: Chapter 39

“GOD, I’VE MISSED YOU, Angel.” I sink my nose into the dip behind Harley’s ear and inhale. Inhale her coconut shampoo, the scent of her skin. Just her.

I have her out of her clothes in seconds, leaving them in a pile on the bedroom floor as I lift her with my good arm so she can step out of them.

“I love you.” She kisses me again.

She hasn’t stopped kissing me and telling me she loves me since the interview with Tom ended. Maybe she feels I need to hear it, or maybe she just wants to say it. Whatever the reason, each and every time it’s whispered from her pink lips, my chest feels like it might explode. And my dick, well, my dick…

“Reed,” Harley moans as I kiss her neck and tug her nipple between my fingers. It comes out breathy, her voice lifting as I slap her nipple gently with the pads of my fingers.

“Fuck, Harls. When you make those sounds…” I growl deep in my throat, grinding my rock-hard erection against her lower stomach through my pants. “It makes me need to be inside you.”

“Yes.” She tips her head back, granting me easier access to the front of her neck, and I swoop on it, trailing hot kisses down over her collarbone until I’m sucking one of her perfect pink nipples into my mouth.

“Reed,” she cries again, arching into me, her hands falling to rest in my hair as I lavish attention on both of her incredible tits.

“You’re so beautiful.” I swirl my tongue around her nipple one last time before standing.

She smiles at me, keeping her eyes on mine as she unbuttons my shirt and slides it down over my shoulders. Her gaze drops to the dressing the hospital applied.

“You could have been hurt worse than you are.” She chews on her bottom lip, her fingers tracing over the edge of the giant bruise which extends past the dressing.

I unfasten my pants and strip out of the rest of my clothes, pulling her to the bed with me. I sit with my back against the headboard as she straddles me.

“It would be worth it.”

She brings her eyes back to mine and one corner of her mouth lifts. “Would it?”

“Angel, I would die a thousand painful deaths for you.” I lean forward and nip her bottom lip between my teeth. “Now let me inside before I die my first one.”

“Die your first one?” She laughs and rests both hands on my chest.

“Yes. Die from waiting so long to be inside you.”

She laughs again. “I don’t think you could write that on your death cert—”

Her eyes widen as I lift her by her hips and pull her down onto me.

“Fuck.” I hiss, a mixture of pleasure racing through my dick and balls, and pain coursing through my shoulder.

“Did that hurt?”

“I’m fine.”

“Reed Walker. I know all your faces. And that hurt. I can tell.” She sits still, my dick happily nestled in her wet warmth.

“I’m fine. Now ride me.” My fingers flex on her hips, but the weakness in my shoulder tells me I won’t be able to lift her up and down on me if she refuses. “Ride me before my cock explodes from impatience.” I flex inside her to accentuate my point.

She smiles; her lips finding mine as she rises and then sinks back down.

“Fuck, yeah,” I groan into her mouth, squeezing her hips as she sets a steady pace, sinking down onto my cock, over and over.

I squeeze her hips harder, my cock soaked in her juices, and it’s all too much. I want her. I need her. Closer. Harder. Deeper.

“Fuuuuccckkkk!” I wince, pain erupting like Mount Vesuvius in my shoulder as I lift Harley in the air and slam up inside her.

“Reed.” Panic spreads across her face the second my face screws up due to the pain.

“I’m fine,” I pant, cold sweat running down my chest. My injured arm shakes as I lift my hand to palm her breast.

She holds either side of my face between her hands. “We should stop.”

“Don’t you dare.” I tighten my grip on her hip with my other hand.

“But it’s hurting you.”

“Stopping would hurt me more. Now keep moving.” She shakes her head, and I grit my teeth. “Harls,” I growl.

“You need to rest your shoulder. Sitting up like this and trying to lift me is hurting you. I’m not going to let you hurt yourself, Reed.”

She tips her hips to one side as though she’s about to swing one leg up and separate us. I grip her hip harder.

