“Force of the water as I came down the flume.”
“Almost caused a riot,” a voice said from behind them. “Men were clambering over each other to get out of the pool, women were fainting…”
Genie laughed and turned to give Josie a hug. “Hey, you.”
“Hey, Genie.” Josie tightened her arms around her. “It’s so good to see you.” She stepped back and gave her a hard look. “How are you? You look a bit dark under the eyes.”
“Just the jet lag.”
Josie’s frown told Genie she didn’t quite believe her. “You know you can always come and see me, don’t you? If you ever want an appointment, just ring and tell my assistant who you are, and I’ll make a space for you.”
Genie’s spirits lifted a little. She’d forgotten Josie was a psychologist. The notion of speaking in confidence to someone she knew appealed to her. “I might do that, thanks.”
Josie smiled. She was a pretty girl, with dark blonde hair cut in an attractive bob and a ready smile, and she was intelligent and funny. Genie glanced up at her brother and caught him watching his ex. He turned his attention back to his son as Josie walked over to them, but not before Genie had caught the look on his face. No wonder he hadn’t gotten himself a new girlfriend, Genie thought. He still loved her.
“You still okay for Saturday?” Josie asked.
“Of course.” Beck lowered Edward to the floor. “No worries.”
“Okay, I’ll drop him off at two.”
“Are you doing anything nice?” Beck’s voice was innocent, but Genie could hear the question behind it. Are you seeing someone?
Josie ruffled her son’s hair. “Just going to the cinema with a friend.”
Beck nodded. A silence stretched between them. Genie could see him itching to ask if it was a male or female friend, but he refused to voice the question. Josie met his gaze for a moment. Ask her, Genie urged him in her head. She wants you to ask her. Clearly, though, he wasn’t going to.
Not wanting him to torture himself for days, Genie decided to ask. “Ooh, going on a date?” She made her voice playful.
Josie lowered her gaze. “No, just a girl friend.”
Beck glared at his sister, obviously deducing what she was up to. She shrugged—at least now he knew. “Oh, well I hope you have a nice time.”
“Thanks. Don’t forget to call if you want to talk.”
“I will, thank you.”
Josie smiled and took Edward’s hand. “Say goodbye.”
Edward waved. “Bye Auntie Gin. Bye Daddy.”
“Bye, Teddy Boy.”
The two of them left the bar, heading into the summer sun.
Genie turned to her brother. He’d stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans and the muscles at the corner of his jaw had bunched. How hard must it be to say goodbye to his son, knowing he probably wouldn’t see him again until the weekend?
She cleared her throat, “Beck—”
“Don’t,” he said sharply, and turned to walk behind the bar, where he began to organize the glasses ready for opening time.
She gave up. “Okay. I’ll catch you later.”
He nodded, and she left him to it, knowing from experience it would be pointless to try to make him talk.
She headed out, blinked at the sunlight, and lowered her sunglasses over her eyes. It was too hot for jeans, so she’d had to resort to a floor-length summer dress to cover her knee—not that it hid the fact that she had an injury, as the cane rather gave the game away. A man walking past her glanced at it now, and she knew he’d be wondering why she needed it—was it a disability she’d been born with? Had she been in a car crash? Few people guessed the truth. Only fifteen percent of the New Zealand Army workforce were women, and it was still relatively unusual for a woman to be wounded in action.
When she was away, the Army was her whole life, but now she was keen to push it to the back of her mind. She loved her job, but it was all-consuming, incredibly intense, and it was a relief to do something different. She walked toward the shops, enjoying the beauty of the Northland morning. To her right, the Pacific Ocean was bright and sparkling, heavy with boats heading out to catch snapper, or to peruse the myriad of islands that made up the Bay.
She felt lighter of spirit than she had for some time. That was what being home did for you. Even though Sinead appeared determined to blame her, it was still lovely to be with her friends and family, and to relax in the Bay of Islands.
