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He traces the bruise with gentle fingertips. “How bad?”
“Not bad. Just sore from a bump.” My own voice is breathless even though I haven’t been running anywhere.
He brushes a thumb softly over my collarbone then dips his head and lays a light kiss, careful not to hurt me. Stupidly, I want to giggle because heiskissing it better. Again and again, soft, slow kisses all along my clavicle. My body tingles and my hands move to clutch at his shirt collar.
Instantly his mouth opens, and his kisses heat up and he moves his lips exploring my neck, along my jaw, to my cheek and finally to my mouth.
No one has ever kissed me like this before. Greedy and generous at the same time, tentatively inviting but also intense and confident.
I don’t know how long it lasts. When we finally break apart, breathless and shaking, we are lying on the grass in the sun, our arms and legs twined around each other. He doesn’t move his face away when the kiss is over; he holds my face close.
We kiss again, and then again. Gradually, we slow down and eventually stop. We stay there for ages, lying on our sides, facing each other. The warm breeze brushes over our heads and grass stalks tickle our faces. The sun is almost directly overhead in a blue sky.
Hal strokes my arm then my shoulders over my wet clothes.
“Did you go for a swim? You’re soaking wet, all of you.”
I brush a finger down his cheek and trace the scratches. “Did you fly through the brambles?”
He closes his eyes as if reliving a pain. “I can’t remember. I was terrified. How did you…?” He draws in a long shaky breath. “Oh God, Elodie, I thought I killed you. I mean… You just fell and… Disappeared.”
“I’m okay,” I finally say, my own voice sounds odd too. “And you found me.”
“Only because you screamed.”
“You look different. What happened to your glasses?”
He reaches up to touch his face. “God only knows.” And then he smiles. “Stay this close and I won’t need them.”
I thought his eyes were blue, but no. They’re the most unusual gradient, vibrant turquoise at the centre and around the rim but in between, they shade to a clear green. “Your eyes are a lot like the pond, here.”
“Pond? What pond?” He rises on his elbow to look behind him then up on his knees. “How did I not see this before?”
I’m more than a little gratified that when he first broke out of the bushes, all he could see was me.
Even now his eyes roam all over me. “So, this is how you got so wet.”
“Is my underwear showing again?”
He squeezes his eyes shut. “Don’t remind me. What a pig I’ve been to you.”
Then he pulls me up to my knees, his face serious and happy at the same time as he lifts my wet shirt over my head and uses it to wipe streaked mud from my face and arms, before dropping it on the ground. My pink cardigan is nearby, and he helps me put it on, doing the buttons up slowly, very slowly.
And by the quick rising of his chest, and…other signs… I know my bra is wet still. “Glasses or no glasses." I tease. “Nothing wrong with your eyesight.”
“Depends on the view.” His lips twitch with a suppressed smirk. “You really want to know the truth?”
My heart gives a sudden thump of apprehension. “Yes…?” I ask warily.
“I liked you long, long before the…” his eyes flick down to my chest, “the gorgeous view.”
His words make me glow with warmth and confidence.
“I was ready to ask for your phone number that first day after the muddy ditch incident."
“What stopped you?”
He says nothing and his smile fades a bit, but he’s still holding my hand and gets to his feet pulling me up with him. “If you don’t want to catch cold, let’s move off the damp grass and find a way home.”
