by Karina Halle
He’s completely naked.
Head to toe.
Completely naked and standing in a sun-dappled forest, looking like some kind of Celtic warrior with his brawny muscles and mysterious tattoos, decorating him like runes.
It takes me a moment to bring my eyes away from his appendage and up to his face, where he’s taking off his sunglasses, because of course they were the last thing to go.
He carefully folds them and places them on top of the rest of his folded clothes. I look at my messy discarded pile for contrast, and he strides into the lake, getting up to his knees before he dives in right beside me.
He’s swimming underwater for a long time, his skin glowing against the dark water, until he pops up farther out into the lake. I swim after him.
“Impressive,” I tell him, treading water.
There’s a wet lock of hair on his forehead, and he shakes it loose.
“What is?” he asks. “My package or my diving skills?”
“Both,” I say, biting my lip as I smile at him.
“I can only explain my diving skills,” he says. “To be a PPO, you have to hold your breath for a long time. As for the other, we’ll just chalk it up to luck.”
“And how are you with treading water while holding on to someone else?” I say to him, swimming closer.
“Just try me,” he says, reaching out underwater and grabbing my waist, pulling me toward him. “I’ll never sink. I’ll always hold you up.”
I wrap my legs around his waist, holding on to his shoulders. “You promise?”
It’s so strange to be with him like this, out in the open sunshine, our bodies wet, his completely naked, his dick pressing against me. I stare at his wet lashes, the drops of water in his arched brows, the warm curve of his smile.
“This is nice,” he says, his voice low.
I lean in and brush my lips against his, then move my head back before he has a chance to kiss me.
“You’re being a tease,” he says. “Might need a spanking for that.”
I laugh, unable to stop the thrill from running through me. “Yes, please.”
He reaches down and grabs my ass, giving it a hearty squeeze. I yelp playfully.
“You know, when I woke up this morning, I didn’t think I’d end up naked in a lake with you,” he comments.
“I guess you never know what to expect with me.”
“That’s true,” he says, almost wistfully. “You really are unlike anyone I’ve ever known.”
“Oh come on,” I say, looking away, my eyes squinting at the sun on the water. “I’m sure you’ve met a few kooky blondes in your day.”
He shakes his head, frowning as he stares at me. “No. There’s been . . . no one.” He takes in a deep breath. “I’ve obviously been with women over the years, but maybe a night here or there. Nothing memorable. Nothing . . . significant. Because I just don’t have the space for them in my life.”
I swallow hard. Oh. Present tense.
He continues. “Piper, I’m going to be honest with you . . .”
Oh no.
“I don’t know how to make this work.”
Oh . . . no.
My face falls. I can’t help it. I feel like letting go and sinking beneath the water.
He holds me tighter, giving strong kicks to keep us afloat, moving us toward the shore until he can touch the bottom. “Please, let me finish, because I am not finished with you.” He puts his hand on my face, cupping my cheek. “I don’t know how to make it work, and that’s true. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try. That we won’t try to figure it out together. I’m . . . I just need you to know that no matter what happens, it’s not going to be easy to be with me . . . if you even want to be with me.”
“Of course I do,” I say, my words coming out in a hush.
“Then you have to understand . . . I’m a bloody mess.”
I stare at him for a few seconds, nearly dumbfounded. “A mess? You’re a mess?”
He nods grimly.
“I don’t understand,” I tell him. “You’re the opposite of a mess. You’re stoic and in control and serious. I’m the mess here, with my crazy past and my mother and the pastries that get in my hair and my Tic Tacs. There’s only room for one mess.”
“Then you’ll have to make room for me,” he says. “Just because I am a certain way doesn’t mean that’s not the result of something else.”
“What do you mean?”
He licks his lips and closes his eyes, his expression fraught, like he’s battling with something. “You know I was in the army for all of my twenties, and then some,” he says. “But do you know why I left the army?”
“Because you wanted to work for Eddie.”
“Because I didn’t have much choice. I left the army because of a mistake I made. A mistake that got someone killed. A friend of mine, someone I had taken under my wing, that I was sworn to protect. I injured my leg in the process, couldn’t serve anyway. Was sent home. Eddie knew. Eddie reached out.” He opens his eyes, and they’re brimming with pain. “I don’t know where I’d be if it weren’t for him. The army gave me the structure I needed. Eddie gave me that same structure after I thought I’d lost it all. I am married to my work, Piper. For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, I have sworn to protect them, so that I will never fail again. So when I say I don’t know how to do this with you . . . I don’t. I only know my job. I only know my duty. There’s been no room for anything else.”
Damn. Poor Harrison. It’s painfully obvious now how much his work has overcompensated for the guilt he feels.
I put my hand on his cheek. “You have to make peace with your guilt. You have to find your own forgiveness, your own redemption. You’ll be working for Eddie and Monica until your dying day otherwise, and that’s not much of a life. You still deserve to have one and live one and enjoy it.”
And maybe there’s room for me in it.
“That’s easier said than done.”
“I know it is,” I say imploringly. “You’re suffering from PTSD.”
He looks away, gnawing on his lip.
