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In Sheep's Clothing	By : ParisWriter Category: +G through L > Harvest Moon Views: 2169 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter Thirteen

Avery sighed a bit as she brushed her rabbit's soft fur, watching the chickens peck away happily at their feed nearby in the coop. She hadn't seen Klaus in three days, since they returned from their date, but it wasn't his fault. She had been avoiding him, making a point to go into town when she knew he was usually busy working at home. She'd also been avoiding everyone in town except for Otmar, because she couldn't very well fertilize her crops without purchasing fertilizer and he was the only source of it in town. She wouldn't be able to avoid the rest of town much longer, though. The items she needed to ship off with Asche and the other traders were piling up, and at least one of her land permits was about to come due for renewing. She was dreading having to face Marian and Raeger, though, because she knew they would demand to know how she enjoyed herself with Klaus on their date.

"Here she is!"

Avery jumped, startled by the voice, and snagged the brush in her rabbit's fur. The small rabbit squealed and jumped out of her arms, then made a break for the open door of the coop. Raeger quickly bent down and scooped up the animal before it could make its escape, then smiled as he handed it back to Avery.

"I'm so sorry, Rolo," she apologized, kissing the rabbit between its ears before taking it over to set it by its feed bin.

"What are you doing here?" she asked Raeger, turning back to him. "And who are you talking to?"

"So you are alive!" Marian exclaimed, pushing past Raeger and going over to Avery to wrap his arms around her in one of his overly-tight hugs. Avery reluctantly returned the gesture, cursing up a storm in the back of her mind. She had been avoiding seeing them individually, and so they decided to come looking for her together – which was infinitely worse.

"What are you two doing here?" she repeated her question, feigning surprise as she directed it toward both of them.

"You know why we're here," Marian said, winking at her and putting an arm around her shoulders, which she immediately shrugged off as she started toward the door of the coop. "Now, dish!"

"Shouldn't you both be working, right now?"

"It's Wednesday," Raeger reminded her, stepping aside to let her out of the coop and then following her outside. "I'm off, today."

"And what about you?" she asked Marian.

"I'm taking a personal day," Marian answered, closing the door of the coop behind him. "After all, I can't take not knowing about what happened any more."

"I'm surprised you haven't already bugged Klaus for the details," Avery remarked, ignoring their presence as best she could while she continued doing her morning chores. She opened a bag of fertilizer to spread on her crops, causing Marian to gag and cough, which gave her a smug sense of satisfaction. Raeger stepped forward, pushing his rolled sleeves up even higher on his arms.

"Can I help?" he asked, and she nodded as she flashed him a grateful smile. She knew it was likely a self-serving gesture, a way to butter her up so she'd talk about what happened on her date, but she was still happy to have a couple of extra hands to help her get her work done more quickly.

"I tried talking to Klaus," Marian managed to reply after a moment, still coughing a little. "He refuses to tell me anything. He even told me to 'fuck off!' Can you believe it?"

"I believe it," Avery said, then turned toward him. "And now I am telling you: Fuck off, Marian."

"What the hell happened between you two?" Marian asked her, both his eyes and Raeger's wide in shock at what Avery had just said.

"Nothing happened."

"Bullshit," Raeger chimed in, shaking his head and going to wash his hands off at the nearby well pump, then drying them on his apron.

"No, Raeger... Nothing happened. That's the problem."

Marian held up his hands in front of him. "Okay, stop. Back up. Start from the beginning. What do you mean by 'nothing happened'?"

"I mean when we finally got back here that night, he barely kissed me goodnight, which makes no damn sense because we had been going at it pretty good a couple of times throughout the day." She ran her hand back through her hair, then grimaced when she realized she hadn't washed it off, first, and now had fertilizer streaked through her hair. "I don't understand what went wrong! Actually, I think I have an idea but..."

"But?" Raeger prompted, wetting his handkerchief and handing it to her so she could wipe some of the fertilizer out of her hair.

"I don't want to believe that he would be so... I don't know... indecisive?"

"I am beyond confused, right now," Marian said, looking to Raeger for help. He merely shrugged helplessly before turning back to Avery.

