Her eyes locked with his and a thrill of anticipation tingled through her.
Mitch Bailey was about to kiss her. And she was going to kiss him right back.
CHAPTER SIX
MITCH HAD BEEN aching to kiss Zoe ever since she’d joined him in the pool. But just as his lips grazed hers, just as her lips parted under his, just as she uttered a delicious little moan of surprise and need, an Oriental-sounding chime came from the carved gate to the villa.
‘Room service!’ called a cheerful voice with a lilting Balinese accent.
Mitch stilled. Zoe looked up into his eyes. He saw echoed in hers the same frustration he was feeling at being thwarted in their first kiss.
For a long moment they stood motionless in the water, his mouth still claiming hers, her hands resting on his shoulders in silent agreement to pretend they weren’t there.
The doorbell chimed again.
Mitch muttered a curse under his breath. Then he pulled Zoe closer and kissed her hard. She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back with equal passion. Heat ignited between them so fast he was surprised steam wasn’t rising from the water.
Damn the room service timing.
With regret he let her go, then pulled her back for a final swift kiss. If she could see his thought bubble now it would give her the promise torn from him. Later.
‘Come in,’ he called to the waiter on the other side of the gate, his voice hoarse.
Reluctantly he let Zoe go, supporting her when she seemed to stagger in the water. When she’d regained her balance he swam to the edge of the pool, then turned back to check she was okay.
The sight of her wading out of the water made him suck in a gasp of admiration. She was awesome. With both hands she pushed her wet hair from her face, so it was slicked behind her ears and flat to her head. The severe hairstyle emphasised the angular, unconventional beauty of her face. That black bikini concealed more than it revealed, yet he found the very subtlety of it tantalising. Zoe was smart, fun, different. He couldn’t remember when he’d last bantered and laughed like that with a woman.
He flung a blue-striped beach towel around his shoulders and handed her one as she got out of the pool. ‘It’s an improvement on the white one,’ he said in a low voice.
‘Anything would be an improvement on that,’ she said, her voice not quite steady as she wrapped the towel around her.
The smiling young waiter, dressed in the version of traditional garb that formed the staff’s uniform, carried in a large silver tray. He placed the tray on the outdoor table and, with a flourish, lifted the lids that covered the plates.
‘Terima kasih—thank you,’ Zoe said to the waiter with her vibrant smile.
Her teeth were perfect—even and white. Had she worn braces at school? Mitch couldn’t be sure. He was racking his brains to try and remember everything about her back then.
Their dinner was presented with simple Asian elegance. No one would know it had come from a kitchen suffering the after-effects of an earthquake. Deliciously spicy smells wafted from the tray and Mitch’s stomach rumbled. But hunger of a different kind was foremost in his mind.
He echoed Zoe’s thanks to the waiter, tipped him generously, and watched impatiently for the high, ornate gate to close behind him.
Finally he was alone again with Zoe, in the total privacy of the villa. It seemed suddenly very quiet. He was aware of the faint lapping of the water against the sides of the pool; the rustle of birds settling for the night in the surrounding trees. He swore he could even hear the fizzing of the bubbles in the mineral water Zoe had ordered. A faint smell of incense wafted across from the nearby Hindu temple, to mingle with the aromas of their dinner and the sweetness of frangipani blossom.
Mitch found he had to clear his throat to speak. ‘Dinner is served,’ he said, with a mock bow.
‘So I see. It smells amazing. I...I’m suddenly hungry again.’
There was an edge to her voice—as if she were trying too hard to make conversation. She tugged at the knot that kept the beach towel secure between her breasts.
‘The waiter has gone,’ he said. ‘You can ditch the towel.’
‘I’d rather keep it on,’ she said.
‘Because it’s so cold?’
Although it was starting to get dark, it was still hot, the air thick and humid.
‘I feel more comfortable covered up,’ she said, not meeting his eyes.
‘Zoe—’
‘Mitch—’ she said at the same time.
