Page 80 of Take the Blame (Seaside Mergers #3)

Chapter Forty-Three

ALTA

Was it mean to laugh? Probably. But I just couldn’t help it when I saw the sour look on his face.

He looked like a kicked puppy, all angry and confused. His anger about me being here in his “rival’s” territory was written clear all over his face. His surprise at me not being here to actually get a tattoo was pretty darn clear too.

“Baby,” he breathed, his eyes connecting with mine in the most anguished and simultaneously peeved expression I’d ever seen on his face.

“I’m here,” I said simply. Because what else could I say. The only thing I’d required of him was to come and get me, and he had. Now I just wanted him to come a little further. To come in all the way. To just come back to me.

And he did. His face changed, morphing into something all too familiar and planting a bloom of hope right there in the center of my chest. Of love.

Inclining my chin, I found his eyes, the biggest brown eyes, and I felt right at home. “Can I tell you a story about that look you’re giving me right now?”

He took a step toward me. “If you’re talking, baby, I’m listening.”

God, he had the words to unlock me. He’d always been the key, and I’d fought him for so long. No more. I would never fight what felt right again. Never with him. “That look is almost identical to the very first time I met you.”

“Oh?” he asked. “How is that?”

“Well,” I started. “A year ago I decided to walk into your tattoo shop. I was so nervous that I had to give myself a pep talk at the door. So nervous I almost didn’t even want to turn around.

I thought for sure I was going to say screw it and walk right out.

But I told myself to at least turn around, just see what I was dealing with and then I could decide what to do.

So I turned around, and boy, was I not ready for you. ”

His eyebrows dipped. A questioning ‘V’ splitting his forehead. “ Me ?”

“Yes, you !” I laughed. “Harper, it sounds weird to say, but I swear, when you looked at me I had the strangest feeling. It felt like you knew me, right then and there. Like I was meant to find you and I was in the exact right place.”

He blinked. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. And it seems so stupid because I didn’t know you and you didn’t know me, but I got my hopes so far up.” I shook my head. “In a single second I felt more akin to you than an entire lifetime with anyone else. ”

“But then you—” my head dropped and I started to play with my fingers, embarrassment suddenly slipping over me. “You asked if I was ‘lost or something’ .”

He remembered this, I could tell by the way he sucked his teeth, wincing. Slowly, he began to move closer. “Don’t tell me I lost that much progress after one stupid line.”

“You lost that much progress with one stupid line, Harp.” I still felt it a little even now. Even as I laughed at myself. “It made me feel stupid. Silly for jumping to conclusions after just a single glance. And after that, I made it my personal mission to prove something to you, I think.”

“Prove what?”

“I don’t know; that I was strong? Capable?

That I belonged somewhere near you. It made me pretty sensitive around you, and for a while, it felt like every joke you made was a jab at me and every smile was you not taking me seriously.

I wanted to strangle you half the time because I wanted to impress you all the time, and I guess I got comfortable showing you more than just the parts of myself I showed to everyone else.

The strongest part of myself, yeah, but I guess the not so nice parts too,” I sighed.

He was quiet, listening to me with rapt attention as I let him in on my petty secret.

“So when you asked to get closer to me—when you said you wanted to help me…” I shuddered, my voice wobbling.

“When you said you wanted to kiss me and let me kiss you back and that you wanted me—I thought that maybe there was a chance I might fit with you after all. I knew it was a long shot, but I wanted to try it anyway.”

His brow knit but he said nothing, letting me continue.

“ That’s why I said yes to you, Harper. Not because I wanted to use you to forget my problems. Not because I needed you to boost me up even though you always have.

But I said yes to any opportunity to get closer to you because you’d already seen sides of me that no one else had.

And I liked who I was with you,” I explained.

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked.

I held his eyes. “Because, you said something the day we fought. About me smiling at everyone else, and it’s never occurred to me that you didn’t know that all I’ve ever wanted to do was smile at you. To fit with you, just like I thought we would when you first looked at me.”

“Baby,” his gravelly voice groaned. His body ate up the remaining distance between us. He crowded me gloriously, his hands coming down on either side of my thighs, his forehead leaning forward to press against mine. “Did you let any of these fuckers mark you?”

