“Of course not. Forgive me,” Danny murmured, eyes wide at her outburst.
Anna pushed back her chair. “Look, I’m just going to go. You’re right, I am tired. I’m not very good company, sorry,” she said.
She started to walk away, but Danny’s hand shot out to grab her wrist before she could move off.
“Why don’t you just call him if you can’t stop thinking about him? What have you got to lose?”
“Me,” she said starkly.
Danny pulled on her wrist, obviously wanting her to sit back down. She obliged reluctantly, not wanting to even think about any of this stuff, let alone talk about it.
“Can’t I just stay in grumpy denial?” she asked wistfully.
“’Fraid not. Why would you lose yourself if you had a fling with him?” Danny asked.
“I’m not like you, Danny. I realized after the first time with Marc that there’s a reason why I haven’t had a lot of men in my life, why I’ve never had one-night stands or sex outside of a bedroom,” she said.
“Until recently,” Danny inserted pedantically.
“Until recently,” she corrected herself. “I’m just not cut out for it. I can’t pull it off. The main course is delicious, sure, but dessert is a big fat serving of regret.”
“Anna, it’s not like you’re running around town with a different guy every night. You just happen to have discovered great sexual chemistry with a guy, and the inevitable has happened.”
“In a garage and on some poor person’s desk,” Anna muttered.
“So make sure you don’t get caught short again. Call the guy, have a fling with him. You said it yourself—you’re not cut out for one-night stands. I really think a fling is more your style.”
“When it comes to sex, I have no style,” she said.
“Stop being such a scaredy-cat, Anna. What’s so bad about giving in to your desires?”
“I’m not scared of my own desires!” she said, keeping her voice low. “I’m just not interested.”
“Okay, I give up. Go buy yourself a kick-arse vibrator and forget Mr. Studly and get over it,” Danny said, throwing his hands in the air.
Anna felt her mouth drop open and her shoulders creep up around her ears. She shot embarrassed glances to the right and left.
“Danny!” she snapped warningly. “Do you mind? What will people think?”
“Whatever they like. Does it matter?”
Suddenly she was sick of her brother’s pushing, well-intentioned or not.
“You’re the one who lives the big double life, Danny,” she said, standing so fast that her chair slid back with a toe-curling screech. “Most of the important people in your world have no idea who you really are. And you’re giving me a hard time because I feel uncomfortable about abandoning the morals of a lifetime?”
All the color drained out of Danny’s face. He blinked a couple of times, then took a deep breath.
“You’re right—you’re not very good company right now,” he said, pushing his own chair back.
Anna was instantly swamped with a rush of remorse and guilt.
“Danny, I didn’t mean it,” she stuttered, reaching out a hand.
He shrugged it off. “It’s cool. I’m not made of glass, Anna.” He checked his watch. “I’d better be getting back to it, anyway.”
Giving her a perfunctory kiss goodbye, he left her standing there, wallowing in her shame.
She was turning into an out-and-out bitch! How could she have said those things to Danny? Even if they were marginally true, it was none of her business, and certainly not relevant to anything they’d been discussing.
Feeling thoroughly disgusted with herself, she trudged back to her car. It didn’t take long for Marc to insert himself into his thoughts. As always over the past week when her guard was down, there he was, with his breath hard in her ear and his firm, knowing hands on her body. She saw him everywhere—in the broad shoulders of a man getting out of a cab, in the confident stride of another man racing across the road. She shook her head angrily.
It’s all your bloody fault, Marc Lewis, she thought. I wish I’d never met you. She’d never have said those things to Danny if she hadn’t been tired and cranky and horny as hell. Damn it.
She beeped her car open, but didn’t get in. How on earth was she going to get rid of all the unwanted emotions and desires whirling around inside her body? Frustrated with herself and her unruly body, she actually kicked her car tire, scuffing her patent leather pump in the process.
“Great,” she said dully. Then she felt a prickle of awareness. She glanced down, and all the small hairs on her arm were standing on end.
Her head shot up, and she saw him, standing in the middle of the sidewalk on the other side of her car, an arrested expression on his face as he stared at her. He’d just exited the building behind him, she guessed, and was carrying a briefcase in one hand and his suit jacket folded over his other arm. The crisp white of his shirt highlighted his olive skin and the darkness of his hair and eyes. His shoulders looked impossibly wide. A surge of pure lust raced through her, and she had to place a hand on the roof of her car because her knees suddenly felt like rubber.
A second passed, then another as they stared at each other. He didn’t move, and she didn’t, either. Neither of them wanted this—they’d already established that. Yet she couldn’t take her eyes off him.
He was so damned sexy! The way he held himself. The tilt to his chin. The glint in his eye. The dark stubble of his beard, already showing despite the fact that it was only one o’clock in the afternoon. She knew that if she touched him, his skin would be firm and hot to the touch, and she knew the exact low, satisfied noise he’d make if she pressed herself against him….
Still he didn’t move, but she could see a muscle flicker along his jaw, and knew that he was having as hard a time staying put as she was.
Then a car horn sounded behind her, rude and intrusive.
“You leaving, lady, or what?” a cabbie called out, his tone impatient.
