Trick (3 page)

“I have to tell Daisy,” she says, turning to find her friend in the smoky crowd.

“Forget it. You can text her.” I’m already walking out the door, fast, not looking over my shoulder when I go.

A big part of me hopes she won’t be there when I get to the parking lot. But she is. I look her up and down in the glow of the streetlight. She has her arms crossed over her tits and she’s biting her lip again. But this time it isn’t because she wants to drive me crazy with lust. This time it’s because she’s nervous. She looks up at me from under those crazy dark lashes, her eyes a little scared and a little sad, and she might as well have punched me in the stomach.

“Just go back inside,” I say, my voice tight.

She shakes her head. “No. Gunner, I’ve wanted you so bad for so long. I’ve missed you. Haven’t you missed me?” She reaches a hand out to touch me, then pulls back.

Dammit, I’ve missed the feel of her hands on me. I didn’t realize how badly until this minute. The kid I was three years ago would spit in my face if he came across me today, here, in the parking lot making plans to fuck this girl—to fuck Harlow—senseless.

I knock that kid out of my head and pull her close around her waist.

“Listen, kitten. I’m not that guy you knew back then. I don’t do sweet. I don’t do nice. And you should be done screwing around and wasting time already. You need to be looking for a guy you can settle down with. Someone to put a ring on that pretty finger of yours. Not some soulless asshole
that’ll use you and leave you like me.” Our faces are so close, I can smell the sweet bubblegum of her breath as she pants, excited or scared, I can’t tell which.

“I know that isn’t true,” she says. Her pretty pink lips part and she darts her tongue out, licking the top, then the bottom with a slow slide. “I know you don’t mean that for a second.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Harlow.” I crush her close and speak low and slow. “It’s not gonna turn out that I peel your panties off and come out the other side of this fuck a changed man. If we do this, it’s about me scratching an itch that’s long overdue. And once it’s scratched, you and I have no business together anymore. Got that?”

Her pretty face is turned up to look at me. I can’t see the blue of her eyes anymore, because they’ve gone black with need. “Got it,” she whispers.

“No strings attached. You understand?” I demand.

“I understand,” she repeats, her cheeks turning pink like she’s embarrassed.

“This is just sex, Harlow. Just sex between two people who know how damn good it can be. Say it. Say, ‘This is just sex.’” I stare down into her eyes, careful not to fall in and drown in their pure beauty.

I shake my head. I haven’t gotten soft like this over a girl in years. This is not a good sign.

“This is just...sex. Gunner.”

That pause. The soft way she says my name. I may have flunked out of high school English, but I’m no dummy. I know she’s using words, looks, anything. She wants what she can’t have. She expects to snap those manicured fingers and get any damn things she pleases. Even me.

Maybe this idea isn’t so stupid after all. Maybe what Harlow Mills needs is to have her romantic dreams crushed under someone’s boot heel so she can grow the hell up and stop pining for the bad boy she wants to save. I’m no rescue dog; I don’t need saving, especially from the likes of her.

“Let’s go, then.” I stalk to my bike and throw a leg over. It’s started and almost rolling when I feel her jump on the back, her chest pressed close to my back, her arms wound tight around my waist.

The night is cool and calm, the kind of night we used to wish for that summer. This was the kind of night we would have spent skinny dipping or rolling around in the hayloft on a blanket she brought tucked under her arm. This was the kind of night where Harlow would curl on my chest when we were done screwing like wild things and force me to look away from her and up at the stars.

“Gunner, what would you wish for, if you could have anything?” she’d ask. Her voice was lazy, her head tilted back, silky curls spread over my chest.

I wound a gold curl around my finger and traced the line of her shoulder, so soft. So beautiful. Goddamn, that girl could kick the breath out of my lungs.

“Nothing.”

She rolled onto her side, the blanket slipping down off her nipple and just the sight of that little pink mound got me hard and ready for her again. “Nothing?” She frowned. I loved the way her lips pouted when she frowned. “That’s boring.”

