“Somewhere safe, darling,” I said as I passed over her jeans and shoes.
“Let’s head back, shall we?”
Thirty-Five
Harlow
That sneak Elijah,well if he thought I would throw a tantrum over no underwear, he had another thing coming. He could keep them. The thought excited me deep down, that my scent was plastered on his body, inside his pocket due to his tantalising tease. If he needed a little keepsake then fine, hopefully it wouldn’t be the last time he would see one of my thongs. If he decided to collect them though, he would need to invest in a new wardrobe full of lingerie for me.
Going commando was quite the thrill, as Elijah grabbed my hand and took the lead, marching us back out towards the bar area. A few new customers had turned up since we arrived. With my head held high, I tried to avoid eye contact with anyone, just in case. Kev’s eyes though were unavoidable, as he gave me a knowing look, not confronting us at all. Elijah just shouted, a ‘thanks’,for the room.
“I’m sure you had a good time, the pair of you,” was all I managed to hear from Kev before I nearly rammed the door off its hinges and burst into laughter letting the cold air hit my face. The pair of us should’ve been more careful, but the urge to keep one another tethered was potent. The closer we got to the house; I sensed the more likelihood of someone catching us together. We didn’t need idle gossip spreading around the place and straight back to the one person who meant so much to us both. We needed to have that opportunity to tell him first but discussing the complete truth of where both our hearts lay was priority.
I drifted off into a sex induced haze of repeating the last hour in my head, with how Elijah’s scruff tickled my skin. How his tongue knew exactly how to ignite my nerve endings to nearly combust within seconds. I think he had turned me into a snooker lover, as I began to think of what shot we could aim for next.Decisions, decisions.A melody increasing in velocity snapped me straight back to the present, one look at the screen and my body language must’ve given away the identity the moment I answered.
“Hey, hope you are having a great time? Is Elijah with you? Put us on loudspeaker?”
Knowing I couldn’t deny the presence, I did make him aware to curb his language, as we were out near the beach but heading towards home. With the button activated and his voice now heard by us both, he began speaking as if he was stood next to us. The only difference was the tapping, waiting to tell us something, which he needed to in privacy. As we approached the house, Elijah opened up the door. He seemed to struggle with the need to tap my butt cheek, instead of giving it a hard squeeze, and making me squeal in surprise.
“Harlow, are you okay?” Johnny checks.
Swatting his hand away, I felt the pink flush on my cheeks rising, I realised that I needed to do some quick thinking on my feet.
“I just tripped over a damn package on the doorstep. I’ll be having words with those drivers.”
“I panicked then, thinking it was maybe something else.”
The guilt ran straight through our eyes, but we knew we had to talk to each other before making a declaration to Johnny of all people.
“I called to let you know that things are doing well here, and I should be home in the next few days, hopefully, depending on Ria’s plans of course.”
“Anything to spill there?” Elijah piped up to say.
I knew immediately by the strained silence that my presence was the reason he wouldn’t have talked about anything that was happening with a woman. I knew about the business he had worked up from scratch. I hadn’t admitted it to him yet, but I was ecstatic of the approach he had taken, now I had thought of what he had achieved. I hoped in the future, we could’ve worked on something together. Johnny made his excuses to end the call abruptly but, I thought that was more due to the sultry female’s voice he’d attempted to have hidden that had caught his attention. He had never been so quick to say goodbye before. Johnny left me with promises of contact when he had more details, an overwhelming surge of disappointment took hold in the pit of my stomach as I slumped into a chair and let my weight fall backwards.
Elijah was quick by my side as if he knew my mind was whirling with Johnny’s call. I knew he was assessing me; it was in his nature and had always been admired by me, even when I couldn’t stand him, but I saw him slowly piecing everything together. The conversation, the snooker table and us. It was as if he could see that I was piecing everything together in my head. That if Johnny were to return soon, where would it leave us?
“Harlow, stop. Don’t do this to us at the moment. All this negative energy and self-doubt is punching you straight in the chest. Think of how you feel when it’s just you and me.”
He squeezed my hand, making those butterflies float away in my stomach. The connection between us was undeniable.
“Think of the journey we have taken. How we've grown to care for one another. How your pussy feels as if it was made for my cock.”
“We can talk, we can plan, take any step necessary we need. Every word spoken between us is part of the process we need to make towards our ultimate goal, a life together. Just for us, the protection of another’s heart is just as meaningful and as important. Johnny means the world to the both of us, too. He is my priority as much as he is yours.”
A carnal desire took over, a need to show every emotion he relayed into one kiss, after he had just laid his heart on the line. Promise and commitment all shown, through a mixture of tongues and mouths colliding matching one another’s movements together. My panic of Johnny had been at the forefront of my mind over my desired need for happiness.
Except, it wasn’t just me that had those thoughts; the perfect guy by my side had the same brainwaves. It made my heart jump that extra beat, knowing he wasn’t just a typical, think with his dickkind of guy. I mean, I had never doubted he was one of them. Just all the other guys I had experience with had been that way. They seemed to just not comprehend the full picture, but Elijah was the whole package. The guy who could in a short time make me realise that maybe my frozen heart had thawed considerably. For the sexy guy who had been a staple building block, taking on decisions he didn’t have to. True passion was right there, as I swooned.
Thirty-Six
Elijah
Unravellingthe thought process of this sensual woman before me was like butter melting on a plate. It was a game I had tediously played for years, even when she couldn’t stand me. I hadn’t realised how much I loved trying to figure problems out and come up with the solution, maybe that was why Johnny had given me the task with his accounts and administrative duties. The ability to solve the issues that he couldn’t do himself; it drove him mad until in the end, he hired me to deal with it for him. Creating the much-needed time for things to launch and take the company off the ground.
Harlow, though, was panicking, uncertain where we stood and the obvious elephant in the room, her brother and how we were going to have tackled explaining things. Especially as I hadn’t made the situation easier, by not being able to keep my hands off those gorgeous buttocks. The impulse was too much, what with knowing she had nothing on underneath and just that denim separated my palm from her skin. Forget the fact that Johnny had been on the phone at the time, it was only the aftermath that had caused the guilt. She would never be a dirty secret. She deserved to be shown off with pride, but we both knew Johnny needed the truth before the rest of Eastward made it their business. The gossips would be out in full force and Johnny would know the moment he touched back down on the bloody tarmac. He explained earlier that in a few days, he would be heading home. Well, we would make the most of that time we had alone. Then we would talk to him. I would take the reins, best friend to best friend.
The fact of not being open with one another was both a stupid and a futile operation between the pair of us as it led with the chance of one of us being hurt. The only way of approaching the situation would be just telling him outright. I knew he may have questions and concerns, who wouldn’t but I hoped that pulling the plaster straight off would save some heartache. Harlow needed confirmation though, the real deal. She was a woman who needed the signed and delivered speech read out to her and labelled in front of her eyes. The need to know where in terms I stand alongside Harlow grew, but I felt it was more of the portrayal of how I saw our connection, in terms of a relationship between the pair of us. It didn’t make me panic at all. Looking into her orbs, all I saw was the longing I had dreamed of. Now it had finally felt that my life was complete. A full circle amid the original chaos, that always pulled us back to one another. Finally, connecting us both as one; a never-ending loop.