The sound of the doorbell didn’t immediately snap me out of my shock. I stood there while my dad went to answer the door, replaying everything we’d just said. Had it really been that easy? I mean, really?
“Lucy?” I turned at the sound of Harris’s voice. His face was full of concern as he ran his eyes over me. “You okay?”
“Um…yeah.” I shook my head in hopes of getting rid of the rest of my shock and was able to smile at him. “You ready?”
“I was going to ask you that.” He grinned. “Your hair seems to have a mind of its own today.”
I didn’t even blink. The twins had pulled most of my ponytail down, but I wasn’t going to take the time to fix it. I crossed the room and grasped his arm, pulling him toward the front door where Dad was still standing, a grin on his handsome face. We needed to get as far away from there as possible in case my scary-as-hell dad changed his mind and decided to feed Harris to the sharks that had been spotted offshore behind our house the day before.
I rushed through a goodbye hug and practically pushed Harris toward his Maserati. Harris shot me a glare over his shoulder, but I ignored it until he was safely buckled in behind the wheel.
“What is the matter with you?” he growled as he started the car.
“I told Daddy,” I informed him, watching the front door of my house in case my dad suddenly came out.
“Oh,” Harris frowned. “And?”
“He said he was okay with it. That he was glad that we were going to date.” Harris backed out of the driveway and put the car in Drive and only then did I start to relax.
“So why are you acting like we need to be running to Mexico?”
I grimaced. “Because it was surreal. I didn’t know whether he was being serious or not. It scared me more than if he’d gone off the walls about it.”
Harris laughed. “I knew he wasn’t going to have a problem with it, Lu. He told me weeks ago that if we ever decided we wanted something more than friendship that he would be cool with it.”
I blinked, sure that I hadn’t just heard him correctly. “He did? Why didn’t you tell me?” I exploded. “I’ve been scared to death, fearing for your life.”
He shrugged. “You weren’t ready to tell him. You had to have the guts to tell him without me making it easier on you. I had to know that you were really ready to take us seriously.”
I went completely still in my seat. “Excuse me?” Had he really thought I wasn’t serious about the two of us being together? What the hell!
“Look, I knew you wanted to be with me, but I also know that to you it wasn’t actually real until you told your parents about us. Real is important to me, Lucy. That’s why I was so impatient for you to tell him the past few weeks.” He braked at a stop sign and reached for my hand, which was now free of that stupid soft cast on it. “Don’t be pissed at me. You know I’m right.”
I wanted to be mad, but I knew that he was right. Damn it. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he assured me and leaned over to brush a quick, soft kiss over my lips. “I knew I had to give you time. I’m just glad it’s over now. I don’t have to pretend I’m not in love with you when your family is around.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too. Always.”
Those words wrapped around me as he shifted gears and drove on.
I was nervous wh
en we got to the tattoo shop, but as soon as I sat down in the chair to go first, a calm washed over me and I barely felt the needle as I had the Celtic knot inked into my left wrist. It took less than fifteen minutes from start to finish on the tattoo, and I was in love with it.
Harris sat in the same chair when I was done and when it was finished we took a picture of our ink so I could send it to Kin before the tattoo artist bandaged us up. Outside the shop, Harris grabbed hold of my waist and pulled me roughly against him for a kiss that had me going up in flames.
Like it always did when his lips touched mine, my mind shut down. All thoughts of dinner or celebrating my birthday evaporated. All I wanted was his hands on me, touching me, making me crazy for more. Ever since our first heavy-duty make out session where he’d sent me soaring through the stars, we’d been getting more and more daring. Last night, in his office at First Bass, I’d actually convinced him to touch my favorite spot with his fingers. Up until then he had never really touched me there, not with his hand at least. I knew it was something he’d been struggling with—that he thought it was wrong to touch me sexually before I was eighteen—and I wasn’t ashamed to say I’d felt powerful when he’d given in to my pleas for more.
When he lifted his head, we were both struggling for air. “Dinner,” he said, as if trying to remind himself. “Dinner first.”
I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth. It was beginning to be a habit but I knew that it drove Harris crazy when I did it. “How about dessert first?”
His arms tightened even more, pulling me harder against him. “Don’t tempt me, Lucy. It’s taking everything inside of me not to put you in that car and take you back to my place. This is a special day for you, sweetness.”
I pouted out my bottom lip but didn’t argue. As much as I wanted to be alone with him, I didn’t want to mess up his plans. Although, with the way Harris’s hardness was flexing against my lower stomach, I was seriously tempted to say to hell with everything else and beg him to take me home and make love to me.