Chapter 15
15
“Oh, wow. Look at these.” Harper bent down to admire the little wooden carvings scattered along the winding trail. Somebody had crafted a fairy house out of tree bark and moss, with a roof made of pinecones and tiny painted toadstools flanking either side of the grass-green door. “This is gorgeous. I wonder who made them!”
Whoever it was, they were talented. Wooden fairy figurines guarded the miniature house, with silver wings and bright clothes. One of them wore a green dress with blonde, shorn hair and rosy skin like an androgynous version of Tinkerbell. Another had a gorgeous brown complexion and wore an iridescent rainbow sari. On the other side of the trail, more guided the way, diverse in their styles. A pixie sitting in a moss-covered wheelchair made of twigs. A boy with silver piercings in his ears talking to a carved squirrel.
It only occurred to her then that all of the fairy ornaments she’d admired in antique shops had looked the same. White, slim women with long, flowing hair. She saw her own body type here, among so many others. Somebody had taken time to make these figurines look like real people.
Harper leaned back on her haunches, a flutter rising in her. She’d been wrong to dismiss this place. It was beautiful. Magical.
“The kids love playing with this stuff.” A sweet smile graced Fraser’s lips, as it did every time he talked about his family. Harper could very easily swoon over it, but she wouldn’t. It shouldn’t have been so groundbreaking, to see a big, strong man with a gentle heart. Her standards, it seemed, were lower than the ground her boots sank into.
“Shouldn’t they be kept out of reach? What if someone breaks them?” Harper snapped photographs, then twisted to take a selfie with the fairies for good measure.
Fraser evidently suppressed a smirk. “I think whoever made them wanted them to be enjoyed. New ones appear all the time. The artist is local.”
“You know them?”
“No. They stay anonymous. But this is the only place where they appear, so everybody reckons they must live close by.”
She whistled, and then indulged herself by opening the arched door of the fairy house. Inside, miniscule lights twinkled against the darkening afternoon. “I want to live here. It’s almost as big as your cabin.”
“And it matches your height perfectly,” he quipped, causing her to stick her tongue out at him. She wasn’t that short at five foot four, but his tall stature made her feel it.
“Good things come in small packages.”
His eyes grazed across her ass. “Aye. That they do.”
Harper’s collar felt tight. She stood up, brushing the wrinkles from her jeans and continuing along the trail. She sensed that same fire burn a hole in her back and knew he was still admiring her, which almost made her forget how to walk.
As they wandered over swirling paths and meandered through heather-dappled woods, the beginnings of a story began to take shape in her mind. It was only a glimmer, a couple of words here and there, but the images flashed in front of her like scenes from a movie. Taffeta whispering across pine needles. Heavy boots trailing behind. Maybe even gossamer wings of the mythical beings she’d mocked not so long ago. She’d been very much enjoying her journey into fairy literature, after all.
Hastily, she riffled through her suede shoulder bag, pulling out the contents in a wild panic to find her stationery. “We need to stop. My brain is finally working like an author’s and I need to write before I forget everything.”
Fraser caught her belongings, bewildered. A pile of all sorts of rubbish she’d forgotten to clear out of her bag since last autumn grew in his hands, then spilled into his arms. An old makeup bag with brushes and loose powder. A hairbrush with bent bristles. A bag of Haribo sweets – “You can have them, if you want,” she offered. “Haribos don’t expire, do they?”
“The gummy bears’ faces have melted,” he replied, scrutinising the colourful sweets before catching another round of rubbish, including several receipts and a bar of chocolate melted into the shape of her house keys.
Of course, her notebook had fallen to the very bottom as the heaviest thing inside. She shifted from foot to foot impatiently as she finally dragged it out along with her pen. “Okay—”
“Give that here,” he interrupted, gently tugging the strap of her purse over her head so he could begin putting her things back inside. He opened the sweets, throwing a cola bottle up in the air and catching it in his mouth.
She arched an eyebrow. “Impressive.” Secretly, she also found it strangely attractive, but right now, she had other things to worry about – such as the bestseller coming to life in her head.
“Turn around,” she demanded. “I need a flat surface.”
Fraser appeared amused. “Or we could go and sit on that bench by the loch.” He pointed beyond the trees, and she followed the direction to find they had, in fact, circled back around to the other side of Loch Teàrlag. The water lapped like the tide onto the silty shore, and benches decorated with wilting flowers looked upon the vast view.