"Why don't you take a deep breath and attempt to explain what you're trying to say a bit more clearly to us?" he suggested.

"Look," she told them, pulling her hair aside to show them the fading mark on her neck. "Klaus gave me this in an alley next to the restaurant we went to. We made out on my bed in my old room at my parents' house. But when we got back here, instead of giving me a real goodnight kiss, I barely got a peck on my lips."

"So what changed?" Raeger wondered.

"My mother," Avery answered his question, her voice shaking in anger. "My stupid, bitch mother must have said something to him when she had him helping her with the dishes after we had dinner with my parents."

"He's already met your parents?" Raeger asked, raising an eyebrow. "Wow, you two sure are moving fast."

"It wasn't planned," Avery explained, waving her hands about in exasperation. "My mom caught us making out in that alley, which inadvertently led to the dinner invitation."

Marian chuckled. "Your mom caught you two going at it? That must have been embarrassing."

"At least she didn't catch them having sex," Raeger said, grimacing. "I've had that happen once or twice. Not fun."

Avery let out a frustrated growl and waved them off. "Just... Go away! Both of you!"

"Not happening," Raeger told her, quickly moving to block her path as she attempted to make a break for her house. He reached up and placed his hands on her shoulders when she attempted to sidestep around him, firmly gripping her so she couldn't get away. "Come on, Avery. Talk to us... Talk to me. Forget Marian for a sec, and tell me – as your friend – why you're so upset."

"Because I know my mother said something to him and it likely ended up scaring him off," she repeated. "I can't, for the life of me, figure out what, though."

"I doubt she scared him off," Marian assured her, moving to stand next to her and placing a hand upon her back, rubbing in circles to try to ease her tension and calm her down. "Klaus doesn't scare easily, trust me."

"So what do you think your mom's issue was with him?" Raeger wondered. "The age difference?"

Avery laughed. "If my mom has a problem with the age difference between us, then she's a total hypocrite. There's a bigger difference between her and my father than me and Klaus."

"My guess is she was probably just taken aback by whatever it was she saw you two doing," Raeger mused, reaching up to tweak her nose as he gave her a wink. "She probably said something to Klaus about it and embarrassed him."

"I'm almost positive she said something to him about it," Avery confirmed. "But I didn't think Klaus would care what she thought, considering we went right back to making out in my old room, after she had seen us together."

"Avery, your mom's an artist, right?" Marian said, a thoughtful look on his face.

"Yeah," Avery replied, her eyebrows drawn together in confusion at the doctor's seemingly unrelated question.

"Lila Durand?"

"Yeah," Avery repeated, nodding. "Why?"

Marian took a step away from her, running a hand over his face and groaning. "I think I know what she said to him."

"Care to clue us in?" Raeger asked.

"There are certain aspects of Klaus' past that he's not exactly proud of, ones that I'm sure some of your mother's more wealthy patrons probably gossiped about in front of her," he told Avery.

"I know about the whole gang thing," Avery told him, shaking her head. "He knows I'm okay with it. Hell, I told him I even found it a bit of a turn-on."

"Not that," Marian corrected through clenched teeth, clutching his hands together in front of him to help keep himself from blurting out exactly what was on his mind. "It has to do with his past relationships with women. That's all I can really say."

"Ohhhh," Raeger said, realization finally dawning on him. "Oh shit, you think she really knows about that?"

"You know about it?" Marian asked him, sounding surprised.

"Klaus kinda mentioned something about it once," he replied with a shrug. "So you think that's what this is all about?"

Marian rolled his eyes. "Women talk. Bored, rich women talk more. I'm sure her mother has heard quite enough about Klaus' past exploits to have drawn a less-than-favorable image of him in her mind."

"Hey!" Avery shouted, drawing both of their attentions back to her. "Would one of you mind telling me what the hell you're talking about? What 'past exploits' did my mother hear about?"

"We can't say," Raeger told her.

"She deserves to know," Marian insisted.

"Yeah, but he deserves to be the one to tell her, not us," Raeger said firmly, casting a threatening look at the older man.

"Tell me what?" Avery asked, her voice breaking. Raeger turned to her and found her brown eyes full of frustrated tears. He smiled as best he could.

