CHAPTER NINETEEN

HARPER

I move my head forward until my lips meet his.

He presses his body to mine and it’s a furnace, burning through the clothing between us. Fresh sweat breaks on my brow as his hands meet around my back, my tears drying on my cheeks. His hands dip to my buttocks, to hold them as his tongue enters my mouth and I begin to melt below.

It’s only when my lips part my body remembers to breathe. I take it all in in one gasp and it doesn’t feel like enough. I’m drowning in desire, his heady scent filling my lungs, scalding them.

Questions rally in my head for answers, but I don’t want to think. I want to do away with the rational if only for a moment.

I can see by his breathing Colton is equally affected. I lift my hands and place them flat onto his chest. It is stone, hard and unyielding yet burning with a fever like I have never felt before. Lower, his cock is rock hard against me. It twitches and I still cannot grasp how anything that impossibly large could fit inside me.

It’s my turn to please him, to return some small measure of the pleasure he has provided me, but this is different to being with James. I want to do this. I want to make Colton come, if only to forget who we really are for a brief moment in time.

My hands fall from his chest, trembling. I undo his zipper and tug his jeans and underwear down, his cock, scarlet and swollen, unleashed.

I wrap my fingers around his length. I’m surprised to find the surface of his member hotter than I recalled, a pulse beating steady below and a bead of fluid tinted amber by the fire seeping out from the tip.

My fingers fall further and run into the thicket at the base of his cock, finding the hidden sack there. I roll the balls contained within between my fingers and the movement pleases him, a deep growl emanating from his throat, his eyes closed in pleasure.

I crouch and then kneel on the floor until I am face to face with the twisted trunk of Colton’s cock. I run my hands up and down his chest once more, taking in the flat planes that gather there and the sharp bones that lead down to his pelvis and its unnatural appendage.

I grasp it by the root, roll my lips and sink my mouth down upon it, my mouth stretching wide to accommodate the head.

I can’t move my mouth far at first, but I use my hand to pull myself down on his cock, slickening its surface with my tongue and plunging deeper with every mouthful. I pull back and realize by the horizontal marker of my handiwork upon it I have taken half his shaft in my mouth.

You’ve done this before. You can do it again.

He groans, lost in the feeling, his hands falling gently upon my head, his hips swinging forward.

I renew my efforts, using my hand to pump below. I draw out the strokes and the head of his cock responds by jerking inside the warm confines of my mouth, my tongue lashing against it all the while, pressing up against the glans.

His hands press me deeper, urging me on.

I open my mouth as wide as it will go, raise my head up and then lower it until I feel him move into my throat

“Oh, god,” he gasps, his fingers pulling at my hair. “Harper, I’m going to—”

He goes to pull away, but I hold him firmly in place, continuing to suck and stroke.

He shouts in release, jerking forward hard as he fills my mouth.

I swallow, surprised by the silky texture of his release. I keep swallowing until I’ve taken it all, his cock jerking upwards against the roof of my mouth dry and spent.

He stands back looking down at himself.

“Jesus. Harper, I had no idea…”

I stand, wiping my lips with the back of my hand. “Hey, I can be wild when I want to.”

I look for approval but fail to find it given the abrupt way his expression shifts, the pure hunger filling it. If anything, he looks angered, primal.

He reaches forward and tears my crop top down the middle, my breasts falling free, thick strips of material falling to my feet. He shouts, kneeling to tear at my leggings, ripping and pulling them apart until they too are discarded and I’m naked but for the thong I’m wearing—the only one of its kind in my wardrobe. A single tug at the crotch does away with that, snapping against my inner thigh to join the shreds of clothing around my feet.

He steps back, pieces of cloth still gripped in his hands. His eyes are wild. James would be completely flaccid within seconds of coming, but Colton’s cock remains completely rigid.

My hands fly to my breasts and sex in an attempt to cover my modesty, but he pulls them away tenderly, placing my arms at my side. He gazes, his mouth open, and I see the hunger in him, the hunger for me. “Don’t. I want to see you… every hot fucking inch of your body. Do you understand me?”

I nod, drunk on his power.

The heater’s on. I’ve just finished a workout. The room could not be any hotter, yet a ball of ice, all nerves and anticipation, has formed in my stomach. My body stands before him like a pearl, stark white unblemished by the sun, dusky nipples standing stiff from my breasts.

Wetness gathers between my legs. My body prepares itself, yet when I look upon the cock before me I am struck once again with fear.

Colton kneels before me on one knee and I see the worship present, the awe in which he beholds my body. He takes my left foot in both hands, cradling it like a newborn, raising it up and placing it on top his shoulder, the lips of my sex spreading in the process.

His hands run up my legs as he twists his head and thrusts it forward between them, his mouth engulfing my slit. I gasp and place my hands on his head, moving my fingers through his inky hair as his tongue and lips work at the opening between my thighs.

My body shakes and I claw into his scalp. His thumb presses into the soft flesh of my upper thigh and the sole of my foot rolls back and forth on his shoulder.

He presses his entire mouth and chin against me in hunger and desperation. He clasps my buttocks and brings me even closer forward until it’s impossible to tell where his head ends and my body begins.

As he works, a new and terrifying feeling starts low in my body. It brews and builds, fast gaining momentum with his rhythm until all I can focus on is his tongue and the way it penetrates and rolls over my pussy.

It comes, exploding inwards, all my senses drawing into the center of my consciousness and releasing a feeling of such untold pleasure I can barely stand.

