Eric
I wake at sunrise with Harper pressed to my side, the heat of her body next to mine warming me in places I thought to be pure, unbreakable ice, but I was wrong. This woman chips away that ice, and while I didn’t think I wanted it chipped away, now I want her warmth in all those cold places. She’s changing me. She doesn’t know it, but I do. With every moment that I’m with her, she seeps deeper inside me, and she was already there to begin with. She’s been there for six illogical, but absolute, years. For a solid fifteen minutes, I lay there, just listening to her breathe, and when I finally force myself to get up to deal with a phone conference I’ve set up on the NFL deal, she sinks deeper into the covers, and to me, this represents trust. With all she has going on, with all the fears she’s nursing, she feels safe with me here. And she is. No one is ever going to hurt her again.
I pull on my boots I took off hours ago, drag my jacket on without a shirt, stick the gun in the back of my jeans, and then head downstairs, exiting the house into a cold Denver morning to grab my garment bag from the trunk of my rental. I check in with Blake by text, despite talking to him a few hours ago, or rather texting with him. I re-enter the bedroom and Harper hasn’t moved. I finishing showering and still, she hasn’t moved. I shave and dress in a three-thousand-dollar suit, meant to represent Bennett Enterprises with the union today. I accessorize with the gun at the back of my pants, under my jacket. I make coffee and predict how Harper takes hers based on the supplies she has in the house and then head upstairs.
I set the cup on the nightstand and then settle my hand on Harper’s arm. She blinks and brings me into focus. “Eric? God, is that really you?”
My lips curve at her sleepy, dreamy reaction. “Yes, sweetheart. It’s really me. I brought you coffee.”
She rockets to a sitting position. “Eric?”
I laugh. “Yes. It’s still me.”
“I was—I think I was—”
“Dreaming?”
“Yes. I was really asleep and I think and you were—It was just a dream.”
Dreaming of me. Fuck. She’s undoing me here. I should have come back for her. I never should have left her.
“Oh God,” she says, grabbing my arm. “What time is it? I have that union meeting.”
“It’s only six-thirty.” I offer her the coffee. “You have time.”
“You really made me coffee?”
“I really made you coffee,” I confirm as she accepts the cup and sips.
“And you made it how I like it. Was there some statistical reason you chose my perfect mixture?”
“I guessed based on how you stock your supplies.”
“You did good,” she approves, “and how very un-bastard-like of you.” She eyes my suit. “You look really, really good in a suit. Actually, you look really, really good in a T-shirt. And apparently, I have no filter with you.”
“No filter equals honesty. Keep it coming. And for the record, you look damn good in my shirt. You’d look better in my bed. I may have to go back to New York for a meeting on this NFL deal. Come with me.”
She sets the coffee down. “I can’t leave in the middle of this, but you, you need to leave before you get set-up in some way. I fell asleep thinking about that. You need to go.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you. Come into my world, into my life, and be a part of it.”
“Would that include you telling me what all your tattoos mean?”
“Yes, Harper. I’ll tell you what my tattoos mean.”
“That’s tempting, really tempting and I wish I could, Eric, but I can’t leave. You know I can’t leave.”
“You can,” I say, and when she opens her mouth to object, I hold up a finger. “Hear me out, sweetheart.”
She hesitates but nods before I continue, “We’ll convince them that I gave you a reason to leave and backed you the hell out of this mess. In theory, they then let down their guards while the Walker team is hacking and watching.”
“You really think that will work?”
“I know this family far better than I wish I did, Isaac especially. He is never smart about how he covers his tracks.”
“He covered them well enough to keep us from uncovering them now.”
“You’ve been in his face, you’ve been pushing him. Come to New York with me.” My hand comes down on her leg. “Sleep in my bed with me. Live in my world with me. See what life outside the Kingston world is like. They’ve consumed you. And if you see it, if you love it, you’ll sell it to your mom.”
Her eyes soften. “I want to. God, I really want to.”
