The Way to a Woman's Heart (51 page)

Ella blinked as the flames danced and flickered, and the glorious scents mingled together and the essences entwined, filling the barn with enchantment.

‘Ash, are they… ?’

‘CandleKiss candles, yes.’ Ash nodded.

‘You made them?’ Ella stared at him. ‘For me? Us? You’ve been talking to Trixie? And that’s why she didn’t have anything with her in the hotel tonight because it was all here?’

Ash nodded. ‘Well, I thought you seemed quite taken with the fairy stuff, and Trixie was very helpful, and pointed out that her fairies have only done good things and were really helpful in getting lovers together, and I reckoned, even if I don’t think the fairies exist, it had to be worth a try, and oh, Ella, come here.’ He pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

Ella, her entire body dissolving, kissed him back. Again and again.

And ages later, when the kissing had been interspersed with a lot of spilled pink fizz and inebriated giggles, and they’d fed one another with chocolate strawberries and made quite a mess, Ella held his face between her hands in the sweet-scented candle glow.

‘This is the best first date ever, ever, ever. I think you’re totally, amazingly sexy and talented and adorable and – Oh, what the heck’s that noise? Thunder?’

‘Who cares,’ Ash murmured, stroking her hair as the roaring got louder and louder, drumming on the slate and tile roof and echoing deafeningly through the cavernous barn. ‘Carry on – you’d just got to the good bit.’

‘Ash, look! It’s raining!’ Ella stared through the open doorway where the rain was falling in solid, vertical sheets, dragging the sweetest scents from the rock-hard earth. ‘Rain! Oh, bliss! For the first time in months it’s raining, and I’m so hot and sticky and –’

Ash smiled at her. ‘What on earth are you doing?’

Ella paused in kicking off her sandals and pulling her T-shirt over her head. ‘I’m going outside to dance naked in the rain – it was always one of my favourite songs.’ She tugged off the remainder of her clothes. ‘Come on… get your clothes off! All of them!’

‘Shameless.’ He grinned at her, pulling off his T-shirt, undoing his jeans and easing off his shoes. ‘Ella Maloney, you are totally shameless. Are you trying to corrupt me?’

‘Way, way too late.’ Ella danced happily towards the nonstop torrent in the dark doorway. ‘Come on! Race you!’

And, equally naked and still laughing, Ash beat her outside by a nanosecond.