The Perfect Letter by Chris Harrison Page A

better learn to run fast.”
    â€œHe won’t catch me.”
    â€œIt’s not catching you I’m worried about, it’s shooting you. He’s a hell of a shot, you know. He keeps this gun here for coyotes and horse thieves and debauchers of his granddaughter.”
    â€œHe won’t shoot me,” Jake said. “Don’t you fret.”
    They grabbed a blanket, then climbed up the ladder to the hayloft, the one place she was sure that no one would be that time of night, the one place she knew no one would look for them. She’d spent hours reading alone there when she was younger, trying to escape her list of after-school chores, dreaming of her future in New York. The hay was stacked in bricks, smelling sweetly of the fields in summertime, and the hayloft was hot even in the evening, holding on to the warmth of the day. Leigh spread the blanket over the carpet of hay littering the floor and flopped down on it. Jake lay down next to her, stretching out his full length and leaning over her.
    A beam of moonlight was coming in through the open hatch of thehayloft. Below them they could hear the sounds of the horses moving in their stalls, stamping their feet, chewing a bit of hay. A breeze blew through the building, causing a wind chime outside to tinkle. Somewhere the old peacock, Peabody, was standing on a roof and giving his mournful cry: ah-Ah! ah-Ah!
    In the dimness Jake was just a shadow, a deeper bit of darkness. His skin was hot where Leigh touched it—the back of his neck, his shoulders, the hard muscles on the back of each arm. His hands wound around her back, and he pulled her in for a kiss, long and slow, leaning into her until they were pressed together knees to chest.
    She could feel his heartbeat under his ribs picking up speed like her own. Something was different. He seemed strangely intense, his touches longer, less tentative. There was a pressure in his fingers and breath that hadn’t been there before, a question he was asking with his hands and his body. She realized suddenly that he was trembling.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?” she breathed.
    â€œNothing,” he said, his hands stroking her hip, moving up toward her breast, the shiver working up from his core and making his voice shake as well. “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.”
    He found her nipple under her shirt, and her breath caught. “Me, too.”
    â€œAre you scared at all?”
    â€œNo,” she said, and meant it. She trusted him completely. After all, it had been his idea to wait until the time was right, and it seemed the time was most certainly now. She knew he would never abuse her trust. He was worthy not only of her trust but of her passion. The time for caution was gone.
    She slid her hand up his back, under his T-shirt, his skin velvety and a little damp, following the curve of his spine, the wings of his shoulder blades, the soft place at the base of his throat. She wanted to touch all of him, every bit of him. She sat up and pulled off his T-shirt,leaning back to look at him in the moonlight. He looked like a Greek statue, or a David, his skin marbled and white in the silvery light. The muscles of his chest and belly were flat, taut from working out of doors with the horses. A faint touch of stubble darkened his cheeks and the spot in the middle of his chest, and she kissed him there once, and felt him shudder.
    She pulled him to his feet and undid the buckle of his belt, then the buttons on his jeans, and with a thump they both slid to the floor. He stepped out of his jeans and stood still.
    â€œWhat is it?” he said.
    â€œI’ve always wanted to look at you.”
    He looked down at himself and up again, abashed. She saw his hands clench and unclench, as if he were fighting the urge to cover himself, but she reached out and ran a finger up his leg from knee to hip and smiled when she heard him gasp. “Jesus,” he said, his voice