She ran between the trees, through overgrown, wet blades of grass and wilting heather, and seated herself on the first bench she came to, wincing when the damp seeped into her trousers. But she couldn’t care about that now. She opened a fresh page in her notebook, jotting down the new, fictional world yawning open in her mind. She’d thought about starting with a children’s book, assuming, probably incorrectly, that it would be easier for her to write a shorter work without all the complications of adult life, but the characters she was envisioning now were her age. Two people colliding in a timeless, far-off place. They didn’t have names or faces yet, but she saw their lives weaving through the forest. She saw fairy friends and a shelter among the trees.
She was only vaguely aware of Fraser’s presence warming her side, and worked hard to tune out the sounds of him chewing on her melted sweets. “So, what are you writing? Will it be inspired by your trip?”
“Shh!” she hissed sharply, hand aching as she kept writing. When he tried to peer over her shoulder, she shimmied down to the end of the bench. “You’ve distracted me enough this week.”
“Oh, so I’m distracting?” He kicked out his legs, wearing a self-satisfied expression that made her own lip curl. His cockiness was all for show. She’d seen beyond it already, seen him act kind and loving and humble. He just liked to tease her.
“You’re annoying,” she muttered.
“You love it.”
That, she couldn’t deny. Her mouth tugged up at the corner, proving it, but she kept her eyes trained on her page.
Fraser stayed quiet as she worked, growing still as he surveyed the view. He relaxed finally, pressing himself into the bench and resting an arm behind her back. Across the water, the lights of the Raindrop Café twinkled, and Captain Angus’s tall, beloved trees reflected in the bleak grey surface of the loch.
The quiet that had fallen upon them was disarming once she crawled out of her busy brain for long enough to become aware of it. Harper couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so at ease.
It wasn’t just being here. His presence offered peace, like he was an anchor grounding her into the here and now. Before, she’d forgotten that the here and now existed. She was too busy trying to perform all the time. Too busy thinking of the next interesting or funny thing to say, or filling the silence by posting online. Too busy trying to predict a future that remained terrifyingly uncertain.
Harper’s pen hovered over the page, as she found herself suddenly relieved that she wasn’t currently wallowing in the flat she and Kenzie had shared in Salford. Had she ever felt so comfortable there, with her?
“Finished?” Fraser asked, yanking her out of her thoughts so quickly that she flinched.
“Um…” She looked down at her page and could no longer remember what she wanted to write next. She’d been so certain that she’d found her story, but all at once, it was gone. Her brain was white noise, a million questions buzzing like static until they blurred into one. “The inspiration has passed, I think.”
“Well, you got something down. That’s progress, eh?”
It didn’t feel like it. It felt like, by letting Kenzie intrude on her thoughts again, she’d fallen back five steps after walking forwards only six. She sighed, closing the book and setting it aside to take in the view.
“Your magical Fairy Trail worked,” she admitted, wrapping her jacket tighter. “I can tick it off my list.”
Fraser scanned the area, then smirked mischievously. “We could cross something else off, if you wanted.”
She frowned. “What d’you mean?”
“It’s perfect weather for a swim, don’t you think?”
“No,” she replied immediately. “Absolutely not.”
“Oh, c’mon. Where’s your sense of adventure?” He was already standing up, unzipping his coat as though they weren’t on the cusp of winter. In the north of the UK. On an overcast day. Granted, it wasn’t as cold as Harper had prepared for with her autumnal layers, but still…
But still, you’re a coward , that little judgemental voice in the back of her mind chimed.
It was right. It could have been summer, and she still wouldn’t have felt particularly ready to strip off and wade into the water. She usually only planned things she could predict the outcome for, like buying a succulent, knowing the worst thing that could happen was it might (would) die, or applying for a job while already expecting the rejection.
If she went into the loch, she could drown, or catch a disease, or have to walk back to the car damp and uncomfortable.
“I like to prioritise my health over adventure,” she murmured, folding her arms.
“Well, I fancy a nice, cool swim…” He peeled off his jumper and T-shirt without warning, and Harper’s entire world pivoted too quickly for her to hold on.
He was glorious. Toned and broad, with a pouch of softness around his stomach. Tattoos swirled up his arms and across his chest, some of them interweaving patterns and others gorgeous artwork: a wolf on the thickest part of his bicep, an eerie copse of trees beneath his collarbone, a compass on his sternum.
