Page 87 of All Summer Long

‘My beautiful Alice,’ he said, his mouth moving over her face, her tear-damp eyelashes, and then down to her trembling mouth. ‘I love you too, so much more than I have the words or the love songs to tell you. I think I’ve loved you from the moment you opened the front door in Borne.’ He kissed her then, a kiss that said welcome home, I’m going to love you for a lifetime.

‘If you hadn’t come tonight, I’d have come for you,’ he said. ‘I still will, if you want me to. We can live in the manor and make babies, tiny little fairy girls in red boots with flying blonde hair and summer skies blue eyes.’

Alice closed her eyes and saw them running wild in the woods at Borne Manor, the ragtaggle bunch of blonde girls and sun-kissed little boys with dirty faces and autumn green-gold eyes. She could almost smell them, a seductive mix of Borne woods at dawn and vanilla cookies, almost hear their loud, infectious laughter. It was the most wonderful of fantasies, and letting it go hurt even more than letting the manor itself go. She shook her head reluctantly and opened her eyes.

‘Can I stay here with you instead?’

‘For ever,’ he said in a heartbeat. ‘Stay with me for ever.’ He kissed her, exploring her mouth slowly with his tongue, from sexy and delicious to scandalously hot in seconds.

‘If I didn’t need a shower so badly, I’d have you naked now,’ he said, palming her breast with his hand, moaning when she pushed into him.

‘Don’t do that,’ he said, half laughing and half panting. ‘Not unless you want the dirtiest five-second sex you’ve ever had.’

Alice peeled her t-shirt over her head and smiled.

‘Where’s your shower?’

‘I’m the luckiest man alive,’ he said, his eyes suddenly hot and serious.

‘Just take your clothes off, cowboy.’ Alice breathed in sharply when he flicked the front catch of her bra open and winked in lazy, sexy triumph.

‘I’d rather take yours off.’

He tugged her towards the bathroom by the hand, yanking his belt out of its loops.

She paused suddenly and he looked over his shoulder, his eyebrows raised.

‘What’s wrong?’

She bit her lip.

‘What about the golden rules of holiday romances?’

He rolled his eyes and pushed the bathroom door open. ‘I’ve never been a fan of stickin’ to the rules, Goldilocks.’

Leaning in to switch the oversized shower on as they discarded the rest of their clothes, he glanced up at her through his lashes and smiled, heart-achingly sexy.

‘I’m so glad you came, Alice. My life is all round better with you in it.’

She couldn’t speak because his words had brought a lump to her throat, so she stepped into the cubicle with him and just laid her head over his beating heart and thanked her lucky stars.

‘There is just one thing though,’ she said as he turned her face up into the water and then slicked her hair back under the spray with both hands. His wet mouth slid over hers as he backed her against the glass.

‘I’m gonna hold you to those babies.’

EPILOGUE

Robinson did, of course, buy Borne Manor for Alice. He gave her the keys in bed on their first Christmas morning together, and when she protested, he just shrugged it off and reasoned that they were going to need an English base and he couldn’t imagine a better place than Borne.

It was just as well really, because it made the perfect backdrop for Hazel and Stewie’s wedding on midsummer’s day of the following year.

‘How do I look?’

Hazel twirled slowly for Alice and Niamh in the lounge at Borne Manor, making the crystals on the short train of her pale lavender dress bounce rainbows around the room.

‘Like the most fabulous fairy godmother in the land,’ Niamh said, spritzing more of Hazel’s homemade glimmer dust in the air for good luck.

‘Stunning,’ Alice agreed, coughing on the dust cloud as she slid Hazel’s handmade tiara into place. It was her gift to Hazel for something new, an intricate tangle of tiny sparkling stars that looked fabulous against her dark, upswept hair.

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