Page 52 of All Summer Long

Alice didn’t know what to do with herself.

She’d tried sitting down on the battered leather couch, and comfortable as it was, she couldn’t settle.

She sat instead at the spot-lit bank of mirrors along the back wall, fiddling with empty coffee cups and guitar picks for a few minutes before getting up again and pacing the patterned rug as she looked at the framed pictures of previous stars who’d performed at the arena.

It was a comfortable, lamp-lit space designed to soothe the nerves of anxious artists, but even the understated southern luxury couldn’t settle the butterfly farm in her stomach.

God, what if he didn’t want her here? What if he’d had time to think about things since this morning and decided on balance that she should have let their romance rest where they’d left it in Borne?

That was the way it was always supposed to be, after all.

The butterflies stilled as if they were playing a game of statues and someone had turned the music off.

But then … that song. He wouldn’t have written it, and surely he wouldn’t have performed it tonight knowing she was there if he wasn’t glad she’d come to Nashville?

The butterflies slowly started to flap their wings again, gathering for flight and swooping as she let herself remember how he’d looked and how he’d sounded in that encore.

She heard a door close down the hallway outside, and the footsteps coming nearer threw her into panic mode.

She didn’t want to be standing in the middle of the room when he came in, it looked weird.

She tried out the sofa again, and then at the last moment wriggled up and perched on the arm with her ankles crossed.

And then the handle turned and the door swung open, and it didn’t matter at all whether she was sitting on the sofa or standing on her head, because Robinson burst into the room and pulled her right into his arms and kissed her until she was breathless and euphoric, and the butterflies all lay punch drunk and delirious.

‘I was scared I’d dreamt you,’ he said, holding her face in his hands. ‘God, I’ve missed you so much.’

‘You didn’t dream me,’ she whispered fiercely. ‘I’m here for you for as long as you want me to be.’

His slow, sexy smile tipped his mouth at one edge.

‘What if I say I want you to stay with me for ever, Goldilocks?’

Alice didn’t hesitate for a second. ‘I’d say yes.’

Robinson studied her, intent.

‘What about your life back home in Borne? The manor … the Airstream … you have so much to go home to.’

Alice shook her head, and found that thinking about giving up all of those precious things he’d mentioned didn’t hurt anywhere near as much as she’d thought it might. It was as if being with Robinson had given her padding on the inside so that none of the bad stuff could hurt her any more.

‘It’s for sale.’

‘Then I’ll buy it for you.’

She laughed softly. ‘I don’t want you to.’

‘I’m serious, Alice.’ He stroked her hair behind her ear. ‘Let me buy it. It’s your home. I know how much you love it.’

Alice didn’t doubt for one minute that he could and would buy the manor in a heartbeat if she asked.

‘Home’s a funny word, Robinson. I learned this summer that it’s not a place.’ She’d already moved out of the manor in her head and into him, into the equally protective walls of his arms.

‘I do love the manor,’ she said. ‘But I love you so much more.’

If she could have pressed record on just one scene in her entire life, it would have been that one, the way Robinson Duff looked at her when she told him that she loved him for the very first time.

He made a sound in his throat, low and intimate, somewhere between a relieved moan, a sexy sigh and a territorial growl, and to Alice’s ears it was even more special than their love song because it was for her ears only.

‘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.’