we can have sex there.

Even knowing that, though, I give into how hot and heavy things are between us. I let Zane pull up the front of my pajama top. When his mouth claims one of my breasts I wrap my legs around his waist and rub against that hard, hot ridge at the front of his pants. It’s almost like we’re trapped like that, like we can’t stop even if we wanted to, and I know neither of us wants to, just like the night before.

“Harper? Zane!” We fall apart all at once at the loud, sharp-sounding whisper and it takes me a moment to recognize it as my mom’s voice.

“Mom!” I pull my shirt down and try to make my poor, turned-on, kind-of-tipsy brain work.

“What are you two doing out here?”

I very nearly ask her if it isn’t obvious what we’re doing and stifle a giggle. It’s funny, but at the same time it’s terrifying that my mom found us.

“We were just talking, having a few beers,” I say quickly.

“You’re drunk,” Mom says, and I look up to see her glaring at me.

“It’s not like that’s against the law, Mom,” I tell her.

“You two were making out,” Mom continues.

“That’s not illegal either,” Zane counters, and this time I can’t suppress the snicker the forces its way through my nose and mouth.

“Look, it’s late,” I say. “Why don’t we all go back to bed?”

“You and I are going to talk about this, Harper Polsen,” my mom says, and I cringe. If she’d thrown in my middle name I would know for sure that I was in deep shit. But how can I be in trouble? I wasn’t doing anything illegal, or even immoral.

“Tomorrow, Mom,” I say.

I manage to get to my feet, and start towards the house, barely even looking at her and definitely not looking at Zane.

I have no idea if Mom is going to say anything to Bev, but I’m also not about to have a conversation about my sex life with my mom in the middle of the night. Zane is on his own.

I go into the house and up to my room as quickly as my clumsy feet will let me, and I crawl between my sheets, with the world spinning a little bit around me. I hope right up until I start to drift off to sleep that Mom won’t decide to come into my room and interrogate me.





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO





HARPER POLSEN



I don’t have as bad a hangover the next morning as I used to get sometimes when I went out partying, but I’m definitely glad to have my own bathroom. I take a quick shower, change into some real clothes, and brush my teeth, all the normal things.

And then I can’t avoid my mother anymore and I know it. I leave my room, hoping against hope that at least I’m not going to face Mom and Bev and Nolan and Dad, all arranged in the living room or something, waiting to scold me.

Mom’s in the kitchen with Dad nowhere in sight, and she looks up when I come in. Her expression isn’t very cheerful and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to enjoy whatever it is she has to say, but I know that at this point we might as well talk about it and get it over with.