Chapter Twenty - Harper
I press the gun against his skin as I play my next move in my head.
“Harper,” James says. “It’s me.”
“Pfft. I know it’s you, asshole. That’s why I have the gun.” I look over at the girl he’s with and squint at her. “Who’s she?”
“Harper, lower the gun.”
“No. I don’t trust—”
The next thing I know, I’m pressed flat against the front door.
“Are you gonna be good?” James asks, his face so close to mine I am forced to look him in the eyes. “Because I just piggy-backed this kid across the desert, I’m sweating my ass off, and this was not the welcome home I was expecting.” He leans into my neck and those familiar prickles are back. All those feelings he brought out in me back at the beach are rushing through my body as heat and trembling and desire. “Answer me, Lionfish.”
But that? That shit snaps me back. I jab him in the ribs with my elbow, twist my foot around his calf, bend over, grab his wrists, and then throw myself backwards. He collapses back onto the porch. I wriggle free, bounce up, and then I’m about to make a grab for the gun when I realize the little girl is pointing it at both of us.
“Stop,” she orders me.
“You’re gonna shoot me?”
“You were gonna shoot him!” she laughs.
James is already up and going for her. She allows him to take the gun and then we all stand there, breathing a little too heavy, suspicion in our eyes, dripping with sweat. “What the fuck, Harper? Jesus Christ. You fucking girls. I’ve had it with your emotional bullshit.” He looks over at his partner, pushes her a little and then nods towards the door. “Get inside.”
“What’d I do?” she whines. “I got the gun back!”
“Just go.”
She stomps off like the kid she is and then James brings that steely glare over to me.
I do not give in. I am in the right here. This asshole has a lot of explaining to do. He’s not on my side. I’m a job to him. A dirty promise. A dark obsession, maybe. He tucks the gun inside his jeans and steps forward a few paces, halving the distance between us.
“Don’t come any closer, James. I’m warning you.”
“You’re warning me what?” he asks in a whisper. “You’ll lose all control, fall to your knees, and take my cock in your mouth?”
My mouth opens into a little o-shape because I can’t hide my shock. Dirty talking might be my downfall if I don’t stop reacting. I take a deep breath and pull myself together. “That’s not going to work this time. I know who you are.” He smiles at that. Smiles.
“You’re a killer, you’re a liar, you’re—”
And then he’s right up next to me and my thoughts are all jumbled again. He’s hot and sweaty and normally this should just gross me out. But all I see is the beautiful. “What else?” he asks softly. His fingertips slide up my bare shoulder to caress the nape of my neck. “Tell me what else I am, Harper.”
I swallow as he pulls me into his chest.
“If you know me, then tell me what else I am.”
“My promise. You’re my promise.”
He squeezes me gently and then rests his chin on my head. “I thought you knew. All these years, I thought your father would’ve at least given you a picture. Or had you spy on me from afar.”
James’ words come out with such longing, such surprise, such… amazement. He wins again. All I hear is the beautiful. “Like you did me?”
“Yeah,” he laughs. “Like that. I watched you grow up. Every year your father sent for me on your birthday. And I want you to know, Harper, that I turned him down every time. I never wanted you—”
“I know you never wanted me, asshole.” Bitchy Harper is back with that admission. I pull the little notebook from my pocket and then push James off me. “Because I found this and it spelled all that out pretty clearly.”
He looks at it for a few seconds and I can see his mind whirling. Because he can’t deny it.
“That’s true.” He nods, agreeing with me. “Everything in that little book is true. It came from my heart.”
“Your heart? You hated me!”
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “No, I didn’t hate you, Harper. You were just a little girl caught up in this shit. How could I hate you?”
I untangle myself from his embrace and step back. I need space between us. Because what he says now and what he felt then are polar opposites. How do I reconcile this? “I have your own words in here, James!”
I shake the book at him and he snatches it out of my hand and flings it carelessly over the porch railing and into the dirt yard.
But I am not deterred. Either I let him know I’m not some piece of clay he can mold with his dirty talk and smoldering gaze, or I’ll end up powerless to resist him. “Is lying so second nature to you that this means nothing? You don’t even sweat the fact that I have proof, I read your own words. You’re not what you say you are, yet you smooth it over with the word cock? How fucking dare—”
His mouth crashes into mine. His hand fists my hair as his crushing kiss overtakes all my thoughts. “No!” I push him back, but he’s ready for me.
“Stop, Harper. Forget this book, it’s nothing. It’s just confusion left over from a different guy.”
“I bet you’d like that. Just forget all the nasty things you said about me. Sure. I bet all I have to do is forget that you loathed me and then rename myself Amber, right? Then you’d be all over me—”
“What did you just say?” He shakes me by the shoulders as he stares down into my eyes. He’s angry now. “Answer me!”
“You wrote her a sweet little letter at the end of my notebook, James. So sorry, a cock and a kiss won’t cut it because whatever you’re doing is all about her!”
He opens his mouth. Then turns around and goes inside. I follow him in but he’s already down the hallway, gone from sight. A few seconds later a door slams. I look across the room at the girl and she gives me a small shrug.
“He’s been moody all day. I’m sure it’s not you.”
I glance back at the hallway. It is me. Or at least it’s the name Amber that set him off.
“But at least he didn’t threaten to kill you. He threatened me a lot today. But I forgive him. And so should you.”
I look over at the girl again. “Why?”
She lies down on the couch and closes her eyes, tucking her hands between her legs like the air-conditioning is giving her a chill. “Because,” she says through a long yawn, “he’s all we’ve got.”