Our Kind of Love

by Victoria Purman

  Who was this man?

  When she wanted to hide, he’d found her.

  When she wanted to cry, he’d let her.

  And when she didn’t want to speak, he sat with her in the silence.

  And he’d held her.

  Everything about that night was spinning like a cyclone in her head.

  When Joe had called out her name earlier that night, when she was half buried in the sand with her head on her knees, she’d panicked. Lizzie’s words from earlier that day were still zinging around in her head: You might think you’re having a simple conversation with him but he’ll really be throwing a million questions at you and, before you know it, you’ve told him your whole life story.

  But he hadn’t asked one. And then, when she’d finally found the strength, he’d helped her up and walked her back to Ry and Julia’s. He’d simply walked beside her, the only time he touched her again was a hand to the small of her back as they waited to cross the esplanade, a car’s headlights almost blinding them in the dark as the vehicle sped past. And then they were at the door. He’d reached around her and opened it and she’d stopped. There was something she’d wanted to say, but had struggled to find the words.

  ‘Good night.’ It was all she could manage.

  ‘Sweet dreams,’ he’d replied with a serious smile.

  Just thinking about it now, hours later, and Anna’s stomach fluttered at the memory of his face. The way his hungry gaze had dropped to her lips and returned to her eyes, his blue eyes so intense they seemed to blaze into her and zing an arrow right through her ribcage and into her chest.

  And it had felt like that, like an electric shock. As if it had reached right in and grabbed her broken heart and jolted it back into a normal rhythm after months and months of pain. She’d had most of the symptoms of arrhythmia: the palpitations, the shortness of breath, the pain. Oh, the pain. But there had never been anything physically wrong with her. That much she knew. It was grief, pure and simple, a grief that had reached around her heart and almost squeezed it into lifelessness.

  And since that look from Joe, that look that had resuscitated her heart, she hadn’t felt the same.

  As Anna fell asleep she was struck by the strangest feeling.

  For the first time in such a long time she felt there was hope in tomorrow.

  ‘Where is she?’ The smell of freshly brewed coffee hit Joe as he walked into Ry and Julia’s house. While it was his regular morning pick-me-up, he didn’t want to waste time this morning on a brew and the inevitable chit-chat he’d have to share to get it. He padded over to the kitchen, where they were standing by the fridge, barely awake.

  ‘Good morning,’ he called and for a bizarre reason he wasn’t feigning the cheerfulness in his voice. He’d had barely a few hours sleep yet he was buzzing about today. And fuck it, he wasn’t going to hide it, about seeing Anna again. He hadn’t asked what last night had been about, although he wanted to. The questions were lined up like soldiers about to go into battle, but he didn’t want to interrogate Anna. He was realising that life wasn’t a game of twenty questions. He’d reset that default position since he’d been back in Middle Point. If it was someone you cared about, he decided, it was their call about what they wanted to tell you and when. If they wanted to share it with you at all. Not that he wasn’t curious about whether she had banished her demons for good, but he realised that feeling had nothing to do with being a reporter and everything to do with being a man who was beginning to want Anna Morelli like he’d never wanted anything else in his life.

  Julia squinted and held a hand to her stomach. ‘Good morning. Nothing good about it. I feel sick.’

  Ry rested a soothing hand on her shoulder. ‘You want some dry crackers, JJ? Peppermint tea?’

  She nodded, plodded around to the other side of the kitchen bench and sat down morosely, dropping her head into her hands. ‘I don’t care what Anna says, this is never going to end. I’m going to feel sick until this baby arrives, I just know it.’

  Joe was beside her, giving her a pat on the shoulder. ‘Well, you will go and get up the duff.’

  ‘Thanks for the sympathy,’ she moaned.

  ‘So where’s Anna? Is she up yet?’

  ‘Huh?’ Ry yawned and flicked his precious coffee machine into life.

  ‘Anna,’ Joe told them. ‘We’ve got another surfing lesson. Out there.’ He pointed through the windows to the bright sunshine of the morning. ‘I’m going to get that woman up on a surfboard if it’s the last thing I do.’

