by Lee, Miranda
His eyes dropped to her left hand. “You’re not wearing any rings,” he stated bluntly.
“I didn’t say I was married. I said I wasn’t free to go out with you.”
“Are you engaged, then?”
“No.”
“Living with someone?”
“No.”
“Then you’re free in my books.”
“But I’m not free in mine,” she stated firmly. “I’m involved with someone. And I love him very much.”
“But does he love you very much?” he countered.
Oh, why did she hesitate? “He…he says he does.”
“Huh. If he loves you so much, then why has he let you come up here all by yourself? If you were my girlfriend, I wouldn’t let you out of my sight.”
She stiffened. “Well, I’m not your girlfriend and Drake doesn’t let me do anything. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“I’m making it my business.”
“Then that’s very presumptuous of you,” she snapped.
“Is he married?”
“No, he is not! Look, I think you should leave, if you’re going to get personal and offensive.”
He stared at her, clearly taken aback by her stand. His eyes searched her face, as though he could not believe what he was hearing.
“Just tell me one thing. Would you go out with me if this boyfriend of yours was out of the picture?”
She didn’t say a word, but her eyes must have betrayed her.
“That’s what I thought,” he said, a little smugly. “You know, Zoe, you don’t love this guy as much as you think you do. If you did, you wouldn’t have looked at me like you did yesterday.”
A flustered heat started gathering in Zoe’s face. “Please go. And take your eggs with you.”
When she held them out, he shook his head. “Keep them,” he growled, and stalked off.
Zoe almost called him back. Almost. But in the end, decency won and the devil was defeated.
“Well done,” Aiden muttered to himself as he marched back to his house. “Very subtle. You’d give Casanova a run for his money with a technique like that.”
Clearly, six months’ celibacy hadn’t done much for his seduction skills. Or was it that he’d never had any in the first place?
The truth was sex had always come easy to Aiden, right from an early age. He’d never had to chase after it. Girls had always chased after him. At school, he’d always had the prettiest girls in class following him around like puppies. During his years on the world surfing circuit, there’d been gorgeous chicks by the bucket-load hanging around the tournaments. Surfing groupies, they were called. There was never a question of having to work too hard to have any one of them he wanted. He’d just have to give her the eye.
He hadn’t bothered with a steady girlfriend back then. That kind of relationship wouldn’t have fitted in with his lifestyle. For one thing, he’d needed to concentrate on his surfing. And then, there was the constant traveling.
Casual sex and a pocketful of condoms had been the order of the day. And most nights.
Later, however, after injury had forced him to retire from professional surfing, and he’d turned his ambitions elsewhere, Aiden had considered having a real relationship. He’d even started a couple. But they’d never worked out.
He hadn’t been really in love, he supposed. Though he thought he was at the time. Not in love enough, however, for him to put his partner first, before his business. Both girls had complained of his lack of true commitment.
So he’d given up the idea of a steady girlfriend and gone back to dating different girls, if and when he felt the need for sex. He had little trouble finding “dates.” Rich men rarely suffered the pangs of rejection. Aiden certainly hadn’t had no said to him too often.
Zoe had said no to him today, however, and there was absolutely nothing Aiden could think of to do which would sway her mind. Unfortunately, she was a girl of strong character, and rather old-fashioned principle.
For once in his life, he hadn’t got what he wanted, woman-wise, and it didn’t sit well with him.
So he did the only thing a man of his nature could do.
He went surfing.
6
YOU DID THE RIGHT thing, Zoe praised herself after Aiden left. If you’d said yes, you’d have been no better than Drake. Now, make yourself some breakfast and stop worrying. Okay, so Aiden did seem a bit upset that you wouldn’t go out with him. He’ll get over it. It’s not as though he’s in love with you. He only wanted a dinner date, and then you for afters.
Zoe savoured the thought of being Aiden’s after-dinner afters while she cooked and ate two of his eggs for breakfast. What would he be like as a real lover? she started wondering. What sort of things would he do?