"We can't say, Avery," he repeated himself, reaching up to catch one of the tears as it rolled down her cheek, wiping it away with his thumb. "You really need to hear it from Klaus. Go see him, ask him about what your mother said to him, why his demeanor seemed to suddenly changed so drastically like you mentioned before."

"And hear him out," Marian requested. "Chances are this won't be a conversation he's looking forward to having with you."

"You two are scaring me," she told them, looking from Raeger to Marian and back again, more tears threatening to fall from her eyes.

"May I?" Marian said to Raeger, and he nodded and stepped aside, allowing the doctor to take his position in front of Avery. Marian bent down and placed a kiss on her forehead, then frowned a bit as he struggled to find the right words to say.

"Sweetie, Klaus hasn't always been the man you know now," he told her, pausing briefly to collect his thoughts before continuing. "I know you said his past doesn't matter, but this is something pretty big and... honestly, I'm not sure how well a girl like you is going to take hearing about it. I just want you to remember, though, that he's not that man any more. He's changed. And he loves you so much. Telling you abut this is going to be one of the hardest things he's ever had to do, because I'm sure at least a part of him is probably scared silly that he's going to lose you once you know the truth about who he really is."

"This really isn't helping, Marian," Avery said, closing her eyes and shaking her head solemnly.

"I know. The only thing that's going to help is for you to talk to Klaus."

"But it's Wednesday. I'll never make it to his house in time before he heads out of town to do his usual business," she remarked, shaking her head again.

"That's probably for the best," Raeger spoke up. "If you wait for him to get back later, then he'll have no choice but to talk to you. He won't be able to use his trip as an excuse for blowing you off."

Marian leveled an angry look at him for his choice of words and Raeger sputtered, blushing a bit.

"Not that he would blow you off, of course. Just saying, it's better that you wait until you two can have some uninterrupted time to talk this out."

"Fine," Avery agreed. "I'll go talk to him tonight. "But right now, I really need to wash my hair."

"That's for sure," Marian said, wrinkling his nose in disgust. "It's all I can do not to hurl chunks on you right now because of the smell."

"Ass!" Avery smacked him in the chest, a smile finally breaking through on her face. "How someone as prissy as you got to be a doctor, I'll never know."

"Why, because of my excellent bedside manner, of course," he haughtily replied, causing Raeger to scoff.

"Are you going to be okay?" the chef asked her. "I can stay with you today, if you want. Keep you company, make you lunch, help keep your mind off things."

"I'll be fine, Raeger," Avery assured him. "Thank you, though. Both of you. I'm still worried as hell about what's going on with Klaus, but... at least, if things go badly, I know I've got friends I can turn to."

"Things aren't going to go badly," Marian reassured her. "You and Klaus are going to talk, and then you'll be back to sucking each other's faces off like nothing ever happened."

Marian gave her a cheeky wink and she laughed, hugging him and then Raeger before heading inside to clean up. The two of them watched her go inside, and then Marian turned to find Raeger staring after her with a worried look on his face. He cocked his head to one side as he took in the younger man's expression.

"What's on your mind?" he finally asked.

"I'm just hoping everything works out," Raeger said with a sigh, reaching up to attempt to rub the tension from the back of his neck. "I mean... She doesn't really judge me for being the way I am, but this is Klaus we're talking about. How is she going to react to finding out he was once just like me?"

"She'll be fine."

"I really hope so."

"You know, Raeger, if I didn't know any better I would think you're in love with her, the way you're talking," Marian teased him.

"She's my friend," Raeger reminded the doctor, rolling his eyes. "I don't want to see her get hurt, just like you don't want to see Klaus get hurt."

"Believe me, I've seen Klaus hurt before, and it's not pretty," Marian said with a wince as they began walking away from Avery's farm.

"Which one of them do you think would be worse off, if things go badly?"

"Klaus, without a doubt," Marian answered without a single moment's hesitation. "Avery would get over it, in time. Klaus would have to spend the rest of his life knowing that his past actions cost him the woman he loved. He'd never forgive himself."