Her lips twisted. Who was she kidding? Approximately ninety-nine percent of her good mood was directly related to Niall Brennan and The Kiss, and warmth spread through her once again at the memory of his mouth on hers.
The warm feeling persisted as she wandered around the shops, and only seemed to increase as the time approached when she was due to meet him. Around twelve, her leg beginning to ache, she bought a coffee in Flukes, a large classy café and restaurant on the pier, and sat overlooking the water while she waited for his boat to come in.
She massaged the muscle above her knee as she sipped the latte. She’d lived with the persistent pain for six weeks, but she still wasn’t used to it. Until the accident, she’d been super-fit, a regular user of the gym on the base, and she’d swum regularly, as well as playing the occasional game of rugby or football when she felt like it. Now, her body felt slightly stiff, but it was also nice not to have to think about filling every minute of her day, and to take time to relax. She wasn’t normally good at relaxing, but since Ciara had died, she’d felt more of a need to spend time doing nothing, to smell the roses perhaps, or maybe to just be. Part of her thought it might bring her some peace. It hadn’t worked so far, but she lived in hope.
It was ten minutes past one by the time Niall arrived, but she didn’t mind, aware of the difficulties of keeping time in his job, which often involved getting large parties of tourists in and out of the water as they swam with the dolphins. His boat—Tangaroa, the name of the Maori god of the sea—arrived at the pier. One of the guys who worked for him hopped out and moored it up, and the trail of tourists began to disembark.
She saw Niall then, standing at the front, shaking hands with them as they got off the boat. Her breath caught in her throat as he helped lift a girl in a wheelchair onto the ramp so she could maneuver herself onto the pier. The girl had obviously been in the sea—her hair was wet and she still wore her swimming costume. As Genie watched, Niall tucked the girl’s towel in tighter around her legs so it wouldn’t go astray, and bent and kissed her hand. The girl giggled.
Genie’s lips curved at one corner. What a smoothie. She’d forgotten he took physically and mentally disadvantaged people out to swim with the dolphins. She’d checked out his website before coming home, desperate for some connection with her family and friends while she lay in the hospital. Customers could book trips through the website, which stressed the healing nature of the experience. He’d dedicated a whole page to trips for disabled people, and stated that his boat had special equipment to cope with all kinds of disabilities. “It’s one of the most rewarding parts of my job,” the website stated, “helping others who are less able.” She knew he had a disabled cousin, and that must have been part of the reason, although Niall had always been like that—open and inclusive, and frequently impatient or even angry with people prejudiced against those less able than themselves.
When looking at the website, she’d depressed herself with the thought that she would probably need his help getting in and out of the water from now on, and had flicked onto another site, putting it from her mind. Now, though, she watched him make sure the girl got safely off the boat, something stirring inside her at his generosity of spirit.
Then she pushed the feeling away. He was still the same Niall Brennan who had once deleted a history project from her computer and left her to panic for a whole twelve hours before giving her the flash drive on which he’d transferred it. Okay, so it had been in retaliation for something she’d done—she couldn’t remember what now, but it didn
’t change the fact that he was no saint, and it was best she remembered that.
Pushing herself to her feet, she left the empty coffee cup and walked slowly to the pier. By the time she reached his boat, he was finishing up and saying goodbye to his crew.
He was wearing a summer wetsuit.
Genie perched on a nearby bench so she didn’t faint, and blew out a breath as she watched him moving around, stacking safety jackets and locking up the cabin. Short sleeved and reaching to mid-thigh, the black foamed neoprene suit clung to his muscular frame. Every single piece of him was tight, toned, and tanned. If Tangaroa himself had owned a wetsuit, he might have looked something like Niall Brennan.
He turned at that point, saw her, and leapt nimbly up onto the pier to walk over, picking up a towel on the way.
“Hey.” She pushed herself to her feet. Remember to breathe, Genie.
“Hi.” His gaze skimmed down to her feet and then back up like a laser reading a barcode. A red hot laser that seared her all the way through. By the time his eyes returned to hers, they held a delicious sultriness that made certain parts of her tingle. “You look nice.”
