The last time Erik had been to the Elizabethan Gardens in Manteo, it had been as an escort to Vanessa for her parents’ thirtieth-anniversary party, three years ago. Eighteen at the time, they weren’t old enough to drink, but Pete had managed to swipe a bottle of Champagne, and they’d hidden in a corner of the Woodland Garden, passing it around until it was empty. 

Erik’s mother had drunk too much that night, loudly sharing the costs to upgrade Utopia Manor with a small pack of groupies by the fountain in the Sunken Garden, which embarrassed his father. As retribution, about halfway through the festivities, his father disappeared for longer than seemly with one of those groupies, adjusting his pants when he finally reemerged from the little copse that held a Virginia Dare statue.

And Erik had seen it all.

Since his childhood, he’d seen too much.

Too much excess. Too much self-centeredness. Too much hypocrisy. Too much disloyalty.

But this time, as he passed through the gates of the sunlit gardens, Laire Cornish’s fingers were threaded through his, the softness of her palm pressed flush against his. Unhappy memories were no match for the bloom of love within him, and he squeezed her hand, looking down at her smiling, upturned face and feeling the full bounty of his fortune in meeting her—someone real, someone genuine, someone modest.

“It’s so beautiful here. I feel like I should whisper,” she said, her sea-green eyes wide and sparkling.

He leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. “You don’t have to whisper.”

“I wish I’d brought a sketchbook,” she said with a sigh, stepping forward onto the carefully manicured brick path.

“I didn’t know you sketched,” he said.

“Mm-hm.” She nodded, stopping to admire a massive light blue hydrangea. “This blue is . . . unbelievable.”

With his free hand, Erik took his phone from his hip pocket. “Want a photo?”

“I’d love one!”

“Well, stand next to it.”

She did and he took a quick picture. “You want to hold the camera? Then you can take all the pictures you want. Just press the black circle on the bottom.”

Shyly, she took the phone from him and dropped his hand, squatting down beside the puffy blooms to take several more pictures. “I have no idea if it’ll capture the color right, but I can try.”

In the distance, Erik heard the low rumble of thunder and grimaced. Flash summer storms rolling off the Atlantic weren’t unusual.

“Sounds like a squall,” noted Laire, straightening up to grin at him.

“You don’t mind?”

“A little rain?” She giggled, shaking her head. “I’m not sugar.”

She offered him her hand, and he took it, joining her down a wide path with flowers and shrubs on both sides.

“Lilies. Hibiscus. Ahhh. Roses,” she hummed.

Dropping his hand again, she leaned closer and took several more pictures, and Erik watched her, his heart swelling with tenderness for her—for the care she took in observing everything around her, for the way she lived totally in the moment.

“What do you sketch?” he asked. “Flowers?”

“No,” she answered, sidestepping up the path a bit to get a close-up of an especially vibrant pink rose. “Um, clothes. Blouses, mostly, but dresses too. Skirts, pants. Ladies’ things.” She turned and looked up at him. “Dark cloud up there. We’re in for it.”

Before he could ask her more about her interest in fashion, his attention was stolen by a young couple with two children hustling along the path toward them. The mother pushed a stroller single-mindedly toward the exit, and the father was a little ways behind, trying to grab the hand of an escaping toddler.

“Ava! Ava Grace, you need to hold my hand!”

The stroller whooshed by, shadowed by the toddler, in a rainbow dress, who screamed, “I wanna walk with Maaa-maaaa!”

As she reached Erik and Laire, she looked up at them and lost her balance, stumbling onto the brick path in a colorful heap. Laire rushed forward before he could totally register the spill, falling to her knees beside the child and gathering her into her arms. By the time the father caught up, the little girl was bellowing her misery into Laire’s neck, but Laire sat nonplussed on the path, looking up at the men.

“Sorry I didn’t catch her in time,” said Laire with an apologetic wince.

“My fault, not yours. She darted away.” He shrugged, looking tired. “She’s going through a phase. Only wants her mama, but the baby’s getting over a cold, and Cindy didn’t want him in the rain.”

Erik looked over his shoulder, but the mother and stroller were no longer in sight. They’d taken cover in the gatehouse that led to the parking lot. Good thing too, he thought, as the sun slipped behind a storm cloud.

“Ava Grace,” said Laire in her soft brogue. “That’s a real pretty name.”

In response, Ava Grace raised her head and sniffled loudly, her sobs subsiding.

“You ready to go with your daddy now?”

“My knee is huuuurted!” she cried, her lips tilted downward in a perfect upside-down U.