"But he's really changed, right?" Raeger asked, a note of desperation in his voice. "I mean, once a guy like that decides he's done being that way he doesn't ever just... go back to acting like that, does he? Especially not after he's fallen in love with someone."

"This isn't just about Klaus, is it?" Marian wondered, stopping on the path to carefully observe the young chef. Raeger stopped ahead of him and let out a weary sigh.

"I want to believe I can change," he said quietly. "Knowing that someone like Klaus used to be like me... It gives me hope."

"This wouldn't – by chance – have something to do with Lillie, would it?" Marian asked, causing Raeger's head to whip around, his eyes wide in shock. Marian simply smirked.

"We are not having this conversation," Raeger insisted, turning back around and swiftly continuing along the path, the sound of the doctor's teasing laughter following him the rest of the way back to town.

Klaus sighed and stretched his arms above his head as he walked toward his house, letting out a satisfied groan when his shoulders popped. He had barely slept since his date with Avery, wondering how badly he'd messed things up with her. The decision he made to start taking things slower with her had blown up in his face the very moment they found themselves standing in front of her door. She'd invited him in, and he reluctantly declined, reminding her of the time and that she had to tend to her livestock yet before turning in for the night. He'd kissed her briefly before departing, despite the look in her eyes that said she wanted much more from him than that, and when he left her standing there he couldn't help feeling regret for the sadness which had replaced that desire.

That was why he wasn't all that surprised to find her sitting on his steps, waiting for him. She'd been avoiding him for the past few days, but he knew sooner or later she would come to him with questions about what had changed between them. He knew he had to tell her everything, even if it cost him her heart. He would lay past bare before her, and let her decide for herself if she truly felt he was worthy of her.

"Klaus," she said his name when she looked up and saw him, standing and running a hand down over the back of her skirt to smooth it out, a faint smile on her face.

"Avery," he greeted her with a nod, stepping up beside her to unlock the door. "I've been expecting you. Please, come in."

He held the door for her and she remained frozen on the spot, her smile falling from her face. He knew she had likely been expecting a different sort of reception – perhaps thinking he would pull her into his arms and kiss her over and over while apologizing for leaving the way he did the other night – but he had to stay strong. The longer he put off telling her what needed to be said, the harder it was going to be for her to hear. After a brief hesitation, she went into his house and Klaus followed her, closing the door and locking it to prevent any of his nosy neighbors from simply barging in during the serious conversation they were about to have.

"I've missed you," Avery said to him, and Klaus couldn't help but smile a bit.

"I know," he told her, gesturing toward the table, "and I'm sorry if I've worried you. We really need to talk, though, so please... have a seat."

"I've heard those words before," Avery said, letting out a short, quiet laugh which held no mirth in it. She shook her head and looked down to her hands, refusing to meet his eyes as she remained standing just inside the door.

"Look, Klaus, if you changed your mind about this – about us – Don't try to spare my feelings. I don't want to hear you say we're better off as friends or that whole, 'It's not you, it's me' speech. It's all bullshit, anyway, so if you want to break up with me, just tell me."

"I'm not breaking up with you, Avery," he told her, going over to her and pulling her into his arms, one hand catching under her chin to turn her gaze up to his. "I love you, and I never want to let you go. But I need to tell you something about my past. Something that might make you want to rethink being with me."

"Whatever it is, I don't care," she told him, biting her lip briefly. "I've had all day to think about this, ever since Marian and Raeger came by and told me you have some big secret you're keeping from me, and as long as you didn't, like... murder a bunch of kids or something equally horrible, I think I can live with any big, dark secrets you might have."

"They told you?" Klaus asked her, his voice barely audible.

"They said that there was something in your past, that likely my mom knew about it and confronted you, and that's why you were acting so strangely when you took me home after our date. They wouldn't tell me what the big secret was, though, and it really annoyed me... but they were right. Whatever this is, I need to hear it from you."

Klaus nodded solemnly. "Sit down. Please."

He released her and went to the table, then pulled out a chair for her and waited for her to sit before taking a seat next to her. He leaned forward and kissed her softly, then rested his forehead against hers and closes his eyes as he took her hands in hers and brought them to his chest so she could feel his heart racing.

