A feathery sensation passed over her at the thought of him seeing her sleeping in that big bed, perhaps uncovered and totally vulnerable. She’d been hot during the night and recalled throwing the sheet off at one point until the cooler air of the morning had made her reach for it again.
She gave herself a mental shake and quickly unpacked a bikini and a two-piece sports outfit and trainers from her case and dressed quickly, tying her hair in a high pony-tail.
The house was quiet as she came downstairs but she saw signs of Bryn having had a cup of tea in the kitchen. The kettle was still warm and his cup was rinsed and placed upside down on the draining board.
She heard the clang of weights below her in the gym downstairs and pictured him working out, no doubt lifting three times her body weight as if it were nothing. She decided against joining him. She’d seen enough of his body last night and didn’t need reminding of how fabulously toned and muscled he was.
Besides, it was a beautiful day and she could hear the ocean calling. Hard exercise was what she needed to clear her mind from the disturbing images that kept creeping in. Images of her pinned intimately by Bryn’s hard body, his hips moving in time with hers as they both climbed towards the summit of sensual release. She could imagine he would be an exciting and demanding lover; every time he’d touched her she’d felt the hot charge of sexual energy pass from his body to hers.
She let out a frustrated breath and set a brisk pace as she ran down the steps leading to the footpath to the beach.
There were a few surfers already out riding the point break on Main Beach and she jogged along until she came to the pathway leading to Noosa National Park. She followed the coastal track looking out over Laguna Bay and then on to Boiling Pot and Dolphin Point, the growing heat of the morning making her turn just past Winch Cove to head into the cooler shadows of the melaleuca and tea-tree forest.
The honey-sweet smell of the white-canopied bush filled her nostrils as she jogged past gnarled banksias and spiky pandanus. Bush turkeys scratched around the undergrowth and overhead she heard the flap of large wings and looked up to see a pair of glossy black cockatoos flying past.
Further along the track she passed a young couple who were walking hand in hand, their easy-going, loving chatter striking a note of regret in Mia’s chest.
How wonderful it would be to be loved like that, she thought. She wanted to be loved the way her sister Ashleigh was loved by her husband, Jake, the way her parents had loved each other for nearly thirty years.
But what she wanted was impossible; Bryn wasn’t the thirty-year-relationship type. Thirty days was too long for him. He wasn’t interested in continuing their association past the point of his great-aunt’s death. And that could be a matter of just a few short months or possibly even weeks.
The track veered back to Laguna Bay and Mia ran on down to Main Beach, and, leaving her shoes and outer gear on the sand, headed for the waves in her red and white bikini.
She swam the length of the beach, which ran parallel to the popular shopping and restaurant strip of Hastings Street. She turned at the rocky outcrop at one end to go back the way she’d come, the water warm but still refreshing. Every so often a swelling wave would pick her up and let her down again in a gentle rolling movement before it gathered force on its way to the shore.
The sun burned down with intense summer heat and when she waded back through the wash to the sand she could see the numbers on the beach had swelled. Young children were playing at the water’s edge with buckets and spades, their parents close by, where several colourful umbrellas were already up in defence against the scorching rays of the sun.
She sat and looked out to sea, hoping for a moment to gather her thoughts before returning to Bryn’s house. But even after sitting there soaking up the warmth of the sun for several minutes she had to finally acknowledge that her vigorous run and swim hadn’t been able to do what she’d hoped they would do. It was impossible to avoid any longer the truth that was as persistent as the waves as they drummed against the shore.
She couldn’t escape it any more; there was no running away from it even if she ran around the world and back twice over.
She was in love with Bryn Dwyer.
She wasn’t sure how it had happened. She had thought him the most detestable man alive and yet somehow over the past few weeks he had become the very focus of her life. She couldn’t imagine how her life was going to be without him in it once their marriage was brought to its inevitable end. How would she cope with hearing him on the radio every weekday or reading his acerbic comments in his weekly column? Perhaps once his great-aunt was no longer around he would even joke about his publicity stunt, making a fool of Mia in front of the whole of Sydney, telling his listeners he’d married a twenty-four-year-old virgin who couldn’t act to save herself.
‘I thought I might find you down here.’ Bryn’s deep voice suddenly sounded above her.
Mia looked up at him in surprise. ‘I…I went for a run…’
His eyes swept over her reddened features. ‘So I see.’
She turned back to the sea. The sight of him in nothing but a pair of board shorts and trainers was far too unsettling. ‘I’ve just had a swim and now I think I’ll have a little sun-bake for a while.’
‘Have you had breakfast?’
‘No.’
‘Aren’t you hungry?’
‘No,’ she lied.
‘Have you had something to drink?’
‘No…’
He stretched out the large beach towel he’d brought with him next to where she was sitting. ‘Here, lie down on that and I’ll go and get you some water.’
Mia turned onto her stomach so she could watch him as he walked back along the promenade to a café on Hastings Street. She saw several female heads turning as he went past, his tanned and muscular but lean frame obviously as attractive to others as it was to her. She gave a little sigh and rested her chin on her hands and closed her eyes.