His tongue strikes my bud again and sensation washes fresh, drowning me anew.

Lost in a cloud of sensation, I’m dimly aware of Colton cradling my body in his arms, laying me down, the cheap carpet pricking at my buttocks and the slick mess that has gathered above.

I register the sensitivity as his mouth finds my nipple, his hand clasped around my breast, drawing it to his mouth.

His lips move from my breast to my lips. Closed in this bubble of confinement he slides the head of his cock against my opening, its slickened state allowing it to ride easily past the fleshy outer lips and into the heated tunnel beyond.

In one motion he lifts his hips and drives his cock forward, burying himself deep inside me.

My reluctance seems a distant memory as his member stretches out inside me, opening up new channels of delight as it works, sliding easily in the increasing ocean gathering there.

I bring my hands down his back and find his buttocks, digging my nails deep into them and driving him forward as the pleasure increases.

His heart pounds against my own. We kiss and taste the salty remnants of his seed on my lips. It only increases my arousal.

We cradle and combine with one another faster and faster until the muscles throughout his entire body tighten. Our hearts run in unison and his cock moves as if a machine, sliding in and out of my sex with untold speed until he bows from my body as though struck by lightning, driving hard and deep in release.

He finally falls, slumping beside me on the carpet covered in the same slick blanket of perspiration.

I’m lying across his chest, my finger tracing the tattoo on his arm. The room’s cooling, but it’s going to take a while for my core temperature to drop completely given that workout.

Who needs a treadmill when you’ve got Colton Beckett?

“Do you see much of your brothers? I ask, my finger dancing on his skin.

He continues to run his fingers through my hair, seems spellbound by it. “Cayden’s pretty busy with ball these days. He’s got his little family, things going on, but yeah, we catch up when you can. My oldest brother, Mason, he moved away to this tiny town, bought a god-damn auto shop, found a woman instead. He’s got a kid too. And Hunter… Well, he has this rare disease, aplastic anemia, a kind of bone-slash-blood disorder thing. It’s a bitch, almost took him out, but I hung with him for a while in California while he was getting treated, made sure he was ready to break hearts again. He’s better now, working his way through the police academy last I heard, which is blows my mind considering the illegal shit we used to get up to. I suppose there’s redemption for the lost after all.

“You guys were… trouble?”

“Understatement of the century. Ask around about the Becketts at Abbotsleigh and you’ll get mythical stories of great and wonderful deeds in return, AKA the crazy shit we used to dial up around campus. I think the entire Abbotsleigh administration breathed a communal sigh of relief when we all went our separate ways.”

Colton turns quiet, his fingers withdrawing. “You do know this can’t go on, don’t you?”

The implication stings, but I act casual. “Of course. I wish it didn’t have to be that way, but I understand.”

He sits up, looking at me. “I’ve had fun.”

The stinging becomes a burn.

Fun—he’s playing it off like it’s nothing, like we’re fuck buddies and nothing more. Meanwhile, my heart is ripping itself apart at the thought this was, at least to him, little more than a way to waste time.

“I mean,” he continues, “I’m glad I could show what it’s like to be with a real man, not a pretender.”

A real man wouldn’t use me like this.

I pull for a cushion from the sofa to cover myself, feel doubly naked right now. “So am I.” I smile, but it’s forced.

I look at him, try to gauge his true feelings here, but I can’t discern them. His face is a beautiful mystery and nothing more.

A tense moment passes. Neither of us speaks, lost in it, floating towards the inevitable.

Colton’s the first to make a move, standing and hunting around for his clothes. He picks up a piece of my leggings. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine.” I smile, pulling my legs under myself for support, the cushion in my lap. “I’ve got more.” I almost add ‘you can rip apart later,’ but choose not to.

Dressed, Colton stands before me. “Thank you, Harper. Honestly.”

This time the smile is genuine. “No, thank you.”

“I’ll see you around.”

“Sure,” I choke out, watching as he pauses a moment more. Waiting for something? For me to say something? I don’t know. Why is this so awkward? A moment ago he was inside me, as close as you can be to another human being. Does that really mean nothing to him?

I watch him smile and walk away, his coat over his shoulder.

I hear the front door open, close, the echo of footsteps fading until the world is silent again.

In an uncharacteristic show of rage, I slam my fist down into the cushion. “Damn it!”

I try to pinpoint why I’m so angry. Did I really think this would be something more? Am I that delusional?

Well, yeah, hon.

I breathe out, shaking my head and looking up to the wall where a picture of me at graduation resides. I look so happy in that photo, the world before me.

It’s with striking clarity I realize I’m not angry at Colton as such, but at James, for putting me in this position, for forcing this.

Or am I angry with myself, for violating policy, my principles? I’ve always been a black-and-white kind of person. Even as a kid. Whatever someone of authority said to do, I did it—no questions asked. There were no shades of grey in my world back then—not the muddy mix it is now.

Was it me? I wonder. Am I the instigator here? Am I the one who lured Colton into sex, into this tangled web? Did he feel pressured into it because I’m his teacher?

The questions swirl until they’re a giant whirlpool sucking the world away.

No, it doesn’t seem like that was the case. If anyone’s doing the seducing here, it’s Colton. I just came (ha) along for the ride—a ride that has sadly run its course.

It was inevitable, I remind myself. You knew that. He knew that. Like he said, just a bit of fun.

Whatever we had, this connection, this relationship, I have to reconcile myself with the fact it’s over.

It’s over, and that’s the way it has to stay.