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Chapter Seven
The morning was hazyand golden, the sky an unbroken expanse of blue, dotted here and there with puffy white clouds, mirroring the sheep in the east pasture. The grass in the fields would still be coated in a cold sheen of dew, much like the long expanse of green she’d walked barefoot through earlier that morning, carrying her sandals and leaning on a strong, velvety arm. The sky had been a watercolor wash of pinky-gold then, the sun only just beginning to peak over the tops of the tall trees. She couldn’t help but smile at the memory as her little car passed the corn, wavering in the breeze. It had been a beautiful morning.A perfect start to the day, after a perfect night.
As the car bumped along, the bucolic setting was marred by something looming in the distance. Grace frowned. A dark shape in the center of the gravel drive, standing before the closed wooden gate. She had left for work early, it was true, but surely the gates should be open by now? The employees who tended the animals, who worked in the fields, they would have arrived hours earlier, and Caleia always made sure to have the gate open for . . .oh for fuck’s sake.
Caleia.
There had been a string of text messages, each one more exclamatory than the last, delivered the previous night, which she’d read for the first time that morning.
Hey, do you want to grab pizza?
I’m craving that greasy dump by the college
I’ll be over in a bit
As the car grew closer to the gate, the shape coalesced into the figure of the graceful dryad, standing sentinel in the road, preventing Grace from entering. She grit her teeth, not wanting to deal with her friend’s hysteria first thing in the morning.
I’m sitting in your driveway, but the house is dark and your car is gone
I’m assuming you’re not home?
You really need to leave a lamp on or something, btw
Wait, were you going out with that guy again tonight?
I thought that wasn’t until the weekend!
Please tell me you remembered cute underwear
Don’t forget to call me when you get home! I want to hear everything!
Hello? Are you still alive? You better not have fallen asleep without calling me!
OMG
OMFG
YOU’RE FUCKING HIM AREN’T YOU
CALL ME!!!!!
Caleia stood in the center of the road scowling, arms thrown open to symbolically block the way, as if the wooden gate wasn’t doing the job on its own. Grace slowed to a stop with a glower of her own.Here we go...
“Well, look what the wampus dragged in,” the little nymph sneered, holding fast to the gate. “Do you have any idea how worried I was about you? I cannotbelieveyou went on your first second date in a hundred years and didn’t immediately call your best friend theinstantyou got home. I stayed up all night waiting!”
Grace leaned out the car window, mirroring Caleia’s wrinkled nose. She’d texted her friend just before sunrise, reminding the nymph that she’d see her at work soon, and would bring her up to speed then. Apparently that answer had not sufficed.
What shehadn’tmentioned was that when she’d sent the text there had been a firm, downy chest beneath her cheek that she’d been nuzzling into. His ergonomic moth chair had been surprisingly comfortable, and she’d fallen asleep against him, beneath the wide-open canopy of stars at the top of his tree. When she’d woken, the sky was a pink-tinged violet, a white-gold glow just beginning to lighten the world at the edge of the treeline. She’d been buffered from the dawn's chill by his velvet-covered wings, tenderly folded around her, and it had been impossibly comfortable there in his arms.
“Um, I texted you this morning, which you didn’t bother responding to. Will you please open the gate? I have a wedding consultation this morning, and you know how mothers of the bride can be.”
“I don’t care that you texted this morning!” Caleia shot back defiantly, her long, chocolate brown waves glinting in the sun. “I wanted to talk to you as soon as you—” She broke off on a gasp, outrage forgotten. “Holy shit, youdidfuck him! In! Right now! I want to hear all the gory details!”
Grace steeled herself, settling back against her seat with a sigh as Caleia activated the mechanism that swung the gate open. Years in wedding planning had taught her to be prepared for every scenario, which is why she always had a spare change of clothes in the trunk of her car, sparing her the indignity of having to do a walk of shame that morning — or worse, going to work wearing yesterday’s dress. There reallywasa wedding consultation that morning, and at least now she could start her day.
Approximately an hour later, as she sat across the table from a pinched-face kitsune and her clearly overbearing mother, she realized she'd experienced a terrible lapse in judgment.
She'd expected that her first time back in the saddle after such a long drought would be a bumpy ride. Shehadn’tcounted on beinginsaid saddle for hours, the stamina of her slender, winged partner far greater than anything she was used to. Granted, Grace admitted, she'd gasped and moaned and writhed in pleasure the entire time they’d spent in his bed. His rutting hips had seemed indefatigable, his cock unable to be satisfied . . . and now she was paying the price for the enthusiastic all-night ride as she shifted on the unyielding bench of her gingham-covered picnic table.
