Page 41 of The Bookshop at the Cornish Cove

A million fireworks went off inside my head, my heart, my tummy and my legs, as time stood still. His lips were gentle at first, his delicate kiss becoming more urgent and demanding. I didn’t care if anyone was watching. I was going to savour this moment forever. The taste of his lips was a heady mixture of mint and coffee, like a box of divine chocolates.

When he eventually moved away, he plonked himself beside me on the wet damp grass and grinned.

‘Hey!’

‘Hey yourself!’ I replied. ‘Your jeans will get wet and dirty.’

‘Just how I like them.’ His eyebrows shifted upwards. ‘Like my women.’

The joke broke the tension and we both laughed out loud, Dennis smacking his forehead with the heel of his hand.

‘Sorry. That sounded so much better in my head.’

He stood and held out his hands to me, helping me up. Then he lifted one of mine to his lips and kissed it, grinning at me like a lunatic. And I mirrored him.

He lifted my bike with one hand with ease and carried it over to his car, the other hand clinging onto mine. My hand fitted into his perfectly. Like it was always meant to be there. And apart from loading my bike into his boot, he didn’t let go of my hand for most of the journey back into the village.

When we arrived back at Driftwood Bay, a full rainbow arced across the bay and we looked at each other and smiled. The rain was petering out and the sun was peeping out from behind the clouds. The seagulls, which were normally so noisy when the rain came teaming down, were just starting to resurface andcaw once more. It was as if the bay had returned to its rightful beautiful state. I felt like my world was once more complete.

24

We both hovered outside of the car, neither of us knowing what our next move was.

‘So, what now?’ he said, broaching the subject.

I had no answers for him and shrugged my shoulders, scared to speak. This was all new to me. I had no flipping idea what came next. And it scared the living daylights out of me.

‘I suppose you could make me another coffee. I never did get to drink the one you made for me earlier. Then maybe we could talk. Maybe I could apologise for storming off. Maybe I could even come to my senses and realise I might have been overreacting?’

The inflection at the end of his sentence turned it into a question rather than a sentence.

I nodded. Seemingly all my words had disappeared.

As I fumbled to put the key into the front door of Books In The Bay, Dennie took the key from me and opened the door, before closing it gently behind him. The click of the lock being put across made my spine shiver with anticipation. I headed out back to the kitchen and started to fill the kettle but could hear hisfootsteps behind me, and as I turned, I literally bumped into his body. His firm, hard body.

He took the kettle from my hands and placed it on the counter. Every hair on my skin stood to attention as he closed the gap between us and took my face in his hands and kissed me once more. His fingers reached to the back of my head and unleashed my hair, which fell to my shoulders, and he let his fingers slide through it as his lips pressed down on mine, more urgently and passionately than when he’d kissed me earlier.

Somehow, before I knew it, he’d moved me so I was now leaning against the door and his body was pressed against mine, every tingle I’d felt before magnified by a million per cent. My knees were trembling and my hands were shaking but I knew that this felt more right than anything in my life had ever felt before. We kissed for what seemed like hours, his lips on my neck and his hands roaming my body. He could have literally taken me there and then. I wanted him more than I ever thought possible.

My mind was running away with me and before I could take a breath, I realised he’d pulled away.

‘God, I’m so sorry! I never meant to…’ He ran his hands through his hair and exhaled.

‘Do it again, Dennie!’

‘Sorry?’

‘Kiss me again. Please.’

I didn’t have to ask him twice this time. He kissed me as if it were the only thing in the world that we could do, and right there and then I knew I would have let him make love to me, had there not been a knock at the door.

‘Ignore it!’ I whispered breathlessly. We both held our breath. I buried my head in his chest and we both giggled.

‘Nance!’ There was a shout and a harder, more urgent knock at the door.

‘I know you’re in there. The light is on out the back. Open the door.’

‘Ignore it!’ I urged him again. ‘He might go away.’

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