Duncan put his hands on either side of Lola’s face, drinking her in for a moment before finally covering her mouth with his.
She tasted like lemons, and sunshine, and heat, and passion.
She made every nerve, every cell, every fiber in his body come to life.
She made him want, and need, and desire.
And she made him believe. Believe in the possibility of a beautiful future. Believe in love after he’d lost all faith in it.
Her kiss infused him with such joy. Joy he never wanted to end. Joy he never wanted to lose.
Joy that he silently vowed he would never, ever betray. No matter what.
“Wow,” she breathed as they both finally came up for air.
Their foreheads still touching, he smiled into her eyes and echoed, “Wow.” And then he had to say, “I can’t believe your brother hasn’t come over here to slug me yet.”
Still looking a little dazed from his kiss, she nodded. “We should probably go inside before he changes his mind.” She drew his arm even tighter around her waist. “I’m never wobbly on my heels, but I think I’d better hold on extra tight to you right now to make sure I stay steady.”
He liked that he made her legs a little shaky. She made his shaky too.
The building she took him into was old, and he could see and smell the years, the history, the past in every wood plank on the floor, in the walls, in the timbers of the roof. The windows were old, wavy glass, and there was a chimney in one corner.
“This maritime museum was once a fisherman’s house. And when he was old enough to retire, he started drawing nautical maps.”
Duncan had temporarily forgotten that he had come to Bar Harbor for any other reason than to be with Lola. His passion for her had taken over everything else. But as she led him toward a glass case and he looked at the antique map, he was infused with a deep appreciation for the art made by the fisherman who had once lived here.
“Amazing.” The lines on the map weren’t perfect. The fisherman hadn’t been a trained artist, by any means. But a deep and abiding love for the sea was in every stroke of his pen. It was clear that the fisherman understood the heart of a nautical map in a way a non-sailor would never be able to. “I could study this map for hours.”
Lola was equally rapt. “Just looking at it makes me feel like I know the man who lived here.”
He turned to her. “I was struck the same way by you and your fabric designs. Who you are, what you believe, what matters to you, how you look at life—all of those things are in what you’ve created.”
Lola’s lips were on his before he could take his next breath, tasting him, teasing him, driving him absolutely wild. “I don’t want to stop,” she said in a husky voice several minutes later. “I just want to keep kissing you and kissing you and kissing you. But if I do that, I’m pretty sure we won’t stop at just kissing…and then my brother really will kill you. So I’m going to force myself to put a moratorium on it until we’re out of sight of his beady little eyes.” She let go of Duncan’s hand and pointed toward a glass case on the far left wall. “You go look at that map.” She nodded toward a display case on the right wall. “I’ll go look at the one on the other side of the room.” Her eyes lit with renewed fire. “Later, we’ll compare notes.” She made certain to infuse the words compare notes with so much heat he couldn’t possibly misunderstand her intent.
They laughed as they moved apart. Duncan liked everything about Lola. Not only that her kisses burned through every inch of him, and that she was a vision of beauty, but that she made him laugh.
He had never hoped to have a relationship like this, had never really seen a truly great couple in action before, certainly not with his parents or any of the couples in his Boston circle.
Who would have thought that coming to Bar Harbor for a one-day drawing class would mean having all of his dreams come true?
Even the ones he hadn’t known to dream.
CHAPTER SIX
Lola felt like she was living in a dream. One she never wanted to wake from.
They didn’t speak as they left the museum and drove back toward town, her hand held tightly in his. She loved sitting beside Duncan, holding his hand, knowing the breathtaking kisses they’d shared in the museum were about to turn into so much more.
Lola never slept with a guy on the first date. Truth was, she hadn’t slept with many men at all. The problem was that guys looked at her and expected every inch of her to be perfect, without a lump or a bump in sight. Even worse, they expected her to live up to their ultimate fantasy.
But she was only human. A normal, flesh-and-blood woman. She wasn’t perfect. Anything but. Plus, none of the men she’d been with had measured up to her fantasies.
Lola knew without a doubt, though, that Duncan would be different.
She pulled up beside his car where he’d parked it outside her studio, but before he got out of her van to follow her back to her house, he kissed her again, another slow, sensuous kiss that promised all her sizzling-hot fantasies would soon become reality.
After he got out of her vehicle and into his, she worked to catch her breath as she led the way toward her cottage, only two blocks away. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so full of anticipation.
Lola had walked, biked, and driven these tree-lined streets her entire life. She’d been happy before. She’d felt excited. But she’d never felt like this, like every inch of her skin was buzzing, like she could barely keep her heart from beating its way out of her chest.
Even better, she didn’t have to wonder if Duncan felt the same way. Not when every sign pointed to their being of one mind. One heart. And soon to be one in the sexiest way possible…
Lola parked outside her cottage, with Duncan taking the space behind her. “Even if you hadn’t told me which home was yours,” he said as he got out of his rental car, “I could have picked it out. Your spirit is in every inch of it.”
“I bought it three years ago, once I felt confident enough with my business to take on a mortgage. My family helped me paint it, although they joked that I unearthed colors never before seen by the naked eye.”
“It’s bright, and fun, and perfect for you, Lola.”
She agreed. She loved her cottage, loved her garden, and got along great with her neighbors. Everything about her life in Bar Harbor suited her perfectly, and she had never wanted to live anywhere else. Along with the colorful wooden façade painted in a riot of magentas and sea blues and yellows, the garden was ripe and luscious with flowers and fruit trees. In the setting sun, it looked more beautiful than ever.
Lola wasn’t a natural gardener, not like her brother Hudson, a landscape architect. But she loved flowers, loved trees, loved growing fruits and vegetables. She loved to go into the garden on a quiet morning or evening to sip a cup of tea and watch the birds and the butterflies and the ladybugs, and breathe in the sea air.
She couldn’t wait to share those moments—all her moments—with Duncan.
“Come inside.” She tugged him up the brick pathway, which Turner had helped her lay, then up the stairs of her painted porch and into the house, which, like most locals, she rarely locked.
“Your door is unlocked.” He frowned. “Is someone already here?”