“Someone could see,” he warned.

  “Someone could have seen in the parking garage in Seattle.” I reminded him of that time we’d been so feverish for each other that we fucked right then and there.

  His pupils dilated at the memory. “I had to have you then.”

  “And now?”

  He responded by tugging on the string of my bikini top, exposing my breasts to the elements.

  He dipped his head down, drawing a nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the pebbled flesh. I shivered against him. My body ached for him in all the best places. I reached for his shorts, running a finger along the top of the bottoms. He thrust his hips hard against me, and I could feel the hard length of him through the heavy material.

  “Need you out of these,” I gasped.

  “And this,” he agreed as he plucked at the string of my bottoms. “Fuck.”

  I pushed at his shorts, but his eyes were transfixed on my lower half.

  “Chase,” I pleaded.

  “Look at this pretty pink pussy,” he said as he drew his fingers through the slick folds.

  I groaned, holding on to his shorts for dear life at the sheer torture of him. He slipped his fingers up and circled the sensitive ball of nerves.

  “Never want to get the taste of you out of my mouth.”

  Then, he dropped down to put his face between my legs. He dragged his tongue up the seam, pushing against my clit at the apex. I shuddered under his touch, and he did it again, as if I was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted.

  “Chase Sinclair,” I ground out.

  “Hmm?” he asked. His eyes were on me as he flicked his tongue against me again.

  “Fuck me right this minute.”

  “Well, if you insist.”

  “I fucking insist.”

  He chuckled under his breath and then shucked his shorts to the deck floor. He settled between my thighs, brushing a stray wet strand of my blonde hair off my face. Our blue eyes met and locked, like someone had turned a key.

  When he slid inside, I held that eye contact, even as everything in me said to close my eyes because, fuck, he felt incredible. But I kept that gaze and let him see my pleasure like a window to my very soul. Because I was bare for him in every way. This was it for me.

  “You feel so good,” he huffed on a breath as he pulled out and pushed back in until he was buried to the hilt. “Like you were made for me.”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Want to be doing this every day.”

  Another hard thrust in.

  “Please.”

  He started up a rhythm, and our bodies smacked noisily across the quiet lake. We were secluded enough that I was pretty sure that no one else could hear, but I wasn’t sure I cared if someone did. The moment was punctuated with intense longing and gasped breaths as we came apart and together over and over again.

  His hand came to my hip, using it as leverage to get even deeper. And it was this new depth that sent me shattering over the edge.

  “Chase,” I gasped as I dropped out of my body.

  He was still going, milking my orgasm to draw out his own. When he came, it was hard and fast. He tipped his head back, a roar leaving his mouth as it took him.

  I pressed my hand to his cheek when he came back to me. Then, I dragged his lips to mine. “Love to watch that.”

  He nipped at my bottom lip. “I’ll give you as many as you want.”

  “All of them.”

  He slid out of me, returning his shorts and rolling over next to me. I righted my bikini. He drew me against him, sliding his arm under my shoulders. The world continued on around us, but there was just me and him here in this moment.

  “Let’s stay here forever,” I whispered against his chest.

  “Deal.”

  We stayed there on the deck in silence with him running his fingers through the wet strands of my hair. Only our heartbeats and the outdoor symphony our peaceful music.

  Then, Chase came up to an elbow, leaning over my now-dry body, and pressed a kiss to my lips. “There’s another thing we have to figure out.”

  “Oh?”

  “My family.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Do we have to tell them?”

  He laughed. “I thought you’d be hounding me to do just that.”

  “Well, I mean, I want people to know.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But family is complicated.”

  He brushed his nose against mine. “Yeah, well, if you had to deal with all of your brothers at once, I should be able to figure out how to tell my family.” He pursed his lips. “Gradually.”

  I laughed. “You mean, you don’t want them to walk in on us?”

  “It was efficient, I suppose.” I touched the black under his eye, and he winced. “Though maybe a little more painful physically than I’d planned.”

  “At least no one is going to punch you in your family.”

  His eyes went distant. “Hmm…”

  “Chase!” I said with a laugh. “Stop! No one is going to punch you.”

  “No, but…well, my dad is going to be a problem.”

  “Yeah. Our dads suck. What else is new?”

  “We should tell my mom first.”

  I nodded. “That’s fine. We don’t have to do it all at once. We can take it slow. I don’t care, Chase. I just care that you’re mine. You’re mine, right?”

  “I’m yours.”

  “Good.”

  “I’m not doing this in half measures, Harley. Everyone is going to know that you’re mine. I’m not running away from us anymore. I don’t want to have to hide. I want my family to know. I want everyone to know. I’ll deal with the consequences, all right?”

  “We’ll deal together,” I corrected.

  “We will. But most importantly, I’ll have you.”

  I wove my fingers together behind his neck and tugged him down until our lips nearly touched. “You’ve always had me.”

  And then he kissed me, long and hard and full of promise.