“Fine,” I hiss. “I won’t move.”

“You’ll never be able to stop yourself.” She stares into my eyes, and I know she’s right. As long as I can move my arms, I will be reaching for her, holding her, lifting her, slamming her down onto me. Making sure I fuck her as hard as she fucks me.

“Tie my hands.”

“What?” She pulls her head back, searching my eyes, for a hint of reluctance maybe.

But I’m deadly serious.

“There’s no way in hell I’m not coming inside you tonight, Harls. Now tie my fucking hands before I flip you over and fuck you so deep my whole shoulder falls the fuck off!”

My chest heaves as my frustrated breath echoes off the walls.

She presses her lips together; her eyes sparkling.

“Do it,” I grunt, rolling her nipple between my fingers and kneading her hip with my other hand as the tip of my cock pulsates painfully inside her.

She reaches for my tie, which landed on the bed when we were undressing. “Hands,” she says softly.

I offer my wrists up to her and she takes care, wrapping the silk around them, weaving between, and binding them tightly together. Tied like this, they create a barrier between us when I’m sitting, so I tip my chin up at her.

“Shuffle.”

We slide down the bed together, my cock throbbing as it gets friction again.

“Okay?” Harley looks at me and leans forward.

I catch her mouth in a long, deep kiss that leaves her flushed and breathless. “Better than okay.”

She slowly sits upright. She looks incredible up there. Her legs spread around my hips, my cock filling her, her blonde hair falling over her shoulders.

Me with no control at all.

For the first time.

The first time by choice.

I swallow away the fragment of past that claws at my throat and smile up at my beautiful girl. She’s all I ever want to see.

“Fuck yourself on my cock, Angel,” I groan, practically begging.

I fight to keep my hips still, doing as I promised for fear that she really will stop if I don’t. She’ll stop and this incredible feeling of…

I clench my teeth, holding her gaze as she sinks down onto me until I’m balls deep inside her. Then she circles her hips and her eyes flutter closed.

“Fuck… Harls… Shit!” I cry as she rides me, her tits bouncing as she picks up the pace. “You’re so wet… you feel…” My eyes roll back in my head. “Rub that clit on me,” I hiss. “Use me, Harls. Use me to make that pretty cunt all swollen and aching. I’m going to come so hard inside it.”

“Yes,” she whimpers. “Fill me up. I love feeling you inside me afterward. Knowing you’ve been there.”

“Keep talking.” I suck in a breath as she rises and drops down again, circling and clenching.

“It will only ever be you. Just you.” Her gaze drops to my shoulder, and her eyes shine. She places one hand between my bound ones and connects our palms. “I love you.” She sinks down onto me again and my balls begin to tingle, pulling up closer to my body.

“Fuck, Harls,” I groan in a warning.

She whimpers, circling her hips again, her body clenching hard around me, her thighs trembling.

“Are you…”

She nods. “I’m going to come.” Her cheeks flush and her mouth drops open.

“Scream my name,” I growl.

She tenses as she reaches her peak above me. I could live a million years and never see anything more beautiful.

“R-R-Reed,” she cries, tilting her head back.

“Louder,” I command as my jaw clenches and fire races from my balls up my dick.

“Reed,” she screams.

“Harley,” I shout back as I explode, my body shaking beneath her as she milks the pleasure from me. My orgasm goes on and on with hers, both of us making so much noise I swear New Jersey can hear us a state over.

I squeeze her hand between mine as the last pulse leaves me shuddering and spent beneath her.

“I love you,” I pant.

Her eyes shine and she unfastens the tie from around my wrists, pulling both up to her lips to kiss them once they’re free.

“I love you, too. So much.”

I slide my hands around the back of her neck and guide her lips to mine as she lies down over my chest, resting on my uninjured side.

“Stay with me forever, Angel. Don’t ever leave again. Please.”

I slide my tongue between her lips, deepening our kiss until she sighs happily.

