by Miranda Lee
“Thank you but no,” she said stiffly. “I can manage without the eggs. But it was very nice of you to offer.”
“No sweat.” He immediately hunkered down and began putting her groceries back into the bag.
Impossible not to notice in that position that he didn’t have a big blubbery butt. His buns were as trim and taut as she’d feared they would be.
Afraid that any further ogling of his perfect butt would conjure up yet another wicked fantasy, Zoe wrenched her eyes away and hurried to pick up her handbag. But when she moved toward where her overnight bag had fallen, her gallant knight to the rescue was there before her, scooping it up first.
“I think I’d better carry these the rest of the way down for you. You’re still wearing those very nice but potentially lethal high heels,” he added with a wry little smile.
“Please don’t bother.”
“It’s no bother. I presume you’re staying at Nigel’s place down there?”
“Well…yes. You know Nigel, do you?”
“Pretty well.”
“Oh? How well?” She didn’t realize ‘til the words were out of her mouth how they might sound. The thought that this fellow might be gay hadn’t even crossed her mind.
He laughed, his blue eyes sparkling with genuine good humor. “Not that well. But we have a drink together sometimes when he’s up here. I live over there.” And he nodded toward the house with the royal-blue roof. “For the moment, that is,” he added. “The owner’s letting me stay while I do some renovating work for him.”
“It’s a very colorful house.”
“Yes. He likes bright colors. So what about you? Are you a friend of our esteemed big-city lawyer? Or a client?”
Zoe felt she had to terminate this getting-to-know-you conversation fairly quickly, or risk giving her far too attractive neighbor the wrong idea. She could not even begin to speculate what she might do if he started coming on to her. The thought was far too perversely thrilling for words.
“No, I hardly know Mr. Cox at all, to be honest. But I…uh…” She hesitated over revealing specific details of her life to a virtual stranger. “I know one of his partners,” she said, instead of saying she worked for Fran. “She asked Nigel if I could borrow his place for the weekend. I…um…I needed to get away from Sydney for a couple of days.”
“Ah…life in the fast lane getting too much for you, was it?”
“Something like that.”
He nodded sagely and Zoe realized he was older than she’d first thought. Late twenties, perhaps. Maybe even thirty. “I know exactly how you feel,” he said ruefully. “But a weekend away won’t be much of a cure. You need longer than that.”
“Well, I have to be back at work on Monday, so one weekend is all I’ve got. Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m terribly hot and tired and in desperate need of a shower. If you’d just drop those things next to Nigel’s back door, that would be great.”
“Okay,” he agreed, but Zoe thought he looked a bit disappointed. Maybe he’d been hoping she’d invite him in for a drink, or something.
Or something morphed in her mind to a scene from a recent movie where the leading man and leading lady—within a few minutes of meeting—pounced on each other like wild beasts. Clothes were ripped off in seconds and absolutely nothing was left to the imagination as the hero, for want of a better word, proceeded to ravish the heroine up against a wall.
At the time, Zoe had thought the whole thing quite incredible, as well as supremely tacky.
She still thought such behavior tacky, but not quite so incredible.
She tried to imagine, as she followed her far too sexy neighbor down to the back door, what would happen if she did invite him in. Would he make a pass? And if he did, what would she do?
He placed her bags by the step, then turned to face her, his own expression thoughtful.
“The name’s Aiden, by the way,” he said. “And yours?”
“Zoe.”
“Nice name. Well, Zoe, if you need anything over the next two days, just whistle. I’m always hereabouts. When I’m not off surfing somewhere, that is. I presume you know how to whistle?” he added, throwing a provocative little smile over his shoulder as he started to walk away. “Just put your very pretty lips together and blow.”
He didn’t look back again as his long legs carried him swiftly away. Which was just as well, because what Zoe’s sexually charged mind was doing to his parting words made her face go a brighter red than his porch.
5
WITHIN A MINUTE OF returning to his place, Aiden was stretched out in a chair on the front porch, drinking a beer and doing his best not to think about the girl in the house next door having a shower.
A futile exercise. He’d been thinking about her non-stop since she’d smiled at him in her rear-vision mirror and charged up every testosterone-based cell he owned.
Playing knight to the rescue just now had only confirmed what he already knew. That she was big trouble, both to his peace of mind and body.
Aiden gulped another mouthful of beer, then sighed.
Six months he’d lasted here at Hideaway Beach without so much as a single bad night’s sleep. Six months of wonderfully uncomplicated celibacy.
His life was blessedly simple. He surfed first thing in the morning, and again, late in the afternoon, spending the hours in between doing up the once-ramshackle beachhouse he’d bought a few months earlier. After dinner—which he usually cooked himself—his evenings were spent reading, or listening to music. He didn’t have a television and never bought newspapers. If he felt the need for human conversation, he chatted to other surfers, or the local fishermen, or to his mom over the phone. Occasionally, when Nigel was up for the weekend, he went over to his place for dinner and a bottle of good wine.
But he rarely stayed long. He didn’t want to be contaminated by listening to Nigel’s complaints about his clients and his lovers. He certainly never wanted to reminisce on the time he’d been a client.
