What You Leave Behind (19 page)

“Liam, I’m with someone else.” She pulls open the door and hovers in the entryway, debating whether or not to tell him with whom. With all of the honesty they’ve passed between one another, she feels compelled. “Liam, I’m with Austin, now.” There’s something halfway between a gasp and a wail that comes from Liam, and Harper fights herself to talk over it. “I hope you can accept that. And that you’ll move on, too, when you’re ready.”

“I—I—”

“You left, Liam.
You
did this. I’m not going to apologize for what came out of what you left behind. And, I have to go, now. I hope you’ll be civil, if and when you come back home.”

The door swings closed behind her and the sound crashes heavily down the hall. Followed by the resonance of it, Harper walks slowly toward the elevator, and as the doors open, welcoming her to leave, she hears the sound of glass breaking and shouting. She presses the DOOR CLOSE button and embraces the silence that engulfs her as the doors slide closed.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Austin calls in sick to work and finds himself glad Gemma has always had a soft spot for him and doesn’t ask for specifics. Not that he’s worried about being caught in a lie. His voice is scratchy at all the right moments from crying through the night, and he’s certain that it, if nothing else, gives off enough authenticity for him to be believed. Gemma tells him to feel better, but he knows that he won’t, and is already almost certain he’ll call out the rest of the week, as well. Hearts just don’t mend that easily, and he fears Harper has done a number on his. He’s loved her for years, for ages, and if that weren’t the case, if it had just been the few weeks they spent touching each other, he thinks he’d be okay—maybe. But that isn’t the case and he isn’t okay. His heart feels like it’s actually cracked down the center and is spilling blood into his chest.

She is everywhere, in everything, and he wonders how that happened in only two weeks. It makes sense that she would be on the sheets that smell like her and the bed that held her naked body, but she’s in places she hasn’t touched, too. The reality is she’s been there all along. He picked out his plates, picturing her eating off of them, bought a couch that matched her hair color, and kept half of his dresser drawers empty, in hopes she would one day fill them. The only place she hadn’t been was on him, and she is now. He never knew what it felt like to have her mark on him, and now he does. When he looks in the mirror, he can feel the heat of her body pressed against him, can sense the caress of her fingers through his hair. Roughly, he pulls at the strands, trying to pain the pleasure out of himself, but it doesn’t work. She’s still there, still on him. Before he can think to do otherwise, he grabs scissors from the drawer in the kitchen, the same place where he keeps the potato masher he told her about so many days ago, and hacks off his hair blindly, letting the strands drop into the sink.

When he’s done, he doesn’t feel any better, can still feel the phantom pain of her hands in his hair, and he sinks down into the space between the sink and the stove. It seems like forever ago, that moment when everything shifted, and while he knows it was more than one moment that led her away, that made him let her go, that’s what he fixates on. Deep within, he knows that she was never ready. It was he that had always been ready for her. This asymmetry was bound to bring them to an impasse eventually, yet Austin had still hoped it would come later, after his hands got to memorize her skin, after his tongue was less greedy with her taste. They’ll never be languid or familiar now. As this thought consumes him, he reaches into the refrigerator next to him for a beer. He drinks until they are all gone and the vision of her blurs behind his eyes as he slumps into a thick slumber against the face of the oven.

When Austin stirs, it’s almost evening and he’s against soft arms and soft lips, certain that he’s imagining her. She smells like peaches and her grip is so tight around him and her lips so fervent, he can’t find it in him to care whether or not it’s a dream. He fists his dream-hands into her dream-hair and he kisses her dream-mouth until she dream-moans. When he opens his eyes, he knows he isn’t dreaming—dream-Harper wouldn’t look so weary. She’s all too real with the bags under her eyes and the way she looks at him with desperation behind her stare. He’s startled, but only for a moment, and then the fire that rips through him at her nearness burns so bright that he can’t contain it, and he’s on her. Hands and hips and so much skin, and she’s come back to him and let him press her back against the hard kitchen floor.

“You cut your hair.” She mumbles the words at him, her fingers sliding through the jagged strands, but he cuts her off with the dig of his hips and, “It’ll grow back in no time.”

When she pushes back up against him in reply and he gasps, the only word left for her to say is, “Please.”

He groans out her name and it sounds almost like a protest, like he’s remembered his conditions of last night, so she kisses him hard and replies, “I can.”

