Chapter Thirty-Three - Harper
“What was the best present you ever received?” I ask him. “As a kid, like a little kid. Because the best present you ever received as an adult was me.” I bat my eyelashes at him to let him know I’m not mad. And I’m not mad. I’m not trying to push him away, I just need more… details. More personal things. More job things. More killing things. Getting to know someone is a process. And I don’t want to skip it. I don’t know if I love him, but I like him. A lot. And knowing he’s been with me since I was a kid, even in just that small, distant way once a year, it means something. It makes him more than just a guy. He’s a guy who knows things about me. About my family. And he still wants to stick it out.
Or… he’s using me to get to Nick. Which might be the case. And this is a good way to figure that out as well.
I have trust issues. I know this. But either way, getting closer—more personal—this will meet the objective no matter what. He’s watching me with a very skeptical look as I think all this through. Probably a mirror of the confusion I’m battling internally as well.
“Well…” He clears his throat. And then he pauses so long I decide to pick it up.
“I’ll go first. OK?” I tip my head up and smile. He’s considering his options, I can tell. He’s trying to decide to be honest or lie. If I want something from him, I need to give it first. This is how they work, right? The assassins thrive on favors. You owe me, I owe you, and we’re even.
So I lie back down in his lap and start.
“My best gift was not that stupid Hello Kitty notebook you gave me.” His chest expands as he takes a deep breath and I bite my lip to stop the smile. “It was a fish from my brother.” James threads his fingers through my hair and that feels so good, I want to close my eyes and moan. But not yet. “He always gave me presents when we were small. Little things. An extra piece of fruit at breakfast. Rocks and seashells. One time he made me coconut dolls.” I smile so big when I think about this and I almost let the sadness seep in and ruin the moment. But I push that down and remember how happy he made me. “That was a great present too. And he scraped all the coconut husk off the shell, except where the big bushy eyebrows went. And I had a mom and dad and a brother and a sister. The perfect family.” The sigh comes out before I can shut it down and James traces the curve of my lips. “That was such a good present. But the very best present was a lionfish.” I look up at James again and he’s shaking his head with a grin.
“He caught you a lionfish?”
I nod. “He did. I was obsessed with them. I told you that day we became Six that I touched them. And I did. Every time I saw one snorkeling my hand just reached out.”
“And they didn’t sting you?” James asks with a laugh. “They’re venomous, you know.”
“I know. And I did get stung, like four or five times. My dad was so pissed, he finally said I wasn’t allowed to snorkel anymore.”
“This was before or after the present?”
“Before.”
“So Nick gave you the forbidden fruit. And you were allowed to keep it? On the ship?”
I nod as I remember. “Yeah. We had a nice tank. We were twelve. Old enough to take care of it ourselves. It was big too. Of course, we had a guy on board who really took care of it. But back then Nick and I felt like we were in charge. We had a pufferfish too.”
“You did not.” James laughs. “Pufferfish venom is another calling card of mine.”
“We did,” I exclaim as I try to sit up and make my case. But James pushes me back down into his lap, and I’m too comfortable to fight it. “That came after. Because one day we came upstairs and all the fish were dead. Oh my God, I cried so hard over those fish. No one knew what happened. My father was furious. I’m not sure if it was because I was crying like an idiot over it, or the inconvenience of replacing them. But we cleaned up the tank and a few weeks later we were near a reef and Nick got permission to go catch fish.”
“And he came back with your lionfish.”
“He did.”
“He loves you, I guess,” James says as he drags some hair off my forehead.
“I know.”
“Did you ever give him such a fantastic present?”
I shake my head but suddenly it’s difficult to talk as a lump of sadness appears in my throat. I swallow it down and find my voice. “I could never think of something special like he could.”
“I think you were his something special, Harper. I’m sure he didn’t need a present to let him know you loved him.”
“Yeah.” I sigh. “But I wish he had something to think about like I do. The feeling when you receive a gift from someone who loves you. And everything about that gift says you’re special.”
“Well,” James says through his own sigh. “I can’t think of a single gift I’ve gotten that actually… meant something.”
“You never got gifts?”
“No, I did. Cars. Trips. Shit like that. Shit rich kids get. But to me, they were just things. Were you spoiled, Harper?”