Aiden was well aware his sabbatical from real life would come to an end one day, but only when he decided and not before. He wanted to keep the world outside at a distance for a while longer. He certainly didn’t want to be attracted to some mixed-up, auburn-haired city chick who was obviously in the middle of a personal crisis which had necessitated her coming up here to Hideaway Beach for a break.
He didn’t want to speculate on whether she was in the throes of a divorce, or a palimony suit, or a sexual harassment case, or any of the multiple reasons why women hired lawyers like Fran Phillips, who then took the poor husband or boyfriend or boss to court and screwed them over for everything they were worth, both financially and emotionally.
Aiden checked himself with a frown. Brother, that sounded really bitter. And he wasn’t bitter anymore. If anything, Marci had done him a favor, suing him. She’d made him see the emptiness of seeking nothing but superficial success and material wealth; forced him to reevaluate what he really wanted in life.
And when he finally found out what that was—he’d been searching for it in his head for six months now—he’d go after it.
Until that happened, the last thing he wanted was to get back on the sexual merry-go-round. Going to bed with the delectable but obviously distressed Zoe was not a good idea, no matter how much he found her attractive.
The trouble was she wanted him, too. He could tell.
But she didn’t want to want him. That he could tell as well.
Which was the most bewildering aspect of this whole situation.
Aiden had never come across a female before who wanted him, and had resisted him. If anything, they’d always thrown themselves at him, or at least made him aware they were available, if and when he wanted them. Such was the powerful combination of heaven-sent looks and man-made money.
There again, Zoe didn’t know he had money, did she?
Clearly, she hadn’t recognized him.
Aiden frowned. Maybe she was the sort of girl who only
surrendered to a physical attraction if the man was wealthy or famous? Such females did exist, he knew only too well. Yet somehow he didn’t think Zoe was of that ilk. She’d been too sweetly flustered by everything just now to be of the cold-blooded, gold-digging variety.
Why, he wondered for the umpteenth time, had she sent him away just now, instead of inviting him in as most women would have done?
There were only a couple of answers which didn’t bruise his male ego. Perhaps she’d sworn off all men for a while, as he had women. Or perhaps she’d been badly hurt by some sleazy guy and no longer trusted the opposite sex. He could identify with that as well. Lack of trust was the reason why he’d lied to her about owning this house.
Another futile gesture, since Zoe clearly wasn’t going to come across. But at that moment he’d been hoping she might, and he’d egotistically and rather romantically hankered for her to come to his bed because she wanted Aiden the man, not Aiden, one-time world surfing champion, or Aiden the millionaire owner of the Aus-Surf chain.
Thinking of her in his bed brought his mind back to her very beddable body with its pretty breasts, tiny waist and deliciously rounded derriere. He’d had a good look at that when she’d been sprawled facedown on the ground, with her skirt flipped up to her waist.
Aiden had always been a butt man.
And a breast man, he conceded with a wry laugh.
And a leg man.
Hell, he liked every bit of a woman. Their shape. Their smell. Their softness.
His groan carried intense frustration. Whatever had possessed him to give them up? If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t be here now, with a hard-on the size of the Centrepoint Tower. He must have been mad!
Sculling the rest of the beer, Aiden went inside to get another can. Then another. Then yet another. Dinner that evening was a liquid one. As was dessert.
Aiden was to find, however, that getting drunk was a poor substitute for getting laid. His revved-up hormones still had him tossing and turning for most of the night. Sleep finally came around three, but when he woke, nothing had changed, a fact confirmed by the ready-to-fire state of his sexual equipment.
Aiden shook his head irritably and did the only thing a man of his nature could do. He went for a very long, very cold, early-morning swim.
Then started planning a seduction.
THE BRASS BED WAS big, and soft. Very soft. So were the silk scarves which bound her to the bedposts. They didn’t hurt at all, not even when she writhed and wriggled.
And she writhed and wriggled a lot, gasping and moaning as her dream lover did things to her with his hands and mouth. Exciting things. Delicious things. Wicked things.
She was naked, of course. Naked and exposed and unable to stop him looking at her and touching her at will. Kissing all her intimate places. Sucking at her nipples. Invading her with his tongue.
But there was no embarrassment. Only pleasure. The most mind-bending pleasure. Sweet and dark and decadent.
Yes, yes, lick me there. Suck it. No, bite it.
She moaned when he did, her head twisting from side to side. If only she could see him. If only he’d take off the other scarf which covered her eyes.
“Who are you?” she asked, though she already suspected. Who else did she know who smelled of sea salt?
“No talking,” he replied in a very familiar voice. “If you talk, you’ll wake up. And you don’t want that, do you?”
She shuddered at the thought. No, no. Not yet. Please not yet.
“I…I just want to see you.”
“That’s not what you want,” he murmured as his hands ran lightly up over her body, across her tensely held stomach, her stiffened nipples, her stretched-up arms.
“This is what you want,” he said, and suddenly, he was there, between her legs, filling her, thrilling her.
“Yes,” she agreed, her body quivering.
Her climax was but a heartbeat away when her eyelids shot upward like a blind on a window, sunlight spearing her pupils.
Zoe sat bolt upright, blinking, gasping.
