EVEN AS THEY resumed eating, memories and sexual awareness sparked between them, growing so palpable, it was like a physical force as strong and wild as the sea crashing against the cliff outside the windows.
“It’s funny, not in a ha-ha way, that you saw me as being like all those other girls,” Sarah said, topping off her wine as she tried to ignore the way his gaze warmed her aching heart.
Oh, yes, she was going to regret all this wine drinking in the morning, but they hadn’t yet reached that familiar place where conversation between them flowed easily. Possibly, she admitted, because they’d been so young that discussions about long-term life issues had been easy to overlook. She’d chosen her path early, which he’d supported, but neither had given any thought to the logistics. Their breakup, along with her detour year, had caused her to question a great many things.
“When I first arrived on campus, I felt so out of place I might as well have been wearing a sign saying Poor Fisherman’s Daughter.”
“Your father’s more than a poor fisherman,” John pointed out. “He owns three boats. He’s created jobs that allow other families to have a good living.”
“True. But as you said about wealth being relative, the school was a total culture shock. From the way people dressed, the way they talked, especially how they thought nothing of shopping for a hundred-dollar plain white cotton shirt, going out to expensive restaurants, or planning spring break to Europe or some white-beach Caribbean island. While other students like me couldn’t afford to go home for spring break or even Thanksgiving.
“I struggled with everything, including how to pay for books. I’d always been the smart girl, but suddenly I was questioning my identity, embarrassed by my socioeconomic background while at the same time feeling guilty for trying to transcend it.”
“I wish you’d told me.”
“I wish I had, too.” Sarah didn’t know what he could have done about her situation, or even if he could have truly understood it. But John would have been a good sounding board. “At the same time, I fell in love with so much about the school. You were right about it being like some 1800s English estate. There were times when I felt as if I’d traveled back in time. Though by having to work, it was as if I were constantly bouncing back and forth between my ‘upstairs’ and ‘downstairs’ lives.
“But going out to the lake or strolling through the meadows carried me far away from my parents’ worrying about literally keeping Dad’s boats afloat and, during short seasons, or seasons with a lot of storms, how to pay the mortgage.” The lake especially had always been a special place, much like the setting she’d imagined Mr. Darcy had chosen for his second proposal to Elizabeth.
“Which had you feeling guilty about enjoying yourself.”
And didn’t that guilt still sting? Just a little? She lifted her glass to him. “You do know me well.”
“Not well enough, apparently. I never had a clue.”
She lifted a shoulder. “You weren’t supposed to. But by the end, when I showed you around, I’d found my own ways to fit in.”
“It was the same in Nepal,” he said. “In the beginning, my language skills were terrible, and a tall white guy like me obviously stands out, so everywhere I went, people would look at me like I’d landed from some spaceship. Everyone watched everything I did. I felt under a microscope.
“But there’s a solitude in those mountains, a mindfulness, that changes the way you look at life. By the end of my two years, I’d found a way to fit in by focusing more on what we had in common, that while it sounds like a cliché, people tend to be the same everywhere. They have the same hopes and dreams, especially for their children, and the desire to love one another.”
“And speaking of love...” He held out a hand.
She took her paper napkin from her lap, placed it on the table and stood up. “Yes.”
* * *
HE DIDN’T CARRY her up the stairs, like Rhett had Scarlett, in what had to be the most memorable, literal sweep-the-woman-off-her-feet moment in history. Rather, hand in hand, they walked up the stairs to his room, which on some level she noticed had been painted a deep blue and had paintings of stormy sea and tall ships she guessed had been painted by his brother. She watched as he stripped off the blue-and-white quilt, folded back a crisp top sheet that matched the walls. Then lit the kindling beneath the logs stacked in yet another of the house’s fireplaces. His movements were deliberate, as if giving her time to change her mind.
Which she had no intention of doing.
Finally, he went into the bathroom and returned with a strip of condoms he placed on the black bedside table before coming over to stand in front of her.
“They’re Mike’s.” He answered her unspoken question. “In case you think I’ve been carrying them around with me the last two years in case I got lucky. I asked him to bring some.”
She was a little embarrassed about that, but then again, his brother would’ve known exactly what they’d probably be up to when he bought those groceries. And she was grateful he’d thought of protecting her.
“You were that confident?”
“Let’s just say I was hopeful.”
When he ran his hands over her shoulders, his left thumb pausing a moment at the base of her throat, Sarah wondered if he could feel her heart leap, and knew from the flare in his blue eyes that he had.
He trailed his fingers down her arms, linked them with hers. His hands were warm and thickly calloused from the hard physical work he must’ve been doing in Nepal. There was a long, suspended beat of stillness as he looked down at her and she looked up at him. Watching. Waiting.
Finally, he bent his head and brushed his mouth against hers. It was a light kiss, a feathering as soft as down, but enough to cause her eyes to drift closed as that familiar, shimmering warmth she’d never thought she’d ever feel again began to flow in her veins.
His thumb touched the corner of her mouth, not in that outwardly casual way he had in the ferry line, but with obvious sensual intent. She parted her lips, inviting, needing more, then moaned as his tongue touched hers. His mouth was firm and warm as the mulled wine she’d drunk at Christmas in England. His evening razor stubble stimulated her skin as he took his time, the exquisite kiss going on. And on. And on.
Without his mouth leaving hers, he lifted her hand and pressed her palm against the front of the blue chambray shirt he’d changed into. His heart, thudding hard against her touch, matched her own. Only then did he pull back. Just a whisper of a bit.
“That’s what you do to me,” he said, his voice low and so rough that, needing to kiss him again, she gripped his shirt, went up on her toes and lifted her open mouth to his.
With a deep groan, he pulled her tight against his body, which had always been fit, but was now as hard as stone. And not just his torso—which, she discovered as she unbuttoned the shirt—had amazing washboard abs—but everywhere. She slid her hands beneath the blue chambray to run them over his back, which felt as if it had muscles on top of muscles. Not the kind built in a gym, but by hard physical work.
If she were an artist, she’d want to paint him in the nude. As a woman, struck by a surge of purely primal lust, she’d settle for just having him naked. Now.
When she would have rushed, John insisted on taking his time, touching, tasting, loving her everywhere, causing her bones to soften in that oh-so-familiar way. In turn, she touched his beautiful, strong male body in places she’d dreamed about too many times over the years. While at the same time his clever hands brought all those erogenous zones only he had discovered back to life again, causing every atom in her body to sing a joyous hallelujah.
Outside, the storm rolled in from the sea, creating flashes of lightning across the bed as they created a magnificent storm of their own.
* * *
AFTERWARD, EATING THAT rich Boston cream pie in bed, Sarah realized that he’d been right about her being more like Anne Elliot. Like Anne, she loved deeply. And constantly.
She’d loved John Mannion all her life. And would continue to love him until she took her last breath. And then, if they were so blessed, even beyond.