‘Back then—’
‘In...in the pool—’ she stuttered.
‘When we—’
She raised her eyes to meet his. ‘I don’t think it should happen again. The...the kiss, I mean.’
‘I didn’t think you meant the water fight,’ Mitch quipped.
She smiled and her shoulders visibly relaxed. ‘I enjoyed the water fight.’ She flushed high on her cheekbones. ‘I...I enjoyed the kiss.’
‘I’m glad to hear that.’ He couldn’t keep the irony from his tone.
‘But...’
With a sinking feeling, Mitch had known there was a but coming.
‘But, considering the circumstances, I think we should stick to...to being friends.’
Mitch felt intense disappointment with an overlay of relief. He suspected Zoe wasn’t the kind of girl for a one-night fling. And right now that was all he could offer with his life the way it was. He’d hurt her in the past. He certainly had no wish to hurt her now.
‘You’re right,’ he said through gritted teeth.
Of course she was right—much as he might wish otherwise, much as he ached for her to continue that kiss.
‘Just friends.’
‘Thank you,’ she murmured.
But he wanted her.
This urgent desire for her had come from left field. He hadn’t looked at Zoe in that way when they’d been teenagers, much as he’d liked her. He’d been with Lara, and he’d prided himself on being faithful even then.
But now he was single, and the sway of Zoe’s hips, the swell of her breasts, her lovely mouth and her husky laughter was driving him crazy with want. However, he knew it would be better for her if he held back and didn’t act on that desire. Better for him too. He didn’t want to carry another burden of guilt away with him when they said goodbye.
‘So we’ll treat that kiss as the spoils of our water battle in the swimming pool?’ he said, forcing his voice to sound light-hearted.
‘In which both sides triumphed,’ she said, with a sigh that sounded halfway between relief and regret. Which only made him want her more.
* * *
Oh, yes, a kiss from Mitch was a prize indeed.
Zoe’s head was still spinning from the impact of Mitch’s brief but passionate possession of her mouth. His lips had only been on hers for such a short time, but the joy of it had been seared into her soul.
If a kiss felt like that what would making love with him be like?
She pushed the thought far, far away into the deepest recesses of her heart.
Had she always wanted this? Her body pulled close to his? The taste of him? the touch of him? The sheer bliss of being with him?
That teenage crush had never gone away.
It was only one kiss. But it had awakened a desire for him so powerful it would have led to more than a kiss. And she couldn’t deal with that. Not when he’d made it so clear that there was no room for a woman in his life. Not when, once this brief alignment of their planets was over, they’d go back to their different worlds. She would probably never see him again. Her desire for him was as impossible as that deeply buried crush had been so long ago.
‘No need to look so woeful,’ he said.
He pulled her into a hug. She hesitated at first, then relaxed into his arms. Her head rested on his shoulder and he stroked her hair. She closed her eyes, the better to savour the utter pleasure of his hands on her.
‘It’s not our time, not our place,’ he said.
‘But I’m glad we met up again, Zoe Summers. I’m pleased to count you as a friend.’
‘Me too,’ she said, wishing she could stay in his arms longer, knowing it wasn’t a good idea. Her in a bikini, him in his swim shorts—full-body, bare skin contact. While her mind was telling her to pull away her body was clamouring for more.
‘Let’s enjoy our dinner,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll go back to my villa. Because I can’t guarantee I won’t kiss you again.’
Zoe blinked down hard on a sudden smarting of tears. ‘Good idea. I...I mean bad idea. I mean wise idea.’
She pulled away from his hug, feeling bereft of his warmth, his strength, and forced her voice to sound cheerful and matter-of-fact when inside she was a churning mess of conflict.
It would be only too easy to tell him to stay. But then, when they went their separate ways, she would have to live with it—and that might throw her right back into those high school feelings of unworthiness she’d worked so hard to shake off. Her life was settled, steady, sure—dull compared to his.
