by Susan Lyons
“If sales really dropped. But for now, I’ll tweak what I’m doing with Kalti. I have to stay true to his character and meet reader expectations—like, there will always be the Dreamtime spirits and the sea eagle—but I can take him in new directions.”
“You have some ideas?”
“Two.” He gave me a quick grin, eyes bright. “I mentioned that I gave him a female partner in the new book? Well, I’m thinking there’s going to be a romantic attraction. Maybe that woman at the signing was right, and the poor old bugger’s due for the joys and torments of a love affair.”
“Torments?” I knew that, whether or not he realized it, Damien identified with Kalti. And Damien had just embarked on a…well, not a love affair, because it was only a one-time thing. But all the same, what did he mean about torments? He and I had shared some joys, and maybe I annoyed him from time to time, but torment was a strong word.
“I could give her a dress with buttons all the way down the front.” His eyes twinkled. “But seriously, a writer has to torture his protagonist. If life’s too easy, there’s no story.”
Hmm. That made some sense.
He leaned forward, elbows on the table, ignoring the dessert. “And there’s got to be a certain amount of growth. A character can’t stand still or readers get bored with him.”
“And for growth, there has to be challenge,” I mused. “As in real life.” Damien and I had challenged each other, and as a result we’d both resolved to take our careers in a fresh direction. He had also, even though he might not be aware of it, challenged me to see myself as an attractive, sexy woman. A woman who, as he’d pointed out when we entered this restaurant, could turn men’s heads.
“Exactly. Growth—character arc—is especially important to female readers. In general, male readers focus on plot, females care more about character.”
“Hmm.” I paused, fork raised to my mouth. The coconut pie was incredible, but his words interested me more. I was beginning to understand how fiction could reflect and even inspire real life. “So, most books are aimed at both male and female readers?”
“Nope. Techno-thrillers are aimed mostly at men and romance is targeted mostly to women. With mystery and suspense, some go more one way and some are in the middle, like mine. Of the genres, by far the most sales are in romance.”
“Really?” Damien was teaching me a lot. “So, most people—women readers?—are romantics at heart?” Like my sisters Kat and Merilee. They’d always had a stack of romance novels in their rooms.
“They like happy endings—so do mystery readers—but romance readers care more about character than plot. Mystery and suspense is about solving the crime, the puzzle, and stopping the bad guy. Romance is usually about emotion—stuff I’m not so great at writing—and character development, two people beating the odds and winning love.”
Winning love. With Jeffrey, I’d felt as if love had miraculously landed on my doorstep. Then, when the going got tough, I had assumed he’d never loved me at all. Neither of us had grown one bit from the moment we met until the day we divorced.
I’d grown more, in all sorts of ways, in one day with the fascinating man who sat across from me. And, to my amazement, I’d had an impact on him, too. “Tell me how all of this relates to your Kalti books.”
“Like I said at the reading, I’m a typical guy. There’s got to be murder and mayhem to keep me happy.” In the wide grin he gave me, I saw a glimpse of what he must have looked like as a kid. A bit of a daredevil. And that daredevil lived on, in Kalti. Damien could be a grown-up with a successful career and let his boyish macho side come out to play in his writing.
“So my books are heavy on plot,” he went on, “but there’s also character development. Kalti’s a complex, intriguing guy. A bit of a lost soul, an underdog, a bad boy. Women are fascinated by that kind of man.”
“They are?” I smiled a yes at a busgirl who was offering coffee refills. “I don’t see the appeal. Maybe it’s sexy in high school, but after that it’s just immature. And I can’t imagine that’s the type of man women want to marry.” In a husband, a woman wanted, first and foremost, a man she could trust. A man like Merilee’s Matt, not like my ex.
“After he’s matured and gentled down some. With the help of a good woman and all.”
“Seriously?”
“And vice versa. Two people meet, fall for each other, and that’s the catalyst for each of them wanting to grow into a better person. That’s typically what happens in a romance novel.”
