Faith - Lesley Pearse [251]
‘You can’t intend to live here all through the winter,’ Laura exclaimed.
‘I did intend to,’ he said ruefully. ‘But that was before I discovered how bad the wiring was. The last two nights were misery without lights, I couldn’t see well enough by candlelight to make myself some food, let alone read. But I start the job in Oban on Monday, and they’ll let me have a room out there.’
‘And how long will that last?’
‘Until the spring. By then I hope I’ll be able to get cracking here. I thought I might get a caravan to live in while I’m doing it.’
Laura told him several ideas she’d had during the day; she was brimming over with all the possibilities.
‘You could come up for the summer and help me,’ he said. ‘That is, if you aren’t tied up with the shop in Bromley.’
‘I think I need another kiss to remind me what the fringe benefits would be,’ she said.
He cleared the food away into the box in a trice, put another couple of logs on the fire, and took her in his arms. All daylight was gone now, just the flickering fire and the candles creating a circle of warmth and light around them. As he began to kiss her, lowering her back on to the blanket, Laura thought there couldn’t be a better place in the whole world to make love.
There was something about the groping beneath thick sweaters which added a new dimension to it, as though they were still teenagers furtively fumbling in a park. When Stuart stripped off her jeans she didn’t care that it was cold, for his caressing hands were hot and tender, and she felt as if she was on fire anyway.
Everything that had gone before disappeared. The future didn’t matter either; all that counted was here and now, his skin on hers, their lips searching hungrily for each other.
Stuart’s body was as lean and muscular as it had been twenty years ago; hers might not be as firm as it had been then, but it still fitted into him in exactly the same way. Her fingers found the little scar on his right side, which he had told her once he’d got falling out of a tree when he was little. But when she ran her finger up the front of his shirt, she found the more recent scar, the one he’d got trying to rescue her, and tears of gratitude came into her eyes.
Maybe they weren’t as frantic and energetic as they had been that first night in Castle Douglas, but for Laura at least it was far more sensual. Stuart’s stubble rasped against her cheek and shoulders, and he smelled of sweat and the mildew from the cottage, but they were honest, natural smells, just like the leaf mould all around them, and the wood smoke. She loved the slow, tender way he was exploring her body, the little endearments, the moans of pleasure, and the way he seemed to know exactly what turned her on most.
She wasn’t even aware of the hard ground or the cold when he entered her, all she knew was that she wanted him as badly as he wanted her.
Her orgasm took her by surprise, a fiery eruption that made her cry out. He said he loved her as he came, and suddenly she was crying and clinging to him and telling him that he was the only man in the world for her.
When she opened her eyes the moon had come out from behind a cloud, and the trees above them were bathed in a silver light. Stuart wrapped one of the blankets round her tightly and his cheek against hers was damp with tears.
‘The magic is still there,’ he whispered. ‘You brought it back with you.’
They put their clothes back on, and wrapping the blankets round them went to sit on the bench. The moon was casting a silver path across the black water of the loch and an owl hooted somewhere nearby.
‘What was your contingency plan?’ he asked, as she snuggled into his shoulder.
‘I’ve booked a room back in Taynuilt for two nights,’ she