My laughter didn’t last long, though. Even from where I was standing, I saw Georgia’s face turn beat red seconds before she started screaming at him. I couldn’t make out half of what she was saying, but it couldn’t have been anything that I hadn’t heard before.
Lucy turned to face me, her face falling even before she opened her mouth, and all the fun I’d been having evaporated because I knew what she was going to say. She was going to go home. “Marcus brought her and Kin. I’m going to have to go. As pissed as she looked, if she gets out there and starts running her mouth you could have trouble.”
Jaw clenched, I shrugged. “I’m not worried about any trouble she thinks she can throw my way. She’s the one who assaulted Jace. I can have her arrested if he wants to press charges.”
Kin burst out laughing beside us. “Ah, damn. I would love to see that. But Lucy’s right. If I don’t get her home after this, Jillian is going to make my life even more unbearable than it already is.”
“I don’t want you to go, Lu.” I felt like a petulant little boy about to have my favorite thing in the world taken from me. We still had at least another hour before she needed to head home. I’d had sixty more minutes of holding my girl in my arms tonight. Now that stupid bitch was ruining my night.
Brown eyes were full of the same disappointment I knew was shining in my own. “I’m sorry. If I could change it I would.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face and turned around to take in the packed club. If I took Lucy home myself, then who knew what the fuck could happen in my absence. My assistant manager had dealt well with everything the week before, but I’d told her not to let in our usual number of fans. Plus, she wasn’t even working tonight. I couldn’t leave, couldn’t take my girl home and kiss her goodnight on her doorstep.
Fucking hell.
Her arms wrapped around my waist, soothing me in a way that nothing else could have just then. I turned in her arms and brushed my lips over the top of her curly head. “I wish you didn’t have to go, but I understand.”
Lifting her head, she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, as if she was determining whether to say something. Was she thinking about telling me she loved me again? She hadn’t said it since the night before at the hospital and I was dying to hear those three little words again. Seeing her indecision only made me want to say fuck First Bass and take her home myself.
After a few seconds, she shook her head, smiled up at me and then stood on tiptoes to brush her soft lips over my cheek. “Goodnight, Harris.”
My heart clenched hard. Those weren’t the words I’d wanted to hear. Tightening my arms around her, I held on for a moment longer, silently begging her to tell me she loved me. The words never came and finally she pulled away. “I’ll call you,” I told her as she took another step back.
Lucy nodded and lifted the hand that wasn’t injured to wave as she and Kin walked ahead of Marcus. Thrusting my hands into my jeans pockets, I watched them go. The pain in my pants was gone now, leaving with the girl who owned me. Fuck, I didn’t think it would be this hard to have her leave me. It was only for the night, I knew that. It felt like eternity before I would get to see her again the next evening.
Jace jumped down from the stage, making the crowd around us unhappy. They wanted the show to continue, but obviously Jace didn’t give two shits what they wanted. He flipped two people off before he turned his wild eyes on me. “Where the hell is Kin going?”
“That chick who kissed you is her stepsister. She came with Kin and since Lucy is her ride, they had to go.”
“Motherfucker,” Jace bit out. “I finally got Kin to agree to talk to me after the show. That stupid cunt ruined everything.”
“Agreed.” The crowd was starting to get rowdy again. “Go do your job, man. I’ve got work to do.”
There had to be something in my office that needed my attention. The show out here no longer held any appeal.
In my office, I dropped down into the chair behind my desk and leaned my head back, glaring up at the ceiling. Why hadn’t she told me that she loved me again? Did she regret telling me the night before?
Those two questions swirled around in my mind until it felt like I was going to go insane. They were still playing tug of war with my sanity when there was a knock on the office door seconds before it opened. I lowered my gaze to find the reason for my insanity walking through the door.
I jumped to my feet, moving around my desk to meet her halfway. “Lu—”
“I lied to Marcus and told him that you had my phone, so I couldn’t leave without it. He must have known I was lying, but he let me come anyway. I…” She broke off, sucking that bottom lip between her teeth again. “I just couldn’t leave without seeing you one more time tonight.”