He was beautiful, and that was only more reason not to join him. She wasn’t brave enough to be so bare. So exposed. Not in front of him.
He kicked off his boots and tugged off his socks, leaving them neatly by the foot of the bench before heading out to the shore. She watched feathered, inky wings flap across his shoulder blades as he moved and let out a quiet groan. Did she really want to hold back from this, from him? Would she regret it?
The wind blew open her notebook, and she seized this serendipitous moment to flip through to her Guide to Inspiration .
7. Wild swimming?????????? (probably not)
Maybe it was time she started keeping promises to herself.
Fraser waded into the loch in his black briefs, his gruff laughter bounding over the surface like a skipping stone. “Fuck, that feels good!”
Harper gulped, the sight of his jeans abandoned on the shore a tantalising temptation. His strong, muscular frame tensed against the small waves lapping his waist.
She couldn’t resist him.
“Fuck’s sake,” she muttered as she toed off her boots, then triple-checked there was no one watching as she made her way down to the water. She took a deep, trembling breath – and then shucked off her clothes slowly, waiting for instinct to kick in and knock some sense into her.
It might have, only Fraser’s mouth fell open a fraction as he watched her undress, and he dipped his chin below the surface of the water with shadows in his eyes. Goosebumps left her skin sensitive and coarse, her nipples firm and aching against her bra. She closed her eyes, trying not to wonder if he liked her body, or liked her in spite of it. She hated to think of herself like that, but she knew that people – albeit weak people she tried to avoid at all costs – often preferred women who didn’t take up too much space. Women whose skin was smooth and whose stomachs were flat.
“Is it casual enough for me to tell you that you’re fucking beautiful?”
Fraser’s words took her aback. She fluttered her lids open, finding his gaze dark and lustful. Beads of water dripped from his beard, and he licked his lips in a way that made her toes curl into the gritty sand.
Desire warmed her freezing skin, driving her forwards. “I’ll never say no to a compliment.”
“Well then, you’ll like plenty of what I have to say.”
Harper’s legs trembled as she stepped out of her trousers leaving them beside his. She wasn’t brave enough to take off her underwear, but was certainly thankful she’d chosen her more expensive pair, a matching mint-green set with a rose lace trim, just in case they accidentally fell into another unplanned state of undress.
Just when she felt sort of sexy enough, though, she dipped her toe in the water – and screamed. It was freezing. “Are you kidding ?”
“Oh, come on. It’s not that bad. Easier if you just get in.”
“Not that bad ?” she repeated incredulously, teeth chattering. “I was right. You do want me dead.”
He splashed her, causing her to squeal again. “Stop!”
“Come on, sunshine. Get in here. You’ve teased me enough, don’t you think?”
She narrowed her eyes, half-tempted to keep teasing him from the comfort of her current body temperature. But he beckoned her towards him, daring her, and she refused to admit defeat.
She inched further, wincing as the cold penetrated her skin, straight into her bones. She held her breath, relieved when it became bearable.
The water rippled between them as she reached him. She uttered another shriek as she lost her footing on the silt loch bed, but he was there to catch her. Again. Wispy laughter passed between them as he steadied her, his hands squeezing the dips of her hips. His skin was a current of warmth in a sea of ice.
“You’re a liar,” she mumbled, lowering herself so that her hair floated on the surface like tendrils of light. The chill crawled up her neck, or perhaps that was just the anticipation buzzing between them. She could no longer decide which her body was reacting to, the feelings too intense to pinpoint where one started and the other began. “It’s not easier.”
“If you were still up there, getting in one toe at a time, you’d never make it.”
“I think…” She shuddered, teeth clacking without her control, “…that this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done.”
“Vaulting over my fence is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever done.”
She stumbled closer, their knees colliding. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”
Fraser shook his head resolutely. “Nope.” He brushed a stray hair from her eyes, tucking it behind her ear. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Never seen anything like you.”
“Is that an insult or a compliment?” she asked, although she thought she knew the answer. His expression was affectionate enough to make her gut swirl.
“It’s a compliment, Harper,” he whispered, leaning closer. “How could it be anything else? Look at you.”
His firm hand found her ass; squeezed as though in promise.
