The thought lanced through her pleasure like a serrated knife, leaving her stinging.
But Iamgoing to lose this. Sooner or later.
His stubble scraped against her cheek, bringing her back if only for a moment. Exhaustion warred with the weightlessness she felt. She met his eyes,tangling her legs around his hips as he rolled just far enough onto the mattress that she wasn’t bearing all of his weight.
Gently, he pushed her matted hair from her eyes. “Have to clean up.”
“In a minute,” she muttered, voice thick with fatigue. “Stay just a minute longer.”
“I have to work, sweetheart.”
“A minute longer,” she pleaded again, kissing his throat until he succumbed. He sidled further down the bed, kissing her body again, as though he still hadn’t learned all he wanted despite journeying her skin for days. He took her nipple in his mouth, tenderly this time – not to initiate more, but just because he could. Because he wanted to.
It felt a lot like being worshipped.
Harper followed the curvature of his ear with her finger, then his harsh jaw and just slightly crooked nose. He looked up at her, resting his chin on her chest. His gaze swam with…
Adoration, she would have said if it wasn’t directed at her. She couldn’t quite believe it, or maybe she didn’t want to, so she pushed it down, pretended it was just plain fondness. An expression any short-term lover would wear.
But then he laced his fingers into hers and kissed each of her knuckles, and it was getting harder to lie to herself. Getting harder to convince herself that surely he couldn’t like her as much as she liked him. That would be too perfect, and perfect didn’t exist for her. Something was always off, wrong, ruined.
Feeling too vulnerable, she turned her face away, pretending to be interested in the moss-faded view of the woods outside. How quickly they had become her home, her safety net.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
She shrugged, forcing herself to look back at him. She ran her hands through his coppery hair, trying to smooth down the tousled waves she’d ruined earlier. “Nothing interesting.”
“That’s a lie. Everything you think is interesting. Bizarre, but interesting.”
She tugged playfully on a tuft above his forehead. “I’ve never done any of this before,” she finally admitted. “Sex felt scary. I followed their lead. Not the other way around. Like if I let myself go, if I felt too free, the other person wouldn’t want me anymore.”
“I want you more and more every fucking day.”
She scoffed, but he tilted her chin to force her to look at him.
“I haven’t, either. I’ve never been that eager to have sex before, or to let someone in. My walls have well and truly crumbled – for you.”
Cool fear flooded Harper’s veins when her eyes began to prickle. What did it mean? It was like the universe had thrown them together just to spite them. They couldn’t take this any further, couldn’t think about long-term, but they were…
Well, they were perfect for each other. So it felt like, anyway, in moments like this.
She wanted to tell him then, about the email from Chris, but she couldn’t bear to spoil such a peaceful, golden moment.
The end was coming. Did it matter if she told him now or later? It would hurt all the same.
“Are you okay?” he asked tenderly.
“Just sleepy.”
He left a final kiss on her cheek, then pushed himself up from the bed. “I’ll clean us up. You stay put.” He booped her nose. “Just don’t fall asleep yet.”
“No promises.” She shifted onto her side to watch him go, his naked form as familiar to her as her own now.
Once he’d left, everything flooded back. The knowledge that she would have to make her decision soon stifled her. She groaned into her pillow. Again, she felt like she’d been thrown off a cliff and he held the rope keeping her from falling.
How long before it snapped?
Harper couldn’t tell him. Not when her week had continued with more of the most mind-blowing sex she’d ever had. While Fraser remained busy with work, coming home to her in the evenings, she spent her days staring at her manuscript. By Friday morning, she’d managed to add less than four thousand words, which she would have been proud of a month ago. But that had been her daily word count last week, and now even the sentences she managed barely made sense.