The compliment threw her. “Um… Thank you.”
“I thought those jeans were glued to your legs.”
That was more like the old Niall. She lifted her chin. “Ha ha. I happen to feel more comfortable in trousers.” But she couldn’t think of anything wittier to say because her brain had melted. Up close, he was even more magnificent. The muscles in his arms! She fought an urge to fan herself. He’d always had a great body, but she hadn’t seen him in a wetsuit for years and it was…well, indecent. He should have had a warning sign above his head. One of those they stuck on fairground rides, ‘Use with caution if you have a bad back or a heart condition.’
“What did you want?” Her words came out disgruntled, although she hadn’t meant them that way. She was having trouble getting any words into a sensible sentence. His wet hair had gone spiky and flopped over one light green eye. A droplet ran down his cheek into the light stubble. It took every ounce of willpower she possessed not to lean over and lick it up.
It was a front-zip wetsuit, and the zipper ran from his neck, across his torso at an angle and down his left leg. He unzipped the top of the wetsuit and struggled to get one arm out. “I rang Fox last night. He’s running some cookery classes in Kerikeri on Wednesdays, and he said there’s space for the two of us, so I signed us up—just for the one evening.”
“Oh, okay.” She tried not to stare as he levered his other arm out and ran the towel over his upper body. Was he doing it on purpose? The towel ran over smooth, shiny brown skin—her fingers envied the way it stroked up over his muscular shoulders, down his lean, strong arms.
“I think he’s doing desserts that class, anyway, which I thought would cheer you up.” He grinned.
“Yeah. Sounds great.” Dear God. He’d undone the zipper so he could dry the expanse of chest with its light scattering of hair, but because he was moving around, the zipper was gradually descending. He raised his arms to dry his hair, and the two sides of the neoprene pulled apart to expose his flat, taut stomach, and a very happy trail of hair leading down…
Quite clearly, the guy was going commando.
“I thought maybe we could catch a movie afterward,” he was saying somewhere off in the distance.
“I…um…” It was no good. She’d lost the power of speech. The threat that the zipper was going to drop the last few inches and everything was going to pop out had scrambled any remaining sense she had.
Chapter Nine
Niall frowned. Genie had lifted her sunglasses onto the top of her head, and she was staring at him as if he’d told her he’d seen a flying saucer. She blinked once, slowly, and he had the strangest feeling she was trying incredibly hard not to look away from his face.
A breeze wafted across them, cool on his belly, and he dropped his gaze to see the zipper on his wetsuit a billionth of an inch away from exposing his manly parts to the tourists waiting to board the boat next to his.
“Shit.” He hastily pulled the zipper up a few inches. “Genie! You could have told me.” Hands on his hips, he looked back up at her and saw a faint tinge of red appear on her cheekbones, the way the sun brushed the sky with light crimson as it began to set. She had noticed, and that was why she’d been attempting to avert her gaze.
She was blushing. She’d wanted to look, and that notion had surprised her.
He gestured at his crotch with a hand. “If you want a peek, you only have to ask.”
The tinge of red turned into a whole sunset. “Why didn’t you just text me about Wednesday,” she snapped. “Why make me come all the way down here?”
“I wanted to see you,” he replied. Her face glowed scarlet. Genie Sharpe, blushing over him! Interesting. “I thought we could go for a coffee.”
“I’ve just had a coffee.”
“Lunch, then.”
“I’m not hungry.”
He tipped his head to the side. “Don’t be mad. If it’s any consolation, I wouldn’t mind seeing you naked either.”
Her eyes widened, and for a brief second he regretted saying it. Neither of them had ever made sexual advances before, and clearly she was as thrown by the notion of there being a spark between them as he was.
As the seconds ticked on and she still didn’t look away, he felt the ground shifting between them, as surely as if the pier had detached from the mainland and was floating out to sea. Her blue eyes darkened as her pupils dilated.
