Chapter Eight
Harper
I can’t believe I’ve been having fun with this amazing family for five long days—with them still thinking I’m George’s surprise. Here it is Tuesday afternoon, and Will has gone to town with one of his cousins, leaving me to hang out in the kitchen with Claire, Bronwyn, and Annabella.
Soon enough, the kitchen will be filled with family again, all convening to eat Claire’s famous apple pie. I sip my coffee as I help these wonderful women peel apples for the pie. As I take it all in, my heart bursts with happiness, until little warning bells jingle.
You have to tell them who you are, Harper.
I open my mouth, but the bang of the front door hitting the wall as it’s flung open garners our attention. Will comes rushing into the kitchen and drops a brown paper bag onto the table. I peek inside. “What’s this?”
“Only the best chocolate in the world. It’s my mom’s favorite. She’d disown me if I didn’t bring her back some.”
My heart squeezes. How sweet of him.
He winks at me. “Don’t worry. I got you some, too. I know you like sweet things.”
Yup, he’s right. I do. I swallow against the fullness in my heart.
In no time at all, the house fills with people, and I’m lost in conversation and playing games and eating pie. By the time the crowd dies down, I fake a yawn and excuse myself, needing time alone to gather my thoughts. I have to tell these people who I am, and I have to do it now.
But I don’t want to.
“I like sweet things, too,” a rich, familiar voice says from behind me.
Standing in my bathroom, I turn to see Will leaning against the adjoining door, his expression suggesting I’m the sweet thing he likes and he’s going to eat me alive. “Though, I can’t decide.”
“Oh?”
He steps up to me, rubs his thumb over my lips, then slides his hand between my legs. “Which do I taste first?”
In a bold move, I put my hands on his shoulder and give a shove. “Let me help you with that.”
He laughs as he drops to his knees and reaches for the button on my jeans.
“I love a sexy girl who knows what she wants,” he teases.
“Will.”
“Yeah.”
“I think you have a better use of that smart mouth of yours.” We both laugh, but mine turns to a moan as he releases my zipper and tugs my pants until they’re around my knees. He goes back on his heels and looks at me. I want to widen my legs, but I can’t, they’re trapped, and Will seems to be quite pleased about that.
“Will,” I growl.
“What?” he asks all innocent like.
“Please…”
He smirks. “Please what?”
“Your mouth…that thing you said about tasting.” I’m practically vibrating as I stand here with my pants halfway down my legs, my nipples hard, eager for his mouth, too. “Did you forget?”
His eyes darken as he wets his lower lip. “Forget? No. I just love to look at you.” There is no humor in his voice when he says. “You’re beautiful.”
My breath stalls as he takes off his pants in seconds flat and strokes his hard cock, going from the base to tip as he drinks me in, his eyes intense, unguarded. My God, the way he wants me… I just… I don’t know. I guess I’ve just never felt so needed and desired before.
Craving the feel of him against my skin, I reach for him. “Will,” I whisper, and he finally closes the distance between us. With my legs still pinned together, he runs his tongue along my seam and dips inside. “Yes,” I moan, and he circles my clit.
“You taste so fucking sweet,” he murmurs and pushes his tongue into me. I cup his head and hold him there as he licks and sucks and savors me like I’m candy.
I move against his mouth, buck against his face, desperate for him and shamelessly letting him know. “You’re going to come in my mouth before I put my cock in you. I’m going to take you there using nothing but my tongue.”
“Yes, please…” I whimper, loving his confidence, the way he knows how to touch me. He brushes the soft blade over my clit, and I moan. Heat rushes through me, centers between my quivering legs. Will grips my hips, holds me still as he eats at me. I grip his hair, pull a little, my thoughts lost to everything except the pleasure between my legs. I gulp air and whimper as his hot tongue sears my sex. He rolls his tongue, then laps at me, changing the pressure and direction until my sex is tightening. A tremor rips through me as red-hot desire twists inside me.
“Yes,” I cry out, then clamp my hand over my mouth. Powerful waves crash over me, and Will stays between my legs, running his tongue along the length of my sex to taste every drop. He inches back, and his nostrils flare as his eyes meet mine.
“I want you. Hard and fast,” he says, and all I can do is nod. He grips my pants, drags them to my feet, and I kick them away. He’s breathing hard as he guides me to the bed and turns me until my back is pressed to his chest. His cock throbs against me, and I wiggle to tease him. He growls, and I get the sense that I just poked the bear again.
I face the bed and he bends me at the waist, then tosses a pillow onto the floor. My heart squeezes at the gesture.
“On your knees,” he orders in a soft voice, and I slide to the floor, wanting…needing his touch. “Get that sweet ass of yours in the air and open your pretty pussy. I want to see you. All of you.” He puts his mouth next to my ear. “You’re mine, Harper, and I’m going to fuck you so hard. I’m going to make a mess of you, ruin you for every other man, and leave you wanting only me between your legs. Got that?”
I draw a shaky breath, my body buzzing in anticipation. “Yes, please,” is all I can seem to say tonight.