“But I bet your daddy can take you to the bathroom and patch you right up, one-two-three.”

“One-two-three?” repeated Ava Grace, unconvinced.

“Mamas are good for so many things,” said Laire, gently detaching the clingy child and setting her on her feet. “But Daddy’s are good for fixing things.”

“Like what?”

“Oh,” said Laire, kneeling back on her heels as she chatted with Ava Grace, “like toys, and bicycle chains, and bloody knees.”

“My daddy never fixed my knee afore.”

“Tsk,” said Laire. “You ever given him a chance?”

The toddler shook her head, a impish smile suddenly making her lips tilt up. “You look like a princess.”

“I do, huh?” asked Laire.

“Uh-huh,” said Ava Grace, reaching out to touch Laire’s strawberry blonde hair. “You’re pretty like a princess.”

“That’s real nice, Ava Grace,” said Laire, standing up and dusting off her shorts. “Now, how about you go with your daddy and get cleaned up, huh?”

Ava Grace looked up at Laire with something akin to hero worship, then turned around and took her father’s hand just as the first raindrops began to fall.

“Thanks,” said the dad, looking grateful. “You’ve got a way with kids.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Laire shrugged, but her cheeks colored, a sign of pleasure. “Just got a lot of little cousins.”

“Can you say good-bye, Ava Grace?” he prompted.

“Bye, princess lady,” she called, staring at Laire over her shoulder until they stepped inside the gatehouse.

Erik’s experience with children was minimal, but like the child’s father, he couldn’t help but note that Laire had a special way with the little girl, and though he wasn’t anxious to be a father just yet, he tucked the memory of Laire and Ava Grace away. Who knew? Someday he might want to take a look at it again.

He almost told her she was amazing, but remembered her warning not to place her on a pedestal and switched gears.

“You do look like a princess,” he said, reaching for a lock of her hair and tucking it behind her ear.

Her cheeks, already pink, deepened to red. “You’re making me blush.”

“Yes, I am,” he said, pulling her into his arms.

His lips found hers effortlessly, and he counted off in his head. Kiss number two. I get twelve more today, and I’m not wasting any. Tracing his tongue along the seam of her lips, she opened for him like the flowers she’d been photographing, and he sucked her tongue gently into his mouth, inviting it to play with his.

The rain fell harder on the back of his bent neck and slid down his forearms, which held her tightly against his body. He could taste the warm summer sweetness of the drops as they slipped between their lips and heard them interspersed between their light moans, landing in gentle pitter-patters on their hair.

When she leaned away and opened her eyes, there were droplets in her eyelashes. She was smiling, her lips rosy and slick. Suddenly he had an idea. “Come with me!”

Taking her hand, he ran down the path, past the statue of Queen Elizabeth I and the Sunken Garden, mentally crossing his fingers that the little gazebo was still there in the north corner of the gardens, hidden and private.

They were soaked by the time they raced up the steps of the small, six-sided structure, which had three little benches inside and was covered with a cone-shaped thatched roof. Laire’s arms glistened with rainwater, and her once silky curls lay damp and flat around her shoulders. He ran his hands through his own wet hair, slicking it back, staring at her with a feverish intensity as he realized that they were alone. Very. Much. Alone.

Finally. At last.

Her eyes, now more black than green, stared back at him as her chest, covered with her wet, skintight top, heaved with exertion.

“Laire,” he murmured, the sound of her name breathless with want.

“Yes,” she whispered.

***

They launched themselves at each other, their lips colliding. Erik’s hand reached for her cheek, holding her face firmly as his fingers plunged deep into her hair. Kissing her madly, he walked her backward into a corner of the small structure, her shoulder blades hitting the walls behind her. She leaned her head back into the void as he wrapped his arms around her, the heat of his lips forging a furious path from her mouth to her throat, resting for a moment on her throbbing pulse, licking the droplets of water from her skin with his silken tongue. The hands around her back slipped beneath her shirt, quickly unsnapping the clasp of her bra as she buried her hands in his hair, demanding his lips again.

Their teeth collided as she arched against him, her hands flush against his cheeks as she directed their kiss, aware of a sudden, welcome warmth on her breasts, protecting her sensitive skin from the cold wet of her bra and shirt. Her breath hitched as she felt a quickening, a ripeness, a realization, and then—like the blinding shock of white lightning against a dark sky—she felt a streak of lust rip through her entire body as his fingers gently rolled her nipples.

