Just a Little Sex... (Blaze, 9)

by Miranda Lee

  “What a coincidence.”

  Melinda frowned at Zoe’s tone. “You don’t think…”

  “It’s possible, isn’t it?” Zoe said with a shrug. “Let’s face it, most men would at least look at you, Mel. Especially half-naked. The fact this chap ignored you says one of two things to me. He’s either gay, or he does secretly fancy you, but he doesn’t want to be obvious.”

  “Good grief!” Melinda exclaimed. “Do you always think this deviously?”

  “I didn’t once,” Zoe said dryly. “But my experience with men is beginning to make me think outside the envelope. Now I really must get going or I’ll hit the traffic. If and when Drake calls, tell him I’ve gone away for the weekend but you don’t know where.”

  “He’s not going to be happy.”

  “Too bad. I wasn’t happy today.”

  “Oooh. Them’s fightin’ words.”

  “I’m in a fightin’ mood. Which is why I’m going away. I need time to think. And time to calm down. Maybe by Monday, I’ll see things a little clearer.”

  “Nothing in relationships with men is ever clear, Zoe,” Melinda said. “They’re a breed unto themselves. Impossible to really understand what makes their peculiar male minds tick. It’s a case of can’t live with them, can’t live without them.”

  “Oh, I can live without them,” Zoe said. “I’ve done it before and I can do it again. I just have to work out if I want to.”

  4

  ZOE DIDN’T HAVE to consult Nigel’s map for the first part of her drive north. She knew the way to Port Stephens. When she’d first bought her much-loved car a year ago, she’d spent every weekend going for long drives and investigating all the seaside towns within a half-day distance of Sydney.

  Zoe had a secret passion for trips to the beach, perhaps because she’d rarely gone to the seaside during her growing-up years. The children of dairy farmers learned young that you can never go far from home, or for long. Having to milk the cows morning and afternoon tied you to the place, good and proper.

  Unfortunately, Zoe soon found that going away by yourself for the weekend wasn’t all that much fun. It was reasonably pleasurable during the day, sight-seeing or strolling along a beach, but when the day ended and she returned to her motel room all alone, her mood would change.

  Eating alone in restaurants was the worst. And watching other couples, holding hands across candle-lit tables. She discovered there was nothing worse than not having anyone to talk to and share your experiences with. When her solitary excursions began to seriously depress her, she stopped.

  Which made her wonder why on earth she’d agreed to this silly idea of going away for the weekend on her own this time. She would have far too much time to think and brood. She would have been better off staying home and sorting things out with Drake, one way or another.

  Zoe sighed in disgruntlement. It was too late now. She was almost at Port Stephens. Which meant it was time to pull over to the side of the highway and consult Nigel’s map in more detail before she missed the turning to Hideaway Beach.

  Five minutes later she was safely on the side road leading to her destination. It was narrow and winding, with nothing on either side but the kind of low trees and rather unattractive scrub one found when you were this close to the sea. The soil was mostly sand and just didn’t grow lush green grass or nice tall trees. There were no houses, either, which meant it was probably a state reserve.

  Zoe felt she’d been driving for ages by the time the gas station came into view on her left. It was ancient, as was the general store attached, but surprisingly well stocked, with a cheerful old guy behind the counter who liked to chat.

  It was just after six by the time Zoe was on her way again with her passenger seat carrying a bag full of fresh bread, milk, eggs, two wickedly fattening bars of chocolate and a couple of her favorite magazines. She hadn’t thought to throw in a book to read before leaving home and didn’t trust the likes of Nigel Cox to have anything on his bookshelves she might enjoy.

  Frankly, she hadn’t thought about this trip enough at all, she now conceded. She hadn’t even bothered to change clothes before leaving. Just chucked a few items in an overnight bag and got going.

  It wasn’t like her to act so hastily. The drama with Drake had tipped her world upside down, and her with it.

  Zoe rounded a long sweeping curve and there, straight ahead, lay the horizon of the Pacific Ocean, big and vast and blue. Her heart lifted at the sight, and she was suddenly glad she’d come, if for nothing else than this moment.