  Ry rubbed the sleep from his eyes. ‘We haven’t seen her yet. I’m guessing she’s still in bed. You want a coffee?’

  ‘No time. Thanks.’

  Ry and Julia watched in sleepy disbelief as Joe jogged across the living room, took the stairs to the mezzanine two-by-two and pounded on the guest room door.

  ‘He’s not giving up, is he?’ Ry said sleepily as he stretched and yawned.

  ‘Doesn’t look like it,’ Julia smiled. ‘That makes him a Middle Point man in my book. Did you say something about peppermint tea, handsome husband of mine?’

  Ry planted a kiss on the top of her head. ‘Coming right up.’

  Joe knocked, waited a half a second for an answer and then simply opened the door. Light streamed into the room, all white walls, sheets and carpet, and all he could see was Anna’s shining, black hair splayed out on the pillow and the sexiest face he’d ever seen. She was still fast asleep.

  He was mesmerised. She was on her back, her arms up on the pillow beside her ears, and the sheet was just low enough that he could see she was wearing something pale pink and silky. Her face, free of make-up looked peaceful and serene. Her lips were full and soft and her long lashes splayed on her cheeks.

  Joe sat down on the bed beside her. The movement roused Anna and her eyes fluttered open.

  ‘Good morning.’ He tried not to let the happiness he felt at seeing her again show in his face or his voice. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her off. He could do stoic. He’d made a career out of it.

  Anna yawned and, still half awake, stretched her arms out. The move rustled the sheet and it dropped lower.

  Kill me now, Joe thought. Her full breasts were barely covered and the wind blowing in from the window seemed to have had an effect on her nipples. They were budded into peaks and almost poking through her top. What he wanted to do with his tongue right about now …

  ‘Good morning,’ she murmured.

  What he wanted to do with his tongue? Add hands and his lips to that list.

  Anna smiled sleepily and it hit him. That face, that satisfied, slumberous look, was exactly how she looked the morning after their night together. Something slammed him right in the solar plexus and almost robbed him of the ability to speak. Who needed coffee when you can get an adrenaline rush like this? Joe leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together so they wouldn’t disobey him and reach out to stroke her soft cheek.

  ‘See?’ Anna yawned. ‘This is why I don’t trust sleepy coastal towns. All kinds of maniacs could be hiding out down here and just wander in to your bedroom when you’re asleep. Who knows what they might do to you when your resistance is low.’

  ‘Don’t tempt me,’ Joe said. ‘I mean it.’

  They shared a look.

  ‘So what are you doing in my bedroom? I’m the one who gets to make house calls, remember?’

  Why was he there? There was an answer to that question that almost tripped from his lips. Because I couldn’t wait to see you. Because I was awake half the night thinking about fucking you.

  Joe cleared his throat. ‘Surfing, remember?’

  Anna gripped the sheet and pulled it over her head. ‘Oh no.’

  ‘Oh yes. You promised. We’re going to get you up on that board today and turn you into a surfer girl.’

  Anna slowly lowered the sheet to reveal her lips. ‘Can I at least get a coffee first?’

  ‘Go! Go, Anna! This is the one!’ />
  Anna could feel the wave rumbling under her board and she pushed her palms down hard, feeling the sticky wax under her fingers. Then, in a move Joe had made her practice for what seemed like a thousand times, she pushed herself up, pulled her feet under her and found her crouching position. She lifted her hands, kept low, spread her arms wide and looked at nothing but the shoreline. Her quads ached but she ignored it. Everything seemed to be working.

  And she was up.

  Anna wobbled but caught herself, used her arms to balance on either side and rode the wave. She wasn’t out very deep, but it was a wave none the less, and she was riding that sucker.

  ‘Don’t look at your feet,’ Joe shouted above the wind. She didn’t want to look at her feet. She looked at Joe, lovely Joe, using him as a marker towards the sand. He was right in front of her, waving his arms like a maniac and smiling a smile so big she could see his white teeth shining.

  ‘Go, Anna!’