"This is very hard for me to talk to you about, Avery," he said, his voice shaking. "I don't think I've been this scared in a while."

"Klaus, it's okay," she assured him, pulling one of her hands free to run it through his hair as she kissed him again. He remained close to her for a moment longer, taking a deep breath and kissing her one last time before pulling away, though he kept her hand held in his upon his lap.

"You already know about how I pulled together that gang to deal with the rabble who were trying to take over the neighborhood where Antonio's restaurant is."

"Yes, and I told you that didn't matter to me," she reminded him.

"Well... I was the so-called 'boss,' and with that kind of power comes certain... privileges."

"Such as?" Avery prompted.

"Women," Klaus said, looking at her, his eyes full of regret. "Lots and lots of women. And, being a teenager, I wasn't about to refuse any of their advances."

Avery did her best to smile and shrug it off, but Klaus could tell she was merely putting up a front. "So you messed around with a lot of girls when you were a teenager. Big deal. Plenty of guys do that."

"It didn't stop when I was a teenager, though," he continued. "It went on well into my twenties. Older women, younger women, it didn't matter. Hell, it didn't even matter if they wanted me, at first. If I saw them and I wanted them, I had to have them."

Avery's eyes went wide and her posture stiffened. "Are you saying you—"

"No!" Klaus cut her off, his own eyes wide as he shook his head. "Goddess, no. I didn't meant for it to sound like that. I never forced a woman against her will. I merely mean that I seduced a good number of them. It was like a game to me."

"So you're saying you basically used to be like Raeger?"

"I was probably at least ten times worse than Raeger," Klaus admitted, looking away from her briefly before turning back, squeezing her hand in his as he reached up with his other hand to touch her face. "But I'm not like that any more. I haven't been for a long time."

"What changed?" she wondered, and Klaus swallowed thickly. He hadn't wanted to tell her about Rebecca, but he knew he had no choice now.

"I fell in love," he told her. "There was a girl... a young, aspiring model. I tried to seduce her, but she wouldn't give in easily. I was determined to have her, though, and in the course of pursuing her I fell head over heels. I decided I wanted more than just meaningless sex for the rest of my life. I wanted a future and a family with someone I could see spending more than just a few nights with. And I thought she was the one."

"So why aren't you with her?" Avery asked.

"She was using me, all along," Klaus said. "All the fight she put up when I went after her was part of some game, to her. It was a way to prolong things until she was able to use my connections within the fashion industry to get a leg up on her career. After she had what she wanted, she was done with me."

"She broke your heart."

Klaus nodded. "And because she did, I treated you unfairly."

"How so?" Avery asked, and she wiped at his cheek with her free hand. Klaus jumped a little. He hadn't even realized he'd started crying.

"She was younger than me, and you're even younger still, so I wrongly assumed you would end up hurting me like she did, in the end."

"There's never been any false pretense when it comes to my feelings for you, Klaus," she assured him. "I love you."

"I love you, too, Avery," he told her, and she leaned closer to kiss him, then gave him a small smile.

"So... Before this girl who broke your heart... How many were there?" she asked. "The way you're talking, I'm guessing we're not in the single digits any more, so... Fifty? Sixty?"

Klaus tensed. "More. A lot more."

"Oh, come on. It's not like you got up in the triple digits or anything, right?"

Klaus remained silent and the smile fell from Avery's face. She pulled her hand away from his and slowly sat back in her chair, watching him silently for a bit before speaking again.

"Klaus... How many were there?"

"I've never actually tried to count them all," he told her. "I'm not sure I could remember every single one, even if I tried."

"Ballpark?"

Klaus drew in a shaky breath and closed his eyes, letting it back out slowly before turning to look at her.

"Probably somewhere around two hundred."

Avery blinked, her breath catching in her throat as she gaped at him, and stood up from her chair. "Two... Two hundred? You've had sex with two hundred women?"

"At least."

Avery nearly knocked her chair over backwards as she began pacing, her arms wrapped around herself. Klaus watched her silently, clenching his hands into fists so he wouldn't feel compelled to stand up and pull her into his arms so he could hold her and attempt to calm her down. He needed to let her deal with this herself.

