Nothing has ever looked more beautiful.
Relief swirls through me as he gazes into my eyes, his pace increasing as he looks at me in that familiar way I’m used to. Only there’s an extra depth to his eyes now, like he’s seeing something new for the first time.
“Harley, Harley, Harley, Harley,” he chants quietly, his voice thick with emotion as he drives himself deeper.
“I’m here,” I whisper as I hold either side of his face between my hands.
The intensity in his gaze ratches up a notch to blinding and his body shakes as a pained groan leaves his chest and he comes hard inside me.
Hard enough that I feel like a piece of his heart just broke off and fell onto me.
I look up into his smoky gray eyes and see that the storm in them has passed.
“Fuck, Harls. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I need you, Angel. I need you.”
His whispered pleas are desperately kissed into my lips and breathed into my body as I wrap my legs around him and hook my ankles at his back, wanting to touch him with as much of my body as I can. I hold his face in my hands and welcome every promise he bathes me in as he says my name again and again.
“Harley,” he murmurs, kissing me again. “Harley.”
My name falls from his lips so many times it begins to sound like a melody.
I press our faces closer together as I kiss him back. I don’t know what just happened. But I know one thing, and it turns the blood in my veins to ice as the realization settles.
Bea was right.
And what’s worse is that she knows something about Reed that I don’t.
Chapter eighteen
Reed
AsIdrive,Iglance over at Harley who’s staring out of the passenger window. She’s been quiet since last night.
Too quiet.
She got up to use the bathroom and when she came back, she never said a word about what happened. I felt her soft body curl into my side as she settled back into bed. I heard the concern in her voice as she whispered my name and kissed me goodnight. And even though it was dark, and I couldn’t see the hurt and confusion on her face. I know it was there.
You can’t hide everything forever.
I keep one hand on the steering wheel and slide my other onto her thigh. She slips hers inside it and entwines her fingers with mine, but her gaze stays firmly on the sky outside. She’s spoken to me this morning. But she hasn’t asked about last night and what happened. Hasn’t mentioned the colossal fuck up I made. It was instinct. A pure reflex reaction that I never even understood existed until she called me out on it. Until she pulled me back to her in that moment, and I saw myself through her eyes…
A selfish bastard who doesn’t deserve her.
Harley is pure and sweet and good. She’s all the things that I can so easily ruin if I don’t get a handle on myself. In fact, I’m already ruining her. And I didn’t even know I was doing it.
I’m a fucking idiot.
“It’s the third house on the left.” Harley points to a brick two-level house with white shutters at the windows.
I pull into the driveway and put the car in park, looking out through the windscreen at the house. It looks nice, a regular family home. I don’t know what Harley seemed so uneasy about when she talked about visiting this weekend.
We get out of the car and I grab our bags from the trunk as Harley waits for me. She seems hesitant to go inside.
“You okay, Harls?” I hold our bags in one hand and place the other on her lower back, hoping to be reassuring.
“Yeah, I’m good.” She smiles at me, but it doesn’t meet her eyes.
She looks away and toward the front door. That’s when I see the ramp.