She could never be part of Mitch’s world.
She tucked the beach towel around her a little more firmly. ‘Usted debe ser hambre,’ she said in her best Spanish accent.
‘Now that you mention it, yes, I am starving,’ he said. He took her hand and led her to where the waiter had set up their dinner table, with two chairs facing opposite each other. ‘Let’s make the most of this meal.’
Zoe did her best. The ayam bakar with lemongrass salsa was one of the best chicken dishes Zoe had ever enjoyed. But she managed only a few half-hearted bites, pushing it around her plate. Mitch, on the contrary, ate heartily. By not eating was she trying to postpone the moment dinner was over? If so, what did that mean he was doing?
He pushed his plate away with a satisfied sigh. ‘The food in Madrid is amazing, but this fish is up there with the best meal ever.’
‘It looked really good,’ she said, struggling to make polite conversation.
‘But you’ve hardly touched yours,’ he said.
‘I’m not really hungry,’ she murmured, the knot in her stomach tightening.
‘Why don’t we wait a while before we eat dessert?’ he said.
‘Good idea,’ she said.
Anything to postpone the time when they had to say goodbye.
Darkness had fallen, but the sensor-driven lights hidden in the greenery and at the edge of the pool had been switched on. The scene was peaceful and beautiful.
‘This time last night I was watching the sunset on the beach,’ Mitch said.
‘Me too,’ she said.
She wished he hadn’t evoked the memory of it. Standing on the endless stretch of the dark Seminyak sand, watching the magnificence of the sun sinking into the sea, had been the only times she’d felt lonely on this solitary vacation. To know Mitch had been somewhere on the same beach somehow made it worse.
He got up from his chair.
‘Let’s sit over here,’ he said, heading towards the loungers.
He dragged away the small table from in between and pushed the loungers together. When he’d sat down he patted the lounger next to him. It was an invitation she could not resist.
Mitch put a friendly arm around her. She relaxed against his shoulder, breathing in the clean, male scent of him, storing up the memory of it to relive next time she saw him on television, playing the game he loved so much on some international soccer pitch, where tens of thousands of spectators watched him in the flesh.
How would she be able to bear it?
At that precise moment the rooster chose the occasion for another of his raucous, triumphant cries, which lifted her from her maudlin thoughts.
‘Trust him to have the last word,’ she said.
Both she and Mitch laughed.
But the laughter froze in her throat as she noticed the still turquoise surface of the swimming pool start to shimmer—as if a giant hand had picked up the concrete edge and shaken it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LAUGHING AND FOOLING AROUND with Mitch had distracted Zoe from the danger of a possible aftershock. Now her fear came rushing back as powerfully as a possible tsunami.
The loungers she and Mitch were reclining on started to shake. The plates, knives and forks and glasses from their unfinished feast clattered together. Zoe shrank against Mitch, paralysed with terror. The whimpering that echoed in her ears came from her.
‘Under the table—now,’ Mitch urged, and he helped her roll off the lounger and crawl to the table. He pushed her under first, then squeezed in with her, putting his arm around her to pull her tight to him.
Was this it—the big one?
Every so often she had nightmares about being in the car when the truck had hit them. Of struggling in and out of consciousness with an agonising pain in her leg. Paramedics talking to her in soothing tones with an edge of pity they hadn’t been able to suppress. No one answering her questions about her parents. The eventual dreadful knowledge that she would never see them again.
She was usually successful at pushing thoughts of her loss to the dark shadows at the back of her mind. Not so now.
Earlier today something with the potential to wipe out her world had again come from nowhere, completely out of her control. Now it was threatening her again.
She burrowed her face against Mitch’s shoulder, grateful for his comfort, his strength, for the soothing reassuring sounds he was making as he stroked her back.
‘You’ll be okay. I think it’s only a tiny tremor,’ he repeated.
As it happened, he was right. It was probably only seconds rather than minutes before the tremor subsided.
