a smudge on the horizon.” He stood behind her, setting his hands on the rail so his body framed hers. Lia relaxed a little, letting her body fit inside his. Standing together like that, they studied the view from this highest point in the Cove.
“This feels so weird,” she murmured after a few minutes.
The statement had been a gentle rasp—something shy, almost sensual. Alex put his mouth to her ear and asked, trying to match the that sensual softness, “What do you mean?”
“It’s … like we’re out of order, or something.” She turned her head, and he turned his so their eyes could meet. “We’ve been together almost daily for weeks, and then we … you know …”
He smiled. “Had sex?”
She made a face. “That sounds so clinical.”
“Fucked?”
A harsher face. “Yuck. That sounds grungy.”
“Made love?”
“Lifetime movie.”
“Slept together?”
“You weren’t with me when I was sleeping.”
He’d wanted to be, though. Leaving her that evening had been physically painful. Now, he set that thought aside and chuckled. “Unless I get really grungy, I’m running out of ways to describe it, babe.”
But the attempts, with her fitted so neatly against him, had him full of ways to imagine it. His cock was a solid, hungry weight in his jeans, and she had to know it, since her sweet ass was right there against him.
“I like when you call me babe.”
It wasn’t a conscious decision to do it, but it felt right. “I like to call you babe.”
She studied his eyes, and he let her look.
Her smile told him she’d seen something she liked. “We were together so much for weeks, and then we were together, and now, we’re on a first date. We got everything mixed up, and it feels weird.”
Turning her body to face his, Alex slid a hand into her hair and cupped her cheek, letting his thumb trace the fullness of her bottom lip. “I was thinking the same thing earlier. Like, it shouldn’t be first-date awkward, but it is.”
Her lids lowered halfway. “I really like you, Alex. I feel like … like you see me. That sounds dumb.” She tried to pull her head from his hold, to duck away, but he held her in place.
“It’s not dumb. I do see you. You’re my favorite thing to look at.”
With the glow of Providence on the horizon at her back, and a massive jewel-like lighthouse lantern at his, Alex pushed Lia against the railing and bent down to claim her mouth, framing her face in his hands, feeling the silky cool of her hair around his fingers. She sighed at once and leaned in, hooking her hands in the crook of his elbows. Her mouth opened, and her tongue sought his.
This was a different kiss from any they’d shared before. Then she’d been despondent and lost, and he’d been torn, worried about her, worried about hurting her, worried for himself. He’d still been half-stunned from their first kiss and how it had even happened.
Now, they were on a date. Not hiding from anyone, not betraying anyone. Lia wasn’t happy, her life had still been turned upside down, but they were in the open, with her father’s blessing. And for this moment, at least, she seemed at peace.
Lia said they’d gotten everything mixed up, and they had. But now it was all sorted.
Alex was free to simply enjoy her, to care for her, care about her. He could fall into this feeling unafraid—and he could feel Lia falling with him.
He pulled away a little, just enough to see her face. She opened her sweet, stunning eyes, and he saw trust.
God, he wanted to deserve that. To deserve her.
“I really like you, too, Lee,” he said, and kissed her again.
~ 12 ~
In—as of tomorrow—twenty years of life in Quiet Cove, Lia could count on her hands the number of times she’d been to Pagano Brothers Shipping. In her father’s endeavor to keep his family separate from this ‘other world’ he insisted existed, he’d kept them away from even the aspects of his business that were supposed to be legal.
It was just a plain, flat building, as nondescript as could be, but to Lia it had held a mystique like something from a fantasy. It might as well have been an ice palace or a fortress of solitude.
In those handfuls of times she’d been to the building, she’d never been to the loading docks at the back, and as she pulled her Rogue around the building now, she felt a little thrill of the