Suddenly she found her willpower. Fingers curling around the door handle, she pulled the door wide and got into her car. She didn’t dare look back at him, but she knew that he’d gone, anyway. The moment had passed. Thank God.
She started the car and pulled out into the stream of traffic. Her heartbeat sounded loud in her ears. She was gripping the steering wheel as though someone might try to take it away from her.
“Oh, boy,” she said into the silence of her car.
Close call. Very close call.
MARC SLID INTO the seat of his Jag and sat staring straight ahead for a few beats. She looked incredible. Even in her conservative business uniform, she looked nothing short of sensational. Those curves. The pout of her mouth. The litheness of her tall body.
It’s been almost a week, he told himself. Don’t blow it now.
But his hand was punching numbers into his phone.
“I’d like a number for a business, please. Lady Driver. It’s based in Sydney, I’m not sure what suburb,” he said.
Before he could self-edit, he selected the option to be instantly connected to Anna’s phone, and listened to it ring on the other end.
She answered almost straight away. “Thank you for calling Lady Driver. How can I help you?”
Just the sound of her voice was enough to make him hard. Again.
“It’s me,” he said.
There was a long pause on the end of the phone. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” she said at last.
No kidding. “I can’t get you out of my head.”
He couldn’t believe he’d just said that. Was he this much of a slave to his libido?
“It’ll pass. It’s got to,” she said, and he felt a thrill of triumph at the desperation in her tone.
“Meet me,” he said.
“When?”
“Anytime. You name it.”
He held his breath, waiting. She had to say yes. God, if she said yes, right now,
let’s go, he’d cancel his afternoon’s appointments and be with her in under five minutes. They could check into a nearby hotel—whatever—just as long as he could be with her again.
“I—I can’t,” she finally said after a long, long silence.
He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against his steering wheel, suppressing the urge to groan with frustration.
Then he opened his eyes. She was right to say no, he knew that.
“Okay,” he said and ended the call. There was nothing else to say, and they both knew it.
He put his head against the headrest and stared at the canvas roof of the car. She’d better be right. This…obsession had better pass soon. Or he was in serious danger of becoming a crazy man.
ANNA WAS CHOKING the steering wheel again. Seeing a parking space up ahead, she flicked her indicator on and pulled into it. Then she let out the breath she’d been holding ever since he’d ended their call.
I can’t. The hardest words she’d ever said when all of her was already on fire for him. But she wanted him so much—it was terrifying, absolutely terrifying. She couldn’t handle it.
Very deliberately, Anna ran both hands through her hair, then reached for the clipboard holding her day’s jobs. She had a pickup in fifteen minutes near the top of George Street. Keeping her mind carefully blank, she put the car into drive and signaled to pull out.
She’d said it to him herself. This had to pass. It had to.
By five o’clock the next evening, she felt she had some kind of insight into how an addict must feel when craving their drug of choice. Seeing Marc yesterday, hearing his voice—it had switched on that part of herself that hungered for him, and it only seemed to be getting worse.
Her clothes felt too tight, and every inch of her skin seemed acutely sensitive. She’d tried everything, from stuffing her face with chocolate to taking the matter in hand, so to speak. The former made her feel sick, the latter even hornier. She truly was going around the bend.
Now she’d been reduced to the only thing she could possibly think of to ward off her need. Pulling up the collar on her coat, she shot a self-conscious glance over her shoulder, then chastised herself. She was allowed to go into an adult shop. She was an adult. With needs. There was nothing to be ashamed of. Chin high, she stepped into the darkened doorway of the shop.
Immediately she could smell an overly sweet berry odor, and she registered that the carpet beneath her feet felt faintly sticky.
That alone was almost enough to turn her on her heel, but she was a desperate woman. She rounded the corner of the dog-leg-shaped entrance to the shop and emerged into a dimly lit space lined with bookshelves and filled with large display trays. A young guy was lounging behind the counter to one side, and a number of people were browsing at the magazine racks. No one so much as flickered an eyelid at her, and she took a steadying breath.
Elaborately casual, she picked up the nearest DVD. Riding Miss Daisy. She put it back down again. Perhaps she should just cut to the chase. Her gaze zeroed in on the display case to her right. She moved closer and inspected the merchandise on offer: a large lime green rubbery-looking vibrator; a smaller, bullet-shaped chrome-finished one; and a virulent purple device with a strange sea-anemone-like protuberance on its shaft. She leaned a little closer, frowning. What on earth could the sea anemone be for? Then she saw the neon pink wording on the packaging displayed behind it—complete with state-of-the-art clitoral stimulator. She stared at the sea anemone. Well, probably it could work.
Problem was, she’d come here seeking relief, be it of the battery-operated kind, but suddenly she knew that there was nothing in the case in front of her that was going to stop her from wanting Marc Lewis. She could close her eyes and fantasize and put the sea anemone or any of his rubbery friends to work, but she knew, absolutely, that she craved a man, not an orgasm. She wanted the heavy weight of a warm body pressing against hers. She wanted touch and taste and smell, not just stimulation for one part of her anatomy.
She stared blindly at the purple vibrator, feeling slightly dizzy for a moment as she allowed herself to consider the other possible solution to her situation.