For a few long moments she stayed in Mitch’s protective embrace as the resort settled again.
‘Do you think there’ll be another tremor?’ she asked, her voice muffled.
‘Difficult to say,’ he said. ‘If anything catastrophic had happened—like a tsunami warning—we would have heard alarms by now.’
‘That...that wasn’t too bad.’ She lifted her head to meet his gaze but was reluctant to move out of the comforting circle of his arms, the illusion of safety under the table.
‘I think it’s safe to come out now,’ he said with that disarming smile, but he made no effort to move away from her.
‘Thank you,’ she said, mildly ashamed of her reaction. ‘I never thought I’d dive under a table twice in one day.’
She’d always prided herself on her level-headedness. But she had been afraid.
She eased away from his arms and crawled out from under the table while Mitch did the same, then stood next to him as they looked around them. Except for a further scattering of frangipani blossoms and a new palm frond on the surface of the pool, now still again, there had been no damage. The rooster was going crazy—but then he did tend to sound off at this time of evening.
But what if it hadn’t been that way?
What if she and Mitch had been injured? What if she’d never seen him again not because he’d gone back to Madrid but because he...?
She couldn’t bear even to think through the rest.
Or what if another quake came during the night and...?
You could never be certain of tomorrow.
‘You okay?’ he said.
She nodded. ‘You?’
‘Fine. It was nothing compared to the last one. Though it did jolt me.’
‘I’m glad you didn’t go back to your villa.’
‘Me too,’ he said. ‘I would have been in a state without you to hold on to.’
He was being kind, uttering the self-deprecating words for her sake. She knew that. It was she who had fallen to pieces. Not him. He hadn’t been afraid. Not for a moment. He was just trying to make her feel better.
That seemed to be Mitch all round. Sexiest man alive. Star athlete. Fun. And kind. In short, the most wonderful man she had ever met or was ever likely to meet. Mitch was unique. And not just because of the way he looked or his skill with a ball.
T
he earthquake had dropped him into her life again and shaken the way she thought to its very foundations. Nothing could be the same.
Suddenly everything became very clear. She did not want to be plagued with regrets. This might be the only chance she ever had to be with Mitch.
She couldn’t let him go back to his villa.
She turned to face him and clutched his arm so hard he winced. Her heart was thudding so loudly she was surprised he couldn’t hear it, and her mouth was dry.
‘Don’t go tonight, Mitch. Stay with me.’
His eyes seemed to darken to a deeper shade of green. ‘Zoe, are you sure?’
She tilted her face to his, twined her arms around his neck and kissed him. He seemed surprised, and paused for just a second before he kissed her back. His lips were warm and firm and exciting beneath hers and she explored the way he tasted, the way he felt. Mitch hugged her to him as he deepened the kiss so it escalated into a passionate meeting of mouths, tongues, teeth.
Desire for him rushed through her—urgent, demanding, insistent. She wanted him and she wanted him now.
It wasn’t about the earthquake—that was just a facilitator. It was about him. If she’d bumped into him at sunset on the beach she would have wanted him. If she’d chanced upon him in a bar in Seminyak and they’d got chatting she would have wanted him.
She was realistic. Mitch obviously went for stunningly beautiful girls like Lara—blonde and glamorous. She, Zoe, hitting average on the looks scale, was never likely to capture Mitch Bailey’s attention. But here, now, she had.
She’d wanted him at seventeen and hadn’t been able to have him. Now she was going to take what she wanted. Even if it was for only one night.
She broke the kiss and pulled away, panting and breathless. ‘I...I think we should go inside.’
‘It’s completely private here—look at the height of those walls.’
‘Wh...what about helicopters?’
Mitch’s brow rose, bemused. ‘Helicopters? Why would you worry about helicopters?’
She felt a little foolish. ‘I don’t know. Your world is so different to mine. But I thought—’
From Paradise...to Pregnant! Page 6