Page 81 of Puppy Love

Harrison’s chuckle was impossible to subdue that time. “Sounds a lot more exciting than this place.”

She returned her attention to the small bookcase that contained most of his reading materials. “What is it, exactly?”

Even though she couldn’t see him, he shrugged. There was something comforting in making that gesture, as if he was robbing this place of its significance. “At first? A place to crash. I started working here when I was really young, just fourteen, so having a bed thatwasn’tunder my dad’s roof was everything to me. I’d sleep here whenever we had a fight. Which, to be honest, was pretty much every day.”

As usual, Sophie cut straight to the heart of the matter. “Do you still use it?”

He shrugged again, but it was less comforting this time. “Yeah. It’s stupid, but I like it. There aren’t…” He paused. As usual, finding the right words to express himself was a challenge. This is where he’d usually give up and close off, finding it easier to retreat than to keep struggling. It stillwouldbe easier, but he wanted to try. Sophie deserved nothing less. “I don’t have many places that are just mine.”

She nodded her understanding. Now that she’d lived inside his house, sheknew. For decades, it had been a cold place, a dead place, a place no rational person would choose to be.

Until you walked through the door.

“Oscar gave me this place as a kind of present,” Harrison said, his voice thick. “He knew I needed to get away and clear my head sometimes, so he gave me a key to the building and made sure everyone knows this place is off-limits.”

She whirled, her lips parted in surprise. “You mean to tell me that no one else has been up here in sixteen years?”

He nodded.

“Yet you brought me?”

He nodded again.

“But…” Her eyes remained wide, a question burning inside them. It would have been easy to wave that question away—to pull her into his arms and distract her with how comfortable and warm that mattress could be—but she needed to hear this. She needed to know.

“You’ve been trying to push past my walls since the day you met me,” he said and extended his arms wide. “Well, this is what I’ve been hiding. It’s a little stark and a lot underwhelming, but it’s all I’ve got.”

Sophie didn’t say a word. Disappointment began to take shape in the back of his throat, but she took a step forward and placed a hand on his cheek. “Thank you,” she said.

And that was all.

It was exactly what he needed to hear. Not pity and not enthusiasm—not even an awkward change of subject. Just gratitude.

His own gratitude took the form of a kiss. Given the imposed chastity of the past week, it would have been so easy for that kiss to become frantic and desperate, for his need to have this woman in his arms pushing aside all other considerations.

But he didn’t feel frantic. He didn’t feel desperate. He just felt whole.

She responded to the kiss by melting into him. Her body was pliable and warm, her mouth a soft place for him to land. He didn’t know what to do with such a gift—with the offering she gave him every time she opened up and let him in—butshedid.

“And here I thought you were just bringing me up here to ravish me,” she said, smiling up at him. The upturn of her lips filled his heart, the happiness in her eyes impossible to ignore.

Laughter.That was the one thing this place needed, what it had been missing all those years.

It was what had been missing from his heart too.

“I guess that’s what I get for jumping to conclusions,” she added. “Your way is a lot better.”

He answered her laugh with one of his own. Almost immediately, the attic began to feel airier, lighter.More like home.“Ravishing you can still be on the menu, if you want,” he said. “In fact, there’s nothing I’d like to do more.”

“Yes, please.”

It was all the invitation he needed. The moment was right to put the mattress to good use, but Bubbles had taken up a patient perch right in the middle. Harrison didn’t have the heart to move her, nor did it seem all that important—not when Sophie was standing right in front of him.

He sank to his knees and grabbed her by the hips. Sophie’s surprised gasp lasted only a second before it transformed into an enthusiastic murmur of appreciation.

“I’m going to need you to remove these jeans,” he said, his voice rough with desire. “Ravishing requires nothing less.”

She eyed him with a kind of laughing disbelief, but she obeyed him all the same. “I thought it was the shirt you took exception to,” she said as she unbuttoned her jeans and began sliding them down over her hips. Her underwear had taken a drastic turn for the scandalous since their camping trip, today’s offering some kind of red lace contraption it looked like he could tear with his teeth.