“I won’t,” she murmurs. “I like being Mrs. Walker too much.”

I smile against her mouth, reaching down to pull her leg higher up the bed. I find her foot and cradle it through the bandage.

“That’s good, because no one else ever could be. It’s a position with only one suitable candidate.”

“That’s what I wanted you to think. I Harley-trapped you, remember? It’s what you said once.” She grins as I shake my head with a chuckle.

“I did say that.” I grin back at her. “But I was wrong.”

I stroke her cheeks as I study her face, allowing my eyes to sweep over it indulgently. Tracing every curve, every dip, every perfect inch. I exhale, my body relaxing completely.

“You didn’t trap me, Angel. You unlocked the cage I didn’t know I was in. You freed me.”

“Reed?” Harley inhales as I hold her face.

I stroke away a strand of blonde hair that falls into her eyes, tucking it behind her ear.

“You freed me from a past I didn’t know still held so much over me. You freed me from fear, from the fear of what happens if I give up control. I trust you, Harls. Do you remember what else I said?”

She shakes her head, her eyes locked on mine.

“I said the next woman who got my lips, got my heart.”

Her pupils dilate, surrounded by bright, dazzling blue, like the clearest sky. “Do I have your lips?” she whispers, pressing a finger to them.

I kiss the tip of it.

“You have everything, Angel. My lips, my heart. Everything… If you want—”

“I want it,” she cuts in before I’ve finished speaking. “I want it.” A smile lights up her entire face.

I rest my forehead against hers. “Then it’s yours. Always.” I kiss her. “Now help me get some pillows to pad around my shoulder.”

“Why? Is it hurting?” Her eyes pop wide, and she moves back to look at my shoulder.

“No.”

“Then, why?”

“Because we’ve still got hours until morning, and I intend on having your legs over my shoulders and you sitting on my face.”

“Reed,” she shrieks with a laugh.

“You know I’m not joking.” I fist her hair between my hands, claiming her mouth with my tongue again.

She sinks into me, my name a breathy whimper on her lips.

“Say you agree, Angel.” I growl.

She sighs against my lips. “Reed…”

“Say it.”

She exhales, her lips lifting at the corners. “Fine. But if your shoulder does in fact fall off, then you deserve it.”

“It’ll be worth it.” I kiss away her giggle as I pull her closer. “So fucking worth it.”

“Here.” I place a steaming mug filled with coconut latte on the counter in front of Harley.

“Thank you.”

I wrap one hand around her head and kiss the top of her hair before leaning back against the counter. “I still think you should stay home. I can look after you.”

Her eyes drop to her sloth mug my coffee’s in. I raise it to my lips and take a sip, my eyes fixed firmly on hers over the rim.

She smirks and looks away. “There’s nothing stopping me from working. I’ll be sitting down mostly, anyway. And Griffin already texted last night insisting I come in late. He tried to get me to take the day off as well.”

I chuckle and raise one hand in surrender as she looks back at me with a raised brow. “Hey, I haven’t spoken to him since I called him from the hospital. If he wanted you to stay at home, then that was all his idea.”

“On second thoughts, staying at home and watching you work in your sexy glasses doesn’t sound so bad?” She smiles at me, tilting her head to one side. “Maybe I’ve been too hasty.”

I place my mug down and pull her into my arms, grasping her chin with one hand so I can tilt her face up to mine.

“Who said I would be working? You and me alone in this apartment for the day only means one thing.”

“What’s that?” Her eyes glitter.

I bend so my lips graze her ear. “You naked,” I whisper. “And lots and lots of sex.”

She shivers as I wrap my lips around her smooth, warm neck, one hand finding her breast and rubbing my thumb over her hardened nipple.

“After last night, it’s a miracle I can still walk. And that your dick’s still attached, let alone your shoulder.” She laughs, pushing me in the chest until I pause my exploration of her skin.

“Say ‘your dick’ again.” I smirk as she slaps me playfully in the chest.

