Chapter 8
Hours later Clay stood up from repairing fence, straightening and stretching his back in the waning sun of the early evening. He looked around for Harper and found her only about twenty feet away, working her way toward him. “Hey!”
She looked up at him, her dirt smudged, slightly sunburned face beaming with happiness as she swiped a sweaty curl away from her line of vision, and smiled at him.
“We finished after this?”
“Yes!”
“You hungry? We still have that lunch we didn’t get to yet.”
“Oh! I forgot about that!”
“No problem. It’s on ice and still waiting to be eaten.”
“You want to run get it while I finish this little bit?” Harper asked.
“You sure?” Clay asked.
“Yeah. There’s a small pond over there, beyond the trees. It’s where Mr. Bigsby put Mrs. Bigsby’s gazebo, but they never go out there anymore. I don’t think she remembers that it’s there and gets upset when she realizes that. We could eat over there.”
“I’ll go set it up,” Clay said.
“I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”
Clay took his time going back to the car, got out his ice chest, and a blanket he’d brought so they could have a picnic, and strode off past the barn toward the area of the property that Harper had directed him to.
He followed a natural path between the trees on either side, whose branches actually reached toward each other overhead and created a shaded path to follow.
When he stepped into the clearing and saw the pond, he slowed to a stop and took a moment to appreciate the view.
A small pond sat in the distance, surrounded by a field dotted with wildflowers.
To the right of the pond sat the gazebo that Harper had told him about.
It was a decorative one, with a high roof covered in scroll work in all the corners and crevices.
It looked to him that it had been an Octagon of sorts with multiple smaller flat sides connected to form a circle.
There were steps that led to its raised floor and there was a bench for sitting all around the interior walls.
There was a small table in the middle with two chairs, on either side of the table, and the entire thing had been varnished to a shiny honey color, leaving the natural grain of the wood visible.
Clay continued to take in the scenery as he picked a place for their picnic, choosing a spot on a small rise from where they could see the gazebo and pond clearly.
He spread the blanket and began unpacking their food, relaxedly sipping from one of the jugs of ice water as he imagined himself living here with Harper, and waited for her to arrive.
It wasn’t long before she came through the trees, singing to herself as she made her way toward him. She laughed when she saw him sitting on the blanket waiting for her.
“Why are you laughing?” he asked.
“I was hoping you’d choose somewhere other than the gazebo to eat. It’s almost like we’d be intruding on Mrs. Bigsby’s memories, you know?”
“I thought the same thing,” he said. “Come, sit and eat with me.”
“You should have eaten earlier. There was no reason to wait for me.”
“I honestly forgot about food once I jumped in and started helping on the fence.”
“Me, too. I often go all day without eating out here. I just get so sidetracked that I forget.”
“What you’re telling me is that I’m going to have to call you every afternoon from school to remind you to eat.”
“I’d probably say okay, and mean it, but then I’d think I’ll do it in a little while, and then it would be dark and I’d have forgotten again.”
Clay shook his head as she sat down. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Be tolerant. I get focused and forget things.”
“I can do that,” he said as she toed her boots off and dropped her gloves on top of them. She held her hands out so he could pour a little of the water over her hands and rubbed them together before she sat down. Then she did the same for him so he could clean his hands as well.
“Fried chicken sandwiches, huh?” she asked, picking up the wax paper wrapped sandwich he’d put on her plate.
“With pimento cheese and bread and butter pickles,” he said as she took a bite and closed her eyes as she chewed.
“Oh, my God,” she murmured as she took another bite and smiled at him while she chewed.
He took a bite of his own sandwich and nodded. “Yeah, much better than my fried chicken breast would have been.”
“Gotta get your dad to teach you.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” he said.
After they’d eaten, Clay relaxed back on the blanket, his arms folded beneath his head as he looked up at the slowly darkening sky and the few stars that were beginning to sparkle. “Man, it is gorgeous out here,” he said.
“It is. Breaks my heart when I think that after someone buys it, I might not, most likely won’t, have access to it again.”
“May as well lie down and enjoy it while you can.”
Harper moved the remnants of their meal out of the way and lay down beside him, both of them looking up at the sky. They lay quietly for several seconds before Harper turned over on her side to watch him instead of the sky.