Suddenly, she wasn’t thinking of the cold at all. Only he existed, and she preferred it that way.
She leaned in and kissed him. He pulled her close with effortless determination, her body moving through the water as compliantly as if it were his. Her breath escaped her lungs in a gasp at the feeling of such weightlessness. He could do anything with her. She would let him.
Heat bloomed between them as her hands roved his bare torso, from the smooth path of his spine to the hair dusting his chest. His tongue travelled along the seam of her lips, begging for access. She granted it freely, fingers curling into his sinewy shoulders when he hoisted her legs around his waist. When he cupped her ass again, a guttural sound fell from his throat, which made her shudder.
Kissing her neck, he waded with her into a shadowed cove, where the water was so deep that only their shoulders remained above the surface. He tasted like mint and moss, and it made her dizzy. Control fell away as she began to rock against him, her searing core driving against his erection until she felt him twitch.
“What if someone catches us?” she whispered. His answer wouldn’t stop her: she was already reaching to pump him in her palm, feasting on his small moan when she traced the shape of his tip. Anticipation was a living thing inside her, rushing through her blood.
“Nobody can see us here. Too far from the path.” He nuzzled his cold nose against the crook of her neck, carrying her shoreward until a smooth rock met her back. “Fuck, Harper. Let me taste you. All I want is to taste you.”
“Here?” At least if they were in the water, nobody could see their bodies intertwining. As much as she wanted his mouth on her, lapping against her like the waves – and god, she wanted that so much – she was afraid, not just of others seeing them, but of him seeing her. She’d always felt so exposed with other partners when they were pleasuring her, sometimes so much that she was too preoccupied to climax. It had taken months to feel comfortable with Kenzie.
Fraser lifted her onto the flat, sturdy rock behind her back, looking up at her. Droplets fell from his lashes, his hair, and he licked his lips hungrily. “Here. If you want it.”
She looked beyond him. The loch stretched out in a sheet of endless silver, the café barely a red dot on the other side. He was right: there was no one here to see, the path hidden behind the trees and the cove shielding their cosy corner of the world. He wouldn’t let her do this if it was dangerous – she was certain of that.
She nodded, nipples hardening with desire. “I want it.”
Carefully, he peeled her underwear down her thighs, her calves, kissing her cool, wet skin along the way. He rose back to her inner thighs, following the white stretch marks she’d always hated before but now, suddenly, adored. She would adore anything he could kiss, anything he could touch, when it made her feel this good.
As he got closer to the place where she needed him most, she tilted back on her elbows, one hand knotting in his damp hair as she restlessly shimmied her hips closer to his mouth. His broad shoulders tensed, his muscular arms surrounding her in a ring of safety on the surface of the loch.
His laughter rumbled through her like a tight string plucked deep in her core.
“Eager,” he muttered. Water dripped from the curling ends of his hair and onto her lower abdomen, only teasing her more. Wetness pooled between her legs, and it had nothing to do with the swim.
“So get on with it,” she begged.
He did, tongue parting her slick folds without warning. He kissed her clit until she was shaking, writhing, a sob of pleasure wracking her when he finally slipped a finger inside her. His beard scraped against her thighs so that she could feel him everywhere, and it was almost too much, but still, somehow, not enough.
“Fraser,” she rasped, tugging on his hair as her vision blurred. He didn’t stop, not even when her thighs grew tight around him, instead holding her hips down with a heavy hand while he toyed with her.
She needed more. She lay back, the cool stone sending a zap of awareness through her. Her jolt only caused more friction between her clit and his rough, desperate mouth, and the water washed over her floating ankles as she squirmed once more.
“So…” he whispered between sucking her, “fucking…”
She cried out, her body tightening with the promise of release.
“Beautiful…” He dragged her hips beneath the surface, his head disappearing with them. The contrast between the cool water and his hot, relentless tongue left her soaked in a bliss she’d never felt before.
Her orgasm roiled through her, yanking her arched spine off the rock and then throwing her back down. As he rose to the surface, he kept her steady, safe, while he savoured her. Until she was so sensitive she could no longer feel her legs.
Fraser kissed her thighs with a new, tamed tenderness, then pulled away, as breathless as her. His hair covered his brow, eyes hooded as his tongue slipped across his lips. Tasting her, she realised. He was still tasting her.
She found the strength to tear herself from the rock and look at him hazily. “Your turn.”