"So," she finally said, turning toward him. "What are the chances that you've got a kid or two or... I don't know... twenty out there, somewhere?"

"Slim," he answered calmly. "I was a playboy, but I wasn't careless or stupid."

"So I'm guessing there's no strange diseases I need to worry about getting from you, either?"

"No," he assured her with a shake of his head.

"How many of them did you juggle at a time?"

Klaus smiled a little. "I know you're probably going to find this hard to believe, but I've never cheated. Not once. I always ended things with the woman I was with before moving on to the next."

Avery nodded and tightened her arms around herself even more, looking down at the floor and causing her long hair to hide her face like a golden curtain. Klaus tilted his head in an attempt to see her expression. He couldn't see her face, but saw her swallow thickly and knew she was holding back tears.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Avery, I... I didn't want to tell you about this part of my past because I was worried it would hurt you, and it looks like it has. But I'm also actually glad I told you. I love you, and I don't want there to be any secrets between us."

"I'm not..." Her voice broke and she sniffled, reaching up to wipe at her eyes with one hand as she shook her head. "It's not that."

"It's not?"

She shook her head again and finally looked up at him, her face streaked with tears and her brown eyes shining with the ones she had yet to cry.

"I'm not surprised you were popular with the ladies," she told him, smiling a little. "But I admit, it was a bit of a shock hearing just how many women you've been with. That was the past, though. You say you love me, and I believe you."

Klaus stood and went to her, brushing her hair back behind her shoulders and taking her face in her hands as she continued crying.

"What else about this is bothering you?" he asked her, his gaze searching her eyes. She closed her eyes and shook her head, biting her lip to stifle a sob. "Avery, please... Talk to me, love. Tell me what's wrong so I can do my best to fix it."

"I'm a virgin, Klaus!" she blurted out, then covered her mouth with her hand.

"I assumed you were," he told her. "I'm not worried about that."

"You don't get it," Avery insisted, looking up at him. "You've had all these other women before me. Every single one of them has helped to form your expectations of what a woman should be like in bed, and with my inexperience I have fuck-all chance of living up to those expectations."

Klaus shook his head. "You're wrong, Avery. I have no expectations. I used to, when I was younger, but then I realized that every woman is unique in her own way. To expect them all to be the same is foolish. Besides, it's been almost ten years since the last time I had sex, so even if I had expectations they would be pretty low right now."

Avery let out a small laugh and Klaus smiled, leaning down to kiss her briefly before pulling away and reaching up to remove his handkerchief from his breast pocket. He handed it to her and watched her dry her eyes, stroking her hair as she did so.

"Can I tell you something?" he asked her once she was calmed down once more, and she nodded a little.

"What?"

"For as many women as I've been with, I've never wanted anyone more than I want you," he confessed to her, making her blush.

"I sincerely doubt that."

"It's true," he told her, backing her up until she was pressed against the edge of his table, his arms sliding around her waist. "Ever since I first saw you, I've wanted you. The mental images I could come up with – and still do – made me feel like a dirty old man."

"Such as?" she asked him, a daring smirk on her lips as she looked up at him, her eyes still sexy and half-lidded in spite of the redness from her previous bout of crying. Klaus grinned and placed his hands on either side of her waist, pressing his body against hers and trapping her between him and the table, then leaned down until he was nearly close enough to kiss her.

"Remember the last time I had you in this position?" he whispered, his lips brushing against hers as he spoke. Avery nodded. "What do you think was going through my mind, at that moment?"

"You wanted to kiss me," she said softly, leaning forward to press her lips against his. Klaus kissed her briefly, then pulled away and looked down at her with a devilish smirk.

"Trust me... I wanted to do much more than just kiss you," he told her, his hands moving to her hips. He pulled her against him, letting her feel his stirring erection, and chuckled darkly in the back of his throat at her surprised gasp. He kissed her again, a bit harder this time, one of his hands moving up to tangle in her hair.

"Tell me," she pleaded against his lips when they parted, her voice a soft moan.

Klaus leaned down and placed a kiss against the side of her neck, followed by another, then a third. Avery moaned again, reaching up and winding her fingers into his hair, and Klaus ran his tongue over the fading mark he'd left upon her.

