Swallowing the lump in my throat, I did the one thing I’d sworn I wasn’t going to do. Bring up that damn kiss. “Do you regret kissing me, Harris?”
His dark head snapped up and those amazing aquamarine eyes caught mine, forcing me to hold his gaze. “No,” he breathed fiercely. “Lu, no. I don’t regret one second of kissing you.”
Some of the pressure in my chest eased and it felt like I could actually breathe again. He didn’t regret it. But… “So why did you disappear for so long? Why didn’t you text me?”
His eyes broke our connection first. He turned his head and blew out a long, drawn-out breath. “Tessa caused some trouble between me and Jenna. Jen called me, hysterical, threatening to leave rehab. I flew out the next morning and was there until yesterday, convincing her to stay until her scheduled time was up.”
My eyes widened. I hadn’t even considered that he’d left town because of Jenna. It made me feel self-centered and spoiled that I hadn’t thought of Jenna very much in the last few months. I knew she was working on turning her life around, and I was proud of her. We’d never been very close, though. Mostly because, until she’d come out to everyone in the family, I’d thought she and Harris had had something going on. I’d been jealous of her even at the age of twelve.
I closed my eyes. Pettily I’d been kind of glad that Jenna hadn’t been around for the last few months. It had meant that I’d had Harris’s full attention when we were together. Fuck, I was such a mean bitch.
“I-is she okay?”
Turning those mesmerizing eyes back to me, he gave me a grim smile. “So far so good. I think I’ve gotten her convinced that Tessa isn’t for her. Time will only tell, though. All I can do is be there for her. She has to be the one to decide who she wants in her life or not.”
I nodded. “Yeah, she does. I wish she would talk to Drake, though.” I knew that if she just talked to her brother about what was going on, from the bad girlfriend to the drugs, he would understand and maybe even be able to help her through the rest of her recovery.
Just because Jenna had gone to rehab didn’t mean that she was going to be fine when she got home. Drake had once told me that rehab was the easy part.
In there you didn’t have temptation glaring at you around every corner. There were people who understood what you were going through, people who shared your pain and your cravings. Out in the real world, unless you had a good support system around you, your chances of slipping up doubled. Of course, considering how many times Drake had been to rehab before he’d finally taken it seriously, the support system meant nothing unless you were ready to face your addiction head on.
“I told her she needed to tell her brothers and sister. She promised to consider it.” He leaned back in his chair and started rubbing my feet again, seeming distracted. “If she doesn’t break up with Tessa, then I’m going to find a new place to live.”
“Really?” I bit my lip when I realized how loud my voice had been. I wasn’t going to lie. The very thought of Harris under the same roof as Tessa had been eating at me. Countless times I’d imagined that the reason he hadn’t texted or called me was because he was tangled up in his sheets with that chick. “Really?” I repeated, my tone quieter this time.
A small grin teased at Harris’s lips. “Yes, really. Would that make you happy?”
My brows lifted. I was ecstatic about the possibility of him having his own place, but this wasn’t about me. “It isn’t about if it will make me happy, Harris. It’s about whether or not you will be happy. You and Jenna have been roommates since you were eighteen. You both own that apartment. Will you be happy not living there if she does decide not to breakup with Tessa?”
Aquamarine eyes darkened and he moved so fast that I nearly yelped in surprise when two large hands grasped my waist and pulled me off the gurney and onto his lap. My uninjured hand gripped his shoulder while my thighs straddled his waist. This close I could practically taste his slightly minty breath as he exhaled. “Want to know what would really make me happy?” he muttered in a near growl.
Being so close to him, sitting on his lap where I could feel every hard ridge of his jeans as he pressed up against me, was making me more than a little dizzy. Unconsciously I licked my dry lips. His aquamarine eyes followed the movement and I felt more than heard the groan as it left him.
“Wh-what would make you happy?” I whispered.
“Getting to kiss my girlfriend again.” He brushed his nose against mine, teasing me with the skimming of his lips over my top one.
I jerked back a little, breaking contact with his lips even though my heart was yelling at me that I was an idiot. That kissing him was the only important thing at the moment. There it was again, that one crazy word that held so much power. Girlfriend. It messed with my brain, made me think all kinds of stupid things. “Am I?”
“Fuck, yes. You might not want your dad to know about us yet, but you are definitely my girlfriend.” One of his big hands left my waist and lifted to smooth over my hair. He grimaced. “I’ve never had a girlfriend before, though. I might be bad at this whole relationship thing.”
“Oh, you mean like going almost two weeks without contacting the chick that you claim is your girlfriend?” I demanded, but I was smirking when he gave me a sheepish grin.
How the hell did he do this to me? How could I go from pissed-off and hurt one minute to so damn happy in the next? Harris Cutter was going to be my destruction.
“Yeah, exactly like that. You scare me, Lucy.” He tugged me back toward him, his lashes lowering so that I couldn’t see his eyes. Blocking me out as he made a confession that melted all the remaining ice that had been around my heart, making me hurt, over the last eleven days. “Sometimes it feels like I have no control over what you do to me. You own me.”
My heart stopped, clenched hard, and started racing. I fell forward, so weak from what he’d just admitted that I couldn’t hold myself up. Pressing my face into his hard chest, I sucked in one deep breath after another, fighting the tears that had been threatening to fall all evening. “Y-you can’t say things like that.”
His hands tangled in my hair. “Yeah?” I felt his lips on top of my head as one errant tear spilled from my eyes and fell onto his shirt. “Why is that?”
“Because you make me fall in love with you even more and it scares the hell out of me,” I whispered. If he was admitting to being scared, then it was only fair that I told him what scared me. It was terrifying, though, putting myself out there like this, speaking aloud the words that had been suffocating me for so long.
I felt him freeze. With my head still against his chest I could hear his heartbeat, knew exactly when it stopped only for it to start racing just as fast as my own was. His hands in my hair tightened, tugging until my head was back enough that he could see my face. “You love me?”
There was no use in lying, not when it felt so good—and still so scary—to say the words out loud. “I’ve loved you since I was twelve years old. Maybe longer.”
Something twisted across his face and he shook his dark head. “You’re going to drive me to madness. You realize that, right?”