Her eyes widened. “Who said anything about an affair or a relationship, which I’m sure is your bigger concern? You’re leaving. I’m leaving. That doesn’t mean that I don’t like how I feel when you touch me. Because I really do. It makes me wonder.”
“Wonder what?” He knew he was stepping onto very unsteady ground. He was already standing too close to her. He couldn’t ever seem to make himself put distance between them.
Harper put her arms around his neck, pulling him closer until her breasts rubbed against him. “I wonder what it would feel like if we kissed.” Her voice was whisper soft, full lips parted. Inviting him in.
He stopped breathing. He could have pushed her back, told her to knock it off. He should have. But he stood his ground and let her rise up on her toes to bring those soft lips to his. Because there wasn’t anything in that moment that he wanted more.
Her eyes fluttered closed and she gave a sexy little sigh.
That was all it took for him to stop fighting it. He brought his hand to her hair and yanked it back to get better access to that sweet mouth. His tongue boldly stroked past her parted lips, finding hers eager for him. Tasting her did nothing to mellow the kiss. His mouth crushed down on hers and he used his tongue to thrust in over and over again, mimicking the strokes with his hips.
Harpers arms tightened around his neck and he growled. His hands streaked up her sides under her tight little sweater and his fingertips felt lace.
He felt it before he saw it. The slight wince as his hand cruised over her sore ribs.
He pulled back immediately. Cursing himself and maybe her, too, he yanked the passenger door open and manhandled her into the seat.
Ten minutes down the road his cock was still painfully hard. He had almost mauled her in the parking lot. Had he not seen that wince of pain when he pressed too hard against her side he would have found a way to fuck her right there in the parking lot. His lack of control was humiliating. He forgot that she was hurt. Forgot the rules that he had carefully laid out, the plan that he had been following for years. All of it out the window because he couldn’t stop touching her.
He shouldn’t be having this physical of a reaction to her. And yet, here he was walking around with a hard-on every time he saw her.
Leaning over the counter in the kitchen in her little shorts? Hard. Prancing around in his white t-shirt that she still slept in? The white t-shirt that did nothing to hide her perfect tits that begged for his hands? And every pair of sexy little underwear she wore underneath? Raging hard. He was afraid that she’d never start sleeping in something he couldn’t see through, or worse, that she would.
If he was within three feet of her, he was fucking hard. How was he supposed to survive a month-long erection? Maybe he should see a doctor.
He was a ticking time bomb. If he did fuck her, there was a good chance he might kill her. He wanted to believe that his reaction to her was because it had been so long. But he knew that was a lie. There was something about Harper that drew him in and tied him up.
“Are you mad?” Harper, her lips still full and flushed from his assault, asked from the passenger seat.
He didn’t answer her, but gripped the gearshift a little harder.
“I’m sorry for coming on so strong, Luke. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just wanted to see what it would be like to kiss you. I promise to be more respectful of your feelings.”
She was promising to be more respectful of his feelings? He was the one who mauled her like a rabid teenager.
“Harper —”
“I’m really sorry.” Those big gray eyes were staring at him contritely.
“What exactly are you sorry for?”
“For making you kiss me when you didn’t want to. I thought that you were attracted to me like I am you. It didn’t occur to me that you weren’t and then I practically ate your face with my tongue. I don’t usually try to devour men like that.”
“You think I’m not attracted to you?”
“Isn’t that why you gave me the whole ‘no sex’ talk?”
Luke pulled the clunking Beetle over abruptly and came to a stop on the side of the road. “Harper, it’s not possible for me to be more physically attracted to you than I am. It’s a constant battle of self control to not rip your clothes off and slam my dick into you just to feel you come on me.”
Harper’s jaw fell open.
“See? Those are the kinds of thoughts that go through my head when I’m around you. You make me hard and stupid and I don’t like it.”
“But if you want me and I want you, then why —”
“Baby, I just can’t. I’m not ... ready. And if I were, you would be the first to know it. But I just can’t take my focus off of work and deploying. I know that if I were inside you, I’d lose complete fucking control and that can’t happen. I just don’t have room in my life for you.”