I giggled, my chest filling with genuine happiness at him—him being here, being ridiculous or otherwise. “Is that really your only response to my story?”

“Your story has got me wanting to carry you out of here over my shoulder,” he clarified, and I scoffed out a laugh. He leaned his face even closer, his voice going down dangerously low. “But before I can do that, I need to know if anyone has marked my girl.”

“And what if they have?” I laughed.

“Then they’re dead,” he said simply.

“So possessive, Mr. Harper. Didn’t you hear, you’re not my client anymore?”

He dipped his head so that we were nose to nose, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Are you trying to torture me?”

“Yes,” I answered, even though I knew it was rhetorical.

“Why?”

Pulling back, I looked into his warm brown eyes for long moments, trying to find the truth in them. Trying to understand his reasoning before I gave him mine. “You left.”

His eyes stared deep into my own. “I did.”

“That wasn’t part of our deal,” I said .

His face softened, and he hesitated for a quick moment before he said, “You know, I’ve got my own story about that day, actually.”

My eyes snapped up to his. “Really?”

“Mhmm.” He nodded. “But it actually starts half a year after my sister left.

I was scared and alone, so I left too. My first destination was the coast she loved so much, and my only goals were to draw full time and find a way to let my sister know I was out there waiting for her.

That's how my first tattoo shop came to be.”

I felt my mouth dry out. “Where?”

“Portland, Maine,” he said, eyes tracking my expression. “That one was just Mar Tattoo.”

Instantly, I understood. He wanted to create spaces Mar could find him in. Places she would want to come back to. Places he was creating in cities she could love rather than just the company they grew up in.

I swallowed. “And next?”

“Next Cape Cod. And after that, North Carolina, then South, and finally Seaside, Rhode Island.” he said, eyes pinning me to my spot. “Fast forward to that same day, and I’m in my shop thinking it’s about time I find a new place to go.”

A hitched breath escaped me as I hung on his words.

He slid his hand behind my neck to keep me close.

Voice lowering like he was telling me his greatest secret.

“I’m sitting in my shop on a totally normal day, when in walks this living angel, I swear to God.

Everything about her is calling to me. Her beauty, her smile, her eyes.

And cause I’m an idiot—I say something stupid right away, and you know what she does?

She lays me out, right there. Sets me straight in the cutest way and proceeds to keep doing it for the rest of the year.

I was a goner then and there sweetheart. ”

I gave him a look, not totally convinced.

“I made a promise to myself when I left home that I’d keep moving.

Keep opening places that might attract Mar until I physically couldn’t anymore.

And I was doing it. I had a system of every two years.

Just enough time to get another business off the ground and more than enough time to find her if she wanted to be found.

” He paused as he looked at me, willing me to see something in his words.

When I didn’t, he said, “I was already in Seaside for two years when I met you, Alta.”

My eyes went wide as saucers and I looked at him confused, yet not.

“Harper?” I whispered.

“I was planning on going to New York next. Upstate somewhere.” His hand came up to cup my cheeks, his face coming back down to be near mine. “And then an angel walked into my shop, and I’m still here instead.”

“ Harper ,” I breathed, shocked he’d never told me any of this. Floored that I’d affected him even then. Vindicated that I freaking knew it! My laugh was so watery as I bubbled. “All this time?”

“The whole time, baby,” he said. “I’m an idiot, Alta. I say idiot things and apparently do them too. But I have loved you since I laid eyes on you. In different ways. In ways I didn’t understand, in ways that scared me, and now in ways I don’t ever want to let go.”

I have no idea when my hands slid into his shirt, but I was fisting it now. Gripping it in a stranglehold to keep him as close as possible. To never let him go either. “Harper.”

“I’m sorry?—”

“You don’t have to say?—”

“No. Let me say this,” he insisted. “I’m sorry I let my fear get in the way of us. I’m sorry about what I said, the way I treated you. I didn’t lie, I did need time, but you still deserved more from me.”

“The truth is with you and my family, it’s really hard for me to be fearless because I’m so terrified of losing you.

I think after Mar, I’ll always be afraid of losing people I love.

