Overprotected Read online

  I insisted on buying a six-pack as Harper insisted on paying for her half of the bill. The beer is still cold as we get out of the car and walk down along the grassy area leading to the shore of the lake. I think we were maybe three the first time our parents brought us here. All I know is that some of my earliest memories were at this lake.

  “If you want to get technical, when we were babies and came here, I skinny dipped, by your definition,” Harper says.

  It’s starting to get dark, and there are only a handful of safety lights, enough to walk back from the shore. A couple more illuminate the water, more to make sure people know it’s there than anything else.

  “That doesn’t count either,” I tell her.

  “Why not? You said it’s swimming naked with other people,” Harper insists. She’s got that prissy, hot-librarian look again, and it actually turns me on, just a little bit.

  “You don’t get the thrill when you’re a baby because when you’re a baby you have no idea that being naked is supposed to be, like…” I don’t want to say ‘wrong’ but it’s something along those lines.

  “It’s supposed to be private, you mean,” Harper says. She sits down on the edge of the grass and I join her.

  I open two of the beers and hand one to her.

  “Right. It needs to be something where you’re not sure you can go through with it,” I say.

  “I don’t accept your definition,” Harper tells me.

  I snort and take a sip of my beer. I’m not usually into anything fancy, beer-wise, but whatever the stuff is that Harper chose at the gas station, it’s pretty good, in spite of sounding fussy.

  “That’s probably because you’ve never done it, right?” I look at her and hold her gaze until she blushes.

  “I just haven’t wanted to,” Harper tells me in that pert voice again.

  It drives me short of crazy to hear it, it makes me want to take her hair down, touch her all over, make her loosen up a bit. I’ve never had that reaction to her before in my life, and it kind of scares me, but at the same time I have to admit it thrills me too.

  “Okay. Then here’s what we need to do; get naked and get in the lake,” I say.

  “What?” The word comes out of Harper almost in a shriek.

  “I am challenging you to a bet. I bet that you won’t skinny dip with me tonight, here, right now.”

  “That’s a stupid bet,” Harper protests.

  “It’s a great bet, because either I get to see a naked woman or I get fifty bucks,” I tell her.

  “It’s a stupid bet because… because you don’t bet on that kind of thing. It’s a dare, not a bet,” she insists. In the pale glow of the safety lights I can see her blushing deeper and deeper red.

  “Then I dare you to go skinny dipping with me tonight, or I’ll tell everyone we both still know that you flirted with me,” I say.

  Harper’s quiet for a few seconds and I wonder if I’ve done something wrong.

  “You really want to see me naked, huh?”

  She puts down her barely touched beer, stands up and turns to face me.

  “I just want to see you do something you’re not entirely comfortable doing,” I say.

  “Right,” Harper counters, her voice sarcastic.

  “Well, are you going to do it or not?” I say as I cross my arms over my chest.

  “If I’m going to do it, you have to too,” Harper says. “I’m not going to swim naked and get caught all on my lonesome.”

  “Oh, I’ll come along,” I tell her. It’s a warm night out, and I actually wouldn’t mind going for a swim, even if I didn’t have the added bonus of Harper naked in front of me.

  We both start stripping down and I can’t help but start to get just a bit hard from the sight of Harper’s body, more and more of it showing as she takes everything off, right up close to me. I take off my boxers last, and hopefully before Harper can spot my erection standing at least at half-mast, I rush into the water.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  HARPER POLSEN

  I follow Zane into the water and let out a little shriek that I quickly try to muffle as the cold swirls around me, sapping my body of its heat. I hadn’t even thought I was that warm.

  “See? This is totally different from going swimming in the raw by yourself,” Zane tells me, and I feel myself blushing even as I roll my eyes.

  “It’s not that different at all,” I say, wading out deeper into the water.

  I remember that Zane is actually a really good swimmer. He was a lifeguard at one point when we’d been in high school and I’m sure the army has only improved his skills further.

  I’m grateful for the fact that the light isn’t very strong away from the shore, and I can at least pretend like Zane hasn’t seen that much of me naked and not for that long. I did catch sight of his cock starting to harden right before he ran for the water, and that sight gave me the strangest thrill.

  “Come on, you have to admit that you’re at least a little intrigued,” Zane says, and he’s only a few feet away from me. Even if I can’t see him below about his chest I can only imagine that he’s probably still sporting the half-erection. That the water, cool as it is, couldn’t have possibly done much to shut down the reflex.

  Is it because he saw me naked and liked what he saw? Or is it just being naked at the lake with a girl?

  “It’s interesting,” I admit, almost against my will.

  “Oh God, skinny dipping is interesting?” Zane laughs.

  “Stop making fun of me,” I say, splashing water in his direction.

  “I will, once you stop being such a cute little nerd,” Zane counters.

  My cheeks burn at the sound of the word cute. He thinks I’m cute? There have been hints of it since the first party, but nothing I could ever really make a move on, nothing I could trust to not just be typical Zane Lewis flirting.

  “That’s not going to work on me, Zane,” I tell him.

  “What’s not going to work, Harper?”

