SWNOVELS Chapter Meet Me in the Penalty Box: CHAPTER 14
Harper’s apartment looked exactly like I thought it would. It was as if she plucked an entire board from Pinterest and brought it to life. It was very warm with neutral tones. There was no clutter and not a single item was out of place. She stepped inside her space and led me through the small area until we were walking into her bedroom.
Neither one of us had really said much since we exited my car. There was still a pink glow to Harper’s cheeks and I couldn’t help but smile to myself as I knew I was the reason behind the color on her face. It was an experience, having one of her firsts. But there was something more that happened in my car tonight.
There was a shift between us and we both felt it.
I tested her when I told her to ride my cock like it was hers and no one else’s. I wanted to see how she reacted—and she took me by surprise. Part of me thought maybe she would stop and question me on it. Instead, it was like I lit a fire inside of her and she took exactly what she wanted. She made it clear that there was to be no one else.
Funny thing was, she didn’t know that I only had eyes for her.
She was all I saw and no other women mattered except for her. There was no one who would ever compare to her and one day I would tell her how I truly felt. Until then, I needed to at least assure her that there was no one else. She would eventually realize that there would never be anyone but her.
She was it for me.
It shook me to my core, but I had never been this sure about anything else in my life before. It was like my soul just knew her. She fit into the missing pieces inside me. There was no other way I could explain it. It bordered on the line of obsession, but I knew in my heart it wasn’t that. It was so much more—so much that I couldn’t find an accurate word to fully describe it.
“I like your place,” I told her as I lifted one arm and leaned against her doorway. Harper was already in her room, digging out a pair of sweatpants from her dresser.
She turned around to face me. “It isn’t much, but it’s enough for me.”
“It is you,” I smiled at her as I pushed off the doorway and stepped closer to her. “Warm and soft,” I murmured as I brushed a piece of hair away from her face. “It just feels right. Like home.”
Harper’s lips parted and a soft breath escaped her as her eyes searched mine. We stood like that for a moment with my fingers lingering on the side of her face. She was the one who broke eye contact as she cleared her throat and took a step back, directing her gaze down to her feet.
“The remote is on the nightstand if you want to find something to watch,” she told me as she grabbed the rest of her clothing to change into. “I’m just going to go into the bathroom and change into something a little more comfortable.”
I moved my feet, stepping in front of her to block her way as I shook my head. “You don’t need to hide from me, love.”
“I’m not hiding from you,” she lied through her teeth as she avoided my gaze and nervously shifted her weight.
“I was just inside you. I’ve seen you naked. I’ve tasted your pussy before.” I paused for a moment as I slid my hand underneath her chin and lifted her chin to look up at me. “I don’t want to leave, but if you don’t want me to stay, I can go.”
Her delicate throat bobbed as she swallowed and shook her head. “I don’t want you to leave,” she said softly, her voice half catching in her throat. “I want you to stay.”
She took a step away from me and her eyes never left mine as she stripped down to nothing. I watched her as she slid on a new pair of underwear. Instead of putting on the other clothes she had in her hands, she dropped them to the floor and walked back to me.
Her gaze was still on mine as she slid the jacket away from my shoulders and it fell to the ground. She carefully slid each button through the hole it was in until she was pushing open my dress shirt. I cocked my head to the side as she pulled it away from my body.
“What are you doing, love?” I murmured as I trailed my fingertips along the side of her torso.
Harper smiled with a shy look dancing across her face as she took another step back and slid her own arms through the sleeves of my dress shirt. “I wanted your shirt instead of mine,” she said with simplicity as she buttoned the shirt back up. “I hope that’s okay.”
I smiled back at her as I undid my pants and stepped out of them, leaving just my boxers on. “It looks better on you.”
Harper climbed into her bed and I followed after her, sliding under the covers with her. She grabbed the remote and turned on the TV as she rolled onto her side. I moved behind her until my chest was pressed against her back and my arm was under her neck.
I nuzzled my face in the crook of her neck. “I can’t get enough of you, Harper Jensen. I need you to know, there’s no one but you.”
She paused her search for a show and turned in my arms to face me. We were lying on the bed, face to face as she slid her leg over my own. “I know we haven’t talked about it because I don’t know what this even is between us. But I would like it if we didn’t see other people while we’re doing this.”
