“Fuck yeah, that’s a deal.” His arms looped around me and he held me so close I thought we were going to fuse together. Turning his face into the crook of my neck, I thought for sure he was going to kiss me. But instead he let an almost hesitant tone slip over him as he asked, “So, baby?”
“Yes?”
“Do you love me too?”
I laughed. “Is that a rhetorical question?”
“No.” He swallowed looking absolutely tortured as he pulled away and his eyes dropped to my hands between us.Played with my fingers nervously. “I said it, but you haven’t said it back.”
Oh.
I tilted my chin up at him. “Te amo tanto,amor.”
Memories of me saying the same words were clear in his eyesand I watched as recognition dawned on his face. Punctuating the obvious clarity he was reaching, the man glowered at me and I grinned.
“What does it mean?” he croaked
“Te amo?” I asked, my smile ear to ear. “It means I love you.”
Lips—soft and hard, rough and sweet, consuming yet giving, pressed into mine. Harper’s touch was all familiarity and sure motion yet peppered with something new. Something that tasted a lot like a fresh start. That felt like a flower in full bloom. Something as sweet as love enveloping every inch of our kiss.
It had been so long since I felt his lips on mine. Since I got to melt into the warm safety of his body or wrap my tongue in the softness of his alluring mouth. I took my time with each, wrapping my arms securely around his torso and pulling him fully over me, covering me, using me for what he needed just the way I liked him. And I didn’t stop until I had that long satisfied groan playing symphonies in my ears.
Pulling away, he gave me his signature eyes. All seeing, all feeling, all knowing. They’d bothered me before because they saw all parts of me and I thought they still didn’t want me. Now I knew they saw all parts of me and accepted each one.
“All this time?” he asked. “You’ve been saying that you love me all this time?”
I thought back on the way I’d dove into Harper. Not only with my body, not only with my heart, but with myself too. The self I hadn’t even known yet walking in his shop. I thought about how comfortable I’d been with him from the very start. In being myself around him, no matter how ugly or messy that self could be. I thought about how I trusted him without a second thought.
And I realized the truth. “The whole time, baby.”
And damn would it last a whole lot longer.
Like melting chocolate he fused into me. Kissing me like I waswater in his drought. Leaning into me like I was his steady in a stormy sea. I could have stayed forever, but…
I squirmed against him, wriggling around at the weird sensation against my thigh. Breaking away, I asked, “Harp, what is that?”
“Hmm?” He blinked dazedly as I all but forced him to lean away. “Oh, I think it’s my phone.”
Stepping back, he made enough room to pull it out of his pocket, glancing at it before he was going to put it aside.
He did not put it aside.
In front of me, Harper’s breath stalled out, a raspy suck of air the only thing that followed for a long, long time.
“Harper?” I asked quietly, afraid to impede, but also dying to know.
His eyes snapped up to mine and I can’t even describe the expression. His voice croaked, a ragged whisper. “Holy shit.”
When my gaze continued to question him, he just turned the phone around to show me the lone message on the screen.
Unknown:
Hey, Auggie. Been trying to reach you. Next time I won’t cancel.
Epilogue
ALTA
