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Chapter twenty-six
Eric
There is something about this woman that burns through me like sunshine on a winter’s day, warming even the cold of this city, this family. She iswhyI’m here. Hell, she’s always been in my fucking head, burning me with memories of touching her, with wanting her. I mold her close, my lips brushing her mouth, the scent of her—a sweet, floral spice—wrapping me in the spell that is this woman. She cast a damn spell on me at the pool the night we met, a spell that time and space didn’t erase.
“Not a princess,” I murmur against her mouth. “A witch.”
Her fingers curl on my jaw. “Not a princess. A witch.What does that even mean?”
“It means,” I go to my knees and pull her upright with me, yanking her jacket down her shoulders to hold her arms captive, “you cast a damn spell on me or I wouldn’t be here.”
“No, I—”
I kiss her, my tongue stroking away her objection before I say, “You did or I wouldn’t have thought about you for six long years.”
“You thought of me?”
“Yes, Harper, I did and I resented you for it. For that power over me.”
“I thought of you, too. Let go of my arms. Please, I want to touch you.”
There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to let that happen. That doesn’t want the crazy way she affects me to steal my damn control, because she does. No one else can, but she absolutely does. There is something in her voice, in her eyes, a vulnerability, a need I haven’t sensed until tonight. A vulnerability I know comes not just from my ability to affect her situation. It’s about her mother. It’s about how painful I know that conversation she just had with her was, and I get it. My mother and I had so manyfights driven by the family. I lost her and though Harper’s mother doesn’t have cancer to drive a suicide like mine did, Harper is still worried about her safety.
I kiss her again, the taste of her, the feel of her, is sweet honey on my tongue that I’ve craved every day since I left it behind. “You, woman,” I say when I tear my mouth from hers, and just barely touching my lips to her lips.
“You,” she whispers. “You.Eric.”
Eric.
She’s telling me she sees me, not the bastard. “Harper,” I whisper, making sure she knows I see her, not them. I stand up and she follows me, this tiny, feisty, beautiful woman. She tosses her jacket and kicks off her shoes. I turn her and unzip her skirt before sliding it and her panties down her hips and lifting her to kick them away. I drag her blouse over her head and toss it. My hand goes to her belly, pulling her to me, while I unhook her bra and then cup her breasts, holding them in my hands. She leans into me, her backside pressed to my cock, my fingers tugging at her nipples. She moans and I bury my head in her neck, inhaling that sweet scent of her, just breathing her in. I’ve never done that with any woman but this one. I never wanted to savor a woman instead of fuck her. I want both with Harper and I don’t even know what to do with that.
Fuck. She’s dangerous and I can’t seem to walk away.
She’s in only thigh highs now, and I press her to her knees on the couch, placing her backside in the air, and I stroke my hand over her hips, my cock throbbing, but it’s so fucking much more with this woman. My gaze rakes over her body and I lean over her. “Don’t move,” I order, scraping my teeth over her shoulder, cupping her breasts and then dragging my hands down her ribcage, before I straighten and pull my shirt off. I stand there then, watching her, making her wait and I tell myself it’s to drive the tension, to drive her to the edge, but another emotion claws at me, a need to control her, to control what she’s become to me. What she can do to hurt me, like the rest of this fucking family, but she’s not them.
Damn it.
I want to hate her.
I don’t.
Not even close.
I undress, pull on a condom, and sit down on the couch and take her with me, pulling her onto my lap. Her hands come down on my shoulders. Our eyes lock, and holy hell, I feel this woman in ways Ican’t even describe. I lift her and press inside her. She takes me in a slow slide, and then she presses down, taking me all, straddling me.
Her teeth scrape her bottom lip and she moves back and forth, as if she just needs to feel me there, everywhere. I tangle my fingers into her hair and drag her mouth to mine. “Do you know what I want?” I demand.
“To hate me?”
“It would be easier that way.”
“What would be?” she asks, breathlessly. “Fucking me?”
“Everything,” I say. “Everything would be easier if I hated you like I do them, but no, I don’t want to hate you. I don’t want to forget you. Not anymore.”
“Then what do you want?”
“Everything,” I say, admitting out loud everything I feel with that one word. “Everything, Harper.” I drag her mouth to mine and kiss her. She sinks into it, our mouths, our tongues, colliding with hunger, that’s all I can call it—hunger. So damn much hunger, that we’re touching each other, kissing each other, moving together, a sway of her hips, a pump of mine, repeat. There is nothing but us, here, now, and this. Whatever the hell this is, but I can’t feel anything but her.
