One Night Pact, page 13
“You’re acting like a ditz and this outfit is not appropriate to be worn in front of people.”
“What are you talking about Harry?” She looked down at her outfit. “What’s wrong with it?”
“I don’t know if you know, but that outfit is see-through.”
“No, it’s not.” She held up the material. “It’s not see-through, look.”
“It is sheer and opaque, Sarah. When you came down the catwalk, when the light was shining on you, I could see...” I paused. “Well, let’s just say I could see pretty much everything, okay?”
“No way”. Her jaw dropped open and she laughed. “No wonder so many guys were smiling and waving at me.”
“What guys?”
“Harry, calm down, what’s your problem?”
“I’m not saying I have a problem, I just think you’re being very inappropriate here. This is not the sort of outfit you should be wearing in public. In fact, this is not the sort of outfit you should be wearing anywhere.”
“What if I want to wear it in the bedroom?”
“Okay sure, where it in the bedroom?”
“What if I want to wear it in the bedroom with a man?”
“What man? Someone you met here tonight. Show me who you think you’re going to be...”
“Oh my God, Harry, you’re really like my dad or something? Calm down, okay?” She grabbed my shoulder and then turned around. “You’re really getting on my nerves..”
“What are you looking at? Where are you trying to go?” I questioned her.
“I’m just looking to see where I should go next because I have to change into my own clothes, but first I have to get the designer and I have to tell her, thank you for letting me be in the show and letting me wear this beautiful dress. That’s the sort of thing we do, it’s protocol Harry.”
I growled. “Well hurry up and find her and hurry up and change and then let me see your outfit.”
“What do you mean? Let you see my outfit?”
“I want to see...”
“Harry, I will wear whatever I want, you hear me?” She looked me dead set in the eye.
“And thanks for the compliments, even your brother said I looked beautiful. You haven’t said anything nice about me yet.”
“Oh my God, Sarah, are we really on this again? You know I think you’re a beautiful girl, you’ve always been a beautiful girl, you will always be a beautiful girl, okay?”
“No really, that’s not okay, Harry, but whatever. I’m going to go and change now. I will see you later.”
“Yeah, you’ll see me later because we’re going to go out, right?”
“I’m not sure if you still want us to go out, Harry, maybe too many guys will pay attention to me.”
“That’s the whole point of why we’re going out, so that you can meet some guys, right? You said you want a nice boyfriend, I will help you find the right sort of guy. Because obviously, you are not attracting the right sort of men.”
“What do you mean obviously I’m not attracting the right sort of men? What men am I attracting?”
“Men that are looking at you in that dress thinking it’s okay.”
“Harry.”
“Whatever.”
And then she turned around and walked away. I could feel myself trying to calm down. I was heated, I was upset, I was pissed and I was hard as hell. In fact, I couldn’t remember a time that I had been harder then I was right now. I needed to sort out the situation in my pants because I was pretty sure the rock that was bulging was apparent to everyone.
“Hey.” Sarah walked out to me in her regular jeans and loose shirt about fifteen minutes later. “Hey.” I gave her a big smile. “Is that what you’re wearing tonight?”
“Well, I figured you’d want me to wear something like this. So it’d be hard to tell if I’m a guy or a girl.” She put her head back into a headband and pouted.
I wanted to kiss her so badly. She was just my little naughty vixen no matter what she looked like; she thought she looked like a tomboy in her jeans and shirt with her hair up, but she still looked beautiful. And now that I saw her in a different light, it was hard for me to forget. I looked down at her shirt and even though it was baggy, I could still remember the way her nipples had pierced through the dress. Shit, I was in trouble.
I didn’t know what I was going to do. All I could think about was her sexy body in that dress. All I could think about was wanting to touch her, all I could think about was wanting to be with her. I needed to take care of the problem and I needed to take care of it quickly or I was going to go out of control and I was going to ruin our friendship.
“Harry, are you even paying attention to me?” She slapped me on the arm. “This is so ridiculous.”
