Pride

“Sleep?” he asked in surprise. “It’s way too early for that. Besides”-he grabbed her and pulled her down beside him-“I’m sure we can find something more interesting to do.”

She stiffened beneath his grasp and, again, pulled away.

Kane issued a silent curse-pulling away was all she ever did, and this whole chase thing was beginning to lose its luster. “Fine, we’ll sleep,” he said irritably. “I’ve been looking forward to waking up next to you-”

“Actually,” she interrupted, rising from the bed and pulling on her shirt (despite his best efforts, her jeans had never even made it off), “I think I should go back to my room.”

“Why? We’ve got plenty of space, plenty of privacy. Isn’t this why we-?”

She bit her lip and nervously tucked her hair behind her ears. “We’d get in a lot of trouble if we got caught,” she said softly, backing away. “And I should really-besides, it’s a big day tomorrow. And maybe tomorrow night…”

“Hey, hey, slow down,” he urged her, following her to the door and taking hold of her waist before she slipped out. “What’s wrong?” he asked, gently turning her to face him. “You’re trembling.”

He felt her muscles clench, and for a second he thought she would pull away again, but then she relaxed into the embrace and touched his face lightly with the palm of her hand. “I just need to go,” she told him. “Okay?”

“Of course it’s okay,” he promised.

“You’re not mad?”

“Not mad at all.” He kissed her, softly and gently, breathing her in. “But are you sure?”

“You make it pretty hard to be sure,” she told him, pressing against him and kissing him again, with more urgency this time, gripping his body as if it were a life preserver, keeping her afloat. “Really hard.”

There was more kissing.

And then she was gone.

“Harper?” he whispered.

The room was dark, and she could see only a bare outline of his figure, carved out by a shaft of moonlight filtering through the window. She pressed herself against him, running her hands across his face, his skin, trying to memorize the shape of his body, the feel of it beneath her fingers.

“Harper, you know I-with Kaia-”

“I know,” she said quietly, stopping him with a kiss. The last thing she wanted to hear about, think about, was Kaia. Adam with Kaia. Not here-not now.

“I just want you to know,” he pressed on, “it was just that once-and this is the first time with…” He stopped and rolled over on his side, his face inches from hers. He brushed a lock of hair away from her eyes. “It’s different with you.”

“Adam, you don’t have to do this. We can just-”

“No, I need to say this,” he told her, “before we-I need you to know that… how much I… I’ve never known anyone like you, Harper. You’re the only person in my life I can always count on-”

“You know I’ll always be there for you,” she reminded him. “Believe me.”

“I believe everything you say, Gracie, because I know you’re the one person who always tells me the truth. Promise me you always will.”

“Oh, Adam…” She grabbed him then and kissed him, hard, wrapping his arms around her and pressing herself against his bare skin. She was done talking. And it was a good thing-because the next words out of her mouth would have been a lie.

“Yo, dude, you in there?”

The loud voice was quickly followed by a pounding on the door and some raucous laughter. Harper quickly rolled away from him, and Adam groaned in frustration. The guys. Great. Their timing was just impeccable.

“Go away!” Adam shouted, grabbing his sneaker off the floor and throwing it toward the door. “I’m busy.”

“Getting busy is more like it,” another voice called out.

“Asses,” Adam muttered. He turned toward Harper in apology. “Just give me a second and I’ll deal with this,” he promised, eager to get back to what they’d barely started.

“You know what?” she gave him a quick peck on the lips and hopped out of bed, pulling the sheet around herself. “Let me.”

Harper strode toward the door, but froze midway there when the shouting started up again.

“You got Grace in there, dude?”

“She’ll show you a good time-and I should know!”

“You got me to thank, bro. I taught her everything she knows.”

“Just don’t hog her. Leave some for the rest of us!”

Adam leaped out of bed and stormed past Harper, flinging open the door.

“Get the hell out of here,” he growled, leveling a fist at the cluster of grinning idiots.

“Dude, chill, we’re just having some fun with you.”

“Fun’s over,” he said shortly, and swung the door shut in their faces. “They’re drunk,” he told Harper, feeling like he needed to apologize, as if this were all somehow his fault. “Come on,” he urged her. She was still standing frozen in the middle of the floor. “Let’s go back to bed.”

They climbed onto the soft mattress and swaddled themselves in the downy comforter, and Adam again took her in his arms.

“Ad, those things they said,” Harper began hesitantly, in a tentative and unfamiliar voice.

“Shh, it doesn’t matter,” he promised her. “Nothing’s changed-we’re still here, together. I still want you.”

And he did, desperately.

But he couldn’t stop hearing their words, their laughter. He couldn’t focus. And as he eased himself on top of her, ready to take their relationship to the next level, to start them off on a new beginning, he discovered-to his horror and humiliation-that he just couldn’t.

Kane closed the door softly behind Beth-then gave it a sharp kick for good measure. What had been the point of finagling the single room? Of talking her into coming in the first place? For God s sake, it wasn’t even eleven o’clock yet-was he supposed to just be a good boy and go to sleep?

Calm down, he told himself. He didn’t like exposing too much of his emotions, even in private. He was nothing without his poker face, and practice made perfect.

Speaking of poker…

He’d overheard some of the staff talking about a weekly poker game, and had no doubt he could talk himself into it.

He weighed his options.

Sleep? Not so much an option as a failure.

Partying with his peers in some smoky, overcrowded room that, by this point, probably had sweat on the walls and vomit on the floor? Kane didn’t associate with these losers when they were in town-and he saw no reason to make an exception for their change in zip code.

Poker it was.

He crept through the lounge on his way to the staff quarters, wary of running into their absentee chaperone.

Turns out his instincts were half right: Jack Powell was in the lounge, but judging from the blonde precariously balanced on his lap, nibbling his ear, he wasn’t going to be doing much chaperoning anytime soon.

Kane shook his head in admiration-finally, a member of the Haven High teaching staff he could look up to.

Newly inspired, he went off in search of some fun of his own. Not too much fun, he reminded himself. After all, he had a girlfriend now-a real one. And that meant no extracurricular activities. If Adam could do it, he could do it.

As he’d suspected, his charm was more than enough to get him admitted to the back room and then to the poker game-though he supposed waving around a ready wad of cash hadn’t hurt.

It had been just what he’d expected: dark room, good Scotch, and two beautiful women facing him across the table. Those compact, svelte bodies, hard muscles only highlighting the soft curves… There was only one surprise. Sitting to the right of Amber and Claire was a more familiar face: Harper.

“What are you doing here?” Kane asked, taking a seat at the makeshift poker table.

Harper rolled her eyes. “Don’t ask. And you?”