“Reed. I mean it.” Her eyes are bright as she rubs my chest with her palms.

“Okay. I surrender.” She smiles at me. Considering I kept her up all night taking my cock in every position that my shoulder allowed, she looks alert and beaming.

Her shoulders relax as she exhales.

“Just one more to keep me going until tonight, then.” I wrap one palm around her neck, holding her still as my mouth claims hers and my other hand slides up her skirt and pulls her lace panties to the side. “Fuck, you feel beautiful.” I slide my fingers through her wet arousal as her breath hitches.

“Reed. What are you doing?”

“Let me fuck you with my tongue one more time, Angel. Leave me something to taste on my lips while I miss you all day.”

I drop to my knees and gaze up at her as my hands work her skirt up toward her hips.

Cheeks flushed, she braces her hands on the counter as I hook my thumbs underneath either side of her panties and slide them down her legs.

“I can keep a pair in every suit,” I say as I hold them to my nose and inhale, fixing my eyes on her confused face. “Suze’s house. When we were almost caught,” I explain.

“Oh? Oh…” Her eyes widen. “I forgot you had those.”

I shake my head with a chuckle as I pocket today’s pink lacy pair. “I definitely did not forget. They helped me relax that night when I finally got home.”

How can that be only two nights ago? So much has happened.

“Thief.” Harley giggles, her hands dropping to play with my hair.

I lean into her fingers, relishing their caress. “I seem to remember you thrusting them into my hands, actually. Kind of like I’m about to do with my tongue in your—”

A loud, incessant hammering comes from the front door.

“We know you’re in there,” a voice calls.

Harley gasps, her hands leaving my hair to smooth her skirt down over her thighs. “That’s Suze. What’s she doing here?”

“Cock blocking me,” I mutter as I look up into Harley’s unamused face. “Fine. Let her in and you can ask her what she’s doing here.”

I rise, running a hand through my hair to straighten it as Harley answers the door.

“About time!” Suze stomps in, closely followed by Stuart, then Griffin and Maria. She throws her purse down on the sofa and then turns, eyeing the two of us. “That’s the third time we’ve been down this morning. If you hadn’t answered, I was ready to bust the door in.”

She gives Harley a hug and then so does Maria, as Griffin’s and Stuart’s gazes fall on me.

“What’s going on?” That hair on the back of my neck stands to attention at the solemn expressions on their faces.

“The police are coming,” Stuart answers without missing a beat.

“They’ll be here within the hour,” Griffin adds, pulling out his cell phone. “I’ll call the hotel, get them to send someone around with brunch and coffee. We’re going to need it.” His brows rise as he brings his phone to his ear and doles out instructions to whoever answers.

“Why are the police coming here? Have they found something?”

Stuart nods at me. “They haven’t told us what. Said they needed to talk to you in person. But we also need to talk to you.” He glances at Griffin, who’s off the phone, and then to Harley. “We’ve found out something as well… About the video.”

“We’ve been trying to tell you all morning,” Suze chimes in from where she’s sat at the breakfast bar with Maria. “We called. Multiple times.” She arches a brow at me. “And we’ve already been down and knocked twice.”

“You couldn’t hear us.” Maria smiles sweetly at Harley.

“But we could hear you.” Suze smirks, grabbing Harley’s hand over the counter. She drops her voice to a whisper, probably thinking only Harley can hear her as she darts her eyes to me and away again. “Make-up sex is the best.”

I clear my throat to hide my smirk as Harley shushes Suze with a giggle. No matter what Griffin and Stuart have to tell me, at least Harley’s happy.

She’s back with me, and she’s happy. I’d be selfish to wish for more.

“What did you find?” Harley asks, her face falling serious as she looks between Griffin and Stuart.

“Well…” Stuart takes a deep breath.

Harley’s mouth twists into a worried line, and she looks over at me with big eyes. I hold my arm out and she hobbles over, letting me wrap her in it and pull her into my good side.