“Sorry Sarah, I was thinking about something.”
“So are Ethan and Jack coming with us? I haven’t hung out with them in ages.”
“Oh they left. They wanted to go to a different bar.”
“What’d you mean to a different bar? We haven’t decided what bar we are going to go to.”
“It’s not going to be easy for you to catch the eye of a guy if there are three hot guys like me and my brothers around. You’re just lucky that Dylan and Joshua aren’t here as well. If you had all of us Huntington Brother’s around you’d be in big trouble.”
“Okay Harry, whatever you say.” She rolled her eyes. “Is this outfit okay? Or should I change into something else?”
“I mean that outfit is fine by me. At least this way you know if a guy is interested in your intellect as opposed to your body, right?”
“Okay.” She sounded unbelieving. “What sort of guys am I going to be meeting in the bar that are interested in my intellect?”
“The right sort of guy, Sarah.” I looked at her with a frown. “The right sort of guy.”
“I want to go home and change.” She made a face. “I’m not wearing jeans to a bar.”
“Sarah.” I sighed. “Really?”
“Harry!” She poked me in the chest. “I did this fashion show for you, the least you can do is let me go home and change before we go out tonight.”
“Fine.” I sighed again. “Come on then, you have ten minutes to change once we get back to yours.”
“Yes, sir,” she said with a small salute and we both laughed as I grabbed her arm and escorted her out of the room.
Chapter 15
Sarah
“Come on, Sarah. Aren’t you ready yet?” I could hear Harry standing outside my bedroom door.
“I’m getting changed, Harry. I wouldn’t want to wear anything too sexy to have all the men in New York lusting after me, would I?”
“Come on, Sarah, be real,” he said, and I just glared at the door.
He’d really annoyed me at the fashion show. The way he’d treated me and spoken to me with such disrespect as if I were a little child. Who the hell did he think he was? He wasn’t my father. He wasn’t my grandfather. He wasn’t my uncle. He wasn’t even my brother. He was my friend. And as a friend, I didn’t appreciate the way that he spoke to me. So yeah, what about the dress? The dress was a little sheer. Who cared? Not me. What was a little nipple between friends? And it wasn’t like everyone could see, it was only if the light shone in a particular way and the light wasn’t shining brightly on me throughout the whole room.
I rolled my eyes as I looked at myself in the mirror, I was wearing a black dress that I had gotten when I was with Gemma a couple of days ago. It was shorter than I normally liked, but it fit me well. And it showed off my long legs, legs that I appreciated a lot more than I had when I was younger. When I was younger, I’d always thought I had thick calves and thighs, but now they looked shapely and sexy. I looked down at my heels and did a little twirl in my dress, I looked beautiful.
I was really happy about my makeover and I was happy that I’d seen Ethan and Jack’s eyes popping when they’d come up to me, I’d noticed the way they’ve been checking me out. Everything was going according to plan, they definitely saw me as a woman now.
“Sarah, open up the door. If you don’t open the door, I’m coming in.” Harry banged again.
“Oh my gosh, Harry, can I get some privacy, please? I will be out in a second.” But as I spoke, the door opened and he peeked in.
“Aren’t you ready yet, Sarah?”
“Harry!” I shouted at him. I walked over to the door and hit him in the shoulder. “What if I was naked? What if I was in here in my bra and underwear? You can’t just come in like that.”
“Sarah, I’ve seen you in your bra and underwear many, many times. In fact, we were sleeping together in your bed the other day and you were practically naked.”
“No, I was not.” I shook my head at him. “How dare you insinuate we were practically naked?”
“Sarah, you had on panties and a T-shirt with no bra. I would say that’s pretty close to naked.”
“Pretty close to naked isn’t exactly naked, Harry. Thank you very much.”
“Oh, Sarah, do you always have to be so argumentative?”
“Oh, Harry, do you always have to be so stubborn and selfish?”
“Are you calling me selfish?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He looked me up and down. “Are you wearing that dress?” His lips thinned in a tight line.
