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13

This Seems Smart

Harper

I did it.

I actually took pro basketball player Cam Russo's hand, looked into those amber eyes that had been haunting me for weeks, and walked into her ridiculously nice house.

The door clicked shut behind us. For one long second, we just stood there in her dark entryway, still holding hands, both of us breathing like we'd run here instead of riding in the back of a car with the divider up.

Her keys were still in her other hand. They rattled faintly. She'd been shaking on the front steps, and she was still shaking now, and that was the part that undid me. Cam Russo, who sank free throws in front of twenty thousand screaming people without blinking, could not hold her own house keys steady because of me.

"Harper," Cam started.

I kissed her.

Grabbed a fistful of her shirt and pulled her down to me, which, given the insane height difference between us, required her cooperation. She gave it. The keys hit the floor somewhere near our feet, and then both her hands were in my hair, tugging my ponytail loose from its elastic band until my curls tumbled down around my shoulders, and my back met the door, and the kiss went from hungry to needy in about two seconds flat.

It wasn't graceful. Her nose bumped mine. I laughed into her mouth and she made a frustrated sound and tilted my head, and then it was right, and then it was very right, her tongue sliding against mine, her body pressing me into the wood like she'd been thinking about this exact angle for days.

"This is a terrible idea," I gasped when she pulled back to breathe.

"Worst idea I've ever had." Her forehead dropped to mine. Her breath was ragged. "Still want it?"

"Cam. I'm pinned to your door with my lipstick on your face. Read the goddamn room."

That got a laugh out of her, and she kissed me again, slower, her hands sliding down from my hair to my waist and finding the hem of my jersey. She stopped there. Her thumbs rubbed the fabric, frowning.

"Can I take this off?" she asked against my mouth. Then, lower, her tone more honest, "I've wanted her name off you all night."

"Wow. Okay. Jealous of Trish. That's adorable."

"Harper."

"Yes. You can take it off. Take it off before you pop a blood vessel."

She pulled it over my head and let it drop. Then she just looked at me, standing there in my bra and jeans, and the expression on her face made my heart squeeze tightly in my chest. Like I was a desert oasis, and she was dying of thirst.

"You're so beautiful," she said, and it didn't sound like a line. It sounded like it had been pried out of her, from somewhere deep that I’d never been brave enough to explore.

Her fingers traced my side, slow, and found the little row of moons along my ribs. She stopped there. Followed them with her fingertip, new to full to new again.

"When did you get this tattoo?"

"After I came out." My voice came out thinner than called for. "New beginnings. Cycles. It's very deep, I know. I'm basically a Pinterest board with a pulse."

She didn't laugh at me. She bent and pressed her mouth to the full moon, right over my ribs, and held it there for one second longer than a kiss needed to last.

When she straightened, her hand moved to the clasp at my back. "Can I?"

"You keep asking."

"Yeah." Her eyes held mine. "I'm going to keep asking."

"Yes. God. Yes."

She unhooked it one-handed, which was so hot I nearly passed away on the spot, and let it fall. Then her hands were on me. Rough-palmed, callused from a lifetime of handling a ball, cupping my breasts, thumbs brushing my nipples until they hardened. Her mouth followed. She sucked one nipple into her mouth and dragged her teeth across it, almost by accident, and I arched off the door with a sound I would be too embarrassed to describe later.