“Hmmm.” I think about it for a second. “I guess. I had a nice life.”
“Did your father buy you things instead of spending time with you?”
“No, we didn’t get a lot of frivolous presents. And my dad hardly spent any time with us at all. We were mostly ignored except at dinner or parties. But when you live on a two-hundred-and-twenty-foot yacht and your whole life consists of sailing around the tropics visiting paradise, that’s probably enough to qualify as spoiled.” And so that was my life. The beaches, the boats, the water. And once a year on my birthday, a party. I think back to those birthdays, but they mostly run together. Presents, beaches, swimming, fireworks… They all run together except for one. “What did you think when you first saw me?”
He sucks in some air and when he exhales I close my eyes and picture that day again. “Well,” he says softly. “That day on the beach when we both became Six I thought you looked like a sea nymph who would sing a song and I’d lose my mind from the beauty of your voice.”
“You are such a liar,” I snort. He pokes my armpit, testing to see if I’m ticklish. I am, so I squirm, and then his hand slips to my breast and finds the hard pebble of my nipple. He pinches it and I moan a little.
“You want to know what I thought about when I saw you in Huntington that first time?”
My hand slides up my stomach and I place it over the top of his and then grip him a little harder and rub my breast using his hand.
“You’re turning me on, Lionfish. You know that, right?”
“Tell me what you thought, James. I want to know.” My eyes close again. He slides his hand underneath my shirt and squeezes the nipple again with no fabric to dampen the pleasure.
“It was my first day in HB. I had an apartment on PCH. I had some ripped Levi’s. Some vans. Some expensive sunglasses. Just fitting in like I do wherever I’m sent. And I had just finished taking a walk down the pier to check it out. It was just about sunset, and it was cold that day. Rainy and cloudy. So no one was paying any attention to the sunset.”
“Except me,” I say softly.
“Except you. I spotted your hair first. Then there was this break in the clouds and the sun hit your face in a way that turned your brown eyes to this incredible gold, and your hair was like a beacon on that gloomy day. Your beauty called to me, the same way it did back when we turned Six. And I knew the very second I saw you. You were my only reason to live.”
I tip my head up so I can see him and he’s got a sad frown on his face. “Because you had to shoot your brother?”
He looks away and he takes a deep breath that lifts my whole body up with the effort.
“There’s no one left for me to love but you, Harper. My brother is dead, my sister is probably dead. They took her that first year I was working because my mother was ‘getting ideas’ about my little sister’s promise. It was hard to get upset about my lot in life before that. I mean, that was just how it was, ya know? It never occurred to me that I was allowed to be outraged at the thought of my baby sister being promised to a man. So she disappeared. A few years later one of my contracts was shooting his mouth off before I pulled the trigger and he claimed he killed her. I took him at his word, because you know what? The idea that my sister was kidnapped as a toddler and given away as a child bride is just more than I can deal with.”
“God, I’m so sorry. They never told me about the marriage stuff either. Not outright anyway. Not until I turned sixteen. And then that’s all they talked about.”
“But your brother made sure that day never happened. Well.” James stops to correct himself. “No, that’s not true. You took care of it yourself, really. But either way, the gloomy sunset day was like… an ending to the bad things. That’s what I told myself. And then the day I finally decided to ask you your name, I wanted it to be dawn instead of dusk. I didn’t want it to be an ending, I wanted it to be a beginning.”
I picture him in his sorrow on the beach. “I was sad too. Missing my brother so bad my chest hurt all the time, and I used to hold that bottle of pills so tightly in my hand, I’d have sore arms the next day.”
“But you never took them. I used to count them every night.”
What? I’m back from the moment and I need more answers about this surveillance he was doing. “Who sent you to the beach?”
“Your father.”
“So he was watching me.”
“Probably.”
“You were watching me for him?”
“I guess. It was not a job. I was on leave. And I never reported to him. Not one thing I did on that beach was reported.”
I’m silent for a long time. Long stretches of minutes go by and the only thing that registers is the feeling of James playing with my nipples. Every now and then he squeezes a bit and the now-familiar wet feeling between my legs makes me squirm.
“Do you want me to keep going?” he finally asks.
