“Wow.” He nodded, a chill passing through him at the unapologetic absoluteness of her suggestion. “I see.”
“But you don’t agree.” She tilted her head to the side, scanning his face with curiosity. “You think a girl can give herself to someone and not marry him and still be . . . good?”
“Yeah. I think . . . I mean, I think . . .”
Damn it, what did he think?
In the real world, in his world, he didn’t consider sex that big a deal. He wasn’t some herpes-spreading manwhore, but Erik had lost his virginity when he was sixteen, like most of his friends. And he’d been with several girls since, most notably his college girlfriend of two years, Alexa, with whom he’d broken up in March.
But—here and now—he and Laire weren’t in his world. Here, sitting on Adirondack chairs, looking out at the Pamlico Sound in Buxton, neither on her island nor at his mansion, it somehow felt like they both had a foot in each world. Did he think a girl who slept with a man before marriage was “bad”? No. He didn’t. Nor, however, did he want to disrespect her values by touting his own as more right.
He sighed, tightening his fingers through hers, looking at her lovely face and wondering what it was about her that had so quickly and firmly ensnared him. This conversation was awkward—much more so than he’d usually tolerate—and yet it somehow felt worth it. In fact, it felt unthinkable to abandon it and walk away from her. He could feel his feelings for her taking root in his heart—protectiveness and tenderness developing within him in tandem, made only more potent by his almost-blinding lust for her.
Concentrating on his feelings instead of his attraction to her helped him to choose his words carefully. “I think that we come from different places and see the world differently.”
“Or maybe you’re just a man,” she said, her tone on the cusp of defensive. “Men’s urges make them want more than a girl should give.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. There was some truth to what she was saying, but he’d spent half an hour trying to understand where she was coming from and help her understand him. He’d be damned if he let her boil it down to some bullshit refrain about gender inequality. Her words weren’t fair, and he wasn’t going to let her get away with them.
“I’m a person,” he said, raising his chin. “And I believe that if two people care about each other and want to be with each other, it’s nobody else’s business what they do when they’re alone together. It’s private. It’s up to them to make up their own rules.”
Her eyes widened again, and she searched his face with such heartbreaking solemnity, it made his guts clench with something indefinable and unfathomable. Had he understood the scope and force of what started between them in that moment, of what was now alive and growing deep within him, he might have run from her.
But he didn’t know and he didn’t run. And like stepping from life to eternity, or over a bridge to a place of no return, he faced her, waiting for her to respond, waiting to know if there was a future for them, or merely a farewell.
“I like that, Erik,” she said, her lips tilted upward with wonder, her eyes soft and welcoming.
The way she looked at him. Fuck.
He felt his breathing hitch with the power of it, with the power it had to make everything feel—no, be—okay. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers, closing his eyes as the darkness shielded them from the rest of the world in a little bubble of their own making.
“We can make our own rules,” she whispered against his lips. “I like that so much.”
He felt his heart open like a story, like a song, like the wings of a gull or the clouds that rain or the soft sweet place between her legs that he may—or may not, in all likelihood—ever know. Like doors and windows and spirit and the heavens and tightly locked doors that are portals to somewhere a man might want to spend his forever.
His heart opened wide, and he leaned forward to brush her lips with his, a profound sense of someday catching his breath with the same wonder he’d read in her eyes.
“Me too, Laire. I like it so much too.”
***
Seated across from Erik at a shiny wooden table by the windows, Laire looked at the menu with approval. The Pamlico House didn’t buy their seafood from her father and uncle, but they had a good selection of local catch, and with a quick peek at the back of the menu, she recognized the purveyor as someone over on Ocracoke about whom her father had spoken with respect.