"I came here to get away from that," she continues, a little more softly than before. "Not my father, just – just all the pressure that comes from being seen as nothing more than this good little girl, you know?”
"I understand," I reply. "I don’t think I could handle any of that. It’d drive me crazy."
"Yeah, it drives me crazy sometimes, too," she agrees with a sigh. "You should have seen what it was like at my Christian college – oh, that stuff was just too much for me."
"You went to a Christian college?" I ask. Honestly, I have a hard time imagining someone like her somewhere like that.
She nods. "Right out of high school," she explains. "I did my first couple of years there, but it just wasn’t for me. And the men – I swear, most of them were just trying to out-pious each other. Felt like nobody actually wanted to have any fun or explore the world, you know?"
"So why did you stay so long?" I ask.
"My father," she admits. "Didn’t want to let him down."
"And you didn’t find some nice Christian boy to marry?” I ask her, teasingly. She grins at me and shakes her head.
"No, none of them were to my taste." She shrugs. "They weren’t real men. They weren’t like you.” She grins and slides an arm over my chest, as though she is still having a hard time believing that I am right here in front of her. "They were all canned lines, you know?" she remarks, shaking her head. "Every time any of them came near me, it was like they had planned out exactly how the conversation would go in their heads. And they couldn’t handle it when I didn’t play by those rules."
"I get the feeling that you don’t make a habit of that," I reply, and she shakes her head.
"Not if I can avoid it," she agrees, fluttering her lashes at me. Fuck, she looks so cute right now, it takes everything I have not to lean down and plant my lips against hers.
“So what changed?” I ask. "What made you come home after all of that?”
She pauses for a moment, and she lets her eyes slide to the left. I can see that there is something that she doesn’t want to come out and tell me, and I don’t want to push her to give me more than she is comfortable with.
"My mom," she whispers, finally. She says those words as though they are hard for her to get out, and I know at once what she is going to say.
"She got... sick," she explains, her voice cracking slightly. "While I was away. I thought that she’d recover quickly – we all did – but the more time went on, the more clear it became that she... that she wasn’t going to get better."
She takes a deep breath, and I slide my hands over hers. I can see the pain in her face, and it hurts to see her in so much agony. I know that I should say something, but I have no idea what I am meant to come out with right now.
"I moved back home to help out with her," she continues. "My dad couldn’t do it all on his own. And I didn’t want him to. I guess I didn’t really accept it till I was back with her again, but as soon as I saw her, I knew..."
She shakes her head, looks away from me. I know that this must be agony for her to go through all over again. I don’t want to force her to tell me, but she seems willing to keep talking, and I don’t want to trip her up.
"I knew that we were going to lose her," she continues. "I stayed there, until the end, and after it happened – well, after it happened, I knew that my father was in far too much pain to live by himself, all alone, so I stayed there with him. I’ve been there ever since. Helping out with the church, at home, all of that stuff. This is the first time I’ve had some time to myself in... well, in way too long."
I smooth a finger down her cheek and she offers me a slight smile; it’s tinged with sadness, and I know that it must be hard for her to tell the truth about what happened. I wonder how many people have seen her like this, have seen the truth of how bad she aches when she talks about her mother.
"I’m so sorry you had to go through that, Harper."
I’m not sure what to say to her, except to offer her my sincere words of comfort. I have never gone through a loss like that, and it seems unfair that someone so bright and so bubbly would have to. I hate that she’s suffered in that way. I hate that it hurts her as much as it does. She shakes her head.
"Me too," she replies. "But it happened. And I’m not willing to spend the rest of my life sitting at home trying to make it un-happen."
"You’ve done something so good, you know," I tell her, smoothing her hair back from her face. "Going home to Cherry Falls to look after your father. It can’t be easy, not when you’re dealing with all of that sadness in yourself, too."
"It’s downright awful, sometimes," she admits. "But I – I know that he needs me. And I know that my mom would have wanted me to be there for him."
"I bet she’s proud of you," I tell her, and she smiles at me.
"I know she is," she replies softly. "She wanted me to be happy. To do what made me happy."
"And what might that be?" I ask her. "Right now. What would make you happy?”
She looks up at me, and her eyes light up as soon as they lock onto mine.
"You know, I have a few ideas," she says as she lifts her mouth to mine. And, as soon as our lips meet, I know that my chances of not falling for this girl are next to nothing.
Chapter Eight
Harper
He winds his arms around me tight and pulls me close, as though he wants nothing more than to lose himself to the way that our mouths feel against each other right now. I can’t believe how close to him I feel, how comfortable. Normally, I would have been freaking out about the thought of someone so perfect having seen me so naked, but with him, it’s different. With him, I have nothing at all to fear.
His body is strong and muscular, and I get a little lost in the sensation of it pressed up against me. Hard to believe that he’s mine – hard to believe that he really just belongs to me right now. Our tongues meet, slowly, playing against each other, and I feel him begin to stir to hardness against my hip.
I move my hand down his stomach, and feel over the top of his pants the hardness of his erection, right there, as though it’s waiting for me. I’ve never gone this far with a man before, and it feels as though we are meant for this. I thought that I would be more nervous when the time came, but instead, I find myself enjoying it – enjoying the pressure of it beneath my fingers, enjoying the way that he reacts to my touch as though he has been starved of it for far too long now.
"I want to feel you," I tell him, my voice hoarse with want for him. My body is still a little trembly and oversensitive from the fact that he just made me come, but I want to give him everything right now – I want to show him than I am as willing to give as I am to receive.
He reaches down, unzips his pants, and I wrap my fingers around his erection for the first time.
I gasp – it's big, even bigger than I expected it to be. He groans as soon as I touch it for the first time, and that deep, masculine sound escaping from his throat tells me that I am doing the right thing.