Chapter 121: Get Lucky
** Harper **
Caught off guard, Harper froze. Damn, this stubborn idiot wasn’t going to back out at a time like this, right? Right??
He looked guilty as she pulled away and looked into his eyes questioningly. "I ..." He cleared his throat. "I didn’t bring a condom for this trip."
"..."
"..."
Harper was speechless for at least a full minute. She really had no idea what to say. This guy had just spent forever trying to convince her that he was a bad boy. What kind of bad boy would say something like that with a girl right on top of him? And what kind of bad boy didn’t have a condom with him at all times in the first place?
Unless ...
Eli cursed under his breath at the dubious stare she gave him. "It’s not like I expected to get lucky!" he argued, clearly more than a little embarrassed. "Hell, I wasn’t even expecting to talk to you outside mandatory meetings we happen to share. What would I need one of those things for?"
Blunt as his words were, Harper’s heart fluttered when she realized that he was equating "getting lucky" to "getting lucky with her". Despite all his warnings that she shouldn’t trust him for commitment, he was already starting to prove himself otherwise.
She chuckled at the thought. Before he could stare back at her and feel mortified that she was finding joy in his misery, she pushed him back lightly so that he was leaning against the pillows piling high on the sofa. Shrugging the throw blanket off of her shoulders, she climbed over him, straddling his waist.
"Well, fortunately there is more than one way to get lucky, isn’t there?" she whispered as she planted a soft kiss on the side of his neck, just beneath his ear.
His whole body stiffened. Then, as if something snapped loose inside him, one of his hands darted up, gripping her hip with a barely controlled fierceness that scorched her through her skin.