  6

  Harley

  Our grumbling stomachs drove us back into town. My wet hair was in a hasty ponytail on my head. I left my black jean shorts unbuttoned and rolled down to reveal the wet bottoms beneath. I went without my shirt, just my bikini top. Chase was seated on a towel. His blue shirt clinging to his tan skin. Bowie was in the back of the Subaru with his tongue lolling out the window.

  We dropped the dog off at Chase’s house before driving back to mine so I could get a change of clothes. He’d stayed the night at my place the night before, and I had every intention of staying the night at his. But I had my first day at Wright tomorrow and needed work attire.

  Chase followed me out of the car, locking it behind us as I all but skipped up the sidewalk.

  “We’re going to have to figure out how to get Bowie to stay at my house,” I told him.

  “Does Bailey like dogs?”

  “She’d better. We don’t really have a backyard, so it might be cramped.”

  “And Bowie is a lot.”

  I shrugged. “He’s the best. Just like his namesake.”

  He laughed as I fit the key into the lock and turned the door handle. I stepped inside with Chase on my heels and nearly skidded to a stop in the doorway.

  My throat closed as I saw the man standing in my living room. “Owen?”

  “Hey, honey,” my dad said.

  Chase froze behind me. I could practically feel his shock as he closed the door firmly behind him. He cleared his throat. He stepped forward and offered his hand. “Hello, sir.”

  “Sinclair,” Owen said, shaking his hand.

  I still hadn’t moved.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Owen released Chase’s hand, and that was when I saw his mask drop. Just a split second, but long enough for me to recognize it. It was the same emotions I kept locked up tight from years of learning from the best. But he couldn’t hide from me any more than I could hide from him.

  He was furious.

  Beyond furious.

  He was practically murderous with anger. How quickly had he left Vancouver to get here the next day after discovering I’d withdrawn? I’d blocked him, along with my brothers yesterday afternoon. It was a long-ass flight for him to make it that quickly.

  He’d thought that he’d won. I was going to Harvard Law. Even better, he’d gotten Jordan to respond to him. We all knew that Jordan was his favorite. He might not have admitted it, but it was obvious to anyone involved. Now, Jordan wasn’t talking to him. No one was talking to him. And I wasn’t going to Harvard.

  “I came to fix this situation,” Owen said.

  “How did you even get inside?”

  “I have a key,” he said as if it were obvious. “I own the building.”

  My jaw dropped. “What?”

  “What? You thought I’d let you live anywhere? Of course not.”

  I shook my head. It was dizzy with anger at the realization. He would never stop. He would go and go and go until he got what he wanted. Whether that was Harvard or my living situation or anything. If he wanted it, he’d manipulate to get it.

  “You’re unbelievable.”

  “I will always take care of you.”

  “I don’t want you to take care of me,” I snapped. “That is the whole point.”

  He shook his head. “You’re acting like a child. I know you’re smarter than this.”

  “I’m smart enough to know that I made the right decision blocking your number and having my brothers do the same.”

  “Ah,” he said slowly. “Is that why I can’t reach them anymore?”

  “Yes! Because you refuse to stop meddling.”

  “Meddling? You mean, taking care of my daughter,” he argued.

  “Taking care of me isn’t ratting me out to my brothers when I don’t fall into line.”

  Owen clenched his jaw. “We had a deal, you and I. You broke your end of the deal.”

  “Are you insane? If you’re supposed to be my father, you don’t make stupid, manipulative deals with your daughter to get what you want. You just parent. But fuck, you can’t even do that.”

  “I will do whatever it takes,” Owen said unrepentantly.

  My eyes shot to Chase’s as fury coursed through me. He tipped his head at me, letting me know without words that he was here for me. That nothing was going to change whatever Owen said, that I could get through this conversation. I took a breath of relief at the fortification in that look.

  “You will never change.”

  He shrugged. “If you want me to be the villain, then fine, Harley. But we are going to talk about this Harvard situation.”

  “What situation?” I demanded. “Because as far as I’m concerned, it’s settled.”

  “I called Harvard yesterday to make a payment and was informed that you withdrew.”

  “That’s right,” I said, holding my head up.

  “You’ve worked your entire life for this. You took that LSAT course. You got top marks on the exam and maintained a 4.0, and for what?”

  I straightened my spine and told him what I should have told him a long time ago. “I don’t want to be a lawyer.”

  “Since when?” he demanded.

  “For a long time,” I finally admitted on a sigh. “For so very long. But I just kept going because it felt like it was the right thing to do. It was what I’d said I wanted, right? I worked so hard. So, I had to do it.”

  “Yes, you do. You can’t throw it all away.”

  “I’m not throwing anything away,” I argued. “I’m just taking a different path.”

  “For him,” Owen snarled.

  Chase held his hands up. “I had no part in this. I encouraged her to go.”

  “He did.”

  “Sure. And you’re now together, and somehow, you’re staying in Lubbock.”

  “We weren’t together when I made that decision. And while, yes, it’s a perk that Chase is here”—I shot him a reassuring smile—“it changes nothing.”

  “It changes everything.” He shook his head. “You’re lucky that I know someone on the board of admissions.”

  “You what?” I asked in confusion.

