Page 93 of A Novel Love Story

I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and drew myself up to kiss him again. The contrast of his warm hands on my body in the cold water made me shiver.

We made ripples in the water.

His hands slipped down to my waist, his mouth on the side of my neck as he kissed me there, then lower at my collarbone, the base of my throat. His teeth skimmed my skin as he carried me over to the bank of the plunge pool, and pushed me onto a patch of aster and grass, his hands feeling up my thighs. I curled my fingers into his hair, and brought his head back up to mine, and kissed his mouth again.

I didn’t like the taste of black tea, but I fucking loved the taste of him, and when I bit his lip, I loved the sound of his moan, too.

“Fuck, Elsy,” he growled, looking down at me, framed in the asters, “go a little slower.”

I smiled against his mouth. “Am I too fast for you?”

“Yes,” he replied, lifting himself up off me, his hands planted on either side of my head, and nibbled on my earlobe before he whispered into my ear. “I want to savor this.”

The barely restrained want in his voice made my heart slam against my chest. He wanted to savor this, but clearly he sounded like he wanted me as soon as possible. There was something so infuriatingly sexy about that patience, so much so that it just made me want him more. His hands traveled down my torso as he nibbled my neck again, breathing into my hair.

“I want to savor you,” he murmured, burying his face in my hair,“sweetheart.” The way he growled it sent my heart skipping like a stone.

“I thought you didn’t like sweet things,” I said, trying to keep control of myself, though all I wanted to do was drown myself in his touch.

His lips pressed against my ear. “I like you.” His hands worked to unbutton my shorts and slide them off. Water droplets slid to the ends of his hair, glistening in the afternoon sunlight that shone through the trees.

My chest felt like it was full of butterflies. I pushed him off me, and rolled, so that I straddled his hips. My hair fell down over my shoulders, framing my face in curtains of curly copper. “You can’t mean that.”

“I do.” He looked up at me with eyes like molten emeralds. “How do you want me to prove it?”

I traced the line of his jaw. “Do you have any ideas?”

“I could serenade you with words,” he supplied, taking my hand and kissing the palm of it, never letting his gaze leave mine. “If I was a poet, I could liken love to your eyes. If I was a gardener, I could plant a kiss on all the places you despise on yourself.” Slowly, he pulled me down on top of him, pressed against him. “If I was a writer, I could write epics to your lovely lips.” He kissed me again, and his words were hot against my mouth. “If I was a painter, I could explore every bend and curve so when my eyes failed me, I would paint you by memory.” His hands slid along the length of my sides, dusting softly against my thighs.

Then he wrapped his arm around me and rolled me onto my back, his mouth on mine, and gently took off my shirt, and I unclasped my bra, and he planted a kiss on my left breast, and then my right.

“Lovely,” he murmured, and flicked his tongue against my nipple. My fingers buried into the heather beneath me.

I sucked in a breath. He felt my chest rise, and it only made him plant his hands on my waist and do it again, so I couldn’t squirm away.

And like a painter, he explored every part of my body. Like a writer, he muttered manifestos to my elbows, my knees, my ankles. Like a gardener, he planted kisses on my stomach and under my chin, in all the places that the world told me I shouldn’t love. And if there was love in my eyes, he was a poet, too.

I’d distanced myself from love for so long, told myself that I didn’t need it, didn’twantit, that I wasn’t so sure I knew what love looked like anymore outside of a book. I’d grown to care about this man, somehow, over the last few days. I’d gotten used to his wry charm, and his sarcasm, and I found myself looking for his shadow at the bar, and the bookstore. And I knew that whenever I thought of that road that wound up to Charm Bridge, a heavy stone sank in my stomach.

No, I wouldn’t think about that now, because he was here, and he was with me. No one else but me.

As his hands traveled down, I caught them. “Wait,” I whispered, and swallowed the trepidation growing in my chest. “Wait, we should probably …”

“Right,” he added. He reached over to his damp jeans and pulled out his wallet, taking a condom from where the bills were supposed to be. It was an act that was supposed to be for his heroine, for the woman Rachel Flowers wrote for him.

Not me. This scene, these kisses, they weren’t meant for me. They were for—

“I’m sorry if it isn’t your preference,” he said, beginning to tear the wrapper open,but I stayed his hands. He huffed, “It’s hard to find different kinds in El—”

“No, no, that’s not what …” I hesitated. Bit my lip hard. I looked up to the waterfall and said, “Are you sure you want to do this with me?”

His gaze softened. “What kind of question is that, sweetheart?”

Shit.I squeezed my eyes closed. “I just mean … I’m not supposed to be here. And you have someone else—someone you’re supposed to—”

“Eileen,” he interrupted, his voice barely restrained, and my gaze focused on him again, and his handsome face. He pushed a lock of hair off my forehead, and then kissed it. “I want to do this with you. Do you want to with me?”

Oh, what kind of question was that? I studied him, his soft hair and his angular face and his lovely mint eyes.

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