“Oh, do stop thinking about that infernal man,” Zoe muttered, and forcibly turned her mind to what she would actually do for the rest of the day.
Despite the heat, swimming was out, as was strolling along the water’s edge. She wasn’t going to do a single thing which might risk running into Aiden again. As much as Zoe had smugly congratulated herself on turning his invitation down, she wasn’t sure if she would do so well on a second occasion.
Which meant outdoor pursuits here at Hideaway Beach were not on the agenda.
Really, there was nothing for it but to get out of here. But not back to Sydney. Not yet. She was still very angry with Drake, and still not impressed with his “just sex” excuse. Maybe she understood it a bit better, after meeting Aiden, but if she could resist temptation, then why couldn’t Drake have done the same? After all, on a scale of one to ten, she’d put the bottle blonde at around nine and Aiden at twenty-five! So whose temptation was worse?
All Zoe could think was that Drake’s love for her couldn’t be as strong as her love for him. Maybe Aiden had been right about that.
Thinking about Drake gave her a sudden thought and she went to check the message bank on her cell phone.
Nothing from Drake. Nothing at all.
Rather odd, came the caustic thought, if he loved her so much.
Zoe punched out her home number and Melinda answered after several rings.
“Hello,” she grumped. Zoe’s roommate was not a morning person.
“Hi, Mel, it’s Zoe here.”
“Oh, hi, Zoe,” she said, attempting to brighten up. “What’s up?”
“Nothing drastic. Did Drake call ‘round before you went out last night?”
“Nope.”
“Any message from him on the answering machine?”
“Nope.”
“He didn’t call my cell phone, either,” Zoe said, biting her bottom lip.
Mel’s sigh wafted down the line. “Look, just dump the two-timing bastard and be done with it. Then you can go out and have the entire surf club up there at… Where is it you’re staying?”
“Hideaway Beach. And there’s no surf club here. It’s a very small beach.”
“Pity. Some of those lifesaver types are real hunks. Nothing screwable at all around?”
Zoe stifled a groan. “Can we get off the subject of sex?”
“If you insist. So when are you coming home? I’m lonely here without you.”
Zoe was touched. “I’ll probably get on the road first thing in the morning. Then I’ll miss the Sunday afternoon traffic.”
“So what are you going to do today?”
“I thought I’d drive into Nelson Bay and do some window-shopping. Have a bite to eat. Maybe catch a movie.”
“Wow. Aren’t you the wild one!”
Zoe laughed. “I’m not a party animal like you.” Except in my dreams!
“Maybe not, but you should learn to loosen up a bit, Zoe. There’s more to life than working like a Trojan and always looking like you stepped out of a band box. So I repeat. Dump Drake and live a little.”
“Maybe he’s already dumped me.”
“That might be a good thing. I’ve been thinking about Drake and something my
father once said. You can never trust a salesman.”
“Oh, Mel, that’s generalizing and not at all fair. You might as well say all models are dumb.”
“And we are! Otherwise we’d be doing something else. Nothing worse than being wanted for your outside packaging alone. What I would give for a guy who liked me for the person I am inside and not for what I look like!”
“It’s easy to say that, Mel, when you look like you do. When you look like I used to, you never have a chance for a guy to like any part of you, the outside or the inside.”
“You always say things like that. I don’t believe you were ever that ugly.”
“Maybe not ugly, but I was fat.”
“Codswallop. You were probably just pleasantly plump. I’ll have you know a lot of men like a bit of meat on a girl. Besides, you would still have been very pretty. You’ve got the sweetest face with the loveliest of eyes. They don’t even need to be made-up to look good. I’d kill for eyes like that. I have to put a truckload of stuff on mine to look half as good as yours do first thing in the morning.”
“Oh, go on with you. You’re such a flatterer.”
“No, I’m not. Trust me on this. I never flatter other girls, not even my best friend.”
