She tilts her head, exposing her long, tanned neck. “Hideous?”
“Revolting.” I reach forward, wiping a tiny smear of frosting from her lower lip.
She stares as I stick my thumb in my mouth, sucking the frosting off, and I blink away, working to get my shit together. This isn’t how we keep our clothes on and stay friends-only. This is how she ends up ass-up on the couch, getting spanked and fucked until dinnertime.
It’s so strange being with her like this: eating in companionable silence and having it feel so . . . normal. This is what I have to remember: Sex with Harlow is amazing, but being friends with her isn’t so bad, either.
“Thanks for breakfast,” I say, wiping my mouth with a napkin.
“No problem. Like I said, I think better when I run, and unfortunately for my half-Latina ass, the bakery is right at the end of the best running trail in La Jolla. Now let’s get back to the reason behind my visit: fixing your problem.”
“I appreciate the thought, but I don’t need you to—”
“Shut up. I have ideas.”
It’s obvious Harlow has made up her mind, so I decide to humor her. Instead of telling her not to bother, that I’ve probably thought of it all already, I reach over and tear off a chunk of the center of her cinnamon roll, popping it in my mouth.
She scowls at me. “That was the best bite. You’re a menace.”
“Mmm hmm,” I hum around it.
She turns on her stool to face me. “What about tourists? Taking people out on your boat?”
I swallow, washing the bite down with a gulp of coffee. “No way.”
“Why?”
“Commercial fishing boats are dangerous places, Snap. Things fall, lines get tangled, people trip. No way am I having a bunch of paying idiots wandering around my boats.”
“Okay,” she says. “What about investors?”
“You think I haven’t thought about that?”
“There has to be someone who—”
“The only reason people loan money is to make money. The fishing industry isn’t just going to recover overnight,” I tell her. “Development, climate change, disease, it’s all had an impact and as far as I can see, it won’t get better anytime soon. I can’t borrow money if I don’t have the hope of paying it back.”
I feel the truth of this reality sink like a weight in my chest. It will never be the way it was. My brothers and I will never know the life my dad knew, and his dad before him. There’s something so utterly defeating in that. A smart man would walk away; he’d sell everything he could, split the money and make a new life somewhere else. But it’s all the fucking history—what my family has fought for, sacrificed for, what Dad worked to keep after he lost Mom—that keeps me from just walking away.
“Right,” she says. “I guess that makes sense. What about fishing other things, then?”
“We already do that. We do sockeye, pink and chum salmon, roe herring, halibut, invertebrates,” I say, and then pause, seeing her face fall. I feel sort of guilty, she’s clearly put some time into this and I’m just shooting down her ideas, one after another.
But in typical Harlow fashion, she seems undeterred. “So maybe we need to think outside the box.”
“Outside the box, huh?”
“Yeah, let’s see . . .” She leans forward, knees pressed to mine, her hand ghosting along the top of my thigh. I’m still shirtless, and swear I can feel the heat from her body, an awareness of having her near me. And I wonder if she has any idea how it feels, or if I’m the only one of the two of us who gets so wrapped up that I could accurately estimate the distance between us in millimeters.
“What about T-shirts?”
I blink. “T-shirts?”
“Yeah, like, your own clothing line. Imagine a glossy ad with you and your studly brothers. You’re standing in the middle and wrapped in a tight T-shirt—”
“You’re messing with me now, aren’t you?”
“Maybe a little,” she says, tapping my nose with her index finger. “Because you’re so cute in the morning.” Sitting up straighter, she continues, “So imagine this: you, muscles, and an arrow pointing straight down with the words ROBERTS BAIT AND TACKLE printed on the shirt.”
“Pointing straight down,” I clarify.
“Yes.”
“To my cock.”
“Yes.”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, counting to ten. “Ginger Snap. Honey,” I say, and close the distance between us even more. “I promise I’ve spent more time on this than you can possibly imagine. I’ve considered everything.”
“Everything?”
Nodding, I lift my coffee to my lips.
“How about selling sperm?”
Coughing, I splutter, “Pardon me?”
“Sperm. Jizz. Semen. Protein shakes. Love juice. Pecker spit. Face crea—”
“Harlow.”
“What? You said everything.”
“Why . . .” I start, and shake my head. “Wait, were you starting to say face cream?”
She nods.
Shaking my head, I decide to move on from that visual. “Why on God’s earth would I donate sperm?”
“I can’t believe you have to ask that. Have you looked in a mirror lately? Have you seen your brothers? That is one hell of a gene pool. Hell, if I was a spinster living in an old Victorian on Golden Hill, I’d buy—”
And I kiss her. Again.
I don’t mean to . . . actually, that’s a lie. I do. But I don’t mean for it to go on as long as it does. Harlow’s words are lost in my mouth when I slide my lips across hers and her eyes close, the breath leaving her lungs in a soft sigh.
I slide off my stool and lean over her, one hand in her hair and the other on her jaw as I open my mouth, lick her tongue with mine. I hold her close, tight, in just the way I know she wants. My thumb moves down to press against her throat, not with intent, but just enough to let her know I have her.
Harlow’s hands grip my hips and she stands, pressing herself fully along the length of my body. My skin is fiery where her fingertips brush over it, nails scratching and tracing the top of my pants. It’s like the blood leaves my brain and surges downward, every thought suddenly of Harlow: where I can touch, what I can taste, if she’d mind if I laid her out right here on this counter, fucked her until neither of us could think anymore.
But I don’t. And though I’m sure I’ll hate myself later, when I’m alone and jacking off and wondering what the fuck I was thinking to pull away, I do. I take a step back and try to ignore the way she’s invaded every one of my goddamn senses, how I can still feel the press of her body even though there’s a few inches of space between us now.