A/N: Slight mature content.

After I hung up on my call with Ellie, I laid back in my bed, closed my eyes momentarily, and thought of the last time I'd seen Harper. We'd brushed past each other when she came over to visit Ellie during spring break. But the mind- and dick-blowing experiment that had been entirely accidental during Christmas break our junior year is what stood out in my mind as our last time 'together.'

Ellie and I were both home for Christmas vacation, halfway through our third year of college, and Harper had been in a particularly bad mood. Since this was the first Christmas after my and Ellie's Dad had passed away, we were in no mood to celebrate either.

Harper's hatred of Christmas stemmed back to her mom's abandonment. Every year, Harper's mom sent her birthday and Christmas cards, and she always burned the envelopes sealed shut. I'd always thought she was pretty badass for her efforts but her Dad didn't approve of her weird feministic-like ritual and twice a year she burned them in our garage.

After my dad passed away, I'd made an effort whenever I was home that I fixed up the jalopy of a car he'd bought my senior year of high school as a 'project car' to keep me focused off stupid shit like drinking and girls. The distraction worked to the extent that I abstained from drinking, but not girls.

More like just one girl.

I also never finished that fucking piece of scrap metal Dad thought made a good project car. That winter, I had about two months more of work reconnecting the electrical switches, refurbishing the interior, and taking it somewhere to get painted.

My back flat on a gurney, I laid underneath the car's hood when two sets of feet walked out of the garage and stood at the work bench near the garage door entrance.

The voice I hadn't heard since I'd been home but recognized in my sleep blurted out loudly, "Time to burn this shit up."

"This is really stupid Harper." Ellie's voice was full of sarcasm. "You should adult up and stop burning this stuff. It's just a Christmas card, what if your mom sent money?"

"Then she'll know when it never gets cashed," was Harper's contrite, emotionless response.

"Harper, seriously." Ellie sighed quietly. "You need to reconcile with your mom."

"Fuck no, but I have an addition this year," Harper deadpanned. Neither of them apparently saw me but I had a perfect view of her skinny jeans, black puffy winter coat, and her hair pulled back in a ponytail. One hand held an envelope and the other a piece of paper that she handed over to Ellie.

"Harper.. what the - oh my gawd!" Ellie choked out her words. "This is about... Jake? Are you... serious? You and my brother Jake doing this... stuff?"

I nearly fell off the gurney.

"There is no me and Jake," was the indignant reply. "Just lingering dirty thoughts that I never acted on. Sorry, I've... been in a dry spell. Seeing him again got my lady bits all worked out, apparently I'm that desperate for any form of testosterone."

Then, in what I recognized as an over-rehearsed tone of voice, Harper emphasized, "Trust me, there's no feelings there."

At that moment, I hadn't had enough time to sort out everything she'd revealed in those words. All I'd focused on was how she lied, based on her strained tone of voice. She'd lied at my request that Ellie never found out about us, so I knew that tone in my sleep. That, plus other than whatever pull between us that mentally I ripped her clothes off whenever I saw her, was the only thing we agreed on.

"That's putting it mildly, shit Harper." Ellie's eyes narrowed as she looked over the paper. "This is quite the naughty list. And the fact these, umm... items have anything to do with my brother, that's just -"

Straight out of my dreams... the dirty ones at least.

"Wrong, I know. I'm beyond freaked out by my own brain, trust me." Harper's voice softened and I believed her until one of her feet tapped the garage floor, another one of Harper's signs that she lied. "Only thoughts Ellie, I assure you I have no interest in doing them. So all the better to burn them... Please."

"Harper, don't you -" Ellie started but Harper interrupted again.

"The sooner I can get that asshole out of my head, the better. Especially since we're going on that ski trip, I can't be in the same small space without burning these thoughts out of my brain. I don't want to do something we'll all regret."

