First Time in Forever (Puffin Island 1)

He held her, murmured soft words against her hair, breathed in the scent of her until the last pulse died away and she lay limp against him.

Ryan tried to steady his own breathing.

He was rock-hard. So aroused he was ready to take her there and then, but he forced himself to slowly withdraw his hand and smooth her pajamas back into place.

Her head was dipped forward, so all he could see was the shimmer of her hair and the shadow of thick, dark eyelashes.

“Emily, look at me.” His voice sounded raspy and rough, but he was impressed he’d managed to form a coherent sentence, so he wasn’t about to apologize for that.

Her hands were locked in the front of his shirt, as if he was the one solid, reliable thing in a collapsing world.

“This is embarrassing. You need to go now.”

“Why is it embarrassing?”

“Because you—and I—damn it, Ryan, you know why. We lost control.” Her voice was muffled against his chest, and he clenched his jaw.

“I didn’t lose control.”

Slowly, she lifted her face to his. “You didn’t?”

“If I’d lost control, I would have undressed you, not dressed you. If I’d lost control, you’d be naked now and flat on your back on the sofa instead of standing there in your pajamas.” And he was starting to question that decision. “You’re right, I need to go, but not because this is embarrassing.”

“Why, then?”

Because he wanted to undo his good work, rip off those silk pajamas, spread her legs and taste all of her, not just her mouth.

Deciding she wasn’t ready to hear that, he smoothed her hair, tilting her face to his. “Because it’s getting late, you had a shitty day and you need to get some sleep.”

Her eyes were glazed and confused, her cheeks flushed and her mouth damp from his kisses. “I didn’t—” Her voice was low and husky. “I wasn’t expecting— I can’t believe you did that. Or that I— I didn’t know it was going to be like that.”

“I did.” Reluctantly, he released her. “I knew it would be exactly like that.”

She stepped back, traced her lower lip with the tip of her tongue as if she couldn’t believe what had just happened, and then sent him a glance that almost had him flattening her back against the wall again.

Her gaze was on his mouth. “Lizzy is upstairs. She could have woken.”

“Cocoa would have barked.”

She bit her lip. “I don’t want her waking up to find me naked with a man. When you’re six, it’s unsettling.”

It had obviously happened to her. Subduing the rush of anger, he focused on the practical. “Could you drop Cocoa back with my grandmother in the morning? She lives in Harbor House. It’s the big white one overlooking the bay.”

“Of course.” She blinked, as if she’d been asleep and woken up on a different planet. “And thank you.”

“For proving that a kiss can be more than nice?”

There was a long, pulsing silence. “For listening. For helping me out with Lizzy. As for the other—” her voice cracked slightly “—we won’t mention it again. That’s the end of it.”

He watched her for a long moment and then strolled toward the door.

“It’s not the end, Emily. It’s the beginning.”

*

AGNES COOPER LIVED a fifteen-minute walk from the harbor and the Ocean Club in a pretty white clapboard house with a shingle roof that pitched steeply at the front. Overlooking the rocks at Puffin Point and the bay beyond that, it had been built on a large plot of land and was protected by mature trees and a well-nurtured garden. Emily was immediately charmed, and the feeling stayed with her as she walked with Lizzy up to the wooden door bracketed by lanterns.

It was the sort of house she’d always pictured when she’d escaped into stories about homesteads and large happy families. The sort of house a child would have drawn, with clean lines and pleasing symmetry.