I caught hold of her waist and pulled her roughly against me. “I’m glad,” I told her honestly. “I wish I could be the one to take you home. If I didn’t have so many responsibilities here, I would have already been driving you to Malibu.”
A small smile teased at her lips. “It might be dangerous if you take me home. I’d be too tempted to make out with you in the car while it was parked in the driveway. My dad would go ballistic if he caught us.”
She was right. Neither one of us would have been able to keep our hands off each other if I’d taken her home. While Jesse had told me he was cool with whatever Lucy and I decided we wanted, I doubted he would be happy to find me with my hands up his daughter’s shirt and my tongue down her throat.
Lifting my hand, I cupped her cheek, rubbing my thumb over her bottom lip. “So you had to see me one more time?” I lowered my head until my lips brushed softly over hers. When she shivered against me for what felt like the hundredth time that night, it took a willpower I didn’t realize I possessed to not start tearing her clothes off.
“Mm-hmm,” she murmured against my mouth, making the kiss linger a moment longer before pulling back enough to look up at me. “I needed one more kiss.”
My body hardened even as my chest clenched painfully. A kiss? Not to tell me she loved me? What the fuck was up with her? Why hadn’t she said the words again?
Even as the question was slamming around inside my head, I realized the answer and felt like a total douchebag. Last night when she’d confessed that she loved me, I hadn’t told her how I felt. I was such a pussy, letting her speak those words—wanting to hear them over and over again—but not giving them back to her.
My arm tightened around her waist, pulling her even closer. Her hands caught hold of my shoulders, as if she needed to steady herself. Lowering my head again, I bypassed her luscious lips and brushed a kiss over the shell of her ear. “I love you, Lucy.”
Her body jerked as if I’d electrocuted her and her head fell against my chest. It took me a few seconds to realize that she was crying, that her tears were soaking my undershirt. I caught hold of her chin, forcing her to lift her head. “Sweetness? What’s wrong?”
“You can be so dense sometimes, Harris Cutter.” She let out a soft laugh. “Nothing’s wrong. I love you, too.”
My relief was so strong I felt almost weightless with it. “So those are good tears?” I needed to know. If she was crying because she was upset, then those damn tears were going to bring me to my fucking knees.
Another soft laugh left those beautiful lips. “Yes, babe. Completely good.”
“Just checking,” I murmured before cupping the back of her head and catching her lips in a kiss that made me forget my own name.
Chapter 7
Lucy
“You know there is some kind of epic bug going around at the moment, right?”
“Mm?” I was barely paying attention to Kin as we walked through the halls at school Friday afternoon. Most of the day I’d been spaced out, unable to keep my mind from going back to the night before. The way I’d felt when Harris had told me he loved me. The way my body had become one throbbing ache when he’d kissed me…
“Lucy, there is a seriously bad bug going aro
und this school. At least a third of the student body is out with it.” She tapped her fingers against the back of my hand. “And yet you have done nothing but touch your mouth all day.”
I frowned at her and then nearly crossed my eyes as I glanced down at where my index and middle fingers were tracing over my bottom lip. It still felt full, still tingled from Harris’s kiss. I hadn’t even realized I’d been touching it. Muttering a curse, I quickly dropped my hand.
Kin was right. A good part of the school was out sick. I wasn’t sure if it was an actual bug or if it was just our fellow students had wanted a few extra days off before our month-long Christmas break. But I had seen at least two girls with sniffles the day before and couldn’t remember if I’d seen them earlier that day or not.
My friend suddenly stopped walking, her hand coming out to grasp my arm and forcing me to stop beside her. I glanced back over my shoulder to see if Marcus was his usual five steps behind, shadowing me from one class to another. Like always, he was where I expected him to be.
