After Ever Happy (After #4) (48 page)

“Noon.” I pour the uneaten sauce into the sink. “Only one shift. I should be home around five.”

“I’m taking you to dinner.” He smiles, crossing his arms in front of his chest. I tilt my head, raising a brow at him, and turn on the garbage disposal. “You’re thinking about shoving my hand into that right now, aren’t you?” He points to the noisy disposal. His laughter is soft and charming and makes me light-headed.

“Maybe.” I smile. “So you need to rephrase that into the form of a question.”

“There’s the sassy Theresa I know and love,” he teases, sliding his palms across the countertop.

“Theresa, again?” I attempt to scowl at him, but a smile breaks through.

“Yes, again.” He nods and does something un-Hardin-like. He grabs the small trash can from under the sink and starts to help me clean up the trash from the counter. “So will you please do me the honor of granting me your time to have a meal in a common place tonight?”

His playful sarcasm has me laughing, and when Landon enters the kitchen, he only glances at us and leans against the counter.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

Landon stares at the cleaning man in Hardin’s body and glances back at me, baffled. “Yeah, just tired.” He rubs his fists over his eyes.

“I would imagine.” Hardin wiggles his eyebrows, and Landon shoves his shoulder.

I stare, feeling like I’m in some alternate universe. One where Landon shoves Hardin’s shoulders and Hardin laughs, calling him an asshole, instead of glaring at or threatening him.

I like this universe here. I think I would love to stay awhile.

“It’s not like that. Shut it.” Landon adds ground coffee to the pot and pulls three cups from the cabinet and sets them on the counter.

“Sure, sure.” Hardin rolls his eyes.

Landon mockingly says, “Shore, shore.”

I listen to the two of them banter and take innocent digs at each other while I reach for a box of cereal in the highest cabinet. I’m standing on my toes when I feel Hardin’s fingers tugging at my shorts, pulling them up to cover more of my exposed skin.

Part of me wants to pull them up farther or even take them off completely, just to see the expression that would come from it, but for Landon’s sake, I decide against it.

Instead, I find the humor in Hardin’s gesture and roll my eyes at him while unrolling the bag of cereal inside the box.

“Frosted Flakes?” Hardin asks.

“In the cabinet,” Landon responds.

A clouded memory of Hardin bickering with my father over his eating all of Hardin’s cereal comes forward. I smile at the memory and file it away. I no longer think of my father with pain in my chest; I have learned to smile at the humor he held and to admire the positivity he showed in the short time I got to know him.

I dismiss myself to the bathroom to take a shower for work. Landon is telling Hardin about his newest favorite hockey player’s getting signed by an opposing team, and Hardin surprises me by staying at the kitchen table with Landon instead of following me.

AN HOUR LATER,
I’m dressed and ready to begin my walk to the restaurant. Hardin is sitting on the couch pulling his boots on when I enter the living room.

He looks up at me with a smile. “Ready?”

“For what?” I grab my apron from the back of the chair and push my phone into my pocket.

“The walk to work, of course,” he says as if it’s the most obvious answer.

Loving the gesture, I nod and, grinning like an idiot, follow him out the front door.

Walking through the streets of New York with Hardin is slightly on the strange side. He fits in here, his style and the way he’s dressed, but at the same time he seems to fill the street with his voice, his animated expressions lighting up the dreary day.

“The one, well, one of the problems that I have with this city is this . . .” He waves his hand through the air. I wait a second for him to elaborate. “The sun is hidden,” he says at last.

His boots smack loudly on the pavement as we walk, and I find that I love the sound. I missed it. It’s one of the smaller things about him that I hadn’t realized I loved until after I left him. I would find myself alone, walking down the loud streets of the city, and miss the noisy way Hardin always stomped around in his boots.

“You live in rainy Washington—you can’t bash New York’s lack of sun,” I counter.

He laughs and changes the subject, asking me random questions about the world of waitressing. The rest of the walk to work is nice; Hardin asks question after question about what I’ve been doing for the last five months, and I tell him about my mother, David, and his daughter. I tell him about Noah’s spot on the soccer team at his college in California, and how my mother and David took me back to the same town that I went to with Hardin’s family.