"I wanted to put you right on this table and take you," he told her, continuing to place kisses along the column of her throat, his voice a bit huskier than usual. "I wanted to set you on it, hike up your skirt, push aside your panties, and bury myself deep inside you. I wanted to fuck you so hard you couldn't breathe until you came, screaming my name."

"Klaus," she said his name, her voice wavering slightly. He gently bit at the soft skin of her throat and raised his head to look her in the eyes.

"Never doubt that I desire you more than any other woman, Avery," he told her. "That night, I wanted you so badly I had to pleasure myself – twice – before I finally calmed down."

"So did I," she admitted, never breaking eye contact. Klaus' eyes grew slightly wider at her admission and she blushed, a shy smile crossing her lips.

"Don't look so shocked," she told him. "I might be a virgin, but I'm not a complete innocent. In fact, I've lost track of the number of times I've had to... take matters into my own hands, as it were, all thanks to you."

Klaus let out and groan and kissed her passionately, then pulled away and looked at her, shaking his head as he let out a small laugh.

"You have no idea how sexy the image in my mind is right now," he told her, smiling. "The idea of you on your bed, naked, touching yourself and moaning my name... It's almost more than I can take, Avery."

"Well, the bed's right over there," she reminded him, nodding over his shoulder toward the direction of his bed.

Klaus closed his eyes and sighed deeply. Shaking his head, he reached up and untangled her arms from around him, but continued to hold her hands in his as he took a step back again from her.

"Klaus? What's wrong?" she asked him, and he opened his eyes to look at her. Her eyes were full of confusion and hurt, and he brought her hands up to his lips to kiss them, never looking away from her.

"We should wait," he said. "I know we both want this, but trust me... It'll be better if we wait until after we've been together for a while before we start sleeping together."

"Okay," she agreed with a small nod, still looking crestfallen.

"That doesn't mean we can't do other things, in the meantime," he assured her, and she smiled a little.

"Like what?" she wondered.

"You'll see," he told her with a teasing smirk. "Right now, though, I really need to crash. I haven't been sleeping well, and I don't want to end up passing out while I'm working and worrying you again. You probably need to head home to tend to your animals, too."

"Yeah, I do," she said with a reluctant sigh. "Can I have one more kiss before I go, though?"

Klaus smiled and pulled her close, wrapping one arm around her waist while he continued to hold her hand in his. He kissed her softly, gently prodding her tongue with his as he gave her hand a loving squeeze, holding it over his heart.

"I love you, Avery," he told her when they finally parted.

"I love you, too, Klaus," she said, smiling at him.

"So we're okay? Even with all that out in the open?"

Avery nodded. "We're okay."

"Good," Klaus kissed her briefly, once more. "And I want you to remember that any doubts or fears or insecurities you might have, you need to tell me about them... okay? Holding them inside won't cause either of us any good."

"Same goes for you," she chided him, poking him in the chest with her finger.

"Fair enough," Klaus agreed, chuckling.

Avery kissed him once last time and then reluctantly pulled away with a sigh. Klaus held fast to her hand and walked her to the door, then pulled her back into his arms for one last, lingering kiss. Avery hummed thoughtfully to herself as he broke the kiss, and he gave her a quizzical look as he tilted his head slightly to the side.

"I think the animals are going to have to wait," she told him as he unlocked the door and opened it for her. "There's something else I need to do when I get home."

"What's that?" he asked, thinking perhaps she needed to tend to some of her crops or check on the trees she had planted on Eda's land.

"I'm going to lie on my bed and fantasize about what you said you wanted to do to me on your dining room table," she informed him with a wink, then giggled when he grinned at her, a slight blush coloring his cheeks.

"Good night, Klaus!" she said as she descended his steps and made her way back toward the rest of the town.

"Good night, you saucy little minx!" he called after her, earning himself another giggle. He watched her until she disappeared from his sight, then closed the door and leaned back against it with a heavy sigh, still grinning.

"You won't be the only one fantasizing, tonight," he said to himself, re-locking the door before heading to his bed.
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In Sheep's Clothing