He was panting slightly, grinning as he stared at her with his kind eyes, blue and brown twinkling in equal measure, his dear face covered in flour. He was absurd. He was wonderful.
He was about to kiss her.
Or perhaps she was about to kiss him.
They were moving toward each other in nearly perfect unison, and hadn’t it always been like that with them? Their letters. Their work as poet and editor. Their ability to communicate without words, even though their relationship had been built on words.
She told herself to be clear-eyed about what this was, and what it wasn’t. To pin what was about to happen in time, in place. She was in Brighton on a beautiful summer day, and she and her best friend were about to kiss, and wasn’t that an unlikely but lovely confluence of events?
And then Effie’s lips were on hers. Or hers were on his. She would be lying if she hadn’t, late at night under cover of darkness, imagined what it might be like to kiss Effie, but she had never imaginedthis. A strong mouth moving against hers—no, movingwithhers. A deep, masculine groan when she pressed her tongue against the seam of his lips.
His hand came around to the nape of her neck, and she sighed. Desire pooled inside her, but, oddly, so did relief. She hadn’t wasted her money coming to Brighton, or her time. She belonged here. For now at least, in this time and this place.
Belonging somewhere was a novel sensation.
What would happen, she wondered, if she tipped her body ever so slightly? If she . . . just made them fall. Would he come with her? Would they fall together?
He would, and they did, landing with a thud crossways on the bed.
“I am overcome,” Effie said against her mouth.
Julianna was, too, but she didn’t speak the words aloud.
“What are we—?”
“Shh.” She did not want to talk about what was happening. Talking about it would mean talking about the future. Expectations. Declarations.
“But—”
She silenced him with another kiss.
He let loose another of those groans. It was so urgent, so at odds with his usual mild manner, his easy affability.
She let her mouth open slightly, to encourage him in. He came, and they kissed deeply and slowly. She never wanted it to stop.
It had to, of course, and it did, a minute or so later when, with another groan—a gratifyingly annoyed-sounding one—he pulled away.
He opened his mouth, but before he could speak, she said, quietly, “Leave it be. Can we leave it be?”
He nodded, though something passed over his face. She wasn’t sure what, but it was dark. Uncharacteristically so.
He rolled onto his back and gazed up at the ceiling, allowing her to study him in profile. He had a Roman nose, and up this close, she could see the fine wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. The wrinkles were more prominent when he laughed, and Effie laughed a great deal.
But he also brooded.
So perhaps whatever dark thing she’d seen in his eyes a moment ago wasn’t that uncharacteristic.
He turned his head, startling her. “Come swimming with me.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Swimming. I will teach you, like we said before.”
“How?” she asked, though this was what she adored about Effie. He had a wild sense of adventure, an expansive view of what was possible. “Where? When?”
He quirked a smile. “How about we start with what is always the infinitely more interesting question, and that is ‘Why?’”
“All right. Why?”