A smirk played on my lips. “And what are we doing, exactly?”
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and I pulled it back out with my thumb. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I can’t put a label on it. I told you I wanted to take the risk, but it can’t be anything official, you know? If we’re ever questioned about it, I don’t want to feel guilty denying it.”
“So, you don’t want a label, but you at least want it to be something exclusive?” I asked her as a spark of hope lit inside my heart. It was more than she had given me so far and I was willing to take whatever it was that Harper would give me.
She nodded. “I don’t think I could handle it if I saw you with someone else.”
I couldn’t fight the smile that consumed me. “And why is that?”
“Because you’re mine and no one else’s.”
My heart pounded erratically in my chest. “The same goes for you then, too. You’re mine, Harper. I don’t fucking share.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” she told me with a soft laugh. “You weren’t even supposed to happen. I might have told you I wanted to forget about him, but you’ve done more than that already. You wiped him out of my memory completely.”
“Sometimes life just has a way of inserting people into our lives without us asking for it.” I rolled onto my back and pulled her close to me as we both looked at the TV. “I wasn’t expecting you, Harper. You know the lifestyle that I live with my career. Yet, here you are, stuck in my fucking head. I’ve tried to get you out and I don’t know how to.”
“You’re not the only one with that problem,” she murmured, her lips brushing against my chest. “I think it’s time we both stop trying to fight the inevitable.”
I held her closer and traced invisible patterns on her back. “I promise I’ll figure out a way so we can be together.”
“Until then, no one can know but us.”
“Well, I think Wes and Ava might have an idea if they don’t already know,” I reminded her as she slid her leg over my thighs.
“I forgot about them,” she admitted quietly. “I know Ava won’t say anything to anyone. Can Wes be trusted too?”
I nodded. “Absolutely. He’s my best friend. I trust him completely.” I paused for a moment. “You should know that I told my sister about you too, but she would never say anything to anyone.”
Harper froze in my arms and she let out a breath before slowly pulling away from me. She sat up and turned to look at me with her eyes slightly wide. “Why did you do that?”
I didn’t move from where I was laying in her bed. “Because my sister and I are close and I needed someone to talk to.”
Harper’s face softened and I watched the sympathy pass through her eyes. “I’m sorry. I just worry and if all these people know, it’s only a matter of time before it gets out to more people. Stuff like this spreads like wildfire and then it’s destroying an entire city.”
I reached for her and wrapped my hands around her arms. She didn’t fight me as I pulled her down on top of me and she propped her elbows on the bed as her chin hovered above my chest. Her eyes bounced back and forth between mine.
“What did your sister say?”
A soft chuckle rumbled in my chest. “That I better not fuck up your life and that you must be pretty special if I was talking to her about you.”
A shy smile pulled on her lips and I grabbed the sides of her face as she tried to hide. She swallowed as she looked at me. A touch of seriousness shifted across her expression and I softly stroked her skin as I held her on top of me.
“It’s true, Harper,” I told her, my voice quiet. “I don’t know what it is about you or what makes this different… but it is.”
She folded her lips in between her teeth and slowly released them. “You know this is all going to blow up in our faces, right?” She let out a sigh and folded her hands on my chest before lowering her chin to rest on top of them. “Something like this is always too good to be true. We talk about how no one will find out, but there’s a part of me that just refuses to believe that. The truth always comes out.”
“It will all be okay. I will do everything to protect you. I will lie to whoever I need to, to make sure no one finds out.” I stared directly at her crystal blue eyes. “You know that, right? I would never let anything happen to you or your job. I might not be able to stay away from you, but I can keep this a secret. I can make sure no one else will ever find out.”
“But the people who already know… how can we be so sure they won’t say anything?”
A smile pulled on my lips. “Because they value their lives.”
Harper’s eyes widened slightly. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“I would consider it,” I told her with a shrug. “They would never do something like that.”
“If you believe it, then I have no reason not to believe it too.”
She stared back at me with nothing but trust in her eyes, and I knew in that moment that whatever this was between us was something fucking sacred. It was something I would protect at all costs, just like I would protect her.
Harper Jensen scared the living shit out of me… because I was fairly certain I was falling in love with her.