  Owen nodded. “I called my friend to see if there was anything that could be done. Since you’re such an exceptional candidate, they agreed that they would remove your withdrawal from their records and you could start in the fall.”

  I blinked at him. Was he serious? He hadn’t heard a word that I just said.

  “I don’t want that.”

  “It’s the right thing to do.” Then, he turned to Chase, giving him the stern look that said he was about to try a new level of manipulation. “Tell her. You went to law school. How many doors would Harvard Law open?”

  “I’m not here to get between you and your daughter,” he said, stepping to my side. “I’m only on her side.”

  “You’re not an idiot, Sinclair. You went to Yale. You know what that did for you. Do you really want to hinder her here?”

  “I understand that Harvard Law opens doors, but I’m not going to make her do anything she doesn’t want to. Going to law school because you’re supposed to and not because you want to be a lawyer is a recipe for disaster. I watched people burn out. There was a suicide case my 1L year, in fact. It’s not uncommon. I’m not risking her in any way.”

  My stomach twisted at those words. I’d never heard him talk about law school like that. He’d esteemed its pros to me, and I’d thought long and hard about its cons, but I hadn’t thought that it was so tough that people killed themselves. I couldn’t imagine that being my reality, but it was still terrifying.

  Owen clenched his jaw, as if irritated that his new line of questioning wasn’t working out. “That would never happen to Harley.”

  “It wouldn’t,” I agreed. “Because I’m not going.”

  Owen huffed. “What are you going to do instead? You have nothing lined up other than this. You have never taken my money, so you have no savings. Are you living off of Sinclair now?” he sneered.

  “I got a job,” I said with a shrug. “At the company of my namesake.”

  He startled at that. “You’re going to work at Wright Construction? Doing what?”

  “I’m going to work in diversity and inclusion.”

  He waved his hand, making a psh sound. “That’s bullshit, Harley. You know it is. You’re better than that. Get the law degree, start in upper management, and take over as CEO from Morgan in a few years.”

  My body shuddered with anger at those words. “First, you dismissed what I want. Then, you dismissed my job. And then, the cherry on top, Dad”—I said the word like a slur—“you make your intentions clear.”

  “Which are?”

  “Your petty fucking revenge.”

  His nostrils flared. “None of this has anything to do with me.”

  I laughed. “Sure. You were the son who was sent away to work in Vancouver. Even after your brother died, you didn’t get the CEO position. It went to Jensen, his son, who you thought was too young. Then, he stepped down. It all looked like a clear path to your ascension, and what happened? Morgan took over. And you couldn’t stand for that, so you tried to sabotage her taking the reins. Which inevitably landed you in deep shit. Now, you’re trying to use me to get the position you always wanted.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “What, Jordan and Whitt wouldn’t do your little mastermind takeover plan, so you found another path?”

  “That is outlandish,” he argued.

  “Makes perfect sense to me,” Chase said.

  “Doesn’t it?”

  “I just want you to have the best life you could have.”

  “Even if I believed that,” I said on a scoff, “which I do not, I’m telling you, that life is not for me. I’m in front of you right now, saying I want something else. And if it’s a mistake, then it’s my mistake to make.”

  “I don’t have to accept that.”

  I smiled, a deadly thing that I’d mastered from him. I might hate him, but he’d given me the teeth to see this conversation to its inevitable conclusion.

  “You don’t get a say. Not anymore.”

  “Your mother clearly thinks that I do. She was the one who called and told me what happened with your brothers.” He glanced at Chase’s black eye. “She was not pleased with any of this.” He tensed at his own words, and I saw what he wasn’t saying.

  I saw the final blow that explained his desperate flight out here.

  “She’s mad at you,” I muttered.

  He stiffened, clearly irritated that I could read him so well. “She wanted me to fix this.”

  I laughed. “Oh, I’m sure that’s what she said. Tell the truth, Owen. Mom is also over your shit.”

  “My relationship with your mother is complicated.”

  “Oh, this is great,” I said with a laugh. “You’re so desperate that it reeks.”

  He ground his teeth together. “I am trying to fix this, Harley.”

  But he wasn’t. He was just trying to save his own skin. Same old, same old.

  “The boys cut you out. I cut you out. And now, Mom has, too.” I nodded my head at him and then went to the door. “This is what you deserve, you know? You did this to yourself.”

  “Harley…”

  “This is good-bye.” I opened the door. “Oh, and I’m moving out of this house. Keep your grubby hands out of my life, Owen.”

  He looked like he was going to argue, but Chase put his hand on his shoulder and gently moved him toward the door. “You heard the lady.”

  Owen looked back at me after stepping across the threshold. “I do want what’s best for everyone.”

  “You want what’s best for you,” I corrected him. “And we’re done with your shit.”

  Then, I closed the door in his face.

  Chase’s arms were around me a second later, and I buried my face into his shoulder. He brushed his hands down my back. Then pulled me back, cupping my jaw in his hands.

  “I’m proud of you. How are you feeling?”

  “Powerful,” I admitted. “I think it’s finally over.”

  “I think so, too.”

 

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