At First Sight

Chapter Six

Drew stretched out, looking at the stars that blanketed the sky. Copeland crouched down before lying beside him. She squeezed her eyes closed and listened to his steady breath.

They’d talked all day and as much as she loved hearing his thoughts and ideas she also liked the calm that the evening brought. The breeze tickled her skin, causing little goose bumps to form on her arms.

His body shifted and she could sense that he was looking at her. She flipped an eyelid open and sure enough, he’d rolled onto his side, elbow on the blanket, resting his head in his hand. With the free one, he traced tiny circles from one side of her collarbone to the other, before running them the length of her braid. 

His fingers twisted in the elastic band and loosened it before combing through the braid and freeing her hair.

Her eyes fluttered closed again and she sighed. A single finger traveled up her throat, across her cheek and up to her temple, then back down her nose before following the line of her lips. Lightning struck inside her belly and her toes curled.

“God,” he said quietly. “You’re so beautiful, you know that?”

She turned her head toward him, hoping to entice him to keep going. The idea of kissing Drew had rooted itself in her mind since the second she saw him sitting on the driftwood, playing the guitar.  Gingerly, she rested a hand on his arm. “Thank you. You’re not so bad yourself.”

He didn’t reply with words but he was in tune with her body language and her thoughts. Following mere seconds of hesitation, he brought his mouth to hers. She parted her lips slightly and when she did, he deepened the kiss, grabbing a fistful of her hair.

 She’d been kissed before, enough to know that this time it felt different. She’d never been kissed like this. Every nerve ending in her body tweaked as if they were on maximum overload. Butterflies took flight in her belly and the world seemed to stop spinning altogether, like kissing him was the gravity that kept her anchored to the earth. Time meant nothing, even though it continued to pass. Drunk from his kisses, she had the perfect end to a perfect day, falling asleep under the stars.

He’d never slept on a blanket with a girl underneath the stars before. Admittedly, he didn’t sleep for the whole time, waking to find himself stuck in vortex of whirling thoughts. He should know better. Love at first sight was an idea that defied logical reasoning. To be fair, it’s not like he loved her… not yet. But she smelled like cinnamon and her eyes, even behind the lens of her camera saw beauty in things that people so rarely did, not to mention the fact that she fit inside his arms as if they were two pieces of one puzzle. All of this suggested that he could easily love a girl like Copeland.

She was gorgeous but she was so much more than that. Her distaste for shoes, her desire to seek adventure, her simple love and appreciation of nature; the spirit that flowed through her veins like wildfire was the hottest thing about her.

When their time together ended and she travelled back to Boston, he’d know how to let her leave but he feared he wouldn’t be able to let her go.

There was something to be said about being alone with ones thoughts, until the questions turned to worry. Like she could read his mind in her sleep, she jolted awake and flew immediately into a seated position. The spot on his body she’d been pressed against was cooled; a reminder that it was her keeping him warm.

She eased herself back down, resting her head back on his chest and settling into the crook of his arm. He pulled her close.

Her voice was groggy with sleep. “What time is it?”