The nightstand opens, and I kneel there, my sex wide open to him as he sheathes himself. A second later his cock is between my legs. “After I fuck you, I’m going to tie you to this bed and do dirty things to you until the sun comes up,” he says, his voice low and harsh. My pulse leaps as he drives into me with one hard thrust. I grip the bedsheets as my breasts press into the bed. I take him deep, deeper than ever before, and it almost hurts. But it’s a good hurt, and he’s right, he will ruin me for every other man. I am in so deep it’s scary, but I can’t think about that now with his big cock snug inside me. He gives me a second to catch my breath, then grips my hips again.
He inches out and powers into me again, pushing me into the bed with an intensity I’ve never seen in him before, but I love every second of it. He grunts, his breath hot on my back as he keeps to his word and fucks me like I’ve never been fucked before. He pounds into me, frenzied, wild…a man driven to take what’s his.
If only I really was his.
“Yes, Will,” I say. “Fuck me. Hard.”
My blood races, and I’m breathing so hard my throat is dry. I tremble from head to toe and move with him, every thrust penetrating my defenses and amplifying the things I’m feeling for him. I take a gulping breath as another orgasm claws at me.
“Fuck, Harper,” he moans as I release, my liquid desire soaking his cock as he pillages me. “You feel so fucking good.” He pushes deep and stills. “I’m there. Fuck, I’m so there.”
As he groans his surrender, my sex muscles clench around him, and I hold him inside me as he fills the condom with cum. For a brief second, I wish there were no barriers between us—and I’m not just referring to the rubber. He throbs, and I grip the bedsheet, strung out and wrung out and completely messed up and ruined.
“So good,” he murmurs and falls over me, peppering my back and neck with hot, open-mouthed kisses. “I could get used to this,” he says, and I go still. He must sense the unease in me. He pulls out and lightly touches my back, his caress so tender and gentle I have to fight back the tears. “Harper,” he whispers.
“Yeah.”
“Turn around.”
With little success, I blink back the tears, but when I turn and he takes me in, I’m sure he can see through me, see that I’m falling for him, despite our arrangement. His gaze roams over my face, then he exhales slowly.
“We need to talk,” he says quietly. I nod in agreement, ignoring the storm roiling through me, and he adds, “Let me get rid of the condom first.”
My pulse pounds in my throat as those alarm bells jangle once again. I know what he wants to talk about, and he’s right. I need to come clean to his family, now. I can hear them downstairs, their voices a little louder than normal. What’s all the commotion? I guess I’ll soon find out.
With Will still in the bathroom, I get up, torn on what I have to do. I pull on a pair of sweat pants and a shirt. Then I close my suitcase and zip it, worry sitting like a huge rock in my gut. I stand my suitcase up, take a step toward the door, but it swings open. When I see George standing there, along with his immediate family, my heart crashes against my chest.
Oh God. No.
George’s gaze locks on mine, and he holds his phone up. “I got a strange message from Will last week. Something about my surprise. I texted back, but he never answered.”
“I…uh…he’s been busy,” I say for lack of anything else. Busy having sex with me, but I’m certainly not about to say that.
He angles his head. “The ship docked early, so I came straight home, and Mom and Dad also informed me my surprise was here…” His words fall off as his gaze roams over me in a closer examination. “What are they talking about, and who, exactly, are you?”
My stomach nosedives, but I take a deep breath to fuel my courage. “Ah…ugh,” I say. “I’m not who any of you think I am.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I hear a collective gasp from the hall.
George takes a tentative step toward me, his eyes narrow. “What the bloody hell is going on here?”
I look at Claire, the others, and take in their confused expressions. “I’m sorry,” is all I’m able to get out, tears pricking my eyes. Everyone has been so nice to me, and I’ve been doing nothing but deceiving them. I don’t deserve their friendship or love. Then there’s Will. I’ve fallen so hard for him, despite trying not to. A noise crawls out of my throat, fight or flight instinct kicking in.
Just then Will comes back from the bathroom, stark naked, and goes still when he sees everyone at the door. “Shit,” he says, and rakes his hand through his hair, disappearing back into the bathroom to grab a towel.
“Will?” George says, his eyes going impossibly wider.
“What’s going on here?” Ned, George’s father, asks. “You’re sleeping with George’s girl?”
“She’s not my girl, Dad,” George clarifies.
“But we all thought she was.” Ned shakes his head and goes on to say, “Including Will.”
Oh God, this is bad, so freaking bad.
George glares at his cousin. “Jesus Will, you slept with a girl you thought was mine?”
“Look, it’s not like that,” Will says quickly. “I was just protecting you.”
“By sleeping with a girl posing as mine for reasons I haven’t figured out yet?”
“No, you see,” he says, clearly flustered, “I was out to prove she was a gold digger and—”
“Is that what you are?” George asks, cutting Will off as he turns to glare at me. “Were you here to clutch on to any guy in the family?”
“No,” I say around the knot in my throat. But why would they believe that? I’m not the type of girl this kind family would embrace. I’m just a girl from the streets of Brooklyn. I’m not used to castles or horses or any of this. I don’t fit here. I never did and shouldn’t have been kidding myself. I’m not the girl this family could fall for. “This was all a mistake.”
A big huge mistake that will haunt me for the rest of my life.
Unable to take in the pained and confused faces, I grab my suitcase and dart past them, and when I get to the main level and find Gramps standing there, an equally perplexed look on his face, I say, “Can you call me a cab please?”