Zoe’s heart squeezed tight. She’d never had a best friend before. It was so much better than being just a roommate.
“Yes, you would, Mel,” Zoe returned warmly. “You pretend to be tough, but you’re not at all. You’re as soft as butter.”
“Now who’s the flatterer,” Mel protested. But she sounded pleased.
“I’d better get going, or my phone bill will be bigger than Ben Hur.”
“You be kind to yourself now.”
“I will. I promise.”
“And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Zoe laughed. “That gives me a pretty broad canvas.”
“It does indeed.”
“See you tomorrow, Mel.”
“’Bye, sweetie. Love you.”
She ended the call, leaving Zoe with a warm fuzzy feeling in the pit of her stomach. There was nothing like hearing someone tell you that they loved you, especially when you felt they meant it.
Drake was always telling her that he loved her.
But did he mean it?
Zoe sighed, put her phone back in her handbag and headed for the door. What she needed was distraction from her carousel thoughts about Drake and those other equally perturbing thoughts about another man who never shaved and didn’t wear nearly enough clothes!
The heat hit her the moment she stepped outside the door. The temperature had really shot up since her neighbor’s early-morning visit. It was going to be scorching. She would have to find an air-conditioned shopping mall, that was for sure.
Unfortunately, Nelson Bay hadn’t changed much since her last visit. Although it was the tourist hub of the Port Stephens area with a huge marina where you could take any number of cruises, the shopping center was still relatively small, with no mall to speak of.
After a couple of hours spent browsing in every air-conditioned store she could find, then lingering over brunch in a café down near the water, Zoe hesitated between actually going on a whale-watching cruise or trying out the local movie house, as she’d said to Mel. The movies won, again because of the air-conditioning, and also the choice available. A hard-edge action adventure flick which had an all-male cast. Consequently, no sex.
Zoe thought her poor brain—and body—deserved a rest from the subject.
The theater was small and crowded, with Zoe having to sit far too close to the screen with her head tipped back all the time. The movie wasn’t too bad, but far too long, and by the time she emerged, she had serious cramps in her neck.
She was rubbing them and wandering back toward the spot where she’d parked her car when she passed a small store front advertising remedial massages.
The wooden door was closed, but there was an Open For Business sign hanging on it. Zoe had never had a massage before, but her boss was very partial to them.
What the heck, Zoe thought. It was still too early to go back.
Ten minutes later she was lying facedown on a massage table, dressed in nothing but her bra and panties, and feeling just a little bit self-conscious, despite the masseur being a woman. Her name was Glenda, a tall athletic woman in her mid-thirties who looked a bit like Zoe’s sports coach at high school.
When she’d asked Zoe to strip down to her underwear, Zoe had been momentarily transported back to the gym dressing room where she’d been forced to change into a skimpy sports gear every Thursday afternoon.
Thinking back to those days, Zoe realized Mel was right. She’d only been pleasantly plump when she’d finally come to Sydney at the age of twenty, but back then, during her teenage years, she’d been fat. Fat as a pig. Her nickname in high school was Miss Piggy.
Yet she hadn’t always been fat. In elementary school she’d been a slip of a thing. But when her mother died of cancer a few days after Zoe’s thirteen birthday, Zoe had turned to food for comfort. That, along with the sudden onset of puberty, had turned her into a blob.
The teasing she’d endured over her weight had been pretty awful every single school day, but gym days had been unendurable. Maybe she’d been imagining it, but Zoe thought even the female sports coach had enjoyed some kind of perverse pleasure in seeing her struggle into the short pleated skirt and sleeveless top which showed off every appalling inch of her grossly overweight body.
It had taken Zoe years to eradicate the feelings of shame and self-loathing over her body. In truth, she probably still hadn’t eradicated those old tapes entirely. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be feeling self-conscious right now.
“You work out, don’t you?” Glenda said as she bent Zoe’s arms up into a comfortable position on top of the table, then unclipped her bra.
