“We are,” he says, his voice low, rough, and he leans over me. “God, woman, you have no idea how much hearing those voicemails affected me. You no idea how much you scared me tonight.”
“I was never with Isaac.”
“I’m not talking about Isaac. I’m talking about those men in the warehouse. Fuck.” He rests his forehead against mine. “I couldn’t get to you fast enough.”
“But you did. When I needed you, you were there and you have no idea how much that means to me.”
“I left,” he says, his voice turning gravelly. “I left, and if I hadn’t come back, I don’t want to think about what would’ve happened.”
“You came back,” I say, barely able to breathe now. “Both times I needed you, you showed up.”
“Because I can’t stay away, not from you. From the rest of that family, yes, but not you.”
“Then don’t,” I order, pushing on his chest and forcing his gaze to mine. “Don’t stay away. Don’t go away. Just don’t.”
I’ve barely spoken the words before his lips are on my lips. His mouth closes over mine, and I can taste his urgency, his fear. Fear I recognize as my own. I’d been certain that after he’d learned about the miscarriage we’d never be here like this again. I press into the hard lines of his body, drinking in his passion, consumed, so very willingly consumed, all that he is and could be to me. A dark feeling, a sensation that I know started back at the warehouse, even before the lights went out, tries to surface, and I try to shove it away.
Desperate to escape all those pained feelings I felt when he left, when he refused to listen to me, I lose myself in the moment. I lose myself in Eric and I tumble deeper into passion, heat low in my belly, desire spreading slick and hot between my thighs.
For now, forever if I had my way, there’s nothing but the stroke of Eric’s tongue, the spicy male scent of him, the demanding taste of him. His hands on my body, under my backside, molding me possessively to his body. God, how I need this man. I can’t get enough.
I tug at his shirt, but the space is too small for me to free it from his pants. Instead, my palms caress the flex of his hard body beneath his clothes. He responds to my desperation, a low, gruff sound of hunger rumbling in his chest that I revel in. I want him to want me. I want him to feel the same pleasure I feel with his touch when I touch him. He squeezes my backside again and I can feel the thick ridge of his erection against my belly when I want him inside me.
His hand slides up my skirt, over my thigh and there is something about this man’s touch that can be gentle and rough in the same moment, and I like it. “Harper,” he whispers, his lips traveling my jaw, down to my neck, distracting me for a brief moment before his fingers are under my panties, stroking that wet heat that drenches me and now his fingers. I pant with the flick of my clit, and then he’s pressing inside me—one finger, two, his mouth closing over mine, tongue licking my tongue, even as he does wicked things to my body.
I grab his arm, fingers closing around his shirt, sensations rocking my body, and I can’t stop what comes next. His thumb is working just the right spot while his fingers pump all the right places, and I am in that perfect place, where you both want to come and want to hold back, but I can’t. I tumble into a shuddering, quaking, incredible release, and when my body collapses in sated satisfaction, Eric leans in, his lips at my ear. “I’m learning your sweet spots. Soon I’ll know everything. I’ll know all of your secrets.”
Those words are not an accident.
He’s telling me he believes that I am still keeping secrets. And I am, but not the kind he wants to know. Not the kind he needs to know and I have to be strong enough not to tell him. Not to hurt him the way my secrets—no, not my secrets, my knowledge of past history, of his history—would hurt him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Harper
In every lie there is the truth.
With Eric, I want to be all about the truth, especially considering all the lies Isaac made him believe tonight. I don’t want to hurt him, but as I lie here with him on the plane, with his whisper about secrets in my ear, it’s killing me to believe I know things he doesn’t know.
Eric kisses my temple. “I need to log onto the internet and get an update.”
It’s the kiss on my temple that undoes me. He wants to trust me. He proved that by coming back for me tonight. I want to deserve that trust. I do deserve it. The only secret I had that was mine, he now knows. The rest is history that serves no purpose besides hurting him and eating me alive. Okay, maybe I do have a secret. No, it’s more of a gray area where I didn’t tell him everything, but I didn’t lie. It just wasn’t necessary that he know the rest of the story. And that story matters zero in present day.
Zero.
It serves no purpose but to hurt him, I repeat in my mind, because my guilt could easily make me selfish. Clearly, my clear conscience would make me feel better but at his expense.
He shifts and the recliner lifts. When I would get up and move, he actually moves with me and we end up at a half-moon-shaped booth. I slide into the seat and he walks away to grab a briefcase. It’s then that I jolt with realization. “I have nothing with me,” I say as Eric joins
me. “And I’m not talking about clothes. My phone and computer and all my work. Eric, anything I’d researched and found they’ll find. Whoever they are—Isaac, I assume.”
“Isaac’s involved,” he confirms, sitting down next to me. “Of that, there’s no doubt, but I’m guessing my father is as well.” He scoots close to me and removes a MacBook from the briefcase. “I left my things in my rental as well. This is Walker equipment. They wanted us to have a way to communicate with them on the ground.” He keys up the screen.
I have no idea how they communicated all this information, but then again, it doesn’t matter. We’re safe. We have support. We have a way to communicate with the ground. He keys the Mac to life and the magnitude of our situation, and what happened to me earlier, rushes over me.
“Thank you, Eric,” I breathe out, flashing back to that dark warehouse. Then to his proclamation of fear over everything that could have happened to me tonight. “Thank you for coming back.”
His expression is all dark shadows, his eyes full of torment. Torment that I know he shows few people, if anyone, but he lets me see the emotions in him now. It matters. It shows me he’s here with me, that he’s willing to let me see the real man and the savant beneath his walls of armor.