If I hadn't eavesdropped with swelling interest between my legs, then I would've given her credit for how well she'd deflected the conversation topic. I was floored, metaphorically and literally. As my cock pulsed with delight at the possibilities, my mind dropped straight into the gutter. Mentally, I pushed out from under the car, snatched the list out of Harper's hands, and committed everything to memory.

Or even better, started checking some of them off.

Instead, Harper grabbed an empty coffee can from the workbench and tossed her Mom's envelope in there.

Terrible idea! I need that list.

I wanted her to shout out the list like a tantric chant that I committed to my memory then acted on. My mind went past her burning rituals and wondered how I'd be able to piece together something that had been burned.

Fortunately for me, Ellie grabbed her wrist when she added in the slip of paper. "You have to read them off, put them out in the universe, then burn them," she insisted.

Excellent idea, wonder twin.

"Fuck, fine," Harper grumbled, fished out the paper, and handed the slip to Ellie. I swore my heart stopped in my chest at that moment.

"First... Harper, I can't say these words. Not yet at least. I'm going to step inside for a bathroom break, so for the sake of my ears read them while I'm gone and I'll come back with more matches, okay?"

"Weakling," was the giggled response.

My breath paused in my lungs as Harper stood over the metal can and mumbled to herself. The lists' details that she read off dried out my mouth, then flooded all kinds of lewd thoughts and desires through me. If I was a cartoon character, then my tongue would've rolled onto the floor and my eyes bugged out of their sockets. Thankfully I laid down, otherwise I probably would've fallen over in shock... or lack of oxygen and proper blood flow throughout my body.

My mind reeled even after she read off her list items. While I laid down a pile of riled up hormones, Harper ripped up the paper into multiple pieces, tossed the shreds into the can and stared silently downward.

"Harper." I coughed and slid out from under the car. She whirled around and gave me a look that could best be described as if I'd caught her while she masturbated - ashamed, cheeks flushed, and extremely turned on. "What -"

"Motherfucker!!" she screeched at me as her hand grabbed the nearest thing she found, and hurled a wrench at me. "You perverted eavesdropper!"

"Harper, I -" I ducked her fortunately terrible throw, but winced as she grabbed a hammer and chucked it towards my knees. Fortunately, I dodged before it banged against the metal shovel pile leaned up against the garage wall behind me. "Stop!"

Harper's eyes blazed a bright mix of light blue and green, her nostrils flared, and she seethed at me. Thankfully, I was saved when the house door opened.

"Harper?" Ellie stood in the doorway, wide eyed and open mouthed. "Why the hell are you throwing tools at Jake?"

Harper pointed an accusing finger at me. "Peeping Dick was here the whole time."

"Jake?" Ellie's wide eyes looked at me.

I pointed to the gurney and patted my palm on the car. "I was working on the electrical connections for the motor. You two -"

"Don't you dare blame this on us, douchewaffle!" Another tool, a screwdriver I think, was hurled at my head. I ducked right as the sharp metal whipped past my shoulder and left a mark on the car's hood that I'd just buffed a few days earlier.

"Okay, I'm going to let you work this out between you two." Ellie sighed and retreated into the house. Before she slammed the door behind her, she laughed and added, "Jake, nice knowing you. I'll make sure to mention 'He went out a douchewaffle' at your funeral."

"Harper..." I took three long, quick steps towards her and grabbed her hand before she found any more projectiles. After she swung her other hand forward to hit me, I grabbed that wrist, turned her around so her back was against the car, and pinned her in place with my hips against her pelvis.

My groin area pulsed from the friction between us, both the initial contact and the car's favor when it rocked backwards, then forwards again. All of my thoughts turned to mush at the sight of Harper pinned underneath me and the corners of my mouth curled up on their own.

"Calm down." Her enraged breathing washed over the skin on my neck and chest as I whispered in her ear. My eyes traveled on their own as her chest heaved up and down and a beautiful, slightly damp line of cleavage peeked out from where her shirt had shifted under her coat.

"Thinking like that gets me wound up too." I leaned forwards, grinded my semi-hard against her crotch, and brushed my lips against the shell of her ear. "But we both know your hands can do much better things than hitting me, Harper."