“Don’t look so worried, Angel,” I whisper in her ear. “Nothing can hurt us as long as we are together. Remember?”

Her shoulders soften a little and she presses further into me, snaking her arms around my torso and holding me.

“It’s more like, what did you find,” Stuart says.

“What? I don’t understand.” Harley’s shoulders tighten again as her entire body stiffens beneath my arm.

“The idea you had, to ask Nina?” Stuart looks at Harley, and she sucks in a breath, fisting my shirt between her fingers.

“Did she… Did she find something helpful?” Her eyes remain fixed on Stuart’s as I look around the room at everyone’s faces.

“Am I the only one who doesn’t know what the fuck’s going on?”

Stuart and Harley remain locked in some unspoken communication with their eyes on each other. Griffin looks at me soberly. Maria gives me a small smile. And Suze shrugs her shoulders at me and says, “Pretty much. We had time to discuss it while you two were—”

Maria places her hand tactfully over Suze’s, and she stops talking.

I look at them all wondering what I’m missing. When we were at the hospital, I called Griffin. He knew about the interview with Tom. He said he and Maria would be watching it. The same with Suze when I called her and confessed why Harley was at the TV studios in the first place. And how she ended up almost being hit by a cab.

They all know about the assault now. The whole world does. But something tells me there’s more to the heavy air that’s filled the room.

I look down at Harley. She’s let go of my shirt and has her hand pressed to her mouth. She glances up at me, her eyes pinching at the corners.

“What’s wrong?”

“I asked Stuart to speak to Nina about the video. Just the beginning of it, the part with no people,” she adds, quickly.

“Why would you do that?” My brow creases in confusion. What’s it got to do with Stuart’s sister-in-law?

“Nina’s obsessed with interiors.” Stuart rolls his eyes. “What she doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing. She can tell you where Oprah’s second guest room bed linen comes from just from catching it on screen. Everything. People’s houses, beach houses, holiday homes… hotels…”

“Wow. Great memory,” Maria says.

“Exactly. That’s why I thought… It was stupid really, just an idea, but—”

“It was genius.” Stuart stops Harley mid-sentence.

“You mean, she recognized something?”

Harley’s pulse is fluttering in her neck as she chews on her bottom lip. I bring my hand to the back of her neck and stroke it gently with my thumb. She sighs quietly, her shoulders relaxing.

“She did.” He glances at Griffin.

“Well, come on then.” I look between the two of them. What are they waiting for? The next presidential election?

“It’s not you,” Griffin says, his voice clear and concise.

“What isn’t?”

Harley’s sharp intake of breath steals my attention, and I look at her. “Angel?”

“I’m fine.” She rubs my chest with her hand, her eyes on Griffin. “Are you saying…”

“It’s not you in the video,” Griffin says again, his attention fixed firmly on me. “It’s someone else. The quality is so bad, it’s hard to make out faces properly. But it’s not you, Reed.”

I screw my eyes shut as my head starts to pound. A dull, incessant drumming that’s attacking the base of my skull.

If it isn’t me, then who?

“Are you sure?”

“We’re certain.” Stuart nods.

I look back at Griffin, whose lips are in a flattened line. He dips his head once, confirming it.

My eyes widen as heat spreads through my body.

If it isn’t me, then it’s someone else.

She did it to someone else. It must be the same woman. How many blonde women that age have been going around drugging men and then taking them to a hotel?

“Harley asked if Nina could look. And she did…” Stuart continues as blood pumps into my ears and his voice becomes muffled.

She did it to someone else.

“She knew the hotel straight away. Identified it by the wallpaper and furnishings. Something very distinctive about the wall-hung lights apparently…”

I tried to report it to the police back then. But it wasn’t enough. She did it to someone else. I should have tried harder.

“… New York City only has seven hundred plus hotels. I swear that woman must have one of those incredible memories you read about. The photogenic ones…”

I was so intent on leaving it behind me and moving on. I should have pushed harder so she was caught. She wouldn’t have been able to do it again.