  Somehow he’s even closer to me in the water, so close I can almost feel the heat of his body, and I find myself looking down through the darkness obscuring us from each other from the chest down, trying to see if I can see his cock, trying to discover if, as I suspect, he’s still sporting a semi-erection.

  “That whole charm thing,” I reply.

  “If I were charming you, I would tell you that the only reason I wanted to come here was to try to talk you into skinny dipping with me,” Zane says.

  I laugh. “I pretty much guessed that,” I say.

  “See? Cute and smart. Cute nerd,” Zane insists.

  I shake my head, and at the same time I find myself moving closer to Zane in the water.

  We’re floating there, treading water, just inches away from each other like some kind of bizarre game of chicken. I think each of us is waiting for the other one to pull back, or at least do something about the situation. As close as we are, I can see more of Zane’s body in the clear water. A few nights before, when I watched him masturbating, I’d never imagined that I might actually see him up close like this. See his naked body, covered in lean muscle and his tattoos, within a hand’s reach of me.

  For a few seconds we stay like that, staring at each other, neither of us talking. Then Zane closes the last little bit of distance between us. He puts his hands on my waist and pulls me up against him through the water, and his lips brush against mine.

  “If you want me to stop, just say so,” he murmurs against my lips.

  Even before I can say anything, though I don’t really have the brains to speak, he kisses me again, more deeply than the first time.

  I put my arms around his shoulders without even thinking, opening my mouth when I feel Zane’s tongue sweep along my lips. I press my body against his and all at once the only thing I can think of is how good he feels, how hot, how much smoother his skin is than I would have imagined.

  His hands go all over me and I moan against his mouth, sliding my fingertips
along his shoulders, down his back. We move a little closer to shore, and Zane plunges his tongue into my mouth, probing and tasting me, while I counter with my own tongue, battling him, both of us trying to dominate, just like in the video game earlier that day.

  I shiver as the cold, and the feeling of Zane’s hands all over me overwhelms every nerve in my body. I break away from his lips for a moment. Zane ducks down to kiss and nibble along my throat, down almost to my chest, and I let my hands wander all over him, barely missing his erection. I can feel it pressing against my hip, and I have to admit that there’s a very, very big part of me that wants to feel that thickness, that heat, deep inside me.

  We’re barely in the water anymore, tangled up in each other in the shallows, tumbling around and kissing each other over and over again.

  All at once I’m pulling away, panting a little bit from how turned on I am. I can feel how wet my pussy is, far beyond anything the water could have done, slick and hot and tight.

  “We… should stop,” I say, even though it’s the last thing in the world I really want. What I want is for Zane to pull me out of the water and pin me down on the grass and take me.

  “You’re right,” Zane says, breathing heavily. It’s like agony, hearing him say it.

  “It would just be too weird, going any farther than that,” I say, because I know I have to say it, because it’s the right thing to say. Every nerve in my body is screaming at me to take it back.

  “Way too weird,” Zane agrees, and I have to resist the urge to tell him to stop agreeing with me, to argue with me like he always seems to. Why isn’t he arguing with me now? I can feel how hard his cock is. I know he wants me as much as I want him.

  But instead I pull myself off him and take a second to steady myself in the shallows before climbing up onto the shore to the grass.

  “We should head back home. Our parents are probably starting to worry a bit,” I say.

  I don’t even bother to dry off, but just pull my clothes onto my wet body.

  Zane follows suit.

  The cold water sobered me up, and the one beer I did finish was hours ago, so I drive us back to my parents’ house.

  Neither of us talks the whole way back home.

  I’m sure that tomorrow night at the party, it’s just going to be so incredibly awkward.

  ***

  Mom is still up when I get into the house, but she’s in her pajamas, watching something on TV. She gives me a look when I come into the room, and I’m suddenly aware that my hair’s still damp, my clothes are sticking to me, and my make-up’s probably a mess.

  “What’s happened?” she asks.

  I shrug. “Nothing,” I say, probably too quickly.

  “Either of you find dates for tomorrow’s party?”

  I shake my head. “Nah, no luck there,” I say.

  “Nothing is going on with you and him?”

  “Mom, please,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Nothing is different between us.”

  Before she can try to get any more questions in, I tell her I need to check my email, and that I need to get some sleep if I’m going to help Bev set up and then enjoy the party the next night.

  I rush off to my room and close the door behind me and every inch of my body still tingles from what Zane and I did.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ZANE LEWIS

  The house has never been more crowded in my entire life, at least, not that I can remember. At the same time, as I wander around my parents’ big anniversary blowout party, I feel lonely. Everyone who comes into the house or wanders out into the yard and sees me seems to want to know how the military is treating me, and whether I plan on staying in or taking my retirement.

  My only comfort is overhearing the other people my age at the party, including Harper, getting the same kinds of questions I’m fielding. What their next career move is going to be, when they’re going to settle down and get married. All the usual things that older adults ask younger adults, over and over again.

  In and outside a house filled with practically everyone I know outside of the army, I feel like I can’t escape.

