Page 2 of Wicked Wishes
When she stepped from the car with legs for days, a lush ass, and hips I could hold onto while feeding her my seed, I was blown away. Her dark hair was piled atop her head, and I wanted to rip it down and see it spill over her shoulders. A moving crew with four guys came to help her unload her things. Watching them touch her things and laugh with her drove me nuts. I have never felt closer to committing murder in my life.
Not that I did a damn thing about it. Not after emerald eyes swung my way and made my systems go haywire. Without an invite she came right over and sat down atop my toolbox, her full, pink mouth curved in a devastating smile. Up close she was even more beautiful. I think I grunted a hello, but I can’t be sure. Not that she cared if I grunted or not, she did all the talking.
Telling me she was new in town—but notreally, she said, since she grew up over the county line—and she was excited. Thrilled to have her own place after sharing most her life, happy to be back to small town living, and looking forward to her new neighbors. Hanna chatted me up me as if we were going to be best friends but the way she looked at me made me think she didn’t know how friends should behave towards one another.
“I like you, Harley Lane,”she had declared with a glint in her eyes and a smile on her pretty mouth.
I liked her too, but I could not tell her that. I was polite and patient of course, she didn’t deserve less. After she marched her perky ass back to her place, I no sooner got on the other side of my door before I had my dick in my hand. It was so wrong, and I knew that, but I still jerked myself until I came. Thinking about painting her soft stomach or her sweet pussy with my seed. Or those pert tits—or hell that pretty mouth that talked so soft and sweet to me.
Gazing at her house now, I am so pissed I am shaking. Pissed that I want her, that I am so attracted to her I can barely stand it some days. Furious that another man talked about her that way tonight. Hell, angry that another man evenlookedat her. She is not mine but sometimes, when I look at her, I feel like she ought to be.
“Harley,” her voice calls from behind me, and I close my eyes.Of course, she saw the scene I made.
“Hey, sweets,” I call back, waiting for her to go on because I know she has something to say.
“Are you....madI was there tonight?” she asks the most impossible question.
Turning, I see her face is drawn, eyes sad, and I hate that I did that. That my stupid outburst—which I had no right to even have—upset her. Iammad, but for all the wrong reasons. For reasons we can’t talk about. Reasons I cannot tell her. “No, Hanna, of course not. One of the guys said some bullshit and it pissed me off. Why...why were you there tonight?”
Her heels click on the pavement as she takes a step towards me. I take two huge steps back. Her getting close to me is a bad idea. Not just tonight but ever. I barely control how I feel about her now when I lock myself away from her. And tonight, I lost it because she was out for a drink. Without me.
“To see my cousin,” she grins and rolls her eyes, “his band is so bad no one ever comes to listen. And... I thought you might be there,” she adds because she always says something to complicate things. Forcing me to be an asshole and say shit I don’t really mean.
“Didn’t know you were old enough to drink,” I say it hard, cold, and her eyes lose their sparkle.
“Yes, you did, Harley. Goodnight,” her voice breaks, and she turns and stomps up her walk.
I start to call after her, but I stop myself—better she hates me than look at me like she wants me.
Chapter Two
Hanna
Being subtle is not my strongest trait.
Watching Harley as he works on his bike, his thick arms flexing as he turns a wrench, my heart flutters, and my thighs ache. That is the most beautiful man I have ever seen, and I want him. Want him like I have never wanted anything else before. Not that I have wanted a man before—and he is absolutely a man.
Taller than a man has a right to be, wide and thick, he is a mountain of a man. Tattoos mark his hands, his muscled arms, and I think his chest—but he is always buttoned up to his neck. I dream of seeing his tattoos in the dim light of his bedroom. Of touching them as he tells me what they mean. I wince as I think this because I know what some of them mean. They are for his wife.
The day I met him, I made up my mind about him. About wanting him—matter of fact it was just minutes after he first looked at me that I decided. But when I saw the wedding band on his hand, I knew I couldn’t have him. It broke my heart when I realized he was off limits. I am a lot of things, but a home wrecker is not one of them.
My family considers me a bit of a wild child. I guess I was once upon a lifetime. I changed majors five times, pledged a party sorority, and blew most of my inheritance on drinking, drugs, and disgracing the good Potter name. But I stopped being that girl when I started to hate her.
And not a moment too soon because I think Harley would have hated her too.
Since coming back a few months ago, keeping distance between us seemed like the right thing to do. Even if I hate every inch of that distance. And so does he based on how he looks at me. There has been a forceful pull between us, a constant back and forth, from the start. Fighting that has been killing me, but I knew it was for the best.
Up until a few weeks ago. I found out he lost his wife five years ago. Fucking cancer. Took his high school sweetheart before they got the good life together. Heartbreaking. I thought at least we could be friends; I could be someone good in his life—lord knows I need someone good in mine.
“He, uh…he is a good man, but he won’t people in. That man is in constant mourning,”Kady Dole, the sweet sassy neighbor across the street from us explained one afternoon.
Losing someone is something I am all too familiar with. The Potter legacy is not just excess and excuses—it is loss. Those who married into the Potter name, like my mother, lived tragic lives wrought with lies, heartbreak, and hate. My own life is tinted with tragedy, so I felt a kinship with Harley.
“Don’t waste time on me, sweets,”he urged the first time I baked him sweets as an excuse to visit.
But time with him never feels wasted. Watching him tinker on his bike or work out in his garden feels like enjoying life in a way I never knew you could. I partied my youth away. I never took time to look around and take notice of much. To enjoy where I went or who I met. I lived life on autopilot, sure I was living my best life when really, and I was lonely and bored.
Now that I am home and my life has slowed down, I realize how much I missed out on. I went to my cousin Beckett’s wedding last year and when I stood back to watch him and his friends be so happy, so in love, and building their families andreallyliving their best lives, I started to long for that.