“It’s true,” I tell him. “I assume that nightmare I caught you having, that it’s not the first one. That you have them a lot. Right?”
His eyes are still focused on the water, on nothing. That says everything.
“You’re reliving it in your dreams because you haven’t dealt with it in real life. And look, I’m no expert. I would never diminish how you feel, and I know that what I’ve gone through with my mother and father is small peanuts compared to what you’ve had to go through. But I have been there. I have learned that the past can hold us and mold us, drown us in its depths. And the person who comes out of that past is a product of everything it was subjected to. But you can get past it, out of it. You can recognize your patterns and behaviors and stop blaming yourself. Just accept it. It sounds like that’s what you’re already doing. You know why you are the way you are, and you want to change it. You should be proud of yourself.”
“Then how come I don’t feel proud?” His voice is grave. It breaks my heart a little.
“Because it takes time. A lot of time. And therapy. Have you been to therapy? I assume that the army must have mandated it.”
He shakes his head. “I said I was fine. I was deemed fine.”
This explains so much. “But you’re admitting you’re not fine, right? I mean, if you don’t think you have room in your life for another person because you’re too devoted to your job, that’s not normal. That’s not fine.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Piper. I don’t want to mess up. You deserve someone better.”
“First of all,” I tell him, adjusting my grip on his shoulders, “you will hurt me and you will mess up. So will I. We’re two messy people with different baggage, but baggage all the same
. And second of all, I get to decide who I deserve. I’ve been around, I’ve had my heart broken, my soul crushed, and I’ve walked out of it. Maybe I have some scars, but they remind me of what I do deserve, and what I deserve is you. You’ll have to trust me on this.”
He gazes into my eyes, the blue green of his shimmering like the lake below. He looks . . . awed. “You’re bloody amazing, you know that?”
I shrug, trying to play it off. “Well, I—”
And for the second time, Harrison cuts me off with a kiss.
Like the first time, I accept my silence willingly.
His hand tightens around me, gripping me close as his mouth presses hungrily against mine, all fire and need and desire. I’m both floating in the water and grounded by him, my legs wrapping around tighter.
I’ve needed this.
I’ve needed him.
His lips drop down to my neck, sucking at my skin, while I hold him to me, my hands disappearing into his hair, then grabbing his shoulder, then coasting down the hard, muscled plane of his back.
While he nips at my neck, a mix of pleasure and pain, I throw my head back and open my eyes to the blue, blue sky above. I think I see a plane, or maybe it’s that I feel so free, it’s like I’m flying, especially as Harrison takes his hand and lowers it down until his fingers are wrapping around the hem of my bottoms.
He pulls it to the side, taking a moment to adjust himself before he pushes himself inside.
I gasp, my voice carrying across the water, feeling every inch of him.
“Is this okay?” he asks, his voice hoarse with lust yet gentle and concerned. Always the gentleman.
I nod, making a groaning sound as my body adjusts to his, taking in a deep breath until he pushes in to the hilt.
I hold him tighter between my legs as he takes a commanding stance in the water, and he starts pumping himself in and out, slowly at first, making sure I feel every blissful drag of him.
I can’t believe this is happening. I know I keep thinking that, and the more that I think that, the less I feel it’s real. But here we are in this beautiful lake, and Harrison is deep inside me, grunts and rough little noises escaping his lips as he works at me.
Occasionally he pulls back enough to stare at me, his brow furrowed with awe, like he can’t believe this is happening, and then he kisses me hard, as if that will bring him proof.
All I can think of is how my body responds to his, how easily it bends and twists and molds to his movement, like we’re synchronized swimming in one spot. I’m weightless and lost to him, to this moment, to everything he’s brought into my little life.
This man.
This man.
I think he might be mine.
“Christ, Piper,” he practically growls as his mouth drifts down to my breast, pulling my top aside and sucking at my nipple. “I don’t know how much longer I can last.”
I’m about to tell him that I won’t be long either when he slips his hand between my legs, his finger pressing against my clit, and from the loud moan that pours out of me, I guess I don’t need to tell him after all.
“I’m coming,” I say through a gasp as his fingers continue to work at me.
There’s no holding back.
Not with him.
Not anymore.
The orgasm sweeps through me like a wave. The kind of wave that you think you can handle, the ones that end up bigger than you thought they’d be. This one takes me out, makes me feel like I’m being spun around like a galaxy, and I’m opening wider and wider and wider, like an exploding star, spreading fire and ice until there’s nothing left of me.
Harrison grunts as he comes inside me, his grip still tight while his pumping slows, his breath heavy and laborious.
We stay connected like this for a few moments, both of us catching our breath. I rest my head against his shoulder and can feel his heart pounding against his chest, competing with the drumming from mine. Slowly, very slowly, the world comes back into place, and I remember where we are and what we’ve done.
We need to get out of here.
“I hate to be one of those people who insists on leaving the scene of the crime,” I tell him as I grip his shoulders and he slowly pulls out of me, setting me back in the water, “but I think we should vacate the area before some bored water department officer shows up.”
“Good idea,” Harrison says.