He came back in a few minutes with a bottle of water and some fresh fruit salad and handed them both to her.
She met his eyes briefly. ‘Thank you.’
He sat down on the edge of the towel and looked out to sea. ‘How did you sleep?’
‘Fine,’ she said between mouthfuls of juicy mango and tangy pineapple. ‘I like listening to the sound of the ocean. It puts me to sleep every time.’
Bryn wished he could say the same for himself. He’d spent a great deal of the night tossing and turning restlessly, his body still on fire. When he’d taken her bag into her room once she was asleep it had been all he could do not to join her in the bed and pull her into his arms. His desire for her was beyond anything he’d ever experienced before. It gnawed at him relentlessly, making his body ache to possess her. He could feel it now just sitting next to her on the sand, her trim, golden body so close he could smell the hint of vanilla on her skin in spite of the exercise she’d taken.
He turned to look at her and asked, ‘What would you like to do today?’
‘I don’t know…sun-bake and stuff…What did you have in mind?’
‘If I told you what I had in mind you might slap my face.’
Mia stared at the piece of kiwi fruit she’d just speared with her plastic fork, her skin prickling all over as she felt the weight of his studied gaze. ‘Don’t you ever think of anything else besides satisfying your bodily urges?’
He leaned on one elbow, his long, tanned legs stretched out beside hers, his expression teasing. ‘Is that why you’re an obsessive exerciser? To control your own bodily urges?’
She gave him a chilly little glance. ‘I happen to believe in living healthily. The human heart is a muscle like any other. Daily exercise is essential to keep it in good working order.’
‘There are other ways of exercising the heart,’ he pointed out. ‘I could show you if you like.’
‘No, thank you.’
He laughed and, picking up a handful of fine sand, began to trickle it
over her up-bent thigh.
‘Stop that!’ She slapped his hand away and began dusting off the grains from between her legs.
‘Come in and rinse it off with me,’ he suggested, springing to his feet and holding out a hand.
Mia scowled at him but her hand slipped into his regardless. He pulled her to her feet and, releasing her hand, issued her an irresistible challenge. ‘I’ll race you to the water.’
‘You’re on,’ she said and took off at full speed for the ocean. She had to skirt around a toddler and his mother at the water’s edge, which cost her valuable seconds, but she made it to the first breaker and would have beaten him convincingly except he grabbed one of her ankles and tugged her backwards.
She came up spluttering and in revenge scooped a handful of water up and tossed it at his face. ‘You cheated!’
He ducked her liquid missile and caught both of her hands in his, pulling her towards him. ‘I warned you once before, sweetheart, I don’t always play by the rules.’
A gentle wave at her back pushed her even closer to him and he steadied her with his hands on her waist, his eyes, even bluer than the water around them, locking on hers. She moistened her mouth as his head came down, her eyes closing on her soft sigh as his lips found hers. It was a deeply sensual kiss, made all the more alluring because they were skin on skin in the warm water. Mia had never felt so aware of her body before. She could feel the tightening of her breasts and the melting of her bones as he deepened the kiss. The waves rocked against them, leaving her in no doubt of Bryn’s thickening erection pressed so tantalisingly against the naked flesh of her lower belly. She writhed against him, wanting more of his burning heat but lower, where a hollow ache pulsed for him to fill.
After a few breathless minutes Bryn lifted his mouth from hers and looked down at her with a mocking glint in his eyes. ‘I can only assume that your rather convincing performance was for the benefit of the crowd on the beach.’
Mia was temporarily lost for words. She hadn’t given the crowd a single thought. All she had thought about was how he made her feel and how much she wanted him.
‘That’s what you’re paying me to do, isn’t it?’ she said at last, her tone sounding terse and embittered as she pulled herself from his hold and stalked back through the waist-deep water to the sand.
Bryn turned to watch her make her way through the foamy wash and frowned. ‘Yes…’he said but the words were lost on the waves as they rushed to follow her to the shore. ‘Yes, it is.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MIA gathered up her things and waited on the promenade for Bryn, who had stopped to help a small child who had tumbled over close to the water’s edge. She watched as he crouched down and gently set the toddler back on his feet, handing him his tiny plastic bucket and spade, his warm smile doing something all mushy and wobbly to Mia’s insides.
The child’s mother rushed up to thank him and after exchanging a few words he picked up his sports shoes off the sand and walked over to where Mia was waiting.
‘Your boy-scout deed done for the day?’ she queried with an arched brow.
He frowned at her tone. ‘I happen to like kids. Is there a law against it?’
‘I thought playboys avoided them like the plague.’
He sent her an inscrutable sideways glance as he bent to tie his trainers. ‘But I’m not a playboy now, am I? I’m a married man.’
‘Only temporarily,’ she reminded him, ‘and only on paper,’
‘That paper is already starting to burn at the edges,’ he said as he straightened to look at her. ‘Could be it’s a pile of ashes by morning.’
Mia didn’t answer but she felt a sensation of something hot and liquid flood her lower body at his arrogantly confident statement. She had never met a more sexually compelling man in her entire life and she knew it would take every single gram of her will-power to resist him.