Clay lay there with his eyes closed, enjoying the early night air, the quietness, and being close to Harper.
“You know, it’s a shame that this is as close to any male as I’ve ever gotten.”
He opened his eyes and turned his head to look at her. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve never had a boyfriend. Never even been on a date. A late picnic out in a pasture with a Pride mate, is the closest to romance that I’ve ever gotten. It’s kind of embarrassing.”
Clay didn’t say much, but she seemed to have struck a nerve.
“Maybe one day I’ll find out what it’s all about, if there’s anybody that ever finds me even remotely attractive.”
“Harper, you have to know how beautiful you are.”
“What I know is that nobody, not a single male, shifter, human or otherwise, has ever looked at me and appreciated what they saw.”
“You are so wrong,” he said, turning on his side to face her.
“No dances, no parties, no dates, what does that tell you?”
“That they were afraid to ask you out, because you are so beautiful,” Clay said, reaching out a hand to tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear. But after he did, he didn’t remove his hand, he just very lightly laid it against her cheek. “There is nothing wrong with you. You are perfect.”
She rolled her eyes.
Clay lifted himself up on one elbow and slowly leaned toward her. He moved agonizingly slowly, giving her every opportunity to pull away, but she didn’t.
She wasn’t even aware that she was holding her breath as she watched him move toward her.
When he was less than an inch away from her, he slid his hand behind her head to hold her still, then pressed his lips to hers.
And he kissed her. Slowly, tenderly, erotically, exactly the way he’d dreamed of touching her for years.
He rolled her to her back and leaned over her, his upper body pressing against hers as he lost himself in kissing her.
And she let him. She’d never been kissed, and his touch awoke every nerve ending in her body. The longer he kissed her, the more sure she was that she didn’t want him to stop.
Eventually, he tried to pull gently away from her, not wanting to start something he wouldn’t be able to stop if she wasn’t ready.
But her hands came up and locked on his shoulders. “Please, Clay. Please don’t stop.”
“Harper, I don’t want to do this this way.”
“It’s okay,” she said, starting to sit up.
And he smelled the pain that suddenly filled the air.
“You know what this will lead to,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder to keep her lying down.
“I do. And I’m tired of waiting to know when it’s going to happen to me. I want this. I want you to show me, Clay.”
“You sure?”
Harper nodded.
“Once I get to a certain point, I don’t know if I can stop,” he said honestly. “Anybody else, probably, but not with you.”
“Good. I don’t want you to stop.”
Clay closed his eyes took several breaths to steady himself. When he opened them again, they were the gold of his Panther. “I’ll try not to hurt you.”
“I don’t care if it hurts. I’m tired of waiting.”
Clay lowered his lips to her again, and kissed her, but this time it was harder, more insistent.
More demanding. And when he’d kissed her so long that her lips were beginning to swell a bit, he began to kiss down her jaw line to the edge of her tank top.
When he realized it was in his way, he sat up on his knees and grasped the bottom of it, pulling it up toward her head, trying to get it off of her, but she took over, taking it off and dropping it beside where they lay.
Then she reached behind herself and unclasped her bra, dropping it on top of her shirt.
“Jesus, Harper,” he breathed, looking down at her laying out before him in the moonlight.
“Wait,” she said, reaching down and unzipping her jeans before shoving them down past her hips along with her panties down her thighs.
Clay released a growl, rumbling his chest as he watched.
Then he gripped her jeans and yanked them off her legs, tossing them to the side before he leaned forward again, smashing his nose against her body, inhaling deeply as he dragged it down from just below her breasts to the hollow between her hip bones, licking every few inches as he went.
Harper threw her hands out to the sides, fisting the blanket they lay on, her body writhing and lifting up toward him as he explored her, scenting, tasting, nipping.
When he reached the soft curls crowning that special place between her legs, he buried his nose there and plunged his tongue downward, searching for the opening he knew he’d find there.
“Clay!” she exclaimed, her hands gripping his hair.
A snarl was all she got in reply. He sat up and gripped her calves as he met her hooded gaze. “Yes, or no, Harper,” he said, his voice growly.
She didn’t answer.
“Now. Now is when you say no, Harper,” he forced out past his enlarged incisors as he pushed himself backwards, trying to leave her before he couldn’t.