“I mean it. I can,” Harper spits out against his neck, and the words throb in his ears. His hips still and he hugs her so tightly to him that he fears he may break her. He’s heard the words before, at least a dozen times, but this time, they sound so different, so real, so full of promise. He nods against her hair and his lips press keenly against hers as he drags her even closer to him on the floor. “Let me show you. Let me show you that I—”

“I just want to hold you,” he whispers, his voice cracking, and he turns them so she’s on top of him and wraps his arms completely around her frame. It’s true, but it’s also a precaution, a safety net, because he’s so afraid it will happen again, that he’ll bring her to tears. He can’t stand the way they drip against his skin and remind him of all the ways he is and isn’t like Liam. He just wants her on him, with him, and he tells her, “That’s all I need. Let me hold you.”

“You can hold me, after.”

She reaches between them and messily unfastens his jeans, and he bites his lip as her hand wraps around the only part of him that aches more than his heart ever could. She waits for a sign of objection, for his hands to bat hers away, for his eyes to widen, but instead, he gently thrusts up into her hand and cries out a broken moan at the feel. He is, after all, only a man, and he wants her, needs her. She smiles and waits for him to do it again, just to be sure he believes her, and he does, his arms slackening their hold around her.

She slides off of his chest, her hand pumping his cock slowly, and she rests her head on his shoulder, looking down at the point where they meet. She marvels at the way he looks with her hand wrapped around him, and it awakens such want in her that she finds it hard to go slow, to do things properly. She wants herself wrapped around him in so many ways.

“Harper, Harper, Harper,” he half moans, half whispers through gritted teeth, his head pressing so hard into the floor, and she slows her motions to an almost painfully deliberate pace, loving the way he sounds and wanting to drag it out, so she can hear more. Then, he begins to beg with so many different kinds of pleas and disjointed words and her name, over and over.

She doesn’t relent, drags her hand up and down on him, and he’s so near breaking, near falling apart, but he can’t let himself, so he covers her hand with his own, stilling her. “You’re going to—I want to—” She flexes her fingers, tightens her grip, and he can’t stop the throb that results. He is at her mercy, as squeezing his hand harder over hers won’t still her. “Please, please—I need—”

She rubs her thumb over the head before she bends over him to take him into her mouth, and he shudders, his eyes rolling back in his head. Her hot, wet mouth is too much, but not enough, and he is so full of wanting, of longing, of need. Before he can thrust into her mouth, he flips her and deftly pins her hands at the wrists above her head beneath one of his hands while his other roams over her body.

“Let me, Harper. Please, I need to be inside of you. I need to—please, let me.” Harper cranes her neck, fighting to capture his lips, and he gives them to her, whimpers, “Please,” against them, once more.

“You don’t have to beg,” she murmurs against his mouth. “I’m yours.”

“Bedroom,” Austin grinds out, his mouth meeting hers again. He demands it, because the floor is hard and she is everything, and he wants to be so good for her. There’s no waiting, so he’s willing to beg. “Please—now.”

“No—here, here.”

“Not here.” He holds himself up, palms flattened against the floor on either side of her head, then he bends down to kiss her languidly, to show her just how much he wants to savor her. “You deserve—I want to be good to you—for you.”

“You’ll be good—we’ll be good. This won’t be the last—Austin, please.”

She’s better than hasty sex on a cold kitchen floor, but he cannot resist her. To hear her beg, it’s more arousing than he ever imaged it could be. He kisses her neck, licks at it, as he curls his fingers beneath the waistband of her sweatpants and gives in. She moans at just that, the simple touch of his fingertips pressing so softly into her hips, and she nearly comes undone at the sight of him lowering them down her legs, at him kissing her kneecaps and curling his hands around her ankles. He’s too far away, but she reaches for him still, and he works his way back up to her, his tongue dragging across her skin as he moves.

“Please,” she says when his mouth runs out of thigh, and she tugs him by his hair until the flat of his tongue anchors her in place. She presses up against his mouth and he curls his hands around her hips to hold her steady, to tease her as she did him. Slowly, softly, he licks at her, his eyes locked on hers as he listens to her moans, and she grips his hair between her fingers, pulling back on it when it becomes too much, when she can’t take any more. “Now, Austin—now.”