  And she felt like she was flying through the water and the air at a million miles an hour, the noise of the waves around her, the wind whipping through her hair, the sun on her face. Her heart beat so fast and strong she could feel it in her eyes and she started to chuckle. This was better than almost anything she’d ever done. Graduating from medical school. Buying her practice. Her ridiculous, big, fat Italian sham of a wedding to Alex. Because this was about something just for her. This wasn’t about la bella figura. This was about Anna, the good girl. It was just for her, to fill her own heart. It was for the teenager who’d been too scared to let go. This was for all of her pasts and all of the futures she was going to create for herself.

  For her. For her new life.

  ‘Woo hoo!’ she yelped into the wind.

  And then it was over. She’d zipped past Joe and jumped off the board, as he’d instructed her, before the water got too shallow. She landed on her feet, stumbled, and fell in under the wave. Joe had caught her board and was right there, reaching down under her arms to haul her to standing. She held on to his forearms, losing her balance a little with another wave buffeting her, and steadied. She spluttered and caught her breath, full to overflowing with the thrill of what she’d just done.

  And then Joe lifted her into his arms and whooped. ‘Oh my God! You did it!’

  Anna laughed, reached up and threw her arms around his neck.

  And kissed him.

  Salt and Joe and desire slammed into her and she kissed him. He reacted in the exact way she’d hoped. His lips parted and their tongues met in a tangle: cool water, hot lips, searching hands and gasping breath. She pressed her wetsuited body to his. When they stopped to take a breath, she nudged his nose with hers and linked her fingers behind his neck.

  ‘You did it,’ he murmured and his eyes searched her face.

  Anna struggled to breathe, her racing heart thumping so hard in her chest she was certain he could feel it through two layers of neoprene. ‘I couldn’t help it. I wanted to kiss you.’

  His sexy grin had parts of her tingling that had felt dead for a long, long time. ‘I meant the surfing.’

  ‘Oh yeah, that too.’

  Joe released her. She unlinked her fingers from behind his neck and they slid a slow trail across his shoulders, down his arms to his hands. Her feet found the sand but she felt weightless.

  ‘That was pretty good.’

  ‘The surfing or the kissing?’

  ‘Both. Although I think I liked the kiss better,’ he said.

  She’d liked that kiss better than anything else ever in her life up to that moment.

  The waves lapped around them but neither of them could find any more words to say. A tsunami could have swept in around them and they wouldn’t have noticed.

  ‘Shall we do it again?’ Anna teased, winding her fingers around his.

  ‘The surfing or the kissing?’

  Anna took a deep breath to give her the fortitude to say it out loud. ‘You asked me yesterday if I wanted to have some fun this weekend.’

  ‘Uh huh.’ Joe could barely remember five seconds ago, much less what he’d said yesterday.

  ‘Ask me again.’

  ‘You want to have some fun, Anna Morelli?’

  ‘Well, that depends.’

  He pulled her hand behind him and their bodies crushed up against each other. ‘On what?’

  ‘On what kind of fun you’re talking about,’ she replied.

  If they were in a cartoon, a light bulb would have suddenly appeared above Joe’s head, aglow. ‘I can do fun.’

  ‘I’m thinking consenting adults kind of fun.’ An ache started low and strong at the top of her thighs at the thought of having that kind of fun – again – with Joe.

  ‘There’s a lot of choice right there.’

  ‘I’m thinking the horizontal kind.’

  And then his lips were a breath away from hers. ‘Horizontal?’

  ‘Naked and horizontal.’

  ‘I would have picked you as someone a little more adventurous. Doc.’

  ‘Vertical?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Upside down?’

  ‘Up. Down. On top. Sideways. Backward. Every fucking way.’ Joe grabbed her hand. ‘Let’s go.’

  CHAPTER

  28

  It only took a minute to walk across the esplanade. They stacked the boards in the back of Joe’s car and two minutes later they were back at Joe’s place.