“Oh my God. What now, Harry?” He looked down at my legs and then at the hem of my skirt.
“Sarah, if you bend over your ass will be shown to the world.”
“And what?” I bent over and I flashed him my ass in a thong. I gasped as he reached over and slapped one of my ass cheeks. “Harry, what are you doing?” I laughed as I pulled away from him. “You can’t do that.”
“Yeah, okay, but think this through, Sarah. If you tell me I can’t do that, I’ll stop. Do you think guys in the club are going to stop when you tell them not to grab your ass? Because do you know what they’ll be doing? They’ll be grabbing your ass.”
“No one can touch me if I don’t give them permission, thank you very much, Harry Parker Huntington.”
“Oh my God, Sarah, you are like a little child. You are so stubborn.”
“I don’t care what you think. This is what I’m wearing.”
“Uh-huh.” And he looked down at my heels. “How high are those heels? They look like they’re at least three inches.”
“And what?” I strutted my stuff away from him and walked down the corridor. “I look fabulous. I love my heels and I love my dress.” I stumbled a little bit as I walked and he laughed as he came out and into the corridor.
“Okay, Sarah. Sure. You might love the heels, but they don’t love you.”
“Whatever.” I rolled my eyes at him. “I’m ready.”
“Do you want to bring some other shoes just in case these ones don’t work out for you?” He looked at me hopefully.
“These heels will be absolutely fine,” I lied. They were already starting to hurt my feet, but I wasn’t going to tell him that, I wasn’t going to let him win.
“Okay. Well, don’t you want to get a jacket or something?”
“Why do I need a jacket?”
“Because it’s winter and you’re going to freeze your ass off. I know you’re trying to make a point to me, Sarah, but I really don’t want you to die of a cold because you were too pig-headed.”
“I’m not pig-headed,” I said, but even as I spoke, I could hear my tone. “Fine. I will get a jacket. Hold on.” I walked back to my bedroom and grabbed a long gray wool jacket and put it on. And when I came out of the room, he looked at me again. He didn’t say anything for a few seconds and I wondered what he was thinking.
“You really do look nice though, Sarah. I do have to admit that,” he said with a small smile. “And your hair, you know, it’s not bad.”
“What do you mean it’s not bad?” I smiled at him. “It’s just, okay. Is that what you’re saying?”
“No, it’s more than okay, but I loved your hair before. You didn’t have to go blonde.”
“Yeah, I know I didn’t, but it’s nice to change. They say blondes have more fun, right?”
“I guess so.” He laughed. And then he walked over and he looked into my eyes. “You’re not usually one to wear so much makeup.”
“What do you mean?”
“You just have a lot going on. A lot of eyeshadow, and is that eyeliner and mascara?” He gazed down into my eyes and I felt my breath catching. He was so close, his brown eyes so warm, so tender as he stared at me. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
“Well, you know, I wanted to change up my look a little. That was the whole point, Harry,” I said softly, wondering if he’d kiss me. Wondering why I felt like this. Wondering if I was going absolutely crazy.
“No, I know. And it’s different. It’s cool. It really makes your eyes pop. I never realized quite how blue they were.”
“Really? What did you think they were, green?”
“No, I mean, I’ve known they were blue, but it’s almost like I can see the exact color.”
“What’s the exact color?”
“They’re like an aquamarine,” he said softly. “Do you remember when we went to Saint Lucia that year?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Well, I can just remember what it was like when we were on the beach. The water, it was just so blue-green, like that turquoise color. And when I look into your eyes, I’m reminded of my time there.”
“So my eyes remind you of when you were in the Caribbean?”
“Yeah. And that’s a good thing.” He nodded and then looked away. “You know how much I loved my summers there.”
“I know. I went with you a couple of times, remember?”
“I know. You know you loved it too.”
“Yeah. They were really fun,” I admitted.
