Falling for Mr. Wrong(19)

He turned down the hallway toward the men’s room when he noticed the twerp standing back behind a potted palm tree. He appeared to be on the phone.

“Listen, babe, I swear, I’ll be back home tomorrow afternoon. I promise we can spend the entire day together in bed. Just you and me. Okay? I love you.”

Noah blanched. This fucker was two-timing his girl? Who wasn’t actually his girl? But needed to be. Or more like he wanted her to be. But she wanted to be Danny’s girl. That sounded like a pop song from the eighties, didn’t it? Ugh. This had officially become more complicated. He wanted to run out and tell Harper right away, but he knew she’d never believe him. She’d accuse Noah of making shit up. Worse still, she might suggest he was trying to hurt her even more. The thought she’d even accuse him of that made his throat tighten. Not that she had. But she probably would. And she had every reason to, considering how he’d treated her. Oh, man. Poor Harper. How the hell was he going to handle this? It was going to require finesse and nuance. Two qualities he knew he could muster up if need be.

But shit. What if Harper was planning to go home with this guy again? That would be disastrous. He needed to do something to stop her from making a huge mistake.

He circled around the back end of the bar and found the quiet, intimate dining area. Harper was scrolling through Instagram when he came up behind her.

“Listen, Harper—”

“Ack!” She jumped, throwing her hands up and hitting Noah hard in the face. “You scared me!”

Noah reached for his smarting nose and quickly realized it had started to bleed.

“Wow, you’ve got a good left hook.”

Harper turned around and stood up. “Oh, no! I gave you a nosebleed!”

“You punched me, Harper Landry! I bet it felt good!” He reached over and grabbed the napkin from her lap and pressed it to his nose to staunch the flow of blood.

“I didn’t punch you! You frightened me. I reacted.”

“Nevertheless, I think you need to come back with me to be sure I’m all right.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Look, buddy.” She pushed her pointer finger into his chest for emphasis. “You killed my chances with Danny last week on our date. I was ready and willing to go home with him for a perfectly lovely night of naked fun and games. Until you came along and screwed that all up.”

“At which point you screwed me.”

“Which was a mistake made purely in the heat of passion.”

“Oh, so you admit you have passion for me.”

“It was a generic phrase. What I meant was I was momentarily bitten by the horny bug. No thanks to you.”

“Because I stirred up so much passion in you.”

“Will you stop with the passion already?” She reached out for the napkin and dabbed at his nose. “I’m sorry about this. Even if I am mad at you—and trust me, I am—I’d never deliberately hurt someone.”

“That’s good to know. So next time I fall asleep naked next to you, I don’t have to worry about any sort of revenge dismemberment then?”

She laughed. “Oh, honey, I had a lot of fantasies of Lorena Bobbitting you, for sure. Good thing I can separate fantasy from reality.”

“Can I tell you about the many times I fantasized about you over the past several years?”

She wagged her finger. “Best not to go there. You did this to yourself. There would have been no need to fantasize about me had you stuck around.”

Noah saw the two-timing shitmeister approaching around the corner.

“Listen, I’m serious now. I don’t want you going home with him. You have to trust me on this.”

“And you don’t have any say in who I do or don’t sleep with.”

“That’s true. But I have my reasons. This guy doesn’t deserve you, Harps. I can’t get into things now, but please. Do not go home with him.”

Harper shrugged. “No promises, Noah. Besides,” she paused for a minute, “as you’re well aware, promises are meant to be broken.”





Chapter Fifteen


Harper felt like maybe that Lorena Bobbitt was onto something with that technique. Because darned if she hadn’t been so excited to return to Danny’s place, but once again her ex seemed to have cock blocked her (she wondered, can you cock block a woman? Or is that only a guy thing?). Dinner was delightful. Danny regaled her with tales of his triplet nieces who were in kindergarten. And his frazzled sister who was their mother. He talked about how much he traveled for his job. He was headed to Virginia tomorrow for a few days, then up to DC, then back here after that. So if she wanted to strike while the iron was hot, now was the perfect time.

But damn if Noah hadn’t been so darned cryptic. It was weird, the way he implored her. As if he knew something she didn’t. Though that would be impossible. He didn’t even know who Danny was. He was jealous—that had to be it.

She sighed. Ahhh, dammit. It’s like Noah was a human candle snuffer, extinguishing her sex drive in the blink of an eye. Except while he quite deftly smothered whatever potential burning embers were there for Danny, he was fanning the veritable conflagration that was flaming up deep in her pelvis the minute she thought about Noah.

His words played on an endless loop in her brain: I was about to tell you how hard I am right now being next to you. And unfortunately you’re leaving me with a bad case of blue balls. Because all I want is to bury my hard cock inside of you again.