We both swim back to shore, giggling as we quickly slip on our clothes, feeling like a couple of teenagers who just snuck into a public pool after hours, high on life and sex and each other.
We run back through the forest, staying close.
Nineteen
Giddy.
That’s the only word to describe what I feel like.
It’s probably one of our earliest emotions—I mean, what toddler hasn’t gotten giddy after a first bite of ice cream? What child hasn’t gotten giddy thinking about Disneyland? Or going on a pony ride? Or Christmas morning?
But as we get older, the giddiness fades. We become more cynical. The excitement, the increased heart rate, the swarmy, fizzy feeling in our stomach? It morphs into anxiety. We become nervous. The joy is removed, and all we’re left with is worry. The joy is something that belonged to the past, to when we were more innocent, when we had things to get excited and happy about.
So this, this giddiness, makes me feel like a child all over again. Like I’ve been reborn, picked up and washed off and polished to a shine and then set back down into this world.
All I can think about is Harrison. He’s taken over my thoughts and my heart and everything in between. But it’s more than that, more than how I’m thinking. It’s how I’m living. Like every waking moment I am bursting with impatient joy that’s bundled up inside and dying to get out. I want to kiss him, have sex with him, hold him, listen to him, stare at him. I want so much, and the kicker is that for once, I’m going to have it.
This is happening.
“Okay,” my mother says to me, appearing in my bathroom mirror as I’m putting on blush. It’s like a horror movie jump cut, and I whirl around to face her, my heart pounding.
“Jeez, Mom, don’t sneak up on a girl like that,” I tell her. I then notice she’s wearing a gauzy pink top with a statement necklace and black pants. “You look nice.”
“You look nice,” she says to me, nodding at my face. “A little too nice. You’re smiling nonstop.”
“I have to smile to do my blush.” I turn around to face the mirror and do a close-lipped smile, propping up my cheeks. I swirl the blush brush on them.
“You have been smiling all day,” she says, crossing her arms. “And yesterday too.”
“It’s summer. It’s a beautiful day. We’re both alive and in good health, we have this wonderful house, and the best doggo, and we’re about to have dinner with the Duke and Duchess of Fairfax. Give me one reason not to smile.”
She narrows her eyes as she studies me. “Uh-huh. What drugs are you on? You haven’t upped your medication, have you?”
“No,” I tell her, rolling my eyes.
“Didn’t think so. So then I’m going to assume this is all because of Mr. Cole.”
Do I have the strength to argue with her? No. I mean, I do, but I don’t want to argue with her. I’m too fucking giddy.
So I just shrug and stare at her in the mirror. “Life is good right now.”
“Because of Mr. Cole. Just look at you, Piper. You’re glowing.”
I look at myself. My eyes are wide and glossy and my skin looks alive, and it’s not just the blush or the highlighter. I look happy. Really happy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen myself look like this.
“Oh no. You’re not pregnant, are you?” she adds, aghast.
“No,” I say in a quick huff. “I’m not pregnant.” I pause. “And why would you even think that? I never said I w
as sleeping with him.”
Now it’s her time to roll her eyes. “You think I’m a fool, don’t you, dear?” Then she turns around and walks into my bedroom. “You better hurry up. We need to be there in ten minutes.”
This is a change. Usually my mom has zero concept of time. Perhaps things are evolving for the both of us.
Tonight is the dinner, and while I don’t think it will be any more formal than last time, that doesn’t help quell the excitement and nervousness in the air, at least when it comes to my mother. While I’m practically floating above the ground (giddiness makes you buoyant), my mother has been so anxious that she didn’t even bother making a dessert. We’re not heading over there empty-handed, however. I did manage to bring a bottle of local blackberry wine for after dinner, something I had been saving for a special occasion.
And what’s a better special occasion than this? Sure, it’s a normal dinner to everyone else, but to me, and hopefully to Harrison, this feels like a next step. I know our relationship is still under wraps and I don’t know how long it will have to stay that way, but I guess any excuse to be with him feels like something worth celebrating.
Which reminds me.
We’re almost to the mansion’s door when I pull my mom to a stop.
“Mom,” I say to her, my voice low. “I need to tell you something.”
“What?” she says in a hush. Her eyes widen. “Oh, you really are pregnant!”
“No,” I say again. “I have an IUD, so that’s not happening. But whatever is happening between Harrison and I, it’s a secret, okay? Monica, Eddie, the housekeeper, none of them can know.”
She frowns. “Why not?”
“Because,” I tell her, “Monica specifically forbade it.”
“She specifically forbade it?”
“Okay, so she vaguely warned me about dating him. Or being with him. She said it would be a disaster and would reflect badly on her. Which I totally understand.”
Now that I’m saying this out loud, I realize what a shitty friend I’ve been to her. Because of course it would reflect badly on her. Everything does. If the media found out about Harrison and me, they would have a field day with it, and Harrison would get slammed for being unprofessional, even though it’s in his right to date a citizen (I think), and Monica would get dragged through the mud for having hired Harrison. Everything would come out, maybe even a look into Harrison’s past.