She whimpered with surprise and desire, the word more circling endlessly as he kneaded the delicate, virgin skin of her breasts and his tongue mated relentlessly with hers. Rubbing the straining points, the pad of his thumb brushed over the aching buds as she shamelessly pushed her breasts flush against the warmth of his hands.

This is wrong. This is too far.

She heard the voice in her head but was helpless to stop him because she wanted this so desperately. She wanted his hands on her secret places. She needed the heat of his flesh pressed intimately against hers, learning the peaks and valleys of her body just as certainly as she wanted to know his. His touch, gentle yet searing, sent shivers of longing down her spine and warm waves of desire just south of her belly, where they pooled. High tide, building higher and higher.

His kiss grew more urgent, and she trembled in his arms, her eyes rolling back in her head as she tried to catch her breath. With his palms cupping the fullness of her breasts and his thumbs still massaging the tender tips, she shuddered in his arms, her body tensing for one glorious moment. And then . . . she felt something within her give way, break apart, collide, and shatter, exploding into a million pieces that rocked her being from the core outward. Vinelike tendrils of passion unfurled through every limb of her body, stretching her from within as she convulsed in his arms and her panties flooded with wet warmth. His lips were gentle against hers—the eye of her body’s storm—nipping softly, brushing tenderly. His hands still covered her breasts, but his skin rested easy against hers, organically now, not erotically, like it was simply meant to be there, like his flesh was born to seek hers, and, once together, like they should never again be apart.

Her head rested against the wall of the gazebo as she panted through the final shudders of her first orgasm, feeling alive and limp and gloriously loved.

***

At some point, instinct had taken over: an almost blinding lust that had urged him forward. His fingers had unclasped her bra without permission or forethought. His hands had spanned her waist, then skimmed over the silky skin of her belly, moving upward. By the time his palms reached her breasts, cradling the warm, soft skin with reverence, he’d journeyed way too far to consider retreat. He wanted to touch her. He desperately wanted to be the first to touch her.

Because what he said in the car—that he was falling in love with her—wasn’t a line or a lie. It was truly how he felt: like the world would fucking end and the planet stop spinning if he couldn’t be with her. She was an unlikely obsession, this girl he’d known for such a small amount of time. Were he asked under fire, he couldn’t possibly account for the depth and certainty of his feelings for her. It was like being swept away on a current he couldn’t fight. He could either move with it, or he could drown.

Without replacing the cold, damp cups of her bra, he slipped his hands from her breasts and immediately pressed his chest against hers to warm her through the dampness of their clothes. The rigid peaks of her nipples pushed against him, and he gathered her into his arms, maneuvering slightly to sit down on a bench behind him and cradle her on his lap. She rested her cheek on his shoulder, her drying hair tickling the skin of his throat as she took a ragged breath and exhaled softly. Now and then he felt the aftershocks of his ministrations, the way she shuddered or sighed, the way she nestled against him like she wanted to burrow into his soul for all eternity. She didn’t know, but she was already there.

“Laire?” he asked softly, his voice competing with the rain falling on the thatch above.

“Mmm?” she murmured, pressing her lips to his throat.

“You okay, darlin’?”

“Mm-hm,” she hummed, her voice low and sleepy.

He smiled to himself, holding her closer. “Sure?”

“Yeah,” she sighed.

“First time?”

“You know it was.”

“I love that it was.”

She took another deep breath, kissing him again. “Is it always like that? When . . . when a man touches a woman? On her breasts?”

“Not every woman’s as sensitive, I imagine.”

“And when you touch a woman . . .” She wiggled on his lap, and he knew that her clit was likely as taut as her nipples, aching for his touch. “. . . on her below-parts? That happens again?”

His cock, which was semi-erect against her ass, twitched. “Even more, darlin’.”

“My God,” she murmured, sitting up. “I can barely imagine.”

And if Erik thought she was stunning before, now . . . now she belonged to him. The sated look on her face, the softness in her dark eyes, the slack bee-stung pink of her lips. It was his. It was his because he’d put it there, and he felt such a wave of protectiveness, of devotion, of crazy forever-style love, he couldn’t stare at her anymore without blinking back an unexpected burn in his eyes.

Placing his hand on the back of her head, he pushed her face into his neck and held it there while he made himself breathe in, clean and deep, and let the power of those feelings settle in him and around him. They were a part of him now. He owned them just as much as they owned him. And thankfully his tears receded before falling.

“Rain’s stopping,” said Laire, her voice sweet.

“Hmm,” he murmured. “But I thought we’d just live here in this little house forever, Freckles.”

“Cozy,” she said, pressing her lips to his throat again, the gesture comforting and distracting at once. “Erik?”