I tell him about my first two nights in the city, and how the noise kept me up all night, and how on the third night I climbed out of bed and took a walk around the block, and that’s when I met Joe for the first time. I tell him that the sweet homeless man reminds me of my father in a way, and I like to think that bringing him food is helping him in a way that I couldn’t my own blood.

This confession has Hardin reaching to pull my hand into his, and I don’t try to pull away.

I tell him about how worried I was about moving here, and also that I’m glad he’s here visiting us. He doesn’t mention the way he refused to have sex with me and then teased me until I finally fell asleep in his arms. He doesn’t mention his marriage offer, and I’m okay with that. I’m still trying to make sense of this, as I’ve been trying to make sense of the way I feel about him since he crashed into my life a year ago.

When Robert meets me at the corner, the way he does when we work shifts together, Hardin moves closer, holds my hand a little tighter. Neither of them say much; they just eye each other up, and I roll my eyes at the way men behave in the presence of a woman.

“I’ll be here when you get off.” Hardin leans in to press his lips against my cheek, and his fingers push my hair behind my ear. “Don’t work too hard,” he whispers against my cheek. I can hear the smile in his voice, but I also know a hint of seriousness is behind his suggestion.

Of course, Hardin’s words curse my entire shift. We get swamped, with table after table of men and women drinking too much wine or brandy and overpaying for tiny portions of food on decorated plates. A child decides that my uniform could use a makeover: a plate of spaghetti, to be exact. I don’t have time for a break the entire shift, and my feet are killing me by the time I finally clock out over five hours later.

As promised, Hardin is waiting for me in the lobby. Sophia is standing next to the bench he’s sitting on. Her dark hair is pulled into a high bun, bringing attention to her stunning face. She’s exotic looking, with high cheekbones and full lips. I look down at my dirty uniform and cringe, smelling the garlic and tomato sauce staining my shirt. Hardin doesn’t seem to notice my soiled clothes, but he pulls a small chunk of something from my ponytail as we walk outside.

“I don’t even want to know what that was.” I laugh softly. He smiles and pulls a napkin—no, a tissue—from his pocket and hands it to me.

I use the tissue to wipe under my eyes; my smeared eyeliner from sweating at work can’t be remotely attractive right now. Hardin leads the conversation, asking simple questions about my shift, and we get back to the apartment quickly.

“My feet are killing me,” I groan, pulling my shoes off my feet and tossing them aside. Hardin’s eyes follow them, and I can practically see the sarcastic comments forming behind that head of hair about my making a mess. “I’m going to put them away in a minute, of course.”

“Thought so.” He smiles and sits down next to me on my bed. “Come here.” He gathers my ankles in his hands, and I turn to face him as he rests my feet on his lap. His hands begin to rub my aching feet, and I lie back on the mattress, trying to ignore that I’ve had my feet stuck in shoes for hours.

“Thank you,” I half moan. My eyes want to close from the instant relaxation that comes from Hardin’s hands massaging my feet, but I want to look at him. I have suffered through months without looking at him, and now I don’t want to look away.

“No problem. I can deal with the smell to see that relaxed, fucking dreamy look in your eyes.” I lift my hand, swatting at the air, and he laughs and continues to work his magic on my feet.

His hands move to my calves and up to my thighs. I don’t bother to stop the noises falling from my lips; it’s just so relaxing and calming to have him touching me, working the sore muscles of my body.

“Come sit in front of me,” he instructs, gently pushing my feet from his lap. I sit up, climbing over his lap, and sit in between his legs. His hands grip my shoulders first; he presses his fingertips into the tense muscles and rubs every ounce of tension out of them.

“If you weren’t wearing a shirt, this would feel much better,” Hardin comments.

I laugh for a moment, but I’m silenced by the memory of his teasing me in the kitchen last night. Leaning forward, I reach for the bottom of my loose work shirt and tug it free from my pants. I hear the gasp from Hardin as I pull it, along with the tank top, up and over my head.

“What? It was your idea,” I remind him, leaning back against him. His hands are rougher now, pushing into my skin with purpose, and my head falls back against his chest.

