Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 75783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
“Harper, you dirty girl,” I whisper to myself with a smirk as I lean in closer to listen more.
This time, her moans turn into whimpers, and I raise my eyebrows in confusion. I move my hand away from my crotch and press it against the door, carefully pushing it open to get more clarity. I realize now this doesn’t sound like pleasure-filled moans.
I know exactly what this is.
I push the door open to see her splayed out in bed; the covers twisted around her legs as if they’re trying to entangle her and restrain her. There’s a light sheen of sweat on her forehead, and her eyes are squinted shut as her head whips back and forth violently.
She’s having a nightmare. I know this all too well. If I had a nickel for every time I was in the same position as her, tossing and turning while the worst memory of my life replayed over and over, I wouldn’t even need to work.
I move into the room and stand at the end of the bed to watch her for a minute. I can’t help but wonder what she’s dreaming about. Is it anything as dark as what plagues my dreams?
Even though I started off our entire relationship by wanting to torment her, seeing her struggling is hard. There’s a little part of me that feels bad for her.
Against my better judgment, I walk toward the side of the bed and shake her shoulders. It takes her a moment to be pulled from dreamland, but when her eyes jolt open, and she looks at me standing over her, she immediately grabs the blankets and pulls them close to her chin.
“What’s going on?” Harper asks, sleep still heavy in her voice.
“Can you have your nightmares a little quieter? Some of us have to sleep.” I back away, though I keep my eyes on her. She sits upright, still clutching the blankets around her as she pushes strands of blonde hair from her face. Her chest rises and falls quickly as she tries to catch her breath.
“Sorry,” Harper whispers, not even making eye contact with me.
“Does this happen a lot?”
She looks up at me with a mixture of confusion and interest in her eyes. She must think I’m asking because I care. Maybe there’s a part of me that does, but that’s something I don’t plan on humoring. “Because if it does, we’re going to have to figure something else out. I need to sleep.”
She sighs and rolls her eyes, looking down at her hands and her lap. “I can’t exactly control what I dream about, you know?”
She wipes the sweat from her brow and scooches up in the bed so she’s sitting on her butt entirely. Looking at her, I can see she’s exhausted. It occurs to me I could potentially be working her too hard, but this wasn’t my decision. For whatever reason, my dad wants her here.
It certainly doesn’t help that she’s barely eating, thanks to her bitch of a mom.
“I was just about to make something to eat,” I say, gesturing to the door. “If you’d care to join me, I can make you a sandwich too. You barely had anything for dinner, and I doubt going to bed hungry does much to fight off bad dreams.”
She looks up at me, once again surprised by my offer. I feel like Diana is the kind of mother who would lock the fridge so Harper couldn’t eat anything she didn’t approve of. There’s a glimmer of warmth in her eyes at my offer that I have to force myself to look away from.
“I don’t have all night,” I say, urging her to make a decision. She nods and tosses the covers aside. I stand in the doorway and gesture for her to walk through, admiring the way the oversized T-shirt she wears barely covers her ass. I’m just disappointed to see she’s wearing a pair of shorts underneath it.
I watch her walk to the kitchen, feeling the blood drain to my cock once again. I close my eyes and force myself to think about something unsexy so I’m not standing in the kitchen with a hard-on while making a sandwich.
Harper sits on a bar stool at the kitchen island while I grab ingredients from the fridge. She watches as I place bread on two plates and delicately slice into a fresh tomato.
“I know you weren’t exactly sticking up for me, but thank you for saying what you did at dinner earlier,” Harper says with a gentle smile on her face.
I look up at her and nod, not wanting to acknowledge that there was a part of me that wanted to defend her. Diana is a cliché—gold digging, washed up, Hollywood starlet. I hated seeing how she tried to control Harper the way she did. I barely know either of them, and I don’t know how much I care to, but the idea that Diana is trying to raise Harper to be anything like her is upsetting.