She swung away and began to walk at a brisk pace but within two strides he was alongside her, his beach towel rolled up under one arm.
‘Do you fancy a walk through the park or have you had enough exercise for the day?’ he asked as they came to the Noosa Heads Surf Life-Saving Club building.
Mia would have loved a cool shower but the thought of going back to the house with him where they would be on their own was a lot more disturbing than a walk through the national park, where at least there would be others about.
‘I’d love to,’ she said. ‘I cut my run short. I only ran as far as Winch Cove as I was getting so hot. I came back through the bush.’
‘We can walk to Alexandria Bay for a swim if you like. There are usually less people there, as it’s a bit further along the circuit.’
‘That sounds good.’
‘Wait here while I get us some water to carry,’ he said as they came to a shop.
Mia waited as he purchased some bottled water and they were soon on their way, walking in silence under the shade of the eucalypts that fringed the walkway to the national park.
They were not far from Boiling Pot when Bryn took her arm to stall her. ‘Look,’ he said, pointing above their heads.
She looked up and saw a mother koala perched in the fork of a eucalypt, a tiny baby clutching at her back.
‘Oh, wow!’ she said excitedly. ‘Aren’t they adorable?’
Bryn smiled at her. ‘This is a natural habitat for them. I occasionally see them in my garden but they generally avoid suburbia if there are dogs about.’
‘It’s so wonderful to see them out in the wild instead of behind bars at the zoo,’ she said as they continued walking along the path.
‘Zoos have their place,’ he said. ‘Think about all the breeding programmes that have been set up specifically to protect endangered species.’
‘I know but it seems so sad that animals can’t run free as they are meant to do. My sister Ellie is a bit of an animal-rights campaigner. She’s told me horror stories of what some people do to animals for financial gain. I had no idea people could be so cruel. I wonder if their conscience ever bothers them at night.’
‘It takes all types, I guess,’ he agreed, suppressing an inward frown.
They walked on a bit further until they came to Dolphin Point. Mia joined some other tourists who were peering over the cliff to see if there were any dolphins about, but as far as she could tell there was no sign of any in amongst the rolling waves.
‘Have you seen any there before?’ she asked Bryn as they continued on.
‘Sometimes—that’s why it’s called Dolphin Point. There are several whale-watching tours you can take on the Sunshine Coast, and you often can see dolphins on them as well as humpback whales.’
‘I went on one of those the last time I came here,’ she said with a wry grimace. ‘I was seasick the whole time. I had to be taken to hospital to be rehydrated. Ellie was totally disgusted with me for spoiling the trip.’
‘Well, I guess I’d better strike that off the entertainment list for this week.’
‘Oh, I’m much better now,’ she said. ‘I’ve been out sailing with friends lots of times and haven’t had any trouble.’
‘You sound like you have a very busy social life.’
She sent him a reproachful little glance from beneath her brows. ‘Yes, well, I used to.’
‘Just because we are married doesn’t mean you can’t have friends.’
‘But no male friends, right?’
He stopped walking, snagging her arm before she could go on without him. He turned her around to face him, his fingers sliding down to the slender bones of her wrist. ‘Male friends are fine if they remain platonic, although I still find it hard to believe any man could look at you without thinking how it would feel to make love to you.’
Mia felt her skin lift as his dark eyes ran over her, all her senses going on full alert at the feel of his long fingers around her wrist, where she was sure he could feel her pulses already leaping.
‘Not all men have an insatiable appetite for sex,’ she sa
id. ‘And the ones I associate with would never dream of tainting our friendship with repeated attempts to get me into bed.’
He gave a little grunt of cynicism. ‘That’s only because they’re probably gay or already involved with someone else. Anyone else would have to be dead from the waist down not to notice you and want to have you as soon as they could.’
Mia felt as if the hot summer air was alive with bristling tension as she held his gaze. His desire for her was like a living, breathing entity. She could feel it burning through her skin where his fingers encircled her wrist, and she knew if it hadn’t been for the sound of other hikers coming towards them on the track he would have pulled her into his arms and kissed her senseless. And what was more—she wouldn’t have stopped him.
He released her wrist and stepped aside to make room for the tourists, the frustration at being interrupted evident to her in the way his jaw was set, even though he offered the group a polite greeting in response to theirs.
He waited until the group was well ahead before he resumed walking, asking after a few more strides, ‘Were you disappointed none of your family could make it to the wedding?’
Mia quickly averted her gaze to look at Granite Bay, a small, rocky beach below them. ‘No, why should I be? It wasn’t as if it were real. Who knows, our marriage could even be over before they get back? I could probably have got away with not telling them at all.’
He gave her another sideways glance, a small frown settling between his brows. ‘When did you tell them?’
She met his eyes briefly before turning to concentrate on stepping over the tree roots on the sandy pathway. ‘The day before the ceremony.’
‘Hardly enough time for them to get back,’ he observed. ‘Why did you leave it until then?’
‘I hated lying to them. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pull it off in front of them on the day. A last-minute telephone conversation was much easier to handle. I figured there was no way they could get back in time and see the truth for themselves. I can act in front of strangers, even some friends, but my family is another thing entirely.’
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