The school day was basically over, and we were headed toward the parking lot where my Range Rover was parked. Kin normally road home with me, but since her stepmother had nearly shit a brick the night before over Georgia being carted to their front door with her hands still zip tied—something I had to thank Harris’s security team for doing when I saw them later. Which meant that unless something major happened, Kin wouldn’t be leaving her house for the next few days because she was officially grounded. So today she had to ride home with her stepsisters.
In my opinion that was punishment enough, having to risk possible death on the ride with Georgia at the wheel. I couldn’t say much for my own skills as a driver since I rarely got to do any driving, but I’d seen Georgia in action. She’d nearly taken out our mailbox at least twice since she’d gotten her license, and we didn’t even live on the same street.
“What’s up with you today?” Kin asked.
Without thinking about what I was doing, my fingers went back to my bottom lip, tracing over the tingle that still lingered. Harris had been so worked up he’d actually bit me. I’d liked it. A lot. Blue eyes narrowed on my hand and I hastily dropped it. “Sorry. I’m just a little…” My voice trailed off because I didn’t know what I was.
Kin gave a laugh that wasn’t all that humorous. “In love?”
I shrugged, because that was as close to an answer as I could have come up with. I was definitely in love, but this was bordering on something more than just that. This was my love for him mixed with a hell of a lot of lust. Sure, I’d wanted Harris before, but after last night when he’d kissed me senseless over dinner and then nearly caught me on fire with that goodnight kiss, parts of my sexuality were coming to life that I’d never experienced before.
“Just be careful, Lucy.” Kin’s face tightened. “I know how wonderful it feels to be in love like that. It’s like you’re walking on a cloud. Nothing could possibly bring you down. Until he breaks your heart.”
“Kin—” I began, ready to defend Harris. He wasn’t like Jace. Harris would never hurt me like Jace had hurt her. He loved me too much to break my heart like that.
“Look, I’m not trying to bring you down, babe.” She gave me a grim smile and adjusted her messenger bag on her shoulder. “Just warning you to be careful. Okay? Take things slow.”
“You didn’t take things slow with Jace, did you?” Kin hadn’t told me just how close she and Jace had gotten during their brief relationship, and I hadn’t asked. She’d been so determined to forget about him that I hadn’t wanted to push.
Kin looked away, her jaw clenching and unclenching several times before she answered. “No, things went at warp speed for us. That’s probably why we didn’t last. I gave it up too soon and he lost interest. Why else would he have found it so easy to leave without a backward glance?”
“Because he’s an idiot who doesn’t realize what a good thing he had,” I informed her and wrapped my arms around her tiny waist. After a small hesitation, Kin leaned against me, hugging me back. “Harris isn’t like Jace, though,” I told her when I pulled back a few moments later. “He’s one of the good guys.”
“Even good guys can have their douchebag moments.”
I didn’t comment. Turning back toward the exit to the parking lot, I started walking again before changing the subject. “What are you going to do over the next month? You can spend as many nights at my house as you want, you know.”
With today being the last day before our month-long break, I was kind of sad that I wouldn’t get to see Kin on a daily basis. I’d come to rely on her. She was my voice of reason at times when I was losing my mind.
“I know what I wish I was doing,” Kin said as we left the building. “Every Christmas we would go to Aspen for at least a week. Carter has a cabin up there and we go out and cut down our own tree then decorate it with all kinds of stupid things. My mom saved every handcrafted ornament that we made in grade school, so it has a lot of bells, construction paper, and Styrofoam-cup reindeers.” She paused and I watched as her throat worked before she let out a sad-sounding laugh and shook her head. “When I asked my father if I could do that this year with Carter and the twins, he refused to talk about it with me. Apparently, Jillian has a big social calendar this time of the year and I’m expected to go to all the parties with them.”
My heart ached for her. This was the first Christmas Kin would be without her mother. She couldn’t even have a reprieve from her father to go see the three people who would be sharing the same pain that she was feeling right now.
