Bo turned her around by her shoulders. She heard the hum of the zipper in the darkness, then felt his hands as they ran along her body, nudging the dress off until it fell in a pool at her feet. His hands moved smoothly, with experience, to unsnap her bra, and his hands reached around from behind, gently caressing her breasts.
He slowly turned her again to face him and lowered his head to kiss her lips, her cheeks, her eyes, her ears, until she felt her own breathing shorten and heard a soft sigh escape her lips. Leaning down, he gently kissed between her breasts and slowly let his tongue play with her nipples. Her hands dug into his back as she arched into him, filled with new sensations. Her hands moved to his pants, fumbling, as she undid the buttons and slid them down his trim hips.
He laid her back on her bed and they came together in what felt like slow motion, his body against hers, skin on skin. She closed her eyes and was awash in sensation. She felt his lips everywhere, searching, finding, bringing her pleasure she couldn’t have imagined. She felt a tension growing deep in her body, luscious and demanding, coiling tighter and tighter.
“Heather.”
She heard her name and drew herself back from somewhere far away to open her eyes. Bo was arched over her, his eyes burning as bright as fire.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
He knows, she thought. He knows he’ll be my first. She’d expected to feel shy. Maybe even embarrassed. She was twenty-six and still a virgin. But she felt none of this. She desired him. She wanted Bo, only Bo, to be the first, and she was glad of him knowing it.
Heather parted her lips and drew his head to hers. Slowly, deliberately, her tongue traced the inner rim of his lips, moist and tremulous. Immediately his tongue probed in response, gently touching hers. A whimper rose in her throat, a final cry of surrender, and in a rush she wrapped her arms around him.
“Yes.”
Bo kissed her hungrily, possessively, as he moved to blanket her with his body. Nothing was slow now. They came together like the rushing tide—resolute, turbulent, white-capped with passion. Heather buried her face in his neck, her mouth open. She heard his panting and, excited, matched it with her own, drowning in sensations as he moved against her. Her na?ve, tender body finally found his rhythm and began to move with him in a dance lovelier, more nuanced, than the ones they’d danced before out on the dock. Faster they danced, keeping the rhythm, he and she together, nothing to fear, until with a final cry she relinquished, not with a whimper of defeat but with a soaring cry of triumph.
BO WOKE THE next morning to the sounds of birds chirping. The light coming in through the shutters reflected the blue-gray color of dawn. He pushed back the hair from his face and looked around the room, blinking, taking stock. Then, as he remembered the night before, a slow grin eased across his face. He let his hand drop to the opposite side of the big four-poster bed.
It was empty.
Where was she?
He tore the top sheet from the bed and wrapped it around his waist, then walked out of the bedroom into the dim front room. There was no light on in the kitchen, either, no scent of coffee brewing. A sense of dread filled his chest. Perhaps she was off somewhere regretting the events of the previous night, wishing it—he—had never happened. That thought nearly brought Bo to his knees. He’d never hurt Heather, never wanted to do anything that caused her distress. He ran his hand through his hair. Had he missed some sort of signal? Gone too fast, pushed too hard?
The faint sound of humming came from the sunroom. He swung his head around, and his breath caught.
Heather was perched on a stool in front of a large canvas, one knee bent with her foot propped on the rung, the other leg stretched out long for balance as she leaned forward, paintbrush in hand. She was wearing nothing but his shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, her long blond hair loosely collected at the nape of her neck. The silhouette of her slender body was visible in the morning light.
Later Bo would become aware that that was the precise moment he fell in love with Heather. She was all that was beautiful and radiant and right in the world. He could not imagine a day not waking up to her beside him. In his bed. In his home. In his life. With a primeval surge, he knew. His.
He crept up behind her and slid his arms under the shirttails, his hands locking around her bare waist. She startled and jumped with a high-pitched yelp, then laughed and leaned back into him. His hands moved up to caress her bare breasts as his lips burrowed into her neck. She arched against him with a soft moan. He turned her around on the stool to face him. Her blue eyes were bright with amusement, curiosity, and something Bo recognized as unmistakable lust and, yes, even more. Bo took the brush from her hand and let it fall onto the drop cloth below. Then he lifted his hands and gently smoothed the hair from her face so he could look into her expressive eyes. He had to tell her how he felt. When a man felt as strongly as he did, when he was so sure, he couldn’t wait for a so-called perfect moment. That moment was now.
“Heather, I love you,” he said.
Her eyes widened with surprise, then myriad emotions flickered: joy, exuberance, and, at last—and Bo gloried in the surety of this expression—love.
“I love you, too.”
Chapter Twenty
READY OR NOT, here we come!”
Flo’s voice boomed through the sunroom as she slid back the glass doors. It was a hot day in late July and all the windows were closed to let the air-conditioning do its work. Heather came from the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel. Flo’s snowy white head was poking through the doors, her bright blue eyes searching the room. In her arms she carried a large brown box filled with goodies.
“Y’all are early! Welcome!”
“Early? You said six o’clock, didn’t you?” Emmi said, closing the sliding glass door behind her with one hand, balancing a pie in the other. Emmi was wearing a lilac-print sundress and her hair was pulled back in a purple clasp. She even had lilac cloisonné earrings in her ears. Flo was dressed in bright red capris and a white linen shirt, large turtle earrings dangling from her lobes.
“Six thirty, but who’s counting?” Heather replied with a light laugh, even though any company arriving—especially early—gave her a jolt of nervousness. But this isn’t company, these are friends, she reminded herself sternly.
Immediately the canaries started chirping, excited by the sound of voices. Moutarde began singing first, as usual.
“I’m sorry you had to close up your doors and windows. I miss hearing your birds. They cheer me up,” Flo said, walking across the room. Her head turned from left to right as she scanned the room, curious. She stopped in front of Heather and handed over the box, her bright eyes sweeping over her like searchlights. “Don’t you look nice.”
Heather looked down at her pink Lilly Pulitzer dress. “Thanks. It’s cool on a hot night.”
“Amen! It’s hotter than Hades out there.”
Emmi dabbed at her brow with a tissue. “Just walking from our house to yours worked up a sweat.”
“I know,” Heather said, accepting the box filled with offerings. “Even at dawn.”