Elegy

SIXTEEN Slumber

Daniel hadn’t commented on her overstuffed book bag, not when she got on the boat or when she carried it into his house on the island. But then again, he probably thought it was homework.

That was the kind of hot date Harper was, and yet Daniel tolerated it with such ease and patience that she was often overwhelmed by how grateful she was to have a guy like him in her life.

“So…” She slipped her heavy book bag off her shoulders and dropped it on the kitchen table with a thud. “Mind if I spend the night tonight?”

“I…” Daniel glanced down at the bag, then at her, and seemed to be at a loss for words. “I thought you were going back to Sundham tonight.”

“That’s what I told Gemma and my dad because I didn’t want to explain anything to them,” Harper said. “But I don’t have class until ten tomorrow morning, and I haven’t been able to spend much time with you lately. So I thought maybe I could spend the night, unless—”

“No. I mean, no unless. Yeah, you can spend the night here. You can always spend the night here. You’re always welcome. Mi casa, su casa.” He laughed.

“It would just be sleeping,” Harper said. “You know … Not any … you know. I haven’t changed my position on anything. I still want to wait until…”

“Yeah, no, that’s cool, I get it,” he said. “Anything you want.”

She covered her face in her hands and groaned. “Ugh. I’m being totally weird and awkward, and I don’t know why. You know that I care about you, and I don’t want to send you mixed signals, but I’m not ready, and I should probably just go.”

“No, Harper.” Daniel walked over to her and took her hands in his, gently pulling them away from her face. “I care about you, and I hope there will come a time when we have sex. And I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it, about how much the both of us would enjoy it.” He raised her hand to his lips, brushing a gentle kiss across her knuckles.

“But I don’t want to do anything you don’t want to do,” he went on. “I know that you’re not ready, and that’s fine. I’m in no rush. So if you want to spend the night tonight, we can spend all night with our clothes on, spooning, and I’ll be more than happy with it. Okay?”

“Are you sure you’re okay with it?” Harper asked. “I mean, it wouldn’t change anything if you weren’t. I want to know if you’re not okay.”

“I am one hundred percent sure I’m okay with it.” Daniel smiled. “I waited months before I even got a kiss from you, and you know what I learned from that? You’re definitely worth the wait.”

Harper leaned against his chest and stared up into his eyes, and he wrapped his arms around her. She didn’t know whether it was the feel of his strong arms around her or the thought of sharing the most intimate part of herself with Daniel when she was ready, but heat swept through her.

“You can’t keep saying perfect things like that to me,” she told him.

“Why not?” Daniel asked.

“Because I can’t come up with anything perfect to say back to you.”

“Okay. How about this? How about I say, I love you, then you say, I love you?” Daniel asked with a playful smile. “That sounds pretty perfect to me.”

“I love you,” Harper said.

“I love you, too.” He leaned down and kissed her gently on the mouth. “But I was supposed to say it first.”

“I beat you.” Harper laughed and pulled away from him. She didn’t want to let him go, but the emotions swirling through her left her feeling overloaded, and she needed a moment to collect herself.

“So do you have any homework to do tonight?” Daniel asked, following her as she walked over to the couch. “Or do I have you all to myself?”

“I could do some studying,” Harper said as she leaned back on the couch. Daniel sat down next to her, and she laid her legs across his lap. “But I think I’ll skip it for tonight.”

“You sure? I don’t want to be the reason for bad grades.”

“No, I need to take a break every once in a while, or my brain will overload.”

“And nobody wants that.” He grinned. “Did you go swimming with Gemma today?”

“I did.” Harper nodded. “She took me out in the ocean, past the island. It freaks me out a little when she does that. She’s so crazy fast.”

When Gemma turned into a mermaid, she sliced through the water like nothing else. She’d been a fast swimmer as a human, but now she was like lightning. The waves couldn’t keep up with her.

Harper would cling to Gemma, her arms wrapped tightly around her as her sister pulled her through the ocean. She stayed at the surface, so Harper could breathe, and she’d feel the sun beating down on her skin as the waves splashed over her. Even Harper had to admit, there was something truly exhilarating about it.

