Unsure what that might mean, exactly, she pushed up enough to see his face. Since she knew what a satisfied male looked like, she relaxed again.
“So it went well for you then.”
He opened his eyes, looked into hers. “I’m considering how to answer that, for if I tell the truth you might say: Since it went so well, that’s all for you tonight. And I want you again before I’ve even caught my breath.”
He slid an arm under her, drew her over, cuddled her in so they were nose to nose. “And did it go well for you?”
“I’m considering how to answer that,” she said and made him grin.
“I’ve missed seeing you naked.”
“You haven’t seen me naked before tonight.”
“Sure have you forgotten the night you and me and Branna and Boyle and Fin snuck out and away to swim in the river?”
“We never— Oh, that.” Content, she tangled up her legs with his. “I was no more than nine, you git!”
“But naked all the same. I’ll say you grew up and around very well indeed.” He ran a hand down her back, over her ass, left it there. “Very well indeed.”
“And you yourself, if memory serves me, were built like a puny stick. You’ve done well yourself. We had fun that night,” she remembered. “Froze our arses, the lot of us, but it was grand. Innocent, all of us, and not a worry in the world. But he’d have been watching us, even then.”
“No.” Connor touched a finger to her lips. “Don’t bring him here, not tonight.”
“You’re right.” She brushed a hand through his hair. “How many, do you think, are where we are tonight who have all those years and memories between them?”
“Not many, I expect.”
“We can’t lose that, Connor. We can’t lose what we are to each other, to Branna, to all. We have to swear an oath on it. We won’t lose even a breath of the friends we’ve ever been, whatever happens.”
“Then I’ll swear it to you, and you to me.” He took her hand, interlaced his fingers with hers. “A sacred oath, never to be broken. Friends we’ve ever been, and ever will be.”
She saw the light glowing through their joined fingers, felt the warmth of it. “I swear it to you.”
“And I to you.” He kissed her fingers, then her cheek, then her lips. “I should tell you something else.”
“What is it?”
“I’ve my breath back now.”
And when she laughed, he rolled back on top of her.
* * *
SHE’D SHARED BREAKFAST WITH HIM BEFORE, COUNTLESS times. But never at the little table in her flat—and never after sharing the shower with him.
He could count himself lucky, she decided, that she’d picked up some nice cro
issants from the cafe when she’d gotten dessert for her mother.
Along with them she made her usual standby—oatmeal—while he dealt with the tea as she hadn’t any coffee in the pantry.
“We’re to meet tonight,” he reminded her, and bit into a croissant. “These are brilliant.”
“They are. I don’t step foot into the cafe often as I’d buy a dozen of everything. I’ll go by the cottage straight from the stables,” she added. “And help Branna with the cooking if I can. It’s good we’re meeting regular now, though I don’t know as any of us suddenly had a genius idea on what to do, exactly, and when to do it.”
“Well, we’re thinking, and together, so something will come.”
He believed it, and the croissants only helped boost his optimism.