Her beautiful, full lips mesmerized me as they pulled into an angry scowl. If she was anyone else, then I would've kissed her right then. However, I was fully aware how if I hadn't held her arms, then she would've clawed at me like a rabid animal. After a few slow breaths calmed her down, she brushed the entire thing off as a joke. We both pretended we laughed over the possibilities but I'd never been more serious.

After a lot of teasing, mile-high club tryst on the plane ride up to Canada, and returned teasing blow job on the bus ride to the ski resort, I made damned sure we'd crossed off nearly all her list items for her under the false guise that we'd just fuck those desires out of her. One by one, we checked off her list items.

Have Jake cook me a meal buttnaked so I can hand jerk him off at the stove. - This ended up less sexy than Harper's words initially sounded, since I had to get her alone in the cabin, a meal's worth of food, and avoided scalding my balls off with hot grease during the cooking process while Harper's hands distracted me. By the end, our steak dinner was nearly burned and the potatoes half-raw but neither of us had any appetite for anything except each other.

Back in my USC bedroom, I groaned quietly over at the memory of Harper's second list item.

Sit on Jake's face while I eat said meal. - We'd left quite a mess in my bed but I obliged, propped her up over my shoulders and ate her out instead of dinner. Every inch of her wet folds tasted warm, sweet, and much better than the leathery steak I'd prepared anyways.

Just the memory of her voice and look in her eyes, both equally full of frustration and demand, swelled my cock up to full mast. I rubbed both hands over my forehead then dragged them down my face as her words resurfaced from the back of my mind.

"Fuck me. Hard. Break the damn bed, Jake."

Those eight words desperately rushed me into action, pushed me faster and harder until our skin slapped on contact and the headboard smacked into the wall. Her hips rolled off the bed with each thrust and I fucking lived for how deep she took in my cock, how my balls swung forwards and smacked the bottom of her soaked folds, my brain numbed from lack of blood supply, muscles screamed in fatigue, and lungs burned.

That was just the list item where I ate her out.

Let Jake fuck me senseless in all holes until I can barely stand. - This task was the hardest since I had to get Ellie and Logan out of the cabin for a few hours, which I only succeeded in after I'd sent them to some couples spa retreat. But Harper and I fucked everywhere we could, wildly, harshly, like two inmates who'd just been released after years in prison isolation. By the time we got to the last couple of rounds, I was pretty sure I shot blanks but the experience was totally worth the effort, until Ellie and Logan returned.

Both of us were left sated, sweaty, and completely exhausted while most of the cabin completely trashed like bears had broken in and torn everything up. That was our excuse, or at least the one Harper blurted out when Ellie and Logan came back an hour earlier than planned.

"Bears?" Ellie's eyes stared widely at us like we were insane. We pretty much were insane; the cabin looked trashed and we broke a few lamps and knocked over a table but there definitely weren't claw marks anywhere other than the job Harper's nails had done on my back.

"Yeah... Harper left the door unlocked while we went for a... ski hike. Half-naked, like a... dare..." One of my hands rubbed the back of my neck because I no fucking clue what a ski hike was. A look of concern flashed over Ellie's face, while Logan obviously hid a smirk with his mouth firmly closed behind one fist.

"Ellie." He coughed, then placed his hand on Ellie's shoulder. "It was definitely some kind of animal, so let's go check our room and see if anything was torn into up there."

Harper and I both stood completely still as they headed upstairs, but any relief was short-lived. Logan's feet thundered down to the landing, his hands clutched the railing tightly, and he said quietly, "Not sure what kind of animals leave used condoms all over but I'll buy you a few minutes to at least get those picked up."

After a collective exhale, Harper and I silently cleaned up the room. As we removed all the evidence of our encounters, we both stopped at one point. Her lips flinched and my shoulder bounced with held back laughter, which turned into soft giggles and chuckles, then grew into loud, contagious laughter the more we cleaned up.

