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He nods once and then strides away.
The rift hasn’t completely healed, but that’s why I’m here—to support him, help him, to make him forget the cruel and stupid thing I did.
I approach Michelle, Kurtis, and Harper with a ball in my throat. It’s like the closer I get to Harper, the fiercer the desire becomes. It’s like I can scent her fertility in the air, as though the doctor in me can somehow tell this woman, my angel, can give me three or four or five babies.
In a different life. Not this one.
“I’d like to give you a ride, if you’ll let me,” I say.
Michelle nods. “Thank you, Bryson. You’ve always been such a good boy.”
She wouldn’t say that if she knew the truth.
I purposefully don’t look at Harper as I lead them outside to my car. It’s a rental since I sold everything before moving to the West Coast.
It was part of the deal Adam and I made. He doesn’t do things in half measures.
I could’ve told him no. There was no way he could force me, but he’s my best friend. I have to remember that.
“Want to sit up front, Kurtis?” I say, probably with too much eagerness in my voice. The thought of Harper sitting up front, next to me, is too much to take.
It would be far too tempting to reach over and slide my hand up her leg, feeling the heat of her thighs as I get closer and closer to her sex, push down on her wetness, rub, rub…
I focus on the road, hating every time I have to glance in the rearview because I get an eyeful of my woman.
Notmy woman. I’ve got to stop thinking like that. Adam’s little sister.
Kurtis gives me directions to a hotel in the city. We don’t say much as we drive, giving me plenty of time to realize my mistake.
“Is Harper staying at the same hotel?”
“No, Harper’s not,” she responds herself, using her own name as a weapon, like she’s pissed at me for referring to her in the third person. “I live with Tiffany.”
Her podcast partner. Right.
Why would she stay in a hotel when she lives here?
I’m dropping Kurtis and Michelle off first, which means Harper and I are going to be alone.
Fuck.
I try to think of how to get out of this short of ditching her on the side of the road and telling her to make her own way home.
“Thank you for this,” Kurtis says once I pull up outside the hotel.
Harper climbs out to hug her parents. I sit in the car, white-knuckling the hell out of the steering wheel, repeating to myself over and over that I’ll just give her a ride, nothing more.
I want to lean close, bring my lips to hers, and kiss her so passionately that messages will surge into her body.
Telling her to get ready to give me a baby, a life…
I won’t claim her, even if every single part of me wants to do just that.
CHAPTERTHREE
Harper
“Are you cold?” he asks when I pull my jacket tighter around myself.