  But the moment was gone all too quickly, cold, hard reality returning to darken her own personal horizon. This weekend escape was not going to solve anything. She was just delaying the difficult decision over what she should do. Forgive and forget? Or dump Drake and try to move on…

  The car slowed to a crawl as Zoe’s mind drifted once more. It was all very well for Mel to say she’d find someone else in no time. Zoe had never been the sort of girl to pick up men easily, even now, when her looks were no longer a drawback. Men often found her standoffish. Some had even called her stuck-up.

  But she wasn’t. Not at all. She was just reserved. And naturally wary. She didn’t warm to strangers easily. She was slow to give affection and friendship, and even slower to accept it from others. Which made her instant liking of Melinda, for instance, most unusual. She hadn’t even really liked Drake at first meeting. He’d impressed her, yes. But liked? No…not exactly. She’d thought him a little pushy. But she’d found his dogged pursuit of her very flattering, and very seductive. There’d been the flowers twice a week. Phone calls every day. Presents. Poetry, even.

  How could she help falling in love with him in the end? Or going to bed with him? Or being devastated by his cheating on her? He’d made her think she was his entire world, and vice versa.

  The sound of a horn honking loudly made Zoe jump in her seat, her eyes flying to the rear-vision mirror. A bright yellow truck was right behind her, several surf boards strapped to the roof. The male driver was making an impatient left-handed motion with his hand.

  Zoe hadn’t realized she’d been stopped, smack-dab in the middle of the road. Embarrassed, she smiled an apology at the driver in the rear-vision mirror. After a moment’s hesitation he smiled back, and the oddest little quiver ran through Zoe from top to toe.

  It shocked her so much that she stared at his reflection for a few seconds before moving her car over to the left, carrying with her the image of the bronze-skinned, blond-haired, broad-shouldered hunk wearing wraparound sunglasses and the brightest orange T-shirt she’d ever seen. His sun-streaked hair was short and spiked, and his face had that chiseled structure which you saw a lot on male models, his lantern jawline covered with a few days’ stubble. Naturally, in those sunglasses, she couldn’t see the color of his eyes, but she guessed they would be blue.

  This last train of thought startled Zoe. What on earth was she doing, speculating over what color eyes he had? But even as she reprimanded herself for such silly nonsense, he was driving by and peering at her through their respective side windows. Her heart began to race and she started wondering if he was speculating on the color of her eyes, which were similarly masked by sunglasses. Her hand lifted and she almost took them off, wanting him to see that her own were big and brown and long-lashed.

  They were her best feature, her eyes.

  But she caught herself just in time and the moment of madness passed, as did the truck. Thank goodness.

  What had she thought she was doing?

  A minute before she’d been agonizing over how devastated she was by Drake’s cheating on her. Then the next moment, there she was, almost flirting with some stranger.

  There was absolutely no excuse for such behavior, no matter how sexy the guy in the truck was.

  Sexy?

  How could she possibly tell if he was sexy from a couple of brief passing glances? She hadn’t even seen all of him. For all she knew, he could have beady little eyes, a big bl
ubbery butt and the personality of a store mannequin.

  Oh, yeah, scorned some new inner voice which Zoe had never been tuned into before. Who do you think you’re kidding, honey? He’s going to have beautiful blue eyes, tight buns, and the charm of the devil.

  Zoe groaned. This was crazy and so unlike herself. There again, today hadn’t exactly been like any other day. She’d been brought face-to-face with her boyfriend’s raunchy new friend; quizzed by her boss on intimate sexual matters; then been told by her roommate that she shouldn’t be slinking off by herself. She should be throwing herself into a fun fling out of revenge.

  Was that what this was? Her subconscious wanting to punish Drake by flirting with another man? Her own shaky self-esteem, perhaps, looking for reassurance that she was attractive?

  She sincerely hoped so. She didn’t want it to be that other sordid scenario Fran had described of being struck by instant lust for some good-looking stranger and wanting nothing from him but down-and-dirty sex.