“Yes,” Zoe admitted, a tad tautly. But she wasn’t used to this kind of thing. “A couple of times a week.”
“You can always tell. You’re looking good, girl.”
“You really think so?”
“I’ll say. Just don’t overdo it. Nothing worse than women who work out too much. They begin to look sinewy. But you’re just right. Now…let’s see if we can do something about these knots in your shoulders and neck. Oh, yes…they’re tight as a drum. I’ll bet you’re from Sydney. We get a lot of stressed out Sydney people up here. Just relax, love…”
Zoe did relax. To begin with. She settled her face into the hole in the table, closed her eyes and let all her muscles go, as per Glenda’s instructions. But just as she was beginning to appreciate why Fran was addicted to such pampering, Zoe made the mistake of opening her eyes and looking down at the bright orange carpet.
Immediately, she thought of Aiden. Then last night’s dream.
“Hey,” Glenda said. “Don’t tense up again. Relax.”
Relax! How could she relax with last night’s dream replaying in her brain?
Zoe squeezed her eyes tightly shut again and tried to banish the erotic fantasy from her mind, but it was impossible. Her lying there nearly naked didn’t help. Neither did the fact she had to stay perfectly still. It wasn’t the same as being bound to a bed, but it didn’t take much imagination to once again summon up the deliciously seductive feelings of being a helpless captive. It was also very easy to pretend it wasn’t Glenda’s hands on her. But Aiden’s.
He’d been so good with his hands in that dream. So very very good.
Zoe stifled a moan as Glenda started working up the back of her thighs toward her bottom.
“Do…do you think you could do my shoulders a bit more?” she said.
“Sure. Goodness, you’re all tight there again. What on earth have you been doing to yourself lately?”
What, indeed?
“I guess I’ve been working too hard,” Zoe said.
“Ever thought about changing your job?”
“Er…no. I actually quite like my job.”
�
�Well, there’s something in your life which you don’t like, love. I suggest you find out what it is and change that!”
7
AFTER THE MASSAGE, Zoe drove to a local restaurant for dinner, not wanting to cook. By the time she finally arrived back at Hideaway Beach it was getting on for nine and the sun had well and truly set. The air outside was not appreciably cooler, however, and the cottage was stifling from being closed up all day.
Zoe opened up the windows and put on the ceiling fans, but they didn’t help all that much. She was still hot. No, she was very hot.
The idea of a cooling swim beckoned like a siren’s voice and it seemed silly to deny herself the pleasure. Silly to keep hiding in this house as well. Aiden was not going to approach her again. Not at this hour. After her experiences during the massage, Zoe well understood why she’d made the decision to distance herself from his corrupting presence today, but enough was enough!
The decision made to have a swim, Zoe hurried to extract her swimsuit from her bag, pulling out the new black one-piece Mel had talked her into buying at the summer sales and which she hadn’t dared wear in public yet. It had a low-cut square neckline which just covered her nipples and was perilously high cut at the sides. You really had to keep your bikini line waxed well to wear it, but that was no trouble to Zoe. She kept everything waxed well.
Five minutes later, she was plunging headfirst into the ocean, surfacing with a gasp. After the intense heat of the day the water was wonderfully refreshing. Unfortunately, she was standing right at the spot where the waves broke so she had to jump up and down all the time, which was rather tiring. A few feet farther out it was almost flat, with just a small swell. There, she could lie back and wallow in the more gentle waves, without getting exhausted or being knocked off her feet.
Zoe wasn’t a great swimmer, but competent enough. She’d been taught properly at elementary school and back then, before she’d turned into a blob, she’d spent many a hot summer’s day swimming in the local creek.
Diving under the breaking waves, she quickly reached her objective where she was able to float quite successfully. With her hands behind her head, she stared up at the star-studded night sky and tried to work out which ones formed the Southern Cross. She thought she’d found it several times.