Duty Bound (14 page)

My fingers caressed her face, and I let out a breath when she leaned into my hand. “I still want to take care of you.” The admission slipped out before I could stop it, and Harper’s eyes went wide.

“I’m not in danger anymore.”

With my free arm, I pulled her flush against me. “That’s not why I want to take care of you,” I said gruffly. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.”

“I don’t only want to be there if there’s danger. I want to be there to laugh with you, to hear about your day and about your causes.” She tried to pull away at that last one but I held her tight. “You showed me all that I was missing in my life, and now I want to share my life with you. Am I too late?”

She shook her head, her eyes looking suspiciously emotional. “No. I was afraid that I was too late.”

“How?” I asked. “How would that even be possible?”

“I kept pushing you away, and then you seemed to be moving forward with your life. Without me.”

“Sweetheart,” I said, leaning my forehead against hers, “I was just making sure I had my shit together before coming for you. You deserve someone who can take care of you and who is willing to work alongside you. I finally feel like I can do that. You deserve to have a man who knows how to give you the space you need to be who you are.”

“I really wanted you to be that man, Levi,” she said softly and melted against me.

She felt so good in my arms that I felt like I finally had honestly and truly come home.

“I am, Harper,” I said and tucked a finger under her chin to force her to meet my gaze. “I am.” And then I was done talking—I was more of a man of action. I bent my head toward hers and brushed my lips against hers.

My body no longer ached from the work I’d been doing. In fact, I was anxious to spend the rest of the night showing Harper all the ways that I was the man for her.

Harper

I’d overslept, so I rushed through drying my hair.

I was pulling on my bra and panties in the bathroom when I heard Levi talking in the bedroom.

I listened and realized he was talking to someone about his project on the homeless shelter. It seemed kind of early to be calling someone about flooring, but his hours were never regular.

I smiled as I listened, since he sounded so intent and professional.

He was good at his job, and I knew how committed he was to this project. It made me happy, since it gave him a channel for all of his drive and energy and purpose.

I just hoped he’d be able to find something long-term after this project was over. Working for his father just wouldn’t do it.

After I put my underwear on, I stepped out from the bathroom to get my clothes and saw that Levi was sitting on the edge of the bed, still wearing nothing but his underwear as he had his conversation about flooring.

His profile looked so serious and focused as he spoke, and his chest so gorgeous and masculine that I stopped and just stared at him for a moment.

I experienced a surge of almost possessive satisfaction as I watched. He was just so amazing. I’d never met another man like him.

Plus, he looked scrumptious without a shirt on.

Impulsively, as soon as he hung up, I ran for the bed and tackled him from the side.

He grunted in surprise, dropped the phone, and got pushed down onto the bed with the force of my tackle. Almost immediately, however, he used his strength to turn me over so I was sprawled out on my back and he was on top of me.

He gave me an exaggerated frown. “What did I do to deserve that?”

I couldn’t help but beam up at him. “You were just too adorable to resist.”

“Sitting there on the phone? What was adorable about that?”

“It just was. Plus, you didn’t have a shirt on.”

“So my naked chest prompts unmotivated assaults?” His eyes had been warm, but now they grew even hotter as he gazed down on me.

“Yes. Girls would do it all the time if you went around without a shirt. It’s just that adorable.”

“Is it really?” He leaned down to kiss me, surprisingly gentle for the teasing tone of the conversation.

“Well,” I said breathlessly, when he pulled his lips away, “
I
adore it.”

He kissed me again, and this time I wrapped my arms around his neck and arched up into his weight. We’d been dating now for a few months, but every day I seemed to want him more. He broke the kiss just enough to murmur against my mouth, “What else do you adore?”

“That’s a shameless plea for more compliments.”

He pushed his pelvis into mine, and I could feel he was starting to get hard. “So you aren’t going to give me any more?”

“I adore your shoulders too,” I admitted, running my palms over the broad breadth of them and then sliding down the length of his spine. “And your back. Very yummy.”

He rewarded this piece of honesty with another kiss, this one longer and deeper. His tongue stroked the inside of my lips, the roof of my mouth, and the line of my tongue until I was flushed and squirming. “And what else do you adore?”