“What kind of idiot would wish for a damn thing when he had you in front of him?” I gathered her in my arms and spoke close to her ear. “You’re every wish I could make, Harlow. You know that?”

She turned in my arms and kissed me quiet.

I’m glad the roar of my bike competes for attention with the memories going through my fool head. By the time we pull up at my place, I’ve pushed that one aside, trampled it. No good remembering what couldn’t be and still can’t. I was a dumbass, and it’s embarrassing to dwell on it.

Harlow swings one sweet little leg off my bike and starts off toward the barn. I catch her hand to stop her. She looks down at me holding her, then up at my face, confused.

“You want me. Right?” she asks.

Her voice is killing me. We haven’t taken off a single stitch, and I feel horny as hell. “I want you so bad, my dick’s about to tear through these jeans, kitten. But I’m done with getting my skin rubbed off in the hay.”

She looks around like she’s expecting a cheap motel to pop up and entice us with its hourly rates. I forget how much has changed in years we’ve been apart.

And I take comfort in how much hasn’t.

“Get over here,” I say. She follows me like a shadow while I go up the steps to the door of the big farmhouse.

The owner, Mr. Daniels, was one of the nicest guys I ever met. I know he knew damn well I was bringing Harlow to his hayloft the summer I worked for him. I had no choice; there’s only so many positions you can comfortably manage on the bench seat of an old Ford.

Old Daniels just pulled me aside and said, “If the missus finds any lacy little panties when she’s feeding her horses, I’ll have hell to pay. And if
I
have hell to pay, so will you, son.”

So I made sure to always collect Harlow’s panties and anything else after we finished.

When the missus died a year back, he came to my apartment, hat in his hands, and said it killed him to have to sell, but he’d feel so much better knowing it was going to good hands.

Good hands.

Old Daniels was a good guy, but no doubt he was soft in the head.

“Um, I know Mr. Daniels moved, but we can’t be here. Someone might be keeping an eye on things and see us,” Harlow whispers. “We can go to my place if you like. My apartment is only fifteen minutes away, and Daisy is never around this time of—”

I take out a key and stop her little ramble in its tracks. She flashes questioning eyes my way, but I’m not in the mood for questions. I lead in and she follows, looking around bright and curious.

“Gunner? Is this...yours?”

I try not to mind the amazement. “It is. After Mrs. Daniels passed, Mr. Daniels wanted someone trustworthy to take care of the place.”

Her face looks relieved, like she just figured something out. “Oh! So you take care of this place for Mr. Daniels.”

She doesn’t phrase it as a question, so I don’t offer an answer.

I also don’t admit, even to myself, how hard it sucks that it doesn’t even cross her mind I could have bought this place.

She walks past me, stepping on the shiny oak steps, her hand on the railing. She gets all interested in some picture of horses on the fifth step, and I get a clear view up her skirt.

There’s not a scrap of fabric under it. She’s asking me some crazy question about the one horse’s name or something, but my mind isn’t mine anymore. I’m up the steps before I have time to think and my hands are on her thighs, the skin warm from the sun she’s always worshipping.

I kiss down her neck, suck on the skin almost hard enough to leave a mark. I hear her pull her breath in and drag my mouth away. She isn’t mine to mark.

“You used to get soaked if I told you all the dirty things I wanted to do to you. That still hold, kitten?” I ask kissing along her neck and loving the way she braces one hand on the wall and one on the bannister.

“I’m, uh, not s-s-sure,” she stutters. “No one’s talked dirty to me since you.” She leans back into me and rubs her ass against my hands.

It makes me glad to know I’m the last one who talked dirty to her. I’ve gotta accept that that probably doesn’t mean she’s been celibate, only that the guys she was with didn’t know how to turn her on.

