Scott’s hand slides along the railing until it encloses hers.
‘Heather,’ he says.
She turns to look at him, both fearful that he’s going to say something and terrified that he’s not. His jaw clenches and he averts his eyes towards the horizon. ‘I don’t know what this is, but on Christmas Day. That kiss. I didn’t want it to end.’ Now helooks at her, his blue eyes drilling into hers. ‘Was I imagining it? Did you feel it too?’ His gloved hand gently squeezes hers below.
In theory, she could obfuscate, or minimise, or lie. But she can’t. She just can’t. Because if ever something felt authentic, it is this connection between them.
‘I didn’t want it to end, either,’ she whispers.
Do his cheeks redden slightly at her reply? Before she can consider this, or anything else, his lips are on hers, and the sea and the setting sun and the gulls and the wind allow her to be whisked away to a place she has never, ever, been in her life.
How long do they kiss? Ten minutes? Twenty? It’s enough time for the heavens to open and the rain to fall in torrents. In all the time, the only sensation Heather is aware of is the tenderness of his touch and the exhilarating pulse through her entire body. Now, when they finally pull apart, she’s freezing.
‘Look at you,’ he says, leaning back ever so slightly. The gap between them feels like an affront to Heather. She wants him closer, closer, closer. ‘You’re shivering.’
He pulls his thick winter jacket off and wraps it around her shaking shoulders. ‘Jeez, you’re frozen solid,’ he says. ‘Come on, my hotel’s on The Scores. Let’s get you there and dried off.’
A voice inside her head tells her she should object and remind them both that the plan is for her to return to Edinburgh tonight and drive back up to St Andrews in the morning. But the voice is easily silenced. Neither of them would believe the sentiment if she were to utter it aloud. Their connection is impossible to ignore. They clamber down the iron rungs onto the lower level of the pier and lower their heads against the buffeting rain.
‘Shall we run?’ he says. They try it for a moment or two but, in all honesty, the faster movement of air against her body makes Heather unbearably cold. They slow down and settle into a quick walk over the ancient flagstones which become slick with wetas they walk. They rush up the hill, past the ruined spires of the cathedral and past the remnants of the castle and ancient university buildings before arriving on The Scores.
***
A blast of warmth and gently perfumed air envelops her as he opens the door to his hotel room. What’s she doing here? What’s shethinking?Scott leaves her at the threshold, starts to run a bath, and returns to the bedroom where she’s standing, shivering. He peels off her soaked clothes, one item at a time, discarding the sodden material on the floor as he goes. As he exposes Heather’s body, he rubs at her arms, embraces her in a bear hug and places warming kisses on her flesh. ‘Got to warm you up,’ he murmurs. His eyes are hooded but there’s an observable twitch in his cheek as he concentrates on the task.
Heather fights the inclination to melt into the strong undulations of his body. The sound of the wind rattling the glass in the hotel windows keeps her footed in practicalities. She grapples amongst the wet clothes on the floor.
‘What are you doing?’ he asks, his forehead furrowing, as she rifles through her coat pockets.
‘Sorry. Not trying to kill the vibe. My phone.’ She holds it aloft once she finds it. ‘Just switching location devices off. Don’t want Georgia working out where I am.’
The small dimple in Scott’s chin deepens as he laughs. ‘How the tables have turned,’ he says.
Her frozen fingers can barely move, but eventually, she finds the app and disables her location devices, then hastily plugs her charger into a free socket by the bed. Even in her highly turned on state, she’s not going to accept a battery life of below 13%. She turns back to him as quickly as she possibly can. Heather’shands are inflexible with the cold, but once she’s down to her underwear she, in turn, removes clothing from Scott’s body. Every exposed area of flesh renders her speechless. She knows he works out and could probably jigsaw together the various parts of his body she’s seen exposed over the past few months, but seeing it together, an unveiled painting, in its true glory, practically takes her breath away. She places a flat palm on his chest, absorbing his warmth and feeling the curve of his pectoral muscles beneath her hand.
She looks up at him, ‘A perfect fit,’ she whispers.
‘A perfect fit,’ he replies.
If his idea had been to warm her up in the bath, he had another think coming. Heather can’t bear the thought of being apart from him for another second longer. She pulls him closer, puts her arms around his shoulders, and slowly, slowly, clenches her abdominals to bring her legs around his waist. He walks them towards the luxuriously sheeted King Size bed and gradually lowers her down. She melts into the soft goose down of the bedspread. Her skin might be blue and cold to the touch, but inside, in the core of her body, she’s aware of a heat she’s seldom felt with such ferocity. This man makes her alive, connected, whole. Every muscle, every fibre of her being wants to feel him. His fingers brush her hair to the side and his kisses move incrementally from her face and to her lips as though he knows instinctively what she needs. She groans when he moves them away from her lips but shudders when they pass onto her collar bone, around her areoles and lower, towards her navel. She interweaves her fingers through the tousled blond curls on his head and practically forces him lower.
She’s moaning his name, urging him to the place she most wants to feel the warm, probing insistence of his tongue. But he takes his time, teasing her and driving her into a near frenzy when finally, finally, he’s there. Right where she wants him.
Heather’s back rises into an arch. Any thought of bashfulness jettisons from her brain as it fills with the sheer ecstasy of Scott on her. Just at the point when Heather feels there’s nothing left to give to him, Scott places his hands on either side of her head and pulls his body above hers.
‘Do you—?’ he says.
‘Yes.’
It’s a passionate, desperate, frenzied yell. And within seconds, he’s where she needs him to be, moving gently until her mind and body dissociate, and she’s completely and utterly gone.
SCOTT
The bird song penetrating the hotel window tells Scott that last night’s storm has given way to a glorious morning. He turns to face her. How often has he wondered what it would be like to watch her sleep? He’d been curious to know if the dip between her eyebrows smoothed when she was relaxed. He’d wondered if she was a pillow dribbler or a teeth grinder. Or if she slept with her phone under her pillow in case news from Georgia required immediate intervention.
She’s none of these things. She’s calm, tranquil, the boundless possibilities for the future laid out on the smoothness of her skin and the unruffled softness of her forehead. Her hair is spread like a luxurious brown fan across the pillow.
‘What’s up?’ she says when she comes to.
