“Look,” she said suddenly, “don’t worry. I’m not going to turn into a stalker or anything. It just happened, right? For some reason. But it’s done now. No regrets.”
She stuck her hand out, all business. He hesitated, then a wry smile curved his mouth as he shook hands with her. It was the first time she’d seen him smile, and it was enough to make her blink. The man was a knockout in the sex-appeal stakes, that was for sure.
“No regrets,” he said, echoing her words. For a second they held eye contact, and heat sizzled between them again.
Wow.
Anna swallowed and dragged her hand from his grip. “Good night then, Mr. Lewis.”
He nodded, and swiveled on his heel. She watched him unlock the gate, and then he was gone and she was left standing alone on the darkened street.
She sagged against her car and closed her eyes. Bad move, she realized as soon as selected highlights from her recent encounter with Marc flashed across her mind’s eye. She could feel her nipples harden against the lace of her bra just from the memory of the man.
She knew suddenly that she’d meant what she said—no regrets. She’d just experienced the kind of mindless passion and desire that she’d previously only read about in the pages of a steamy novel. Her body still throbbed with aftershocks from his masterful lovemaking. Her breasts felt sensitized and tender and if she squeezed her thighs together she could invoke a faint memory of what it was like to have him inside her.
So, no regrets. Definitely no regrets.
In fact, she was even beginning to feel vaguely pleased with how she’d managed the whole awkward post-coital situation. She tilted her chin. Maybe the idea of bringing more passion into her life wasn’t so crazy after all. Maybe she wasn’t as uptight and straitlaced as she’d imagined. Head high, she circled around the car to the driver’s side.
The streetlight caught the black paintwork on her car, and as she passed the trunk she stopped in her tracks and sucked in a breath of air. Outlined clearly on the shiny surface of the trunk were two round globes—a perfect impression of her bare butt.
She blinked and gasped, but the butt-print remained the same—highly visible, and eminently recognizable for what it was.
Exactly how many people would have seen her butt-print as she drove across town? Thousands. Literally thousands. She glanced down at her personalized number plates. Lady Driver. The butt-print gave the plates a whole new connotation.
Embarrassed heat flooding her body, she clicked open the trunk and reached for her polishing cloth. Somehow, during the drive over here, she’d managed to minimize the impact of what she’d just done. Maybe she’d had to do that so she could keep functioning and get Marc home. But now there was no holding back the full horror of what she’d allowed to happen.
She’d had sex with a client. Not just any client, either—an influential, high-profile millionaire client. And not just sex, either. They’d consumed each other in the not very salubrious surrounds of an underground parking garage.
Peachy. Just peachy.
She rubbed furiously at the mark. She had been way off beam when she’d fantasized about being a freewheeling sex vixen—she could fool herself for a few minutes of decadent excess, but she just wasn’t up to the consequences.
Elbow pumping vigorously, she put everything she had into removing the evidence of her lapse from the trunk of her car. Pity she couldn’t wipe the incident from her memory as easily. One thing was for sure—it was never going to happen again.
4
THE NEXT DAY, Anna woke to a few seconds of blissful ignorance before memory descended in vivid detail. She rolled her face into the pillow and groaned loudly. Her whole body flushed with mortification as she remembered the way she’d urged Marc to have sex with her, the way she’d writhed against him and grabbed greedily at his hard male body.
She had never, ever, ever behaved so…wantonly in her entire life. She pressed her hands over her eyes, wanting to block out the images that kept popping up in her mind’s eye.
Kicking off the bedcovers, she strode into the bathroom and turned the water on as hot as she could stand it. Stripping off the T-shirt she’d worn to bed, she stepped into the steamy shower cubicle. And froze as she caught a glimpse of her back in the vanity mirror. A rash stood out redly across her shoulders. She frowned, then her eyebrows shot toward her hairline as she remembered Marc thrusting her against the wall last night when she’d slid off the trunk of her car.