  No, no, it couldn’t be that. She didn’t want to even consider the possibility. But even as she dismissed the idea, Zoe sincerely hoped she wouldn’t run into the man in the truck again.

  When she looked up, his yellow vehicle had reached the end of the road and was turning right. Within seconds, it had disappeared from view.

  Zoe sat up straight, her stomach crunching down hard.

  Right. He’d turned right.

  She snatched up Nigel’s second map and studied its very detailed drawing of Hideaway Beach’s layout.

  Her heart rate accelerated as her eyes confirmed what she’d remembered from her earlier perusal. The beach was U-shaped, with rugged peninsulas stretching out into the ocean at each end. Sand dunes rose behind the main stretch of beach, on top of which sat a long, face-the-ocean visitors’ car lot. The half dozen or so weekenders which Hideaway Beach boasted were grouped together down the southerly end, their fronts facing northeast. A short dead-end road led ‘round to the back of them, a road which required a right-hand turn at the end of this road.

  If you were a surfer just come for the waves, you would go straight ahead and park in the visitors’ car lot, not turn right as the truck had done.

  There was only one logical conclusion. The hunk in the truck either lived here, or was staying here on vacation. If that was the case, she was likely to run into him again at some stage this weekend.

  Zoe groaned her frustration. She’d come up here to sort out her feelings about men and sex, not have them confused further.

  Irritated beyond words, she switched on the engine, checked there was no car coming, then drove down to the end of the road where she stopped for a few seconds and scanned the vehicles in the visitors’ car lot.

  The yellow truck wasn’t among them.

  Zoe hadn’t expected it to be.

  Sighing her resignation to the fact Mr. Orange T-shirt wasn’t a visitor, she steered her small silver sedan onto the dirt track on her right and drove slowly along its pot-holed surface, glancing over to her left every now and then.

  Hideaway Beach was certainly very beautiful. But very quiet. Only half a dozen people on the sand. A couple more swimming in the almost-flat waters. There wasn’t a single board rider out in the water, which was understandable considering the absence of decent waves. There was no sign of Mr. Orange T-shirt anywhere.

  Zoe was annoyed with herself for even looking.

  Resolving to banish him from her mind once and for all, she swung her eyes back onto the road ahead and concentrated on finding Nigel’s place, which, according to his map, was the second house she’d come to on her left, a white weatherboard cottage with a gray colorbond roof.

  Actually, from the road, all Zoe could see of the weekenders were the roofs below her. The first one had an unusual-colored roof. Royal-blue. Zoe had never seen a roof that color before, but she rather liked it.

  The gray colorbond roof of Nigel’s place came into view a short way after the bright blue, and Zoe began looking for the driveway.

  There was a small, white-painted mailbox on the side of the road, but no sign of a driveway. Zoe parked on the grass verge just beyond the mailbox then climbed out to check out what was what.

  Nigel’s weekender looked very cute and cozy down below her, its back steps tucked in to the hillside, with the beach less than fifty feet from the front porch. There was a footpath of sorts leading from the mailbox down to the back door, but absolutely no way of getting her car any closer than where she was. The intervening ground was too steep and too rough.

  There was nothing for it but to carry everything down that hazardous-looking path. Zoe glanced over at the weekenders on her left and right, telling herself she wasn’t looking for a sign of Mr. Orange T-shirt, even though she was.

  The place on her right looked deserted, with no vehicle anywhere. The one on her left with the bright-blue roof was lucky enough to have a driveway leading to what looked like a carport on the other side of the house, but she couldn’t see enough of it to make out any vehicles parked there.

  Still, it would be just like Mr. Orange T-shirt to live in a house with a royal-blue roof, sky-blue walls and wraparound porches painted a dark rich red. And it would be just like her luck today to have him as a neighbor for the whole weekend.

  Shaking her head, Zoe returned to the car, collected her various bags and set off down the pathway. She was halfway down the roughly hewn steps when something orange caught the corner of her left eye and her head jerked in that direction.