Summers in the Caribbean with Harry’s family had been amazing. They had a huge beach house on the island of Saint Lucia. And we would go down to the beach every day and collect shells and then swim in the ocean. It was like a magical paradise, a tropical wonderful oasis. We drank coconut water in the mornings, ate fresh mangoes and guava and papaya. And then for lunch, we’d have salads with freshly caught fish that was grilled outside in the back yard. In the evenings, we’d play board games, all of us, sitting around a table, laughing, listening to music.
And I’d really felt like one of the family. Harry’s brothers always treated me like a little sister, even though I wasn’t really part of the family. And his parents, well, his parents always treated me like one of the kids. None of them had really paid much attention to us, so Harry and I had been able to do what we wanted. We’d ride our bikes into the village and speak to the local people and then we’d go on little adventures in the jungles and to the markets, buying cheap little trinkets that must’ve cost only a couple of dollars in the States. It was a wonderful time, a magical time. And I often wondered if Harry thought about it the way I did, the way I looked back at it.
“I miss going, you know?” Harry said with a bemused expression on his face.
“What do you mean?” I asked him curiously.
“Those were just cool times, you know, when the whole family was there. We were young, we could do what we wanted. No worries. No hesitations.”
“We could still go. There’s nothing stopping us.”
“Yeah, but we’d never be able to get the whole family to go,” he said.
“But do we really need the whole family, Harry?” I asked him softly. “I mean, most of the time it was just the two of us exploring. Maybe we could do a Caribbean Island trip. We could go from island to island, island-hop. That would be cool.”
“Yeah. I think I’d like that.” He nodded, grabbed my hand. “I think I’d like that a lot. Now, are you ready?”
“I’ve been ready, Harry. Let’s go.”
“No, you haven’t been ready, Sarah. I’m the one that’s been asking—”
“Oh, now, now, Harry. Be a good boy.” I laughed. “Let’s go.” And we walked out of the apartment and headed to the club.
Lights were flashing and the music was blasting. I could barely hear myself think as I stood next to the bar, waiting for Harry to get us two drinks. My coat was at the coat rack and I stood there in my dress, feeling slightly exposed. Men were checking me out like crazy and while I appreciated their admiring gazes, one or two of them had come too close to me and had brushed past me in a way that made me feel slightly uncomfortable. Though I didn’t want Harry to know that because I knew he’d say “I told you so.”
“Hey,” he said finally as he came back. “Here’s a vodka Sprite.”
“Thank you,” I said and gave him a huge smile. He grinned back at me. I noticed his eyes drift to my breasts and then back up quickly.
“Want to dance?” he asked.
“Well, yeah, sure. But will we meet any guys that way?”
“What do you mean will we meet any gu— oh yeah,” he corrected himself. “Sure we will. Once the guys see you with me dancing, they’ll be jealous. And because they’ll be jealous, they’ll want you.”
“What do you mean they’ll be jealous and want me? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Ah, but Sarah, you don’t understand the male psyche. Men always want what another man has. So if they see you on the dance floor with me, a handsome, hot guy, they will think that you must be the bomb and they’ll want you too.”
“So you’re telling me that a guy will only want me because they see me with you?” I asked as I took a sip of my drink. “Wow, thanks, Harry.”
“That’s not what I’m saying, Sarah. I’m just saying that you’ll be more desirable because you’re with a guy like me.”
“Okay, Harry. Whatever. Come on, let’s dance,” I said, and then I started moving my hips in time to the beat. I absolutely loved this song. I could feel the alcohol already going to my head and I was starting to feel happy. “Come on. Let’s dance.”
“I’m coming, Sarah. I’m coming,” he said as he put his hand on my shoulder and walked behind me. I made the way to the dance floor and sipped down the rest of my drink before placing the empty cup on a high-top table. I moved my hands up in the air and started dancing around and singing loudly. I didn’t really know the words to the song, but I was making them up as I was going along. Harry was dancing next to me, smoothly and fluidly in the way that he did. He wasn’t the best dancer, but he had a way of being able to keep to the rhythm that made him oddly sexy.