Her mouth pressed into a tight line, Anna stuck her head under the shower jet and wished that she could just wash away the last twenty-four hours. Reaching for the soap, she worked up a lather and ran perfunctory hands over her breasts and belly. Deep between her legs, her muscles contracted pleasurably as her slick hands slid over her nipples. Anna gasped, earning herself a mouthful of water.
How could part of her still be turned on by what had happened between her and her client when most of her was mortified? It made no sense to her whatsoever. But, sure enough, no matter how perfunctory her washing technique, her body kept sending out definite signals that it was hot and ready for round two with Marc.
Switching the water abruptly to cold, Anna gritted her teeth as the icy jets pummeled her. Shivering, she climbed out of the shower and roughly toweled herself dry. Any gains made by the cold dousing quickly went by the wayside, and she stared down at her perkily erect nipples. What on earth was wrong with her? She’d just broken all the tenets and values she’d lived by her entire life. Shouldn’t that mean something?
Thoroughly confused, she dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, then made a small choking noise as she caught sight of the neatly wrapped present on the kitchen bench. She’d almost forgotten! They were having a barbecue at her father’s place today for his birthday. For a few wild seconds she considered canceling, but she would never do that to her dad. And Danny would be there, and she needed advice, stat.
Taking the portable telephone through into the living room, she perched on her armchair and squinted out into the bright morning sunlight. Her flat was on the third floor, with an excellent view of her neighbor’s swimming pool and multicar garage. One of the privileges of living in Rose Bay—getting to see how the other half lived up close. She watched stray leaves drift down into the aqua water as the phone rang. Just as she was about to give up, Danny answered.
“What?” he growled, clearly grumpy at having been woken.
“I need you,” she said, chewing anxiously on a thumbnail. “I’m having a vixen crisis.”
“Really?” Danny sounded instantly alert.
“Can you come to Dad’s early?” she asked.
“Give me an hour.”
“Half an hour. I’m going crazy here, Danny.”
“Okay. But no cracks about my bed-head.”
Smiling faintly at her brother’s vanity, she ended the call. For a few moments she remained curled on the armchair, knees pulled in tightly to her chest. She could hear the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece, and the faint scuffle of people moving around in the flat upstairs. Then she realized she was frowning, and a deluge of confusing thoughts and feelings swamped her. Shaking her head, she pushed herself up and out of the chair. No. She was not going to sit here and send herself around the bend trying to sort out the confusing mix of regret and desire that had her in its grasp. That was Danny’s job. She just had to get her ass down to her father’s so Danny could minister to her.
Stuffing her feet into slip-on sandals, she grabbed her car keys and sunglasses and scooped up her father’s present. She’d buy a cake on the way, along with some other premade salads. Her whole family happily acknowledged that she’d never mastered the art of cooking, and she was the queen of gourmet takeaway.
She made two stops on the way to her father’s house in the suburb of Chatswood on the north shore. Her father’s favorite cheesecake and a selection of gourmet salads in the trunk, she pulled up outside his neatly kept brick veneer house within half an hour. The fabric of her T-shirt pu
lled across her sensitive shoulders as she exited the car, and Anna slid her sunglasses on with a firm hand. She pushed all thoughts of having dirty underground-parking-lot sex with Marc out of her mind and reached into the trunk. She refused to think about it until she had Danny on hand to help straighten her out.
He was helping her father set up folding chairs in the backyard when she exited the kitchen.
“Anna Banana,” her father said affectionately, pulling her in for a big bear hug. Stepping back, he surveyed her from head to toe. “You’re looking beautiful, as always. Although I’m still not one hundred percent on this hair,” he said, ruffling her blond spikes gently.
“It’s fun,” she said, having had this discussion before. “I felt like a change.”
“I guess I should just thank my lucky stars you’re both here in time to help set things up. Never seen either of you up and about so early.”
Anna smiled a little guiltily, and Danny caught her eye. “Hey, Anna, you want to come help me with the big table in the shed?” he said meaningfully.
