At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories)(32)

It was a big step, the biggest step she'd ever taken, and the consequences could change her life forever.

"I'm scared, Noah," she whispered, pressing her forehead against his shoulder and closing her eyes.

"So am I."

She frowned at him. "Don't make fun of me. I'm serious."

"Here," he said, taking her hand in his. "Feel." He placed her hand over his heart. "See? Scared as hell."

"I scare you?"

"Right now you do."

She drew in a deep breath then placed his hand in the center of her breastbone so he could feel the answering beat of her own heart.

"I want it to be perfect for you," he said.

"I don't want to disappoint you," she said. "I never—"

"I know," he said. "That's why I'm scared."

She had a million questions she wanted to ask him. Who and what and where and how many times but the answers held too much power. She was better off not knowing. The world was filled with beautiful girls who knew how to have fun without talking it to death. Girls who didn't plan their every move or worry about the consequences. Why couldn't she be one of them? Instead she'd been born plain and smart, careful and wordy.

"Poor you," she said softly. "You could do so much better. You could be over on Hidden Island with the others and—"

He grabbed her by the shoulders. "Don't say that." His voice was flinty with anger. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me." His words poured over her like honey. She was more than he'd ever dreamed of... she made him feel he could accomplish anything... she made him want to be better than he was. She was dazzled by his words, drunk on them.

"I wish I was beautiful," she said. "I wish I knew how to make you happy. I don't—"

He stopped her with a kiss. His mouth was hot and sweet and she wanted to drink him in like champagne. She'd never had champagne but she knew it couldn't compare to Noah's kisses.





#





Gracie was so fragile in his arms, so delicately made that Noah was afraid he'd hurt her. His hands felt big and awkward as he slid her denim skirt up over her hips then removed her panties. She looked so beautiful, so incredibly vulnerable and trusting, as she lay there in the moonlight that tears sprang to his eyes and he buried his face in her thick brown hair and struggled to regain control.

It wasn't like he'd never been with a girl before. He hadn't been kicked out of St. Luke's for being a choirboy. There were lots of girls in Portsmouth looking to have a good time with no strings attached, and his weekends were a blur of keg parties and one-night stands. He was smart enough to always use a rubber but beyond that he didn't much give a damn about anything but beer and good times.

Nothing had prepared him for Gracie and the way she made him feel.

He felt clumsy around her, like one of those guys who try so hard to impress but keep stumbling over their own feet. She'd breached all of his defenses before he had even realized what was happening. She'd awakened dreams in him that he'd almost forgotten.

He had wanted to be a journalist once a long time ago, a foreign correspondent who moved from city to city, calling every place and no place home. He told her about Paris and how one day he would live there and write the way Hemingway did in The Moveable Feast. They would know him at the café and his table would always be waiting, the one out there on the sidewalk where he could watch the parade. He would eat garlicky oysters and wash them down with crisp white wine and the words he wrote would be clear and true. Gracie believed in him and in his dreams, the same way he believed in hers. She didn't know that without her by his side, Paris would be just another city.

He'd never met anyone like her, anyone he'd wanted more to impress or understood less about how to do it. His parents loved him for the simple fact of his existence. They loved him because they had created him. Gracie loved him for who he was. Nobody had ever done that before. He had been loved for the way he looked, the family he came from, the money he had in his trust fund. Gracie loved him for his dreams. There was no cruelty in Gracie, no cunning. She asked for nothing from anyone but herself. When he saw how hard she worked toward her goals, he felt ashamed to have done so little with all that he had been given.

She ran her hands down his spine, her touch tentative at first, then more assured. He sucked in a deep breath and tried to think of anything but the sweet smell of her body beneath his. Her fingertips traced the swell of his shoulders, tiptoed down his spine then quickly moved back up to his shoulders as if she'd sensed he was close to losing it.