Tad paused, his gaze unwavering. ‘It’s a lovely dress, but I particularly like it because you’re wearing it, Amy.’
He slipped his hand around hers and they made the short walk to the bar, right on the lakefront and strung all around with fairy lights, variegated ivy and flowering plants all but hiding the trellis used to separate this bar from passers-by.
Still busy with diners, and too early for revellers, the streets were buzzing but calm, the air warm but with the sun now mercifully low in the sky. Amy chose to sit with her back to its dying rays. Live and learn, she thought as Tad took a seat across from her and they ordered drinks.
‘This is nice,’ she said, moistening her lips as she struggled with what to say next. ‘Very quiet.’
‘Too quiet for you?’ he asked, a frown burrowing into his forehead. ‘There are other bars, livelier ones, but this one has got a great view over the water.’
‘Not at all. This is lovely. And you’re right. The view is great.’
‘It certainly is.’ Tad stared at her, then looked away shaking his head as he stifled a laugh. ‘God, I’m no good at this.’
‘No good at what?’ Amy hadn’t taken her gaze away from him, wondered how long it might take him to notice she hadn’t taken in much of the lakeside view, either.
‘It’s been such a long time since it meant anything, you know? And now, I feel as if my tongue is twice the size it should be and everything I want to say will come out all wrong.’
‘You’re having a seizure, you mean?’ Amy said, but she wasn’t being serious. She understood exactly what he was saying, because she was feeling the same. Alongside the pounding of her heart, flocks of birds had set up camp in her stomach, taking flight and battering at her from the inside as she stared at him. It had been like this with Shaun, early on. Losing control with him had been so easy. Would be the same with Tad if the birds in her belly didn’t let up. ‘You were doing all right at dinner.’
‘Yeah, but that was banter. That’s easy,’ Tad said as he leant forward and placed his elbows on the table. ‘No, what I’m saying – or trying to say – is that you’re doing something to me. Something I wasn’t sure I’d ever?—’
Tad didn’t finish his sentence, the waiter making a silent and yet obvious approach to the table, forcing Amy to drag her attention away from Tad as she took hold of her glass of Dutch courage – otherwise known as vodka and Coke – and he took a sip from his lemony soda thing. Home-made by the bar, apparently, and worthy of special fuss by the waiter before he withdrew.
Amy hid behind her drink, sipping the familiar contents through a straw as she waited for him to pick up the conversation from where he’d broken off. Instead, he looked out across the glistening lake, glass in hand.
‘I think I might want to stay here forever,’ he said, the segue – and the gravity of his tone – throwing Amy.
‘At this bar?’ Shoving her own elbows onto the polished marble of the narrow tabletop, she leant forward, closing the gap between them. Physically narrowing the gap even as she used humour to divert the conversation from the serious.
He huffed a laugh, turning back to face her, elbows matching hers, two drinks between them, fingers restless against the glass. ‘No.’
‘Where then?’ she said, all humour gone as he brushed at the back of her hand with his.
‘Here,’ he said, allowing his fingers to rest against hers.
There was no mistaking the intent behind his expression, or behind the way his fingers threaded their way around hers, both hands cold from the condensation of their glasses.
‘How about here?’ she said, stretching out her free hand, looping her index finger into the collar line of his T-shirt, pulling him towards her. As she leant forwards, a final flutter of nervous fear quieted and they paused, a delicious few seconds close enough to feel the electricity from one another before their forward momentum brought his lips to hers and he kissed her.
18
They didn’t finish their drinks. Abandoned on a table that suddenly took up far too much room between them, Amy’s glass jittered and threatened to topple as they hurried to leave the bar. She didn’t look back. Fingers threaded through his, held firm, her only conscious thought to be somewhere where there wasn’t anyone else. Somewhere they could be alone.
She’d felt it that very first day, when she’d only just met him, and she’d made that terrible joke about flaky pastry. The way he’d smiled at her. She’d done her best to ignore it, but now, with the heat of his hand around hers and the impossibly soft way he’d kissed her, Amy knew she couldn’t stop at that. Wanted far more from him than a quick kiss or a tender moment. The brakes had failed on the juggernaut, and it was only ever going to pick up speed as it headed in one direction.
He pulled her to a halt between two dim streetlights, not yet fully illuminated and leaving a darker area where they stood as he reached his palms around each side of her face and leant in to kiss her again.
This time softness had been replaced by a sense of urgency, the feeling that had them wordlessly leaving the bar made real in the way he kissed her, the way he slowly backed her against the rough stone of the building and leant into her.
Her fingers found the hem of his T-shirt, hesitating momentarily before she threaded them beneath the fabric, allowing them to feel their way across the warmth of his skin for the first time. He sucked in a breath, pausing to draw back as he studied her, lids heavy on his dark chocolate eyes, raven hair flopping over an eyebrow.
‘God, Amy – I… Do you want to go…’
‘Back to the hotel?’ Amy wasn’t sure if that was what he would have said, but it was what she wanted to do. Worried she hadn’t made it obvious enough, she added, ‘My room?’
‘Aye. Yes. That sounds…’ He didn’t complete his sentence, too busy kissing her again. His fingers threaded their way through her hair, loose and hanging down her back as he drew even closer to her. Her fingers tightened against the muscles of his back, tugging him closer still as she lost all sense of place and time, deep instead in the way his touch, his kiss, his sheer presence was making her feel.
Amy sank back against the wall, melting against the firm lines of his body, too caught up in the moment to want to move, even though she wanted to have him all to herself, to lock the world out and find out what the rest of him felt like.