I slid my hands down to his waistband and then underneath so I could palm the curve of his tight ass. “I adore this.” I squeezed him hard. “No man should have such an irresistible butt.”

He chuckled and kissed me again. This time, when he finally broke away, I was rocking up into him and wrapping my leg around his hips.

“Anything else you adore?” he asked, his voice a little thicker now.

I squeezed my hand between our bodies until I could wrap my fingers around his erection, which had been growing against me for the last few minutes. “I might adore this most of all.”

He gave me a wicked grin. “That’s what I thought.”

“So are you going to do anything with it?”

“I thought you were running late for work.”

“I am. But maybe you can be really quick.”

Levi laughed again, warm and fond, and then let out a hoarse huff as I played with the tip of his shaft. I loved that I could please him so much, that I could see each sensation he felt in his expression.

After a minute, he took my hands in his and raised them above my head, stretching my body out taut beneath him. His eyes were like dark, smoldering embers as he raked his gaze up and down the length of me. I was still wearing my little pink bra and panty set, but I felt completely naked, completely exposed, completely known beneath his gaze. “Don’t you want to hear what
I
adore?” he asked, gravel in his voice.

I was breathing fast and shallow, so aroused I could hardly hold myself still. It was not at all how I would have expected to spend a Friday morning, but I wasn’t about to complain. “Yes. What do you adore?”

He lifted a hand to my mouth and gently stroked my lips with his fingertips. “I love these.”

The little caress was tender but strangely erotic. After a minute I was clenching my fingers in the bedding, trying to keep my hands up where he’d placed them earlier. My arousal was pulsing, but I managed not to grind up against his hips.

“And I love this spot here,” he murmured, moving his fingers away from my mouth at last. He trailed them down to the hollow of my neck, where my pulse was fluttering wildly. He stroked my throat with the same light caress, focusing on the sensitive spot just at the base, until I was tossing my head back and forth from growing need.

After a long minute of delicious torture, he trailed his fingers down to my breasts, still confined in the satin of my bra. He ran one finger up over the curve of one and then down to the cleft between them. And then back up along the other. I pushed up toward his touch, but it was never anything but a delicate sensation. “I particularly love these. And I love how these tighten when I touch them.” As evidence of this, he adjusted his hand so he could roll one thumb over the nipple, stimulating nerve endings that shot right down between my legs.

I gasped and arched up. I knew my nipple tightened obediently as soon as he fondled it, even through my bra.

“Look at that,” he said hoarsely. “Beautiful.”

“What else do you love?” I panted, dying for him to relieve the ache of arousal. I still managed to hold my arms up above my head, but I couldn’t keep from clawing at the covers.

Levi seemed to be enjoying my debauched state, since his hot eyes kept raking up and down over my face and body. He was almost smiling as one finger trailed down the middle of my belly until it reached the satin of my panties.

He stroked my clit, very lightly, over the fabric. “I love this.” When he intensified the pressure just slightly, I made a choked sound of pleasure and bucked up toward his hand. “I love how out of control it makes you.”

I
was
out of control. I whimpered and tried to push up against his fingers, but the touch was always too light to bring relief.

“I love to see you this way,” he murmured.

“I need to come so bad,” I begged, my eyes nearly rolling back in my head at the delicious torment of his feather-light touch. “Levi, please.”

In response to my words, he slipped his hand beneath the fabric of my panties and lowered his face to take one of my breast in my mouth over my bra. “And I love,” he murmured over my breast, “how you totally come apart for me when I pleasure two of my favorite spots at once.”

He suckled my nipple through my bra and slipped two fingers inside me, and it took only a minute for me to do exactly what he said. I completely came apart. I fumbled for purchase in the bedding as I rocked through a hard orgasm.

“Beautiful,” he murmured, smiling as he raised his head. “I love how responsive you are. How easily you come for me.”

The truth was I loved it too—I’d never come so quickly for any other man—but I couldn’t let him sound quite so arrogant. I was gasping in the aftermath of my climax, but I manage to find enough of my wit to frown and ask, “You’re not really saying I’m easy, are you?”

“Never.” His smile broadened. Then he adjusted his fingers inside me—I was very wet and tight after my orgasm—and pushed them up against my g-spot. I gasped at the sensation and then gasped again when he lowered his mouth again to give my sensitized nipple a little tug with his teeth.