She smiled gratefully and followed him into the musty-smelling shade of her father’s work shed. Eyeing a dangling spiderweb cautiously, she laid a hand on Danny’s arm.
“Thank you so much for coming early. I just have to tell someone, get it off my chest.”
“What on earth have you done?” Danny asked, the picture of urbane cool with his slickly styled hair and designer sunglasses.
“Last night, I had a job with Marc Lewis again,” she said.
Danny’s eyes sparkled and he rubbed his hands together. “Ooooh, I just know I am going to love this.”
“I need you to be serious, Danny. I can’t believe what I did. I honestly can’t.”
“Okay, unless you swung naked from a chandelier in Parliament, I think you might be overreacting a little.”
“We had sex on the back of my car in the deserted underground parking lot of his building,” Anna stated boldly.
To his credit, Danny only blinked once before pursing his lips thoughtfully.
“Okay, I’ll admit I’m a little surprised—but also very, very impressed. You’re a fast learner.”
“Danny!”
“Anna!” Danny mocked her. He perched his sunglasses on top of his head and pulled hers off her face so that they could make proper eye contact.
“Listen to me. You had sex with a consenting adult. That’s it.”
“In public. On a car.”
“Whoop-dee-do. And it wasn’t in public, it was in a private garage. You need to chill out a little.”
Anna put her head in her hands. “You don’t understand. He was a client. You’ll note I use the past tense. And I just don’t do things like this.”
“No—the old Anna didn’t do things like this. New Anna seizes life by the balls and gives them a bloody good squeeze.”
Anna surprised herself by laughing at Danny’s crude analogy. “I did a bit more than that last night, let me tell you.”
“I wish you would. So…are we talking washboard abs? Tight little butt? Is he cut or uncut? Spill, lady.”
Anna shifted uncomfortably. She could barely meet her brother’s eyes as it was—she wasn’t about to give him a blow by blow.
“I don’t even know what cut means,” she said evasively.
Danny sighed theatrically. “The Education of Anna. Is he circumcized or not?”
Anna could feel the heat staining her cheeks. “Danny!”
“Boy, this guy must have the smoothest charm in the world to get past this Miss Prim thing of yours and talk you into doing it in a garage.”
“He didn’t say anything. We kind of bumped into each other and then before I knew it we were having sex.”
Danny grinned. “At the risk of repeating myself, I am so impressed. Wait until I tell Ryan and Scott.”
“You cannot tell anyone! Don’t you understand that I am freaking out here? I have no idea how to handle this situation.”
“This is what you wanted, remember? I want more passion in my life. I want the kind of sex you see in the movies. I want someone to want me so much he almost tears my clothes off. Ring any bells?”
Anna stared at him. “Yes,” she admitted slowly.
“And? Did last night not meet all of the above criteria? Were clothes torn? Did music swell, among other things? Were there impossible sexual acrobatics?”
“Yes. Well, apart from the music thing.”
Suddenly Anna was back in her hospital bed, staring at her notebook and the too-long list she’d made, a testament to how cheated and scared she’d felt as she waited for her results. She’d seen her mother die from breast cancer. She knew what awaited her if she was unlucky. Had there ever been a more honest, soul-searching moment in her life? She didn’t think so. And she’d made herself a promise that things would be different if she got a second chance.
And here she was, alive and well. A living, breathing, walking, talking second chance.
Danny was right. She hadn’t done anything to be ashamed of last night. She remembered the high she’d felt as she’d exchanged polite handshakes with Marc after their encounter. She’d felt euphoric. Free. Sophisticated. In charge. And then she’d seen that stupid butt-print on her car trunk and been sucked down a sinkhole of regret and self-recrimination.
“You’re right,” she said, recognizing all her guilt and remorse for what it was—the old Anna trying to push the new Anna back into a nice, tidy, controlled little box. She was changing her life, and part of her was scared to do that.
“Of course I’m right. Get used to it,” Danny said smugly.