"Ahhh..." She gasped and wiped tears out of her eyes. "That was close. Ski hike?"

"Bears? Come here, trouble." I wrapped my arms around her, tugged her against the heartbeat that quickened in my chest, and pressed a kiss against her forehead. "You okay?"

Harper's spine stiffened but, in a rare moment for her, relaxed her head into my shoulder and sighed quietly. "Yeah... Desperately need a shower too."

I pulled back, cupped her cheek in my palm, and grinned down at her. "Want me to join you?"

While I half-joked because aftercare wasn't in my vocabulary, I assumed just the view of her naked, wet, slippery body was worth the effort.

Harper stiffened and an icy chill slowly spread over her eyes. She stepped back, exhaled sharply, and shook her head. "No... I'm good, thanks."

"Harper -" I started as an unfamiliar coil of tension twisted in my chest at the sight of purple bruises on her neck and chest while she turned her V-neck shirt around. "Was it too rough?"

"I'm fine," she spat out coldly.

Before I answered, she stepped flush against me and lifted her lips up to mine. Since I realized exactly what this was, her last list item, I turned my face and her lips brushed softly against my cheek. The hurt that filled her eyes coiled my chest pain tighter but she dashed up the stairs before my brain caught up with her actions and thought the words she deserved to hear.

Wasn't a rejection Harper. Far from it.

In between the rounds of sex, the real Harper had opened up and my stupid, weakened emotional state misinterpreted how she relaxed, laughed, and smiled. She even cuddled a few times against me and talked about the internship her dad lined up for her next semester. In a difficult conversation, she asked me how I dealt with Dad's loss and wiped away tears with her fingertips before I realized I'd cried.

My eyes tracked her movements as she quickly dashed up the stairs, the sight of which hit me like a punch in the gut.

Harper delivered the face knockout punch the next day, when she called being with me the biggest mistake of her life. Mentally, her words hurt me more than my ego admitted. Physically though, since I was right at the end of football season and bore down for the Trojans' bowl game after we returned from the break, that extended weekend turned into one of the best of my life.

In my mind, I hadn't kissed her goodbye. She tried again once we'd gotten back home, but I turned my face at the last second and her lips grazed my cheek right before a lash of insults followed. At that point, I'd hardened back to my senses and dismissed whatever bullshit insult she spewed at me.

I left that vacation absolutely physically exhausted and mentally blown apart that she'd completely fucked me over inside again. I knew that, even if just an afterthought or wet dream in the back of my mind, that a sliver of a chance at another experience with Harper made me the luckiest sob in the entire state of California.

Like always, has to be on her terms though.

Despite how more than nine months had passed since we were intimate in any shape or form, and two years prior to that, I'd memorized every line, every curve, every sensitive spot of pleasure on her body and engrained them into memory. Harper liked her hips and the back of her neck grabbed but not her ass, her earlobes bitten without being tugged, neck sucked right behind her ears, and the lines of her clavicle and divot in between them traced with my tongue.

The most impressive part by far was how many different ways Harper got herself off but I knew her past the sex. She had one light blonde freckle on the underside of her left breast and another three that dotted her lowest left rib in a triangular shape. They matched the ones she hated across her cheeks but I'd always found them cute. She had a jagged C-shaped scar around her right ankle from a car accident her mom had gotten in two months before she skipped out of town on Harper and her dad and another on her right pinky when a kid in her first grade class slammed the classroom door on her finger, ripped off her fingernail, and the stitch dissolved into a white X that still sat under her skin today.

The detailed memories of both Harper's body and what it did to mine haunted my thoughts and dreams for months after I came back here to LA. Despite girl after girl that I had after her, Harper had possessed me. I couldn't fuck another pussy for ten weeks without a comparison to Harper popping into my mind.

Despite some level of enjoyment and satisfaction, like always, every girl measured short.