She moved closer, and for a second he thought she was going to kiss him. Then her eyes narrowed, and she prodded his chest with a finger. “You have some nerve, Niall Brennan.”
He blinked. “I do?”
“Thinking you can have any woman you want with one flash of your abs.”
“It wasn’t my intention to flash them.”
“Could have fooled me.” She prodded him again. “Standing in broad daylight and tantalizing your audience with the promise of a glimpse of your crown jewels.”
That made him laugh. “I really was just drying off,” he said honestly.
“Yeah, right.” Now the blush had died down, he saw she was enjoying sparring with him. She was so full of life and energy—it almost radiated out of her fingers and toes in rays of brilliant light. She was fucking amazing when she was like this—he’d forgotten how brilliant she was, how alive. Tamsin had never done this to him, had never made him feel as if he stood in front of a star about to turn supernova.
“If I’d meant to strip off, I would have done it.” His heart rate increased as the energy sparked between them, almost tangible. If her eyes burned any hotter, he was going to push her up against the fence and kiss her senseless.
“Go on then.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Is that a dare?”
“Let’s say yes.”
He caught the tag of the zipper between his fingers and lowered it an inch. “What do I get when I win?”
She nibbled her bottom lip. “A night in a police cell for indecent exposure, I would expect.” Her expression showed a hint of wariness. “You wouldn’t.”
He moved closer to her, ignoring the tourists still waiting to board, who were now interested in the scene playing out in front of them. The chemistry between him and her was obvious enough to make the onlookers grin. A couple of women appeared very interested in how far he was willing to go.
He lowered the zipper another inch, the neoprene contracting and pulling the two sides of the wetsuit apart. “Wouldn’t I?”
Her laughter fought with her alarm. “Niall…”
Taking her free hand in his, he maneuvered it to hold the zipper. Keeping his hand on hers, he moved it down. She’d be feeling the first curls of hair from his groin on the backs of her fingers.
“What are you going to do when you unleash the beast?” he murmured.
She gave a sharp exhalation through her nose. “The beast. Ha!”
His lips
lingered above hers, almost touching, and he unzipped another fraction of an inch. “Do you think you can tame him?” He pushed her hand a little, so her fingers slid behind the wetsuit. Her eyes widened.
“Do I need to get my whip?” she said.
He raised an eyebrow. “I’d be careful with talk like that. If he stands to attention, you’re really going to be in trouble.”
The neoprene tightened, and the zipper slid one more notch.
Genie snatched her hand away as someone in the crowd whistled. She turned and walked off, back toward the town.
Niall laughed and pulled the zipper up to a safe distance, giving the crowd a wry glance as the women booed their disapproval. Ahead of him, Genie looked over her shoulder, still walking away, her eyes alight with laughter.
“Wednesday,” he called. “I’ll pick you up at five.”
She nodded and turned, limping slightly, and leaned on the cane as she crossed the pier and disappeared behind the shops.
His humor faded, and he climbed back onto his boat and went into the cabin to change. As he struggled out of the wetsuit and toweled himself dry, he thought about her injury and what she must have gone through, watching her best friend die. He had to remember that she wasn’t the same girl she’d always been, carefree and irreverent. She might pretend she hadn’t changed, but she couldn’t have come through that experience unscathed. This wasn’t the time to play with her feelings. She liked him, but he had to be absolutely sure he knew what he was doing if he initiated something between them.
Did he know what he was doing? Rarely, he thought, smiling to himself as he got dressed. That had never stopped him before, though.
*
He didn’t see Genie again for a few days. They exchanged a few fun texts, her remarking on his nerve at nearly exposing himself on the pier, him teasing her for failing to go through with the dare, but he kept it light and didn’t refer to the attraction that had simmered between them, and neither did she. He tried not to think about her while he ferried tourists out to the Hole in the Rock and organized parties of eager swimmers in and out of the water. It was difficult, though.
A Secret Between Friends: A New Zealand Sexy Beach Romance (Treats to Tempt You Book 6) Page 7