“Did you have fun?” Daniel asked.

“I did.” Her wistful smile faded to something darker when she thought about the sirens. “What do you think of Thea?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Why? What do you think of her?”

“I don’t trust any of the sirens, but Thea seems the most trustworthy.” Harper chewed her lip. “I just don’t understand why she gave Gemma the scroll.”

“She could be suicidal,” Daniel said, and she considered it.

“Penn’s pretty easy to set off. If Thea wanted to die, she could’ve just pissed Penn off, then”—Harper snapped her fingers—“no more Thea. I mean, Penn took Lexi out without a second thought.”

“Yeah, but maybe Thea wants to get rid of Penn, too.”

“Like a murder/suicide?” Harper raised an eyebrow.

“Kinda. Except Thea clearly doesn’t want to stand up to Penn or kill her.”

“Why not? Penn is an evil monster.”

“Yeah, but she’s still Thea’s sister,” Daniel said. “How bad would Gemma have to be before you plotted to kill her?”

“Gemma would never be like them,” she replied quickly, and shook her head.

“I know, but I’m not asking you about what Gemma’s capable of,” he clarified. “I’m talking about what you’re capable of. Could you ever kill your own sister?”

“I don’t know.” Harper swallowed hard and stared off into space. She wanted to say no, but deep down, she hoped that she’d be able to do the right thing no matter what. If Gemma ever went off the deep end, she hoped she’d be strong enough to stand up to her sister and protect innocent lives. “But I never want to find out.”

“That’s probably enough dark talk for one night, anyway,” Daniel said. “I think it’s time we institute a new rule.”

She looked over at him and tried to shake off her despondency. “So what should we do now?”

“We could watch some TV,” Daniel suggested. “I have a couple episodes of Quantum Leap on VHS.”

“Daniel.” Harper tried to scold him, but she couldn’t help but smile. “I thought you were gonna stop getting paid in videotapes now that you have rent to pay.”

“Hey, Quantum Leap is a viable form of payment,” he insisted. “And I already paid the rent for September. I made out pretty well working on the play.”

Harper laughed, and Daniel put in the tape. She curled up on the couch next to him, and they spent the rest of the night watching old television shows in grainy, warped VHS. It didn’t sound fun or relaxing, but Harper enjoyed herself immensely.

Everything was going well until she started falling asleep on the couch, and Daniel suggested that they go to bed. Harper changed into her pajamas, which consisted of shorts and a tank top. While she admired herself in the bathroom mirror, she couldn’t decide if she should’ve gone with something sexier or more matronly.

But there wasn’t anything she could do about it now, so she brushed her teeth, took a deep breath, and walked into his room.

Daniel had turned on the lamp on his nightstand, and he stood next to his bed wearing only a pair of boxers. Harper had seen him shirtless before, many times actually, and she’d always enjoyed it.

He wasn’t overly muscular, but there were smooth ripples of abs and indents on his hips from the muscles that started in his pelvis. Not to mention the thin trail of hair that ran from his navel down underneath his boxer shorts that Harper found oddly provocative.

But as sexy as Harper found Daniel shirtless, that’s not what left her standing nervously in his bedroom doorway. It was the amount of flesh she saw and the very nearness of him. When they were in bed together, she’d be able to feel nothing but him, and the intimacy of it was overwhelming.

“Are you okay?” Daniel asked.

“Yeah.” She forced a smile and nodded but didn’t step into his room. “Is that how you sleep?”

“Usually.” He glanced down at his boxers. “Do you want me to put my shirt back on?”

“No,” she said quickly. “Not if that’s how you sleep.”

“It is,” Daniel said, then motioned to her. “Is that how you sleep?”

She looked down at her tank top, which suddenly seemed too thin, and her shorts, which had sleeping penguins on them, felt much too juvenile for the moment. She wished she had brought more adult pajamas. Not necessarily sexier, but something a woman would wear, like satin or silk or lace … but that all sounded too sexy.

But maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. She looked back up at the shirtless foxiness that was Daniel and thought that if things got a little hot, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. He was gorgeous, and he loved her. There were far worse ways that she could spend an evening.

“Yeah,” Harper said finally, and pulled at her shorts. “These are my pajamas.”

“They’re nice.”

“Thanks.”

“So…” He looked at where Harper stood frozen in his doorway, then back at his bed. “Do you want me to take the couch, and you have the bed?”

“No. Part of the reason I wanted to spend the night was so I can spend time with you.” She walked into his room and over to his bed.

“Okay. So let’s spend time together.” He smiled.

Harper climbed into bed and got under the covers. Her natural instinct was to stay at the edge of the bed, but she decided she was being ridiculous. Once Daniel got in bed, she slid over to the middle to be closer to him.

He turned out the light, and the darkness actually comforted her. Something about being hidden relaxed her.

Still, she lay on her back, practically motionless, and she felt Daniel move closer to her. His arm touched hers, and his skin felt too hot. She had no idea how he could even be that warm, especially without a shirt on.

“Is it okay if I give you a good-night kiss?” Daniel asked.

“Yeah. Of course,” she said, in a voice that she hoped sounded normal.

Then his hand was on her arm, strong and reassuring. She felt his stubble first, brushing against her chin and lips. And then his mouth found hers, and when he kissed her, she realized she’d been overthinking everything.

She’d been worried about how far to go and when to go and what he’d think and all of this paranoia. But when he kissed her, all that went away, and she realized it was Daniel. She knew him, she trusted him, she loved him. Things would happen when they were right and not a moment sooner.

When she wrapped her arms around him, she felt her body melting against him. He kissed her more deeply, and his arm went around her waist, pressing her firmly to him. She dug her fingers into his back, pressing into his tattoo and scars.

He’d been lying beside her, but she slid her leg over his hip, pulling him between her legs. His lips pulled away from her mouth as he shifted on top of her, his kisses trailing along her jaw down to the soft flesh of her neck. One of his hands slid underneath her shirt, cupping her breast, and a small moan escaped her lips.

That sound seemed to snap something awake inside Daniel because he abruptly stopped kissing her and pulled away from her. He moved his arms to either side of her, so he was holding himself up, hovering above her.

“Sorry,” Daniel said between gasps of air. “I don’t want to do something in the heat of the moment that we’ll regret later.”

“No, don’t be sorry.” She laughed a little, but he didn’t. Instead, he rolled away from her and lay on his back on the bed next to her. “I was having fun. We … we didn’t need to stop. At least not yet.”

“No, we do,” Daniel said, his voice low and husky. “It’s taking all my discipline to hold back now, and I’m not sure how much longer it will last.”

She rolled up on one elbow, looking down at him in the darkness. “Then maybe we shouldn’t hold back. I think that no matter when I’m with you, as long as I’m with you, it will be amazing.”

“Harper,” Daniel said at length. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

She leaned down toward him, and just before her lips pressed against his, she softly asked, “What?”

What began as a soft kiss grew deeper and more heated, silencing any of his protests, and that’s precisely why she’d kissed him. Harper didn’t want to hear arguments about regret, not when all she really wanted to do was be with him.

His hand cradled the back of her head, and the other gripped her hip possessively, adding more flame to the fire he’d started inside her. Then, abruptly, he tensed and pulled away again.

“What?” Harper asked, and she didn’t keep the hurt from her voice. “Am I doing something wrong?”

“Just the opposite,” he assured her quickly. “But…” He looked up at her, and even in the dark, she could feel his eyes searching her.

“I think we should wait until things are … better. Until we get this stuff with Gemma and Thea and Penn”—he said the last name with disgust—“straightened out. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Harper said. “Absolutely.”

He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close to him. She rested her head on his chest, and it wasn’t long before she fell asleep. And though she couldn’t explain, she was certain that Daniel stayed awake for a long time after she had.