We were getting closer to my Range Rover and I could see Georgia and her younger sister, Carolina, sitting in their car waiting impatiently. I slowed my steps when Kin did, neither of us wanting to say goodbye just yet.
“Step sandwich!”
I nearly jumped out of my skin when a beautiful blond chick came out of nowhere and wrapped her arms around Kin. Seconds later, Kin completely disappeared when a pair of massive arms wrapped around her from behind. I tensed up and Marcus moved to stand between me and the craziness that was suddenly taking place before my eyes.
Kin didn’t seem all that worried about being smothered by the two people holding onto her like she might disappear at any second. She was laughing—and maybe even crying from the sound of it—as she and the two newcomers jumped around, still holding each other.
I took a small step to the left to see around Marcus’s shoulders better. I stood there for what felt like forever but was really only about a minute before the big blond guy stepped back, grinning down at Kin. “Miss us?”
Kin scrubbed her now free hands across her cheeks, scrubbing away at twin rivers of tears. “Miss you? So much it hurts.” She kissed the blond chick’s cheek and hugged her hard before pulling back. “What are you two doing here?”
“Daddy said that your step-monster wouldn’t let you come to us for Christmas, so as soon as the semester ended, we grabbed the first plane out to be with you. You have to put up with Caleb’s ugly face for four full weeks. Daddy will be here on Monday. He had some business to take care of before he could get here, but we couldn’t wait to see you.”
Kin wasn’t normally the kind of girl to jump up and down and squeal but she did exactly that even before the blond chick had stopped speaking. “Yes, yes, yes!”
Marcus cleared his throat loudly enough to catch the threesome’s attention and Kin finally remembered that I was standing there. The grin that was splitting her face in half was probably the brightest I’d ever seen from her. “Lucy, come and meet my brother and sister.”
I’d thought that that was who these two were, but now that Kin had confirmed it,I felt stupid for not making the connection sooner. Angie and Caleb Jacobson were exactly as Kin had described them to me. Angie with her long blond hair, blue eyes, and happy smile—the chick was drop-dead gorgeous. Caleb with his killer grin, matching blue eyes, shaggy blond hair and looks that belonged on the freaking cover of GQ would have had any
girl in our school drooling in a heartbeat.
Angie was the first to offer me her hand. “Lucy? I’ve heard so much about you.” Her hand tightened on mine and she pulled me in for a squeezing hug. “Thank you so much for taking care of Kin for us.”
Unexpectedly, a knot clogged my throat and I had to swallow hard before I could speak. How could she thank me? Kin was the one who had been taking care of me. “Don’t thank me. Kin’s been my life saver.”
Angie pulled back, a knowing smile on her gorgeous face. “Maybe you’ve been taking care of each other, then.” She winked and turned to face Kin again. Reaching out, she grasped her stepsister’s hand and gave it a loving squeeze. “It’s so good to see you, Kin. I’ve missed you so much.”
“Can I hug you, too, or is tall, dark, and dangerous over there gonna kick my ass if I try?”
Caleb’s question had me raising my head. He wasn’t as tall as Harris, maybe six foot two at the most, but it felt like I was stretching my neck forever to look up at him. That smile on his face was just as beautiful as his sister’s was, in a masculine kind of way. It didn’t make me melt like Harris’s smile did, but I could tell that he had left a whole string of broken hearts behind him with just that smile.
“You willing to risk it?” I teased him with a smirk, feeling like I already knew him from everything Kin had told me about her stepbrother. He stepped forward, shooting Marcus a raised eyebrow as he did. Whatever he saw on my bodyguard’s face must have been approval enough for him because he wrapped his thick arms around me and gave me a single, tight squeeze.
“Don’t want to give him too much of a reason to go all CIA on my ass.” He laughed as he pulled away. Thrusting his hands into his pockets, he turned to face Kin once again. “Are you really grounded? Your email to Angie said you were but you didn’t know for how long. What the hell did you do, Kin?”