“Eidetic,” Griffin cuts in.

This is my fault.

“That’s it!” Stuart snaps his fingers.

I did this. I’m responsible.

“Anyway, she worked out the hotel fast. But it took her a day and whole night of research and calls to different designers and suppliers she knows to pinpoint the rest…”

My fault.

I swallow down the bile that’s risen in my throat, running a hand around the back of my neck, which is on fire.

“Reed?” Cool, delicate hands cradle my face. “You couldn’t have done anything. Stop thinking like that.”

My eyes swim back into focus, diving into clear blue seas of calm and reassurance as Harley gazes at me.

“I know you. I know what you’re thinking right now,” she whispers, before kissing me gently and stroking my cheeks. “No one is to blame. Except for that woman in the video. This is all her doing. Not yours. Not that other man. Not anyone else.”

“The man in that video?”

“It was filmed before you were… Didn’t you hear Stuart just explain that? Nina identified the hotel. But when she dug further, she found out that the hotel went through a big refurbishment three months before the night you were”—she swallows—“assaulted. That decor in the video is old.” She searches my eyes. “It wasn’t you in the video, Reed.”

My tongue is suddenly too big, and my mouth turns drier than an old bone left in the desert sun.

It wasn’t me.

There was at least one other before me.

But were there more after? Could I have done any more? Done anything to stop it happening?

“You couldn’t,” Harley says, her eyes intense as she reads my mind again. “You couldn’t have stopped any of it. Griffin, Riley, your parents… they all helped you report it. You all did everything you could. You were let down by a system that didn’t support you. And that’s what you’re fighting to change for other people now.”

She runs her fingertips over my brow and down past my eye, a soft smile settling on her lips as she traces down the side of my face and along my jaw, finally dusting them over my lips.

“I am so proud of you.” Her eyes shine.

I exhale the heavy breath I’ve been holding. “I wasn’t the only one, Harls.” My voice is strained, even to my own ears.

“I know.” She pulls me into her, stroking the back of my neck as I bury my face into her hair and inhale. I inhale coconut and calm. And I exhale the past and fear.

I wasn’t the only one.

“How could you tell what I was thinking?” I murmur into her hair.

Her arms tighten around my neck. “I know you, Reed Walker. I’ve lived with you for months and known you for years. I feel your pain like it’s my own. It is my own.”

“Harls.” I grip her to me, blinking away the stinging in my eyes.

She strokes my skin as her heart beats against my chest. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Angel. So much.” I draw in a deep breath, one final inhalation of her to ground myself before I move back and smile. “I knew you were incredible. But you really fucking astound me.”

Her face brightens and her mouth breaks into a radiant smile. “Me?”

“Yes, you.” I cradle her face in my hands. “You thought of asking for Nina’s help. No one else did. That was all you.”

I move forward, taking her lips in mine as I kiss her until the blood that was rushing in my ears dissipates, leaving my head calm and clear.

“Harls,” I groan against her lips, kissing her again.

Being in a room surrounded by our friends doesn’t stop me.

Even the knock at the door doesn’t stop me.

I kiss her until I have to force myself to stop so that I don’t lift her onto the counter and lose myself in her in front of everyone.

God, I love my Angel so much. Thank you for bringing her into my life. Thank you for making her everything I needed and all that I ever wanted. Thank you for creating her in a way that is so uniquely her. And so breathtakingly more than I ever deserve.

“The police are here, you two. Cut it out before they arrest you for public indecency,” Suze blurts, sounding amused.

“It’s not public. It’s our apartment,” I say as my lips finally leave Harley’s, but my eyes stay anchored on hers for a further second before the room fills with two more bodies.

“Reed Walker?”

I turn and shake hands with both men, one in a black suit, the other in full NYPD uniform.

“I’m Detective Field. This is Officer Jones. We’re here to inform you we have made three arrests in connection to the blackmail offenses you reported.”