It took several seconds for her ragged breathing to calm, and cold hard reality to return.
There was no brass bed. No scarves. No Aiden.
A dream. It had all been a dream.
Zoe groaned. She supposed she should have been relieved that she wasn’t really tied, naked, to a bed. But all she felt was disappointment. As much as Zoe knew she’d never enjoy such activities in real life—she’d never be that uninhibited, for starters—it was still hard not to wish that the dream might have lasted just a little bit longer.
Sighing, Zoe glanced at her watch on the bedside table. Ten to eight. Not late. But the sun was already streaming into the bedroom, promising another hot day.
Get up, she told herself. Have a shower. Make yourself some breakfast.
Dragging her body out of bed, she padded down the central corridor into the one and only bathroom. Fifteen minutes later, she emerged with her wet hair wrapped up in one of Nigel’s plush navy towels, her steam-pinked body snugly encased in the matching navy bathrobe which had been hanging on the back of the bathroom door.
She was making her way back along the corridor to the kitchen to make breakfast when the doorbell rang.
Zoe halted at the sound, then peered down at the front door with its upper panel of frosted glass, through which she could see a tall, undoubtedly male silhouette.
“Oh, no, Drake,” she groaned, and bolted back into the bathroom where she stared in horror at her reflection.
No one other than Mel had seen her totally without makeup in years. She needed makeup to cover the smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks, and to transform the rest of her from a country hick into a city sophisticate. And she really needed her hair styled cleverly around her face to hide its round shape. With it bundled up under a towel and no makeup on, she looked about sixteen, a baby-faced sixteen.
Zoe would rather be dead than to let Drake see her this way. And who else could it be, knocking on the front door here at around eight in the morning?
Drake must have found out her whereabouts from Fran. There was no other answer.
And now here he was, on her doorstep.
Zoe didn’t know whether to be flattered, or furious.
“Ahoy in there, Zoe,” a male voice shouted through the door. “Don’t panic now. It’s just your friendly next-door neighbor with some eggs. I had a few to spare.”
Zoe’s mouth dropped open. It was Aiden. Not Drake.
Oh, my God…
“Just…just a moment,” she called back, then went into a complete panic. Suddenly, she wished it was Drake at the door. Drake didn’t make her mind go totally blank and her body begin to tremble uncontrollably.
Think, girl. Think! He hasn’t come over here at this hour simply to give you eggs. You’re not that naive. He’s going to make some kind of pass.
Zoe’s lack of makeup and grooming suddenly became a desirable asset. Aiden wouldn’t think her so attractive this morning, with her freshly scrubbed face and no-hair look. As much as she hated showing herself like this to anyone, this situation called for drastic measures.
Zoe marched resolutely toward the door, resashing the robe around her waist more tightly on the way.
Unfortunately, this action reminded Zoe that she was naked underneath the robe, her tingling flesh still suffering from the after-effects of that incredible dream. Facing her fantasy lover was not going to be easy, but it had to be done.
Taking one last steadying breath, she pulled back the bolt and opened the front door.
The sight of Aiden standing there in nothing but a tattered pair of denim shorts, shook Zoe considerably. Okay, so the day was hot. Even hotter than yesterday, but did he have to go around half naked?
Zoe did her best not to appear rattled, or to look at him with anything remotely like the disturbing feelings his near-nakedness evoked in her.
It wasn’t desire. Desire was too tame a word for what she felt when she l
ooked at this man.
Lust. That was what it was. Lust. The kind of lust Fran had talked about which didn’t require niceties. Or even foreplay.
Her craving was strictly sexual. And incredibly basic. When she looked at Aiden’s beautiful male body, all she could think of was how it would feel to touch him and kiss him, to have him on top of her, and inside her.
How she kept her expression as bland as she did, she would never know. Pride, she supposed.
“You’re up early this morning,” she said, trying to sound casual. But it was hard with him looking her over in such an open and admiring fashion. He didn’t seem at all taken aback by her less than perfect appearance. In fact, if she wasn’t mistaken, he seemed to prefer it.
Maybe he liked the casual, just-out-of-the-shower look. He certainly didn’t believe in much grooming himself. He still hadn’t shaved. And his hair was sticking up all over the place.
Yet for all that, he looked so sexy it was a crime.
“I’m up early every morning,” he returned.
“So am I. Usually. But I slept in this morning.”
He smiled. “I’m glad. Otherwise you’d have already had your breakfast. Here,” he said, handing her a carton of half a dozen eggs. “Enjoy.”
“You must let me pay you for them.”
“Not at all.”
“You’re very kind.”
He smiled. “Not that kind. I have an ulterior motive.”
“Oh?” she said warily. Here it comes…
“I needed an excuse to come over and see you again.”
She stared at him, surprised by his blunt honesty, and terrified of what he was going to say next. Please don’t, her eyes pleaded.
“I wondered if you’d like to come out to dinner with me tonight. There are plenty of good restaurants around and I do own some decent clothes. Not that you’d know by looking at me this morning,” he added, grinning. “I’ll even promise to shave. So what about it?”
Her mouth went dry. Never had the devil tempted her so badly.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I…I can’t.”