“Yeah?”

“On Corey, what I just let you do would be bad.”

He clenched his jaw against the notion that anything they’d just shared could be bad. “We’re not on Corey.”

She swallowed, then laid her cheek on his shoulder again, her warm breath kissing his neck. “I know.”

“You feel bad, Laire? I mean, do you feel like it was wrong?”

She was quiet for a moment before lifting her head to look into his eyes. “It was too beautiful to be wrong.”

“Our own rules,” he reminded her. “Our rules say what we did was beautiful.”

Her lips tilted up, and she nodded at him. “Our rules are the best.”

“Yes, they are,” he said, chuckling softly at her happy, satisfied face.

He looked over her shoulder at the path. Beams of sunlight were starting to make their way through the trees. Tourists would start looking around the gardens again. Anyone could wander by them, and while being caught making out wasn’t a big deal in his eyes, he imagined she might not feel the same.

“Want me to hook you up?” he asked, patting the unfastened halves of her bra through her shirt.

She sat up and reached under her shirt to quickly latch and adjust her bra. “Nope. All good.”

He cupped her cheeks tenderly as he rested his forehead against hers. “Thank you.”

“For what?” she asked, holding his forearms gently with her fingers.

“For trustin’ me. For lettin’ me be with you.”

She nodded, grinning at him. “I’m glad it was you.”

He brushed his lips against hers and sighed. “Want to go see more of the gardens, darlin’?”

She hopped up, sliding one hand down his forearm to his hand, which she clasped in hers. “Yes, Erik, I do.”

***

At the gift shop he bought her a sketchbook and a silver pendant etched with a heart. When he put the necklace around her neck, the silver charm lay between her breasts, heavy and warm, and she blushed, remembering their passionate time in the gazebo.

She’d have to hide the necklace before she went home tonight, but it was hers, and she’d cherish it, and it would always—always—remind her of the perfect day with her love.

As they drove away from the gardens and back across the bridge from Roanoke Island to the Banks, Laire had the first pangs of sadness. It was only seven, but their beautiful date was coming to an end. Sooner than later, they’d have to drive back down to Hatteras and say good-bye. And it wasn’t that they couldn’t have another date again, but just for today, she’d actually freed herself from Corey for a few hours. She wasn’t frightened of being found out. She wasn’t worried about being seen with Erik. She had embraced her time with him with a fullness and gratitude that felt so wonderful, she hated the idea of going back to sneaking around. She wished every day could be like today.

Erik held her hand across the bolster as they turned south on Route 12.

“You know,” he said, oblivious to her heavy ruminations, “you never did tell me about your sketches.”

“I make my own clothes. And my sisters’. And for lots of other women on the island.”

“I didn’t know. But you always look great.”

“Thanks. Remember how I mentioned that my mother went to college?”

“Uh-huh. You were proud of her.”

She nodded. “I want to go too.”

“To college? Away from Corey?”

She glanced at him and answered tartly, “Since there’s no college there, yes.”

“But . . . I can’t imagine you leavin’ your home.”

I can. “I’ve looked into it. The two best fashion design schools on the East Coast are in New York and Rhode Island.”

“N-New York? Laire! New York City?”

His voice was so shocked, she felt defensive. “I can go anywhere I want to.”

“Says the girl who hasn’t been farther inland than Jacksonville.”

“Just because I haven’t doesn’t mean I can’t,” she said, releasing his hand and crossing her arms over her chest.

“Well, of course you can. I just . . . What does your father think?”

Her lips twitched. “He doesn’t know.”

Erik took a deep breath and sighed. “So you like designin’ clothes?”

“I love it. I’ve been designing them since my mama passed.”

“The shirt you have on?”

“Mine,” she said.

“That hot blouse you were wearing the first night you met me on Buxton? The maroon one that made my mind go blank?”

She grinned. “Mine again.”

“Those little shorts that keep teasin’ me today?”

“Mine.”

He looked over at her and nodded. “You’re talented.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, I do.” He paused. “So how does this plan work exactly? Laire going to college?”

She sighed. “Laire works for two summers at the Pamlico House and saves every dime. Little by little, she tells her father about her plans until he stops forbidding her to go. And then, when she’s twenty, she applies. With any luck, she’ll be accepted, and . . .”

“And she’ll go to New York and become a big-time designer.”

“In a nutshell.”

“And I’ll be able to say, ‘I knew her when,’” he said wistfully.

Reaching for his hand, she pulled it to her lips and kissed it as the sun drew closer and closer to the sea.

Hopefully, she thought, you’ll still know me then.