  Big mistake. She should have kept watching where she was going, especially since she was wearing high heels. The second she took her eyes off the uneven steps, she misjudged a distance, one of her high heels caught against something and she lurched forward. In joggers or bare feet Zoe might have been able to regain her balance. As it was, she whirled with the bags in her hands in the air, and for one adrenaline-charged moment, she thought she could save herself.

  But her center of gravity could not be righted and all was finally lost, Zoe tipping full front-forward. With a loud yelp she instinctively brought her hands up to save her face, and the bags came with her.

  Just as well. For they cushioned her fall and possibly prevented her breaking an arm, or a leg. She still landed heavily, her knees getting the worst of it as she slid down a couple of steps further before coming to an ungainly halt.

  She was still sprawled on the ground, totally winded, when a pair of strong arms slid around her waist.

  “Are you all right?” a male voice asked as he hoisted her up onto her feet.

  Zoe saw the orange T-shirt first and groaned silently. It would be him, wouldn’t it? Fate was being very cruel to her today.

  “Yes, I…I think so,” she said, delaying looking up at him by dusting down her dress. But good manners finally forced her to glance up at her gallant Good Samaritan and say a proper thank-you.

  She had to look up a good way, he was so tall. Taller than she’d imagined. And even more handsome, with a strong straight nose, a cute dimple in his squared chin and a perfectly gorgeous mouth.

  But it was his eyes which captivated her the most. They were blue, as blue and as deep as the ocean. Eyes to drown in.

  Eyes to watch your own wide-eyed reflection in while he rocks back and forth above you, his beautiful body buried deep inside yours.

  Did she gasp out loud in shocked horror?

  She hoped not.

  “You’ve gone very pale,” he said, frowning. “Are you sure you’re all right? You’re not going to faint, are you?”

  “No,” she choked out. “No, I don’t think so.” Though it was possible.

  “Perhaps you’d better sit down for a few seconds, put your head down between your knees.”

  Another erotic scenario exploded into her mind, one in which it wasn’t her head down between her knees.

  Zoe swallowed a couple more times.

  “No, no, I’m fine,” she said at last in strangled tones, desperately trying to pull hersel
f together. “But I’ve lost my sunglasses. Can you see my sunglasses? Oh, there they are.” She swooped on them, and jammed them back on, hoping they hid her escalating panic.

  “You’ve ruined your panty hose,” he pointed out.

  Her eyes dropped to her legs, then shifted over to his legs, which were well on display, his colorful board shorts not covering up much.

  They were the best-shaped legs on a man she’d ever seen. Totally tanned, long and very strong, with great thighs.

  Well able to support you when he hikes you up onto his hips and then…

  “Serves me right for being silly enough to be wearing high heels,” she blurted out. “It’s just that I drove straight up here from work. Didn’t really have time to change. I just threw a few things together and jumped in the car. My main concern was missing the Friday traffic heading north out of Sydney. But not to worry. I doubt I’ll be needing panty hose up here this weekend anyway.”

  She was prattling on like a fool. But anything was better than conjuring up more appalling scenarios involving them both.

  “I think your eggs might have seen better days as well,” he said dryly, and Zoe looked blank.

  “Eggs,” he repeated, indicating her groceries which had scattered all over the place. The half-dozen eggs, which had been carefully placed at the top of the bag, had spilled from their carton, all of them broken.

  “Oh, dear…” Zoe sighed, suddenly feeling very tired.

  “I could go buy you some more, if you like,” he offered.

  She stared at him. When guys started offering to go out of their way for you, it usually meant they fancied you. The thought that Mr. Orange T-shirt might be as attracted to her as she was to him, produced a mad mixture of guilty pleasure and even more outrageous thoughts.

  Yes, go get me some more eggs, you gorgeous darling sexy man. And a dozen condoms whilst you’re at it.

  Zoe was infinitely relieved she was wearing sunglasses, for surely the wickedness of her thoughts must be reflected in her eyes.