“Will I want to hear the rest?”
“I’m not sure, to be honest.”
“Do you want me to know the rest?”
“Yes, I do. I have wanted to say these things to you since the day under the pier.”
I tip my chin up so I can see him better and nod. “OK.”
“I followed you home after the sunset. I broke into your apartment that night. And every single night thereafter. I watched you—” And as soon as he says this part, his hand slides into my shorts and slips down to play with my pussy.
“Did you touch me?” I ask, my breath becoming faster as his fingers begin to explore my folds. “Or did you just watch?”
“I touched you.”
“Where?” I slip my hand inside my shorts and begin to caress my clit in slow circles. “Here?”
“No,” James says softly. And then he pulls his hand out of my pants and brings it to my lips. “Here.” His fingertip traces the curve of my lip again, like he was doing earlier. But this time it’s slick with my own juices.
“Did I suck you?”
“I wish,” he laughs. “No. I was afraid to wake you, so it was a very small touch.”
“Did I ever moan?”
“Yes. It drove me crazy.”
“Did you want to fuck me?”
He slides his hand back into my shorts and leans down to whisper in my ear. “I dreamed about fucking you. Every night.”
“Did you masturbate as I slept?”
“Yes,” he whispers.
“Show me,” I whisper back.
He draws in a sharp breath, staring down at me. “Sit up on your knees,” he commands.
I get up, my heart beating faster at the prospect of watching him.
“Take off your shirt.”
I grab the hem of my shirt and pull it up over my head as he unfastens his pants. His dick is so hard it springs forth once the confining fabric releases it.
“Take off your shorts.”
I stand up, unbutton them, and let them slide down my legs.
He takes his shirt off and then stands up next to me and lets his pants drop before sitting back down. “Kneel and put your head here,” he says, patting the top of his thigh. I never stop looking him in the eyes as I kneel and lay my head on his leg and my hands automatically begin to stroke his muscled calf. His cock is only a few inches away and I want to put it in my mouth so bad I tremble.
But then his large hand grabs hold of the shaft and begins to pump. I watch as he grows even bigger and it scares and excites me at the same time to think of that inside me. After a few strokes he stops. “Get it wet for me, Harper.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“Suck it.”
OK, sucking I can do. I lean forward and touch the tip of my tongue to his head, licking off the pearl of wetness that has already gathered there.
“Deeper, baby,” he says through a moan.
I open wider to take in more and then his hand is on my head, forcing his cock down my throat. I breathe through it like he taught me last time he did this.
“Good girl. You’re a very good girl.” But his pressure increases as soon as the words are out and I gag. He doesn’t let up and my mouth fills up with saliva. He grabs my hair and pulls my head back. “Make my dick wet.” The pooling saliva drips out of my mouth and onto his cock, then slides down towards his balls. “Rest your head back on my leg, Harper. Relax now, and watch.”
I do relax. His cock is slick with my saliva and he pumps it in long strokes. I can tell he’s squeezing hard by the way he groans when his hand fists the top of his head. When I look up at him, he’s staring at me. “I did this in front of you when you slept sometimes.”
“Did you want to stick it in my mouth?”
“No.” He smiles when I have a look of surprise on my face. “No, I always fantasized about you waking up and watching me and then you’d stick your fingers in your pussy and we’d masturbate together, coming at the same time.”
“And then what?” I open my legs and finger myself, making sure to keep my head on his thigh. His eyes never leave mine and mine never leave his.
“And then I’d kiss you and tell you it was just a dream. And you’d close your eyes and go back to sleep.”
“You didn’t want to fuck me?”
“Shit,” he laughs. “Yes, Harper. I wanted to fuck you. But not like that.”
“You’re so weird.”
“Why’s that?” He kneads my breasts, twisting my nipples gently every few seconds.
“I just don’t get you. You want me, but you feel guilty for wanting me. It’s because of the promise? And my age? You hate that I’m young, don’t you?”
“Jesus fucking Christ, no. Just thinking about how young you are makes me want to fuck you harder.”
“Then what do you want that I’m not giving you?” He waits a few beats and it makes me so nervous I want to scream at him. “Tell me,” I finally beg. “Just tell me what you want. I’m ready to do almost anything.”