He’s quick to move, to climb up her body and groan against her neck, and he bites down on the flesh there as she guides him to her entrance. There’s no preamble then, just a tiny push of her hips up against his, and the long, slow moans they let out sound like a collective sigh of relief. Then, they’re frantic and he pumps into her and she claws at his back, and neither one of them makes promises to outlast the other. It’s all about feeling, about needing, and every frenzied thrust is full of wanting.

“I’m not going to—
Jesus
, Harper—”

“Let go, let go, let go,” she pants against his neck, her hot breath gliding across his equally hot skin. She licks at his earlobe, runs her teeth across it, and then whispers, “It’s okay, let go.”

He gives into one final thrust before he has to pull out, and she takes to rubbing her clit as she watches him release into his hand. The sight of him coming undone because of what they’ve done, is nearly enough for her, but she holds out, rubbing slowly, until he’s done shuddering. He fists his sullied hand into a kitchen towel, then uses his clean hand to help her along, to twist fingers inside of her until her nails dig into his side and her teeth sink into his shoulder. After, he holds her as she shakes, her thighs trembling more than any other part of her, and he brushes her matted, sweaty hair away from her forehead to kiss the skin there as he leans them back against the oven door.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Austin says after a while. He almost thinks she’s asleep, her breaths hitting his bare chest in even pants, but at the familiar words, she stirs against his chest. Not even twenty-four hours have passed since Liam said them to her in the hall of his hotel, but they sound so different now—so reverent. She kisses his chest in reply, her fingers curling against his stomach, and he kisses the top of her head in return. “I couldn’t—it was just a day and I was so lost without you.”

“I left you to find myself,” she tells him and she knows why the words sound so familiar. They’re so similar to Liam’s reason for leaving, but it doesn’t hurt her to say them, to liken herself to him. The meaning is so different, but she feels a little twinge in her gut, thinking about how he probably felt the same justification when he first left her. It’s not the same though, and none of that matters when her lips fall on Austin’s chest. “I went to see Liam. To clear the air and get closure.” She waits for Austin to explode with rage or hurt or something, but he just hauls her up into his lap and presses his lips cleanly to hers. She kisses him softly, so thankful for his lips and the way they feel upon hers, and breaks away breathless. “I take it you’re not mad?”

“No, I’m—you did what you had to do.”

“I did it for us.” She nods and kisses him again, twines her fingers together with his and then kisses the flats of his knuckles. “Austin, I want there to be an 
us
.”

“Harper—”

“No, Austin, I’m sure. I was sure when I got here, the whole drive back, even when I was with him. I told him we were—he knows about us. And us—I want us, I want you—I want you and me and us.” Harper kisses his hands again, his neck, his face, tries so hard to fit herself to him so perfectly that he won’t possibly be able to find it in him to say no. And she asks him not to, asks him, “Say yes?”

“Yes.”

They only have so much warmth, and the kitchen floor steals much of it from them as time wears on. Harper shivers and Austin kisses her, and carries her to the bedroom, covers her with his blanket and his skin. It’s late evening and the setting sun is deceptive, looking warm and welcoming as it slants through the blinds, but it’s not—his hands and the cotton will do the sun’s job and not complain. Once they warm each other, Austin thinks it feels like Sunday morning, a soft, lazy Sunday with the skin of his love pressed against his side, the tinkle of her laugh in his ears. She leans into him, against him, and kisses the plane of his chest as he kisses her hair and inhales the sweet scent of her. He can’t help but smile, can’t help but remember. Sweatpants and kitchen floor sex, and she still smells like the girl that he loves, and he kisses her softly once more.

“It was—you started school on a Thursday, remember? And we had that next day, that Friday—we had it off, remember? Some teacher’s work day or some shit.” She props her chin up on his chest and shrugs the blanket off, leaving her shoulder bare, and watches his mouth as it moves. Harper doesn’t remember, but she wishes she could. His account will have to do, so she pays attention, memorizes the curve of his lips as they form each word. She imagines them as they’ll come from her mouth someday, how she’ll echo them as she tells the words and story, the story of how they met, and she hopes she can do them justice. This is their story and, though they hadn’t been from the start, they are now, and the beginning matters. “You came into homeroom and that seat in front of me was empty because that guy—I don’t even remember his name—but he had mono, so he was gone for a while, and you sat there, in that empty seat instead of the other two that were open, and I was done for.”