  I spot Harper edging away from a group of older people, looking around for an exit of her own. When her gaze lands on me, I grin and shrug. She rolls her eyes and shakes her head. I’ve been watching her all night. In fact I’ve been watching her every time she’s anywhere near, ever since the night before.

  I could not get the memory of her out of my head.

  I look around, there’s only one place I know of in the whole house where none of the guests will be. My room upstairs has a bunch of even-younger kids in it, drinking sodas, eating snacks and arguing over my PlayStation. The only empty place in the whole house will be my parents’ room on the ground floor. I lick my lips. No one is going to notice if we’re gone for, like, twenty minutes or so.

  I have to get Harper alone.

  I move a little closer to her, and start to almost walk past her in the crowd of people wandering around the house, catching her eye with a quick gesture I learned in the army that comes in handy. Hopefully no one else notices it.

  “My parents’ room,” I murmur, as I walk past her.

  “Two minutes,” she says just as quickly, her voice low in my ear.

  I nod quickly and hurry in the direction of my parents’ bedroom, trying to look like I’m doing some kind of urgent chore.

  I feel like there’s a hot wire running through my spine from my skull to my hips as I wait for Harper to follow me. Just remembering her from the night before in the water completely naked is enough to start getting me hard. It’s all I’ve been able to think about ever since it happened.

  Harper slips into the room, closing the door quickly behind her, and I’ve got my arms around her waist before I can even think about what I’m doing. My mouth is against hers. Instantly Harper’s lips open to the touch of my tongue and she responds to my every touch. I push her up against the wall to get as much contact with her body as I possibly can.

  “I — I take it you’re having a frustrating night, too,” Harper says when I break away from her lips finally, dipping down to her neck.

  “God, if I hear one more question about what I’m going to do, I’m going to show them some shit I learned in basic,” I tell her, and close my mouth over hers again.

  “Didn’t we say we couldn’t do—” Harper breaks off with a moan, and her hands are all over me, sliding against my chest, grazing against the rock-hard ridge at the front of my pants. I groan out and my hips push against her hand.

  “Not here,” I say, pulling back a little bit. Attached to my parents’ bedroom is their bathroom, and while the idea of bending Harper over my mom and dad’s bed is pretty horrifying, I think we can both get some stress relief that I know we need in the bathroom without it being too gross.

  I drag her into the big bathroom and close the door behind us. I’m all over her again almost before I can think about whether or not I should be. Harper moans and the sound makes the hot tension between my hips, down along my groin, burn more intensely.

  “Do you want to do this?” I nip at the spot where her pulse flutters along her jaw, and Harper’s head moves up and down.

  “Yeah, it’s probably the worst possible thing to do right now but yeah,” she says, sounding breathless.

  God, I love the sound of her voice, the sound of her moans, the way it’s so obvious that she’s giving into the situation almost in spite of herself.

  We can’t get fully naked. If someone somehow comes into the master bedroom, we need to be able to straighten up fast. I reach underneath Harper’s dress and tug her panties down, and she lets them fall to her feet before stepping out of them.

  At the same time, she’s unzipping my fly, reaching into my pants. She takes my cock out of my pants. Her hands are cool, but it might be that my cock is so hot for her. She wraps her delicate hand around it, and a shiver rushes up my spine.

  I pull down the front of her dress and find she isn’
t wearing a bra, a fact that somehow makes me even harder. It feels like there’s molten rock in the pit of my stomach, like my cock is full of liquid metal. I could come in an instant, but I don’t want to. I reach up between Harper’s legs and she’s every bit as wet, every bit as hot, as I have imagined since I saw her in her bedroom.

  I slide my fingers along her folds and press into her slowly, finding her clit. Harper lets out a little cry, her hands tightening on me. We touch each other for what feels like an eternity, and she gets wetter and wetter, slickening my fingers. I’m struggling not to come in her hand as she strokes me.

  “Here,” I say, pulling down my pants just enough to do what I need to. I sit on the wide ledge of my parents’ bathtub. Always prepared, I roll on a condom and pull Harper to me, and she gets what I have in mind immediately.

  She smiles and parts her legs and sinks down onto me. She’s so tight, so hot and wet, wrapped around my throbbing, aching cock that I have to hold her absolutely still on top of me for about fifty beats of my heart to make sure I don’t hit my climax right away.

  Harper begins to slowly rise and fall on me, her muscles flexing around my erection. I bury my face against her tits, nuzzling and licking and sucking without even really paying attention to what I’m doing. I rock my hips up to meet hers, pushing deeper and deeper inside of her as she rides me.

  “God, I wish I could get you naked and bend you over my bed and just fuck you until you scream my name,” I tell Harper, grabbing at her hips, trying to push her down onto me harder and faster.

  “It’s not… it’s not bad enough, screwing in your parents’ bathroom?” Harper sounds amused, and breathless, all at the same time. She kisses me again and again, and we might as well be a million miles away from the party.

  I can’t hold out for long. All at once I’m holding her tight against me, pushing up with my hips hard and fast, slamming into her as instinct takes over. Harper buries her face against my shoulder to muffle the noises she’s making. If anyone came in right now they would absolutely and immediately know what we were doing.