“I’m gonna guess that panties aren’t the only thing you forgot tonight?” I push one hand under the hem of her shirt and, sure enough, the soft, heavy swell of her tit rests against my fingers, her hardened nipple tight under my palm. I kiss her neck and push my other hand up under her shirt. She grinds back into me, moving her ass against my dick.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” I say. “I miss watching that ass when I’m fucking you from behind.” She moans. “You remember that time you got on your hands and knees for me in your daddy's kitchen? He could have come back any second and caught me dick-deep in you.”

Her laugh is low and throaty, cut short on another moan when I squeeze her nipples between my fingers. “I r-r-remember that. I still can’t get a midnight snack at my parents’ house without wanting to feel you in me. I’ve missed it so much, Gunner.” The last words come out on a whimper that makes my head spin.

My hands squeeze her tits, then turn her around. I pull her shirt over her head and her tits bounce, smooth and round in the moonlight. I feel like I’m a starving man staring at a banquet table.

I dip my head down and suck one nipple in, pulling at it with my tongue and grazing softly with my teeth. Harlow holds my head and her fingers tug at my hair.

“I missed you pulling my hair,” I say, licking at one nipple while she yanks harder.

“Same here.” Her smile is a little sad. “We got wild together, didn’t we?”

I only nod, because there’s dirty talk, then there’s reminiscing. Sex with Harlow is already going to be more than I can handle without getting feelings all tangled up in it.

To distract her and me from our past, I slide my hand up between her legs and grin at the slippery wetness I feel there. “Damn, kitten. You’re wet as fuck.”

She sits back suddenly, like her knees gave out, and my body covers hers on the stairs, my hand going back to her pussy to touch again what I’ve obsessed over every fucking night for three long years. I slid one finger in, then two, and watch as her back arches.

“So damn tight, baby,” I whispered. “Goddamn, if my fingers feel this good in you, imagine what my dick will feel like.”

She spreads her legs and looks at me. Her eyes and smile are inviting. “I want your dick inside me right now, Gunner. Do it.” She hikes the tight denim up over her hips and that soft, sweet pussy is spread out, just for me.

I undo my button and slide my zipper down, slightly embarrassed that it takes a little wrangling to get my dick out. When I do, she makes this little coo of pleasure that sets my vision to red. She reaches one hand out and draws her fingers down to the head, stroking it with her fingertips, then moving back to cup my balls.

“Gunner,” she pleads. “I need your dick in me.
Now.
”

“Yes, ma’am,” I say. I shake a condom out of my pocket and roll it on, then I come up over her and position myself, taking a second to make sure everything is right. Just right.

My mind flashes this one thought:
Everything is right. I’m with Harlow.

I need to get a damn grip. I rock into her and, much as I want to keep thinking of this as just a fuck, I sure as hell feel like I’ve come home.

“Damn, girl, you’re so fucking tight.” I push into her as deep as I can go. She claws the t-shirt over my head and pulls her skirt up higher, spreading her legs wider. “That’s right. Let me get in there deep, just the way you like.”

I push in as far and hard as I can, and Harlow’s body twists under me, trying to get closer. Her nails claw down my back, leaving scratches. I’ll wear them proudly, like badges of honor. She knots her legs around my waist and her sweet little mouth is going wild, kissing every square inch of skin she can reach.

I pull back until I’m almost completely out of her, then drive back in, deep and hot, right to the hilt. “Oh, yeah, kitten. That’s it. Grind harder. I can feel you’re about to come. Soak my dick, sweetheart. Come on, I can see you’re almost there. What do you need? This?”

I plow into her again. Her eyes are squeezed shut, her mouth hangs open, and her hands are burrowed in the muscles of my back. Her pussy is slick, and I can feel this slight tremor. I dip my head so my mouth is just over her nipple. “I’m gonna suck these tits and keep fucking you. I know you love that.”

My hands tug up on her ass, driving her higher in my arms, so I can get as much tit as possible in my mouth. My dick is slick with her, my mouth and nose are full of the sweet taste and smell of her tits, my hands dig into the soft, plump ass I see in every dream I have of her every fucking night. I move as slowly as I can until she arches her back and goes stiff, then shakes under me.