“Then do it. Remove yourself from the target zone, too.”
Worry pinches her brow. “Does that put my mother there instead?”
“We’ll watch for trouble, but I don’t see her as a target.”
“How would that look? What would we do to set this up?”
“I’ll go at them hard for a few days and you stay your course. Don’t change how you’ve been acting at all. Don’t say a word to Gigi about backing down. Then I’ll pull back and tell my father that I’ll bow out in exchange for your protection. I’ve walked away before. He’ll believe me.”
“You think it will work?”
“Yes, and I read my father well. I’ll know when to play the cards if it’s working.”
She considers me several beats. “Me going to your home is our play?”
“Yes.”
“Me in your bed?”
“The best fucking play ever,” I assure her.
Her lips curve, her mood shifting to yes before she ever speaks it. “I have a condition,” she says, her eyes lighting with mischief.
“What condition?”
“Every tattoo I lick, you explain.”
I laugh and kiss her hand. “Condition accepted and feel free to start that process before we get to New York and my bed.”
“A suggestion worthy of consideration.”
I lean in and cup her head, dragging her lips to mine. “How about I lick you all over instead?”
“Can we take turns?”
I kiss her, and the throb of my cock is instant, while my conference call is imminent, and it’s all I can do to leave her in her bed, all but naked in my shirt. But I do, and only because soon she’ll be in my bed where she’ll stay naked.
***
Harper
I have to tell him my secret before I can go to New York with him. I have to. I will. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the only thing to do. These are the thoughts in my head as I dress in a black dress and thigh-high tights with lace tops, my mind is racing the entire time I go through my morning routine. I am falling hard for this man. I have been from the day I met him and now, we’re here, we’re together, we’re doing this, and the past hangs over our heads. The consequences of our first night together reach far beyond what Eric believes to be the reality.
I grab my purse and briefcase and head downstairs, following the echo of Eric’s deep, sexy voice to the kitchen. I find him at the island, coffee cup in hand, his MacBook open on the counter, while the phone is at his ear. His tattoos peek from beneath his sleeve, a canvas of all the lives he’s lived and I want to know them all. I want this secret not to destroy us, but not telling him isn’t an option. We said no secrets and this one isn’t one I could live with holding back.
I approach the island and he looks up, his eyes warming with the sight of me in that way every girl wants a man of her heart to look at her with. And he is the man of my heart. I’m falling in love with him. I have always been standing on a ledge above a sea of wild blue love with this man, ready to jump. But I can’t jump and have that water become ice.
“Let me call you back, Blake,” Eric says, disconnecting and shutting his computer, his eyes doing a wicked glide up and down my body. “You look beautiful, Harper.”
“Thank you,” I say stopping at the island across from him and it’s the wrong time. I know it’s the wrong time, but when I look into his eyes, when the warmth of his stare radiates through me, I can barely contain this explosion inside me. “Eric, I need—”
Both of our cellphones ring at the same time. Eric winks and my moment of poorly timed confession is gone. We both reach for our phones. Mine turns out to be Jim Sims. “Jim,” I greet. “We’re still on for our meeting this morning, right? At the union office?”
“No meeting.”
“Why?”
“Isaac and I talked last night. We agreed on terms.”
“Just like that?”
“It’s done. No meeting.” He hangs up without another word.
I frown and slide my phone into my purse as Eric disconnects, arching a brow at me. “What just happened?”
“The union meeting is cancelled. They agreed to our terms. So actually, I’m turning your question on you. What just happened?”
“Isaac deleted the union messages when I walked in the door. Now the meeting between you and the union is cancelled. Kingston’s obviously in bed with at least a portion of the union. My presence and history with the union has everyone spooked. Add to that the fact that my father just called and demanded to see me at the office right now and I’d say our plan is working. The one where we leave and you end up in my bed.”
Unless I don’t, I think. Unless he decides he doesn’t want me there, because I can’t go to New York City without telling him what I don’t want to tell him. What I have to tell him.