Another climax sliced through me so quickly I cried out loudly in surprise and pleasure both.

“You’re not easy at all,” he said with grin.

I was so overwhelmed with two hard orgasms in a row that I was limp and breathless, muttering out a series of sounds that vaguely resembled, “Oh, God.”

He laughed out loud and pulled his hand out of my panties, slipping the two wet fingers into his mouth and sucking. When he’d finished, he said, “And I love how I can make you feel so good you lose the power of speech…every once in a while.”

When I regained my senses again, I scowled at him, feigning an annoyance I didn’t at all feel. “Arrogant ass.”

“You know you love my arrogant ass.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, and I moved my hands at last, reaching up to pull him down on top of me. “I
do
love your arrogant ass.”

He kissed me hard, and I fumbled at his underwear until I’d freed his erection. Then I was spreading my legs for him, and he was moving aside my panties, and he was all the way inside me, and it was so good I was gasping even more.

He took me hard and fast, unleashing his own need in a way that made both of us grunt and pant. I was clawing at his back and ass, and he was shaking the bed with the force of his thrusts. I felt the pressure of another climax tightening inside me, and I bucked my hips up toward this thrusts to chase it.

Then he let out a hoarse groan as he jerked a few times against me. I knew he was close so I writhed against him, sobbing out as my orgasm broke just before his.

We were both loud and uncontrolled as we gave into the pleasure, and I pulled him down on top of me afterwards, loving how his body started to soften, how he pressed little kisses against my mouth, my neck, my cheek.

“I’m going to be late,” I said at last, running my hands down the long line of his back.

“I think that was worth it.”

“Oh, yeah.” I was still breathless and flushed deeply red. My body felt deliciously relaxed, deliciously sated. I kind of wanted to go right to sleep after such a satisfying round of lovemaking and briefly considered calling in sick. “Hell, yeah.”

“Just don’t tell Jack the reason for your lateness.”

“Never.” I giggled as I thought about it. “I’m sorry, boss, but my boyfriend needed an ego fix so he inflicted erotic torture on me until I came to three screaming orgasms.”

“I’m not sure you were really screaming for any but the last one.” He gave me one more little kiss. “I’ll work on that. Next time, you’ll definitely scream with each one.”

“I can’t wait.”

I was about to push him away, since I needed to clean up a bit before dressing and going to work. But his face softened as he gazed down on me and he murmured, “Sweetheart, just so it’s clear. There’s nothing easy about you.”

I was so full of feeling I could hardly contain it. “Same to you. I guess that’s why we’re a perfect match.”

***

That afternoon, I was at my desk, trying to finish up a story on a restoration of Main Street project that the mayor was advocating, while waiting on hold endlessly on a call for another story.

I finished the Main Street story and still had the phone tucked under my ear when Jack came over. He’d been low-key for most of the week, but something must have stressed him out since the morning since his sleeves were rolled up past his elbows for the first time in several days.

“What are you working on?” he demanded.

“Trying to get someone to talk to me.” I sighed and lowered the phone. “I know there’s dirty business going on in the state legislature, but no one wants to talk to me.”

“Well, you can hardly blame them.”

I ignored this, since I knew it wasn’t personal. “I’ll find someone. I might have a new lead, so I’m going to drive out there on Monday.”

“I know corruption in the state legislature is juicy, but you can’t get caught up in it and forget about everything. I need that Main Street story in less than an hour, so hang up until it’s done.”

“It’s already done,” I told him, smiling in pleased satisfaction that I’d predicted his demand and gotten in ahead of him.

He frowned. “I haven’t seen anything.”

“I just now submitted it. Like, when you were walking over here.”

“Oh. Good.” His expression relaxed. “Good. So see what you can find out on the corruption story. What are you waiting for?”

“I’m on it.” I grinned at him, lifting the phone back to my ear. Still on hold. No surprise.

He turned away. Then stopped and glanced back at me. “You’re doing good, kid.”

I felt another wave of satisfaction as I gave him a cheesy thumbs-up sign.

As he walked away, I saw him start to roll back down his sleeves.