And when things were tested between us, I got scared,” he continued.

“But I don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t want to waste life and love just because I’m afraid I’ll lose it one day. ”

My eyes held his, my body sucking up every emotion he was putting off, taking it all in.

Taking a huge breath, I straightened up and looked at him with my newfound negotiation face on. I’d been quite busy with my family on Harper’s behalf lately. “It looks like we need to make another deal, Augustus Harper.”

His eyebrows climbed his face. “Another one?”

“Yep, we broke our old deal but never set a new one and it jinxed us. We’re not making the same mistake twice,” I said.

He smiled. “Alright then. What’s the deal?”

“That you’re mine, Harper.” The guffaw he let slip brought a mischievous smile to my face. “Yep. All mine. To do what I want with, forever and ever.”

“Oh yeah?” he said, his grin splitting his entire face even as he shook his head.

“Yeah,” I said. “And if you would have just told me how you were feeling before, I would have told you that there was nothing to be afraid of. Because you couldn’t shake me off if you tried. So what do you say? Be mine? Is that a deal?”

“Fuck yeah, that’s a deal.” His arms looped around me and he held me so close I thought we were going to fuse together. Turning his face into the crook of my neck, I thought for sure he was going to kiss me. But instead he let an almost hesitant tone slip over him as he asked, “So, baby?”

“Yes?”

“Do you love me too?”

I laughed. “Is that a rhetorical question?”

“No.” He swallowed looking absolutely tortured as he pulled away and his eyes dropped to my hands between us. Played with my fingers nervously . “I said it, but you haven’t said it back.”

Oh.

I tilted my chin up at him. “ Te amo tanto , amor .”

Memories of me saying the same words were clear in his eyes and I watched as recognition dawned on his face. Punctuating the obvious clarity he was reaching, the man glowered at me and I grinned.

“What does it mean?” he croaked

“ Te amo ?” I asked, my smile ear to ear. “It means I love you.”

Lips—soft and hard, rough and sweet, consuming yet giving, pressed into mine.

Harper’s touch was all familiarity and sure motion yet peppered with something new.

Something that tasted a lot like a fresh start.

That felt like a flower in full bloom. Something as sweet as love enveloping every inch of our kiss.

It had been so long since I felt his lips on mine.

Since I got to melt into the warm safety of his body or wrap my tongue in the softness of his alluring mouth.

I took my time with each, wrapping my arms securely around his torso and pulling him fully over me, covering me, using me for what he needed just the way I liked him.

And I didn’t stop until I had that long satisfied groan playing symphonies in my ears.

Pulling away, he gave me his signature eyes. All seeing, all feeling, all knowing. They’d bothered me before because they saw all parts of me and I thought they still didn’t want me. Now I knew they saw all parts of me and accepted each one.

“All this time?” he asked. “You’ve been saying that you love me all this time?”

I thought back on the way I’d dove into Harper.

Not only with my body, not only with my heart, but with myself too.

The self I hadn’t even known yet walking in his shop.

I thought about how comfortable I’d been with him from the very start.

In being myself around him, no matter how ugly or messy that self could be.

I thought about how I trusted him without a second thought.

And I realized the truth. “The whole time, baby.”

And damn would it last a whole lot longer.

Like melting chocolate he fused into me. Kissing me like I was water in his drought. Leaning into me like I was his steady in a stormy sea. I could have stayed forever, but…

I squirmed against him, wriggling around at the weird sensation against my thigh. Breaking away, I asked, “Harp, what is that?”

“Hmm?” He blinked dazedly as I all but forced him to lean away. “Oh, I think it’s my phone.”

Stepping back, he made enough room to pull it out of his pocket, glancing at it before he was going to put it aside.

He did not put it aside.

In front of me, Harper’s breath stalled out, a raspy suck of air the only thing that followed for a long, long time.

“Harper?” I asked quietly, afraid to impede, but also dying to know.

His eyes snapped up to mine and I can’t even describe the expression. His voice croaked, a ragged whisper. “Holy shit.”

When my gaze continued to question him, he just turned the phone around to show me the lone message on the screen.

Unknown:

Hey, Auggie. Been trying to reach you. Next time I won’t cancel.