They were so new and pretty, wearing them gave her the little boost of confidence she desperately needed. She wore them with cream-colored skinny jeans and a silk blouse. The blouse was the piece she was most proud of. She had shamelessly copied it from a design by Foundrae. It was a deep-plum, layered-silk, fringed tank top that showed off her collarbone and the slight swells of her breasts to perfection. It was, by far, the most sophisticated piece she owned, made even more so by the crepey peekaboo silk that showed the faint outline of her belly button just over the low-slung light denim on her hips.
She’d washed her hair after her talk with Kyrstin in the kitchen, blow-dried it, then twisted it carefully into a bun for some curl. As she walked up the dock to the Pamlico House, she took out the pins that held it and shook out her pinkish-orange locks, feeling the soft curls bounce around her shoulders before settling.
At the top of the gangplank, she found a sidewalk, but she came to an abrupt stop, her mules still on the concrete. She stared up at the beautiful inn and took a deep breath, having a moment of panic about the job and Ms. Sebastian . . . and Erik Rexford. Suddenly it all felt like too much for sheltered li’l Laire, who barely knew anything about the world beyond Corey Island. Was she crazy for taking this job? For meeting this man? Who did she think she—
“I worried you might not come.”
Turning to her left, she gasped as a smile exploded across her face.
“Hi,” she said breathlessly, putting one of her hands in her back pocket and running the other though her hair.
“Hi,” he said, laughing softly as his smile grew quickly to match hers. “I have a confession. I’ve been here since six.”
“Six? But I said—”
“I know,” he said, reaching for her free hand and lacing his fingers through hers without permission. “You said eight. I guess I just . . .” He shrugged. “I didn’t want to miss you.”
Holding his hand was scrambling her brain and making all the air in her lungs slip through her lips until she was light-headed and had to remind herself to breathe.
“I’m here now,” she said, her voice soft and thin.
He took a step closer to her, so close that his chest brushed into hers with every deep breath he took. His dark eyes seized and held hers.
“I can’t stop thinkin’ about you. I couldn’t wait to see you again,” he said.
His glance slid to her lips as it had last night, and she heard the words in her head:A first kiss. You want him to be your first, don’t you?
Laire tilted her head back to look up into his face, which was backlit with the pink, gold, and lavender swirls of the dying sun, and her heart filled with so much tenderness, there was no way for one organ to hold it all. It spilled over into her chest, and she breathed it in, keeping her face upturned, reluctant to miss even a moment with him.
Her heart raced with awareness—of herself, of him, of being alone with him, away from her island.
Go ahead. Kiss him. Kiss the boy.
“Laire . . .,” he whispered, his breath falling softly on her lips as she leaned up on tiptoe and pressed her virgin mouth to his.
His fingers untwined from hers, and he wound both arms around her waist, pulling her close, until her chest was pressed flush against his, the buttons of his crisp gingham dress shirt pushing into the thin silk of her tank top.
The hand she’d hidden in her back pocket slid free, tracing the warm, hard skin of his forearm to his elbow, over the folds of his rolled cuff to the starched cotton of his bicep, which flexed beneath her fingers. His lips were brushing hers gently, almost tentatively, and for a moment she panicked, wondering if he was just being nice, if maybe the way he’d looked at her mouth hadn’t signaled interest after all.
But when her fingertips, which slipped soundlessly over the ridge of his shoulder, came into contact with the bare skin of his throat, the kiss changed. Stepping closer to her, his knee parted her legs, and she leaned forward, into him, cupping the back of his neck with her palm and holding on tight as his tongue swept the seam of her lips. They parted for him, inviting him inside.
He groaned, his hot length of tongue sliding erotically over hers as he held her tighter. Her free hand slid up the other side of his throat, her fingers lacing and locking behind his neck to keep his face close to hers, his lips affixed to hers, his body flush and hot and close.
Timidly, she touched the tip of her tongue to the soft, wet, ridged side of his, and she flinched with the intense clench-and-release in her pelvis, the sudden warmth that flooded her white cotton panties as Eric pushed his thigh between her legs. As he supported her against him with strong arms around her back, Laire lost herself in the sensation of their tongues tangling and dancing, teasing each other with hot touches and languorous slides.
More. More. More, please, she thought. More for now, and for later, and for the years that I waited, and for the years up ahead, when we won’t know each other anymore. More.