Charmed by Nora Roberts Page B

locked there. Her body, shuddering from the onslaught, pressed urgently to his. When she murmured his name, she was breathless.
    But he heard her, heard her through the blood pounding in his head, heard that soft, shaky sound. She was trembling—or he was. The uncertainty about who was more dazed had him slowly, carefully drawing away.
    He held her still, his hands on her shoulders, his gaze on her face. In the moonlight, she could see herself there, trapped in that sea of blue. Trapped in him.
    “Boone …”
    “Not yet.” He needed a moment to steady himself. By God, he’d nearly swallowed her whole. “Not just yet.” Holding himself back, he touched his lips to hers, lightly, in a long, quiet kiss that wrecked whatever was left of her defenses. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
    “You didn’t.” She pressed her lips together and tried to bring her voice over a whisper. “You didn’t hurt me. You staggered me.”
    “I thought I was ready for this.” He ran his hands down her arms before he released her. “I don’t know if anyone could be.” Because he wasn’t sure what would happen if he touched her again, he slipped his hands into his pockets. “Maybe it’s the moonlight, maybe it’s just you. I have to be straight with you, Anastasia, I don’t know quite how to handle this.”
    “Well.” She wrapped her arms tight and cupped her elbows. “That makes two of us.”
    “If it wasn’t for Jessie, you wouldn’t go into that house alone tonight. And I don’t take intimacy lightly.”
    Steadier now, she nodded. “If it wasn’t for Jessie, I might ask you to stay with me tonight.” She took a long breath. She knew it was important to be honest, at least in this. “You would be my first.”
    “Your—” His hands went limp. Now he felt both a lick of fear and an incredible excitement at the thought of her innocence. “Oh, God.”
    Her chin came up. “I’m not ashamed of it.”
    “No, I didn’t mean …” Speechless, he dragged a hand through his hair. Innocent. A golden-haired virgin ina thin blue robe with flowers at her feet. And a man was supposed to resist, and walk away alone. “I don’t suppose you have any idea what that does to a man.”
    “Not precisely, since I’m not a man.” She bent down for her basket. “But I do know what realizing that you may soon be giving yourself for the first time does to a woman. So it seems to me we should both give this some clear thinking.” She smiled, or tried to. “And it’s very difficult to think clearly after midnight, when the moon’s full and the flowers are ripe. I’ll say good night, Boone.”
    “Ana.” He touched her arm, but didn’t hold on. “Nothing will happen until you’re ready.”
    She shook her head. “Yes, it will. But nothing will happen unless it’s meant.”
    With her robe billowing around her, she raced toward the house.

Chapter 5
    Sleep had been a long time coming. Boone hadn’t tossed and turned so much as lain, staring up at the ceiling. He’d watched the moonlight fade into that final deep darkness before dawn.
    Now, with the sun streaming in bright ribbons over the bed, he was facedown, spread out and fast asleep. In the dream floating through his brain, he scooped Ana into his arms and carried her up a long curved staircase of white marble. At the top, suspended above puffy cotton clouds, was an enormous bed pooled in waterfalls of white satin. Hundreds of long, slender candles burned in a drifting light. He could smell them—the soft tang of vanilla, the mystique of jasmine. And her—that quietly sexy scent that went everywhere with her.
    She smiled. Hair like sunlight. Eyes like smoke. When he laid her on the bed, they sank deep, as if into the clouds themselves. There was harpsong, romantic as tears, and a whisper that was nothing more than the clouds themselves breathing.
    As her arms lifted, wound around him, they were floating, like ghosts in some fantasy, bound together by needs and