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“You’ve been in his face, you’ve been pushing him. Come to New York with me.” My hand comes down on her leg. “Sleep in my bed with me. Live in my world with me. See what life outside the Kingston world is like. They’ve consumed you. And if you see it, if you love it, you’ll sell it to your mom.”
Her eyes soften. “I want to. God, I really want to.”
“Then do it. Remove yourself from the target zone, too.”
Worry pinches her brow. “Does that put my mother there instead?”
“We’ll watch for trouble, but I don’t see her as a target.”
“How would that look? What would we do to set this up?”
“I’ll go at them hard for a few days and you stay your course. Don’t change how you’ve been acting at all. Don’t say a word to Gigi about backing down. Then I’ll pull back and tell my father that I’ll bow out in exchange for your protection. I’ve walked away before. He’ll believe me.”
“You think it will work?”
“Yes, and I read my father well. I’ll know when to play the cards if it’s working.”
She considers me several beats. “Me going to your home is our play?”
“Yes.”
“Me in your bed?”
“The best fucking play ever,” I assure her.
Her lips curve, her mood shifting to yes before she ever speaks it. “I have a condition,” she says, her eyes lighting with mischief.
“What condition?”
“Every tattoo I lick, you explain.”
I laugh and kiss her hand. “Condition accepted and feel free to start that process before we get to New York and my bed.”
“A suggestion worthy of consideration.”
I lean in and cup her head, dragging her lips to mine. “How about I lickyouall over instead?”
“Can we take turns?”
I kiss her, and the throb of my cock is instant, while my conference call is imminent, and it’s all I can do to leave her in herbed, all but naked in my shirt. But I do, and only because soon she’ll be inmy bedwhere she’ll staynaked.
Harper
I have to tell him my secret before I can go to New York with him. I have to. I will. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the only thing to do. These are the thoughts in my head as I dress in a black dress and lace topped thigh-high but it doesn’t stop there. My mind is racing the entire time I go through my morning routine. I’m falling hard for this man. I have been from the day I met him and now, we’re here, we’re together, we’re doing this, and the past hangs over our heads. The consequences of our first night together reach far beyond what Eric believes to be the reality.
I grab my purse and briefcase and head downstairs, following the echo of Eric’s deep, sexy voice to the kitchen. I find him at the island, coffee cup in hand, his MacBook open on the counter, while the phone is at his ear. His tattoos peek from beneath his sleeve, a canvas of all the lives he’s lived and I want to know them all. I can’t bear the idea of my secret destroying us, but not telling him isn’t an option. We said no secrets and this one isn’t one I could dare keep from him.
I approach the island, his gaze warming with the sight of me in that way every girl wants a man of her heart to look at her. And heisthe man of my heart. I’m falling in love with him. I have always been standing on a ledge above a sea of wild blue love with this man, ready to jump. But I can’t jump and have that water become ice.
“Let me call you back, Blake,” Eric says, disconnecting and shutting his computer, his eyes doing a wicked glide up and down my body. “You look beautiful, Harper.”
“Thank you,” I say, stopping at the island across from him and it’s the wrong time. I know it’s the wrong time, but when I look into his eyes, when the warmth of his stare radiates through me, I can barely contain this explosion inside me. “Eric, I need—”
Both of our cellphones ring at the same time. Eric winks and my moment of poorly timed confession is gone. Eric declines his call. I eye my caller ID, find an unknown number, and decide I have to answer, only to have it turn out to be my union contact. “Jim,” I greet. “We’re still on for our meeting this morning, right? At the union office?”
“No meeting.”
“Why?”