Recognizing her reaction for what it was didn’t necessarily make it go away—but suddenly it had assumed manageable proportions. The tight knot of tension in her stomach eased, and she stuffed her sunglasses into her back pocket and grabbed one end of the big picnic table.
“Where is this going?” she asked.
Danny groaned. “You know I hate physical labor.” But he grabbed the other end of the table anyway.
They had the yard set up and the barbecue going by the time the bulk of her father’s friends and family arrived for lunch. Danny captained the grill, decked out in a novelty apron, a beer in his hand as he traded cracks with their first cousin’s husband, Mike.
She watched him, slightly bemused by how well he could play it straight. Brow puckering, she wondered if he found it a chore. What must it be like to play a part so much of the time? To be so worried that you wouldn’t be accepted by your loved ones and work colleagues that you hid your true self from them?
“Get that serious look off your face, sweetheart. No frowning on my birthday,” her father said as he drew up alongside her. He slid his arm around her waist and pulled her tightly to his side.
“I was just thinking that Danny’s been slaving over the barbecue for hours,” she improvised.
“You’re right.” Her dad cupped his hands to call across the yard. “Hey, Mike—want to give Danny a break for a bit, mate?”
Mike nodded agreeably and Danny handed over the apron and barbecue tongs.
“Good work, Dad. Make the guests earn their keep,” he joked as he joined them.
Her dad winked at Danny, then nodded toward a woman standing near the back fence, talking to another guest. “I’ve been meaning to tell you—that’s Larry from next door’s girl. Bit of a looker, eh?” he said.
Anna bit her lip. It was no secret that her father was looking forward to both his children settling down. She’d had a break from his matchmaking since she’d been sick, but Danny was the constant recipient of their father’s hints. The two of them had a permanent arrangement to go to the movies every Thursday night, and Danny had told her that their father was always pointing out good-looking women in the theater for Danny to notice. She’d advised him again and again that there was one foolproof way of ending the campaign—tell their father the truth. But Danny simply refused.
Seeing the loving light in their father’s eye
as he listened to Danny tell an anecdote from the office, Anna didn’t think any less of her brother for holding on to his secret. No child ever wanted to disappoint a parent, and there was no denying that their father appeared to be looking forward to seeing Danny with a family of his own one day. It was a tough situation—and at the end of the day it was her brother’s decision to make.
“You want another beer, Dad?” Danny asked as he drained the last of his own.
“Better not. You know what your mother always used to say—I make a sad and pathetic drunk. Even more so these days,” her dad said, smiling lopsidedly.
“What about you, Anna?” Danny asked, about to head inside to the fridge.
“I’ll come with you,” she said.
It was much cooler inside out of the midday sun, and she ran a hand through her hair.
“Whew, it’s hot out there,” she said as Danny handed her a glass of juice.
“Try standing in front of the grill for a century or two. I swear my nipples are medium to well-done,” Danny said.
“Ew, I don’t want to think about your nipples!” Anna said, pretending disgust.
“Which reminds me—Mr. Stud last night. Without going into too much detail, I take it a good time was had by all?” Danny waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“Without going into too much detail…yes,” Anna said.
Danny spread his hands wide, obviously expecting more. “That’s it? Not even a single adjective for Uncle Danny? Just one word to describe your first out-of-bedroom sexual experience…?”
“Okay. Spectacular,” she said, deadpan.
Danny laughed. “You’re not even going to tell me if his body lived up to the promise delivered by that suit of his, are you?”
“Nope.”
“If you were gay, we’d have a ruler out right now, and I’d know everything about the man.”
“Sorry.” She shrugged.
“So, any chance of a rematch?”
Anna blinked. “Oh, no!”
“But if it was that hot…”
“No way. Marc Lewis and I were strangers in the night. No phone numbers were exchanged, not even a ‘see you around.’ I might be a babe in the woods when it comes to this stuff, but I know a one-night stand when I have one.”
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