  In the backyard they stood, barely breathing. Joe had already peeled the top half of his wetsuit down and the sight of his bare chest sent Anna’s pulse into the stratosphere. There was no reason anymore to pretend she wasn’t looking at him, every square, tanned, muscled inch of him. This was the new Anna, unleashed. As he leaned down to turn on the water and pick up the hose, Anna studied every feature. His strong arms. His wide shoulders. She forgot, for once, what the medical names of all those muscles were. They weren’t triceps, biceps, the latissimus dorsi or the gluteus maximus anymore. She wasn’t looking at him like a medical professional now. She was looking at him like a woman, and he was a lean, sculpted package who was simply hotter than hell.

  ‘Anna,’ he said and their eyes met. Standing there holding the hose, an arc of water reaching across the lawn, he looked like a Greek god water feature. She let her eyes drop to his lips, and then slowly, deliberately, she trailed them down the wet skin of his throat, across the form of his chest and down to his hips.

  ‘Yes?’

  Joe grinned, his eyes full of awareness as he dipped his gaze to her body and nodded. ‘You need to take that off.’

  She wasn’t mistaken. He was feeling it too; she could hear it in his voice, deeper and gruffer than before. Could see it in his suddenly serious eyes and almost-there smile.

  ‘The wetsuit,’ he said. ‘We need to hose them off.’ Joe took a step closer and the cool spray of water from the hose splashed Anna’s feet. ‘The salt water dries out the neoprene. We don’t want them to get stiff.’

  Anna put her hands on her hips. Fun, huh? She could do fun. She wasn’t so uptight and serious and doctor-y that she didn’t have fun firmly embedded in her repertoire. She reached her hands up behind her neck and lifted her chin, fluttering her eyes closed against the sun and flicking her hair out of the way. ‘Could you unzip me?’

  Anna felt a delicious thrill at knowing he was watching her every move. She turned her back to him but glanced over her shoulder, could see his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat and a serious expression where his smile had been.

  She felt the release of pressure against her skin as Joe pulled the zip down, between her shoulder blades, and it tickled against her spine and slowly came to a stop in the small curve of her back. ‘I got it from here,’ she told him. He stepped back while Anna crossed her arms and reached to opposite shoulders, gripping the wetsuit and pulling it down over her arms until it dangled at her waist. A quick glance at Joe revealed flash of desire in his eyes.

  This was fun. This was more than fun. Anna gripped the wetsui
t and tugged it down over her hips and her thighs and when it was down to her calves, she stretched her feet out of it and kicked it off onto the grass.

  The way his mouth dropped open just a little made Anna think he’d never seen a woman in a red bikini before.

  Without saying a word he aimed the spray of the hose over the inside-out wetsuit, which was now lying in a tangled clump on the ground. Droplets of spray pinged up and splashed the curve of her calves. He moved the hose nozzle from side to side, rinsing a sleeve, a leg, the back zip.

  Then he took a step closer and handed Anna the hose.

  ‘Hold this.’ Joe reached around and slid his hands down over his backside, using his palms as a wedge to separate the clinging neoprene from his body. Never letting his eyes leave hers, he tugged the wetsuit down his thighs and stepped out of it. He planted his feet on the grass, and met her eyes, his chest rising and falling, silvery droplets of water trickling down his legs.

  Damn it, she’d found an imperfection; a tan line, low on his hips. But, Anna decided, perhaps in this case it was something she could overlook. Hell, she was so strung up with desire she wanted to lick the line with her tongue. Instead, she lifted the hose and let the spray trace that tan line from hip to hip, saturating his boardshorts so they clung to his thighs – and other interesting bits of him – like cling wrap.

  Then his fingers were on her wrist and he took the nozzle from her. Joe reached up and drizzled the water over his hair, the move broadening his chest and making his biceps work in all kinds of jaw-dropping ways. As he rubbed his palm over his head, rivulets of water made their way down his face and neck, over his chest and down his stomach, past the tan line and down into his boardshorts.

  He shook out his hair and tossed Anna a huge grin. His eyes drilled up and down her body, leaving tingling marks, like miniature paint bombs, throbbing under her skin.