While I'd obsessed over Harper like I was a lovestruck teenager again, apparently what we'd done had been sufficient enough for her since I never heard from or saw her more than a quick passing since. But just the flashes of our week together, the feel of her soft, sweaty skin against mine, her hands clawed all over me, her fucking talented mouth on me where no other girl ever attempted, her unabashedly loud moans of pleasure, and willingness for different positions still sent a painful reminder in my groin as whatever blood still circulated in my body rushed south into my beyond painful, throbbing erection.

Years, months, weeks, even days later and she still gives me raging hard-ons.

At my elevated body temperature, I peeled off my shirt, slid off my boxers, and laid on top of the stupid, pure-white comforter Brittany had picked out for my room. She'd used the excuse that she needed to sleep under 'adequate' conditions here but as of the weekend before the fall semester started, I'd slept alone in them.

What college guy wants white bedding? This thing will be trashed within two weeks.

As I ran my hand over my hard, skin-stretched length, I thought of the best way to contact the girl whose imprinted memory still haunted me nine months later.

When in doubt, with Harper, dirty and direct is best.

I snapped a selfie of my obvious discomfort, grinned at the ideas of how I rectified my problem with her, and reached out. Ironically, I'd saved her in my contacts under her initials - Harper Elizabeth Reynolds.

me: This is your fault. 🍆

After a few minutes' pause, I had the response I'd hoped for.

HER: Fuck you, Jake.

"There you are." I grinned stupidly when she responded within a few minutes of my text. My grin stretched wider when I saw her message.

me: That's the idea.

HER: Enlighten me, please.

"Let's see if you remember, Harper," I muttered quietly to my screen. We'd had a silly game when we were younger and I sent her poems that had started as silly and innocent, then quickly went downhill and dirtier as we'd gotten older. I pulled one of them out of my memory and typed it up for her.

me: Roses are red, my balls are blue
         I can't wait to come over and fuck you

Based on her response, she definitely remembered, but wasn't impressed.

HER: Hilarious. So original, coming from you.

"Walked right into that one. Losing your touch, gorgeous," I murmured as my lips curled up into a smirk. The ache between my thighs reminded me that the insults Harper flung at me turned me on more than normal flirting with any girl who too easily collapsed into giggles. She laced an extra challenge into everything that she said, which never ceased to set off my competitive side.

me: That won't be the only thing coming.

HER: Enjoy your hand, Jake. 🤏

"Too late." I gripped myself tightly and squeezed my fist down my shaft as another groan of frustration escaped my mouth at her 'small distance' emoji choice. Just as a bead of precum slipped out the slit, my resolve hardened into sheer stupidity mode again.

Fuck, her insults turn me on.

me: I know you'll be down here. In more ways than one.

I groaned softly and stroked my hand up and down the hardness jutted up between my legs with one hand, while my phone vibrated in the other.

HER: Sorry, my standards have improved. I don't fuck annoying little boys anymore.

"Now you're just asking for it, firecracker." For some reason, I'd always found her vulgar and direct language a major turn-on. Most girls played games or spoke suggestively, Harper's words drove anyone over like a mack truck.

me: We both know I'm not that little.

"And here's your proof." I extended the hand gripped around my phone, released my cock with the other hand, tucked it behind my head, then snapped a selfie. With Harper's odd obsession about privacy, particularly phone privacy, she was also the only girl I'd ever sent one of those photos to.

me: [ image attached ]

She didn't respond, but she didn't need to. Even if she wasn't aware yet, I had her for two simple reasons: the read receipt from my message and she hadn't blocked my number yet.

Just need to see her in person to seal the deal.

UCLA was just a stone's throw from USC but I'd throw an entire damn boulder to find her. My entire body was tense and frustrated like a backed up plumbing pipe about to burst. What I didn't need was much mental stimulation as, for the first time in my relationship with Brittany, I stroked myself not thinking about my girlfriend, but Harper Reynolds.

She wasn't my girl, she wasn't the one that got away, and definitely not the one I married someday. She was just... Harper.

And I promised myself I wouldn't stop until I had her again.