He mumbles something under his breath, and I mentally pat myself on the back for wearing a decent bra. Granted, it’s one of the two decent bras I wear, but no one sees them outside of myself, and Landon, from a few embarrassing laundry mishaps.

“This is new.” Hardin’s finger pushes under the strap on one of my shoulders. He lifts the strap and drops it back down.

I don’t speak. I only scoot back slightly, pressing back against his open legs. He groans, wrapping the span of his hand around the base of my neck, his fingers gently rubbing over the bottom of my jaw and back down to the delicate skin under my ear.

“Feels good?” he asks, knowing the answer.

“Mhmm” is the only coherent sound that I can muster. When he chuckles, I push farther into him, essentially rubbing my body against his crotch, and I bring my hand up to my bra strap and slide it down my shoulder.

His hand tightens on my throat. “No teasing,” he warns, pushing the strap back up with the hand that was working on my shoulders.

“Says the master of the art,” I complain, and push the strap down again. Sitting shirtless in front of him, removing my bra while his hand is still holding me in place, is making me crazy. I’m worked up, and Hardin is only amplifying my hormones by panting and rubbing himself against me.

“No teasing,” I mock his words. I don’t have the chance to get a laugh in at his expense before he puts his hands on my shoulders and turns my head toward him.

“I haven’t been fucked in five months, Theresa. You’re pushing every ounce of my self-control,” he harshly whispers, just above my lips. I make the first move, pressing my mouth to his, and I’m reminded of the first time we kissed, in his dorm room at that damn fraternity house.

“You haven’t?” I gape, thanking my stars that he hasn’t been with anyone during our separation. I feel as if I knew this somehow, I knew that he wouldn’t. Either that, or I forced myself to be convinced that he would never touch another woman.

He’s not the same person he was a year ago. He doesn’t use lust and harsh words to get to people. He doesn’t need a different girl every night, he is stronger now . . . He’s the same Hardin that I love, but he’s much stronger now.

“I hadn’t noticed how gray your eyes are,” he’d said to me. That was all it took. Between the alcohol and his sudden kindness, I couldn’t stop myself from kissing him. His mouth tasted like—what else?—mint, of course, and his lip ring was cool against my mouth. It felt foreign and dangerous, but I loved it.

I climb on Hardin’s lap now, the same way I did so long ago, and his hands grip my waist, pushing me gently to move along his body when he lies down on the bed. “Tess,” he moans, just like in my memory. It fuels me further, pushes me deeper into the overwhelming passion between us. I’m lost there, and I sure as hell don’t want to find my way out.

My thighs straddle his torso, and my hands dig into his hair. I’m needy and frantic and rushed, and all I can think about is the way his fingers are running, so gently, down my spine.

M
y entire plan is shot to hell now. There’s no damn way I am going to stop her. I should have known I didn’t have a chance. I love her—I’ve loved her for what feels like my entire life, and I have missed being with her in this way.

I’ve missed the sexy-as-hell noises that fall from those fuckable lips. I’ve missed the way she moves her full hips, sliding them across me, getting me so fucking hard that all I can think of is loving her, showing her how fucking good she makes me feel both emotionally and physically.

“I’ve craved you every second of every fucking day,” I say into her open mouth. Her tongue swipes across mine, and I wrap my lips around it, playfully sucking on her tongue. Tessa’s breath catches. Her hands reach for the bottom of my shirt, and she pushes it up to my arms. I sit up, bringing her half-dressed body with mine, and make it easier for her to lift the shirt off me.

“You have no idea how many times I’ve thought of you, how many times I’ve stroked my cock, remembering the way your hands feel on me, the way your hot mouth felt on me.”

“Oh God.”

Her moan only spurs my words. “You’ve missed this, haven’t you? The way my words make you feel, the way they make you soaking, fucking wet?”

She nods and moans again when my tongue moves down her neck, slowly kissing and sucking at the salty skin. I’ve missed this feeling so much, the way she can completely and entirely take me over, take me under, and pull me back to the surface with her touch.

I wrap my arms around her waist and turn our bodies so I can lay her underneath me. My fingers have her pants unbuttoned, and my hands push them down to her ankles within seconds. Tessa grows impatient and kicks her feet, tossing the pants to the floor.