She could call Marc. Or better still, go see him. She could have a fling with him, get this…urge out of her system. Her thighs trembled at the very thought of allowing herself to explore the dark attraction that existed between the two of them.
All of her objections rushed to the fore. This wasn’t what she really wanted. She wasn’t this kind of person. It was all very well to say she wanted to get more out of her life now that she’d had a reprieve, but a person couldn’t change who a person was. That wasn’t the way the world worked.
But what if a person had parts of herself that she’d never explored? Parts that had always been out of bounds, tightly packed away, hidden? Danny had said it—she was scared of her own desires.
At last she admitted to herself that Marc hadn’t made her feel the way she felt; he hadn’t forced her to want him, to dream about having sex with him, to crave him so badly that she was even now standing in a sex shop staring at pale imitations of what she really desired. That was all in her, part of her. And she had the bewildering feeling that she was about to untie the bonds and let that part of herself loose.
She turned away from the display case. She didn’t care about the rest of the people in the shop anymore. Hell, twenty of her most lucrative clients could be standing there drooling over the magazines and videos, and she wouldn’t give a hoot. The only thing she could think of was getting her hands on Marc Lewis.
Her body felt strangely hot and heavy as she stepped back out into the street. She got into her car, operating on a sort of semi-aware remote control. It was a Saturday night, and he was a busy man, but he had to be home. He just had to be, because now that she’d made her decision, she didn’t think she could wait.
The smooth, powerful hum of the motor played below her thoughts as she drove. She would tell him exactly what she wanted, in no uncertain terms: a fling. Nothing more. She wasn’t up for anything more permanent, and she was pretty sure he wasn’t, either. This was about sex. Carnal desire. Nothing else.
The fading light of day became darker still as she turned into the tree-lined streets of Point Piper. She bit her lip as she pulled up outside the nondescript wall bounding his yard. Did she have the courage to do this?
She was poised on the edge of indecision when her cell phone rang. She stared at the caller display. It was Danny. This was the first time he’d called since she’d savaged him on the previous day. She pressed the button to take his call with relief.
“Danny!”
He laughed. “You don’t have to sound so relieved. I wasn’t about to cross you off my Christmas list or anything.”
“Still. I was a bitch. I’m sorry.”
“So your five phone messages said. It’s okay, Anna.”
“Really?”
“Really. I was actually calling to see if you wanted to go see a movie or something. My date canceled.”
Anna cut her gaze to the wall hiding Marc’s house.
“Um…I can’t. I mean, I hope I can’t. I could call you back…?” she stumbled.
“What’s going on? You sound weird,” Danny said.
She took a deep breath. “I’m out the front of Marc’s house. I was going to go talk to him. At least I think I am. If I can find the backbone.”
Danny let out a whoop of congratulations. “Anna Banana! Go for it, girl! Fling your thing—you’ll never look back, I swear it.”
She couldn’t help smiling at Danny’s untrammeled hedonism. “You’re a complete slut, you know that?” she said.
“Must run in the family. My God, I’m so glad I called. You need to know the three golden rules of flings before you go in there. Otherwise it’s like sending Little Bo Peep into an abattoir.”
“Nice analogy.”
“Listen up. Rule number one—never stay overnight. Overnight leads to toothbrushes and breakfasts and f
amiliarity. Flings are about excitement. Mystery. Intensity. Got it?”
“No overnight. Check.”
“Rule number two—no plans for the future. Anything longer than a few days away is a no-go zone.”
“What, so I can’t even agree to meet him in a week’s time?” she asked, surprised by the rigidity of Danny’s instructions.
“No. Next week, you could be with some other hot guy. Or at least he should always think that. Uncertainty is the spice of life. Keep it unpredictable.”
“Unpredictable. Check.”
“Now, rule number three—never, under any circumstances, do you talk about your feelings or the relationship. You both know what the relationship is about—sex. No discussion required. You with me?”
“I’m with you. That’s it?” She would have been happy to listen to a hundred rules if it meant putting off the moment of no return.
“That’s it. Stick to those little puppies, and you can’t go wrong.”
“Okay. All right.” She took a deep breath. Was she going to do this?
“I’m going in, Danny.”
She was.
“Good luck, girl,” he said.
She took another deep breath and stepped out of the car. Her hands were shaking so much it took two clicks to get the car to lock itself, then she was standing in front of the intercom beside the pedestrian gateway to Marc’s property.
She took a quivering breath, and pressed the glowing golden light on the intercom. A long beat of silence, then, “Yes?”
His voice was deep and resonant. A curl of desire unfurled inside her.
“It’s me, Anna,” she said.
There was a stunned silence, then he said, “Wait there.”
She gripped her hands together to stop them from shaking. Was she really going to do this? Could she really hand herself over to her desires like this?
She heard footsteps on the other side of the gateway, and then the door swung open, and there he stood.
7
HE COULDN’T BELIEVE she was standing there. He’d been pacing the house all day, coming up with then discarding schemes for getting her out of his system. He’d even dug out his little black book, but all the entries were well out of date; he doubted if any of his old flames were still available after ten years.
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