“It sure didn’t work that way for Jeffrey and me.” I made a face. “Which I guess should have told me something, if those romance writers are to be believed.” I shrugged off the memory of Jeffrey. And the intriguing thought that Damien’s words were a fair description of what had happened between the two of us. Except, of course, our relationship was a short story, not a novel. “Let’s get back to Kalti. He’s a bad boy because he’s a renegade cop, he’s an underdog because he’s Aboriginal Australian, and he’s sexy, yes?”
“Men readers relate to the take-no-prisoners cop. Women like a strong hero and they’re intrigued by the other facets of his personality. But I’ve just realized that they may get tired of him being such a loner when it comes to romance.”
I nodded. “Even your male readers would probably appreciate a hot female character, and some sizzling sex.”
“Oh crap, you’re saying I have to write sex?” He looked dismayed.
“I’d say you’re eminently qualified.” I shot him a mischievous grin and fingered the button at the neckline of my dress.
He chuckled. “Doing it’s not the same as writing it.”
As I sipped coffee, I thought back on our conversation. A thread was still hanging loose. “You said you had two ideas for taking the Kalti books in a new direction?”
“Yeah. I want to incorporate some of the issues about Aboriginal Australians, like we were talking about. And the stuff about perceptions and prejudices.”
He’d meant it when he said he wanted to make a difference. “I’m glad, Damien.”
“It still has to be a good story. Not preachy.”
Thoughtfully, I nodded. “I’ve seen in my classes how students perk up and listen when I tell an anecdote about real live Indigenous Australians.”
“Makes sense, doesn’t it? We’ve evolved from people who hunkered around the fire at night, spellbound by the storyteller.”
I’d studied enough anthropology to know he was right. In primitive society, storytellers had immense power. The same was true today. And Damien was one of them. I reflected on what he was planning to do. “You have an interesting task ahead of you.”
“Oh yeah, I’m gonna have to start back at the beginning with Scorched Earth, the manuscript I’ve been working on.” His eyes sparkled in the candlelight, and I could see he relished the challenge. “That’ll occupy me nicely, all those lonely nights in hotel rooms.”
After taking one final, lingering bite of the delicious pie, I shoved the plate over to him. “You finish this. I’ve been eating while you’ve been talking.” Then, hesitantly, I said, “I’m not a writer—I mean, my writing is academic—but if there’s any way I can help, let me know.”
Belatedly I realized what I was suggesting. Keeping in touch.
Damn. I’d intended this to be only an out-of-character fling with a man who “flung” all the time. And now I’d come to care for him, to want more. That was crazy. I was the woman who’d sworn off men, so a “relationship” wasn’t in the cards for me—and Damien was a player, who no doubt didn’t do relationships. All the same, the notion of staying in touch was awfully appealing.
He was chewing the final bite of coconut cream pie, looking blissful.
Before he could swallow and answer me, I rushed to say, “I don’t mean to sound presumptuous. I mean, I’m sure you’ll do a great job of…whatever you decide to do.” Besides, I was the one who’d criticized his books. Why would he want my assistance?
“I�
��d love your help.”
“Really?” A heady rush of pleasure filled me. Tomorrow wouldn’t be good-bye. My heart was racing and I told myself that’s what I got for drinking coffee at this hour of the night. Trying to sound businesslike, I said, “We should do some administrative things, like exchange e-mail addresses and phone numbers.”
His eyes twinkled as he shoved the empty dessert plate into the center of the table. “You know what, Prof? The administrative stuff can wait for tomorrow. Right now there’s a moonlit beach out there, calling our names.”
Oh yes, that sounded much more appealing.
“And since you ate most of the dessert,” he said in a husky, seductive tone, “you’re going to have to give me something else to satisfy my sweet tooth.”
I remembered how he’d said I tasted sweet. My mouth, had he meant, or other places as well? My sex gave a throb and I bit back a moan of need. “Would a kiss do it?”
“Let’s try it and see.”
For once I was going to live in the moment, and at this particular moment I couldn’t think of a single thing I’d rather do than kiss Damien Black in the moonlight on Waikiki Beach. “We should drop our bags in our room. And change into shorts.”
“You are not changing out of that dress. Lose the shoes, go barefoot, but the dress stays. Don’t you know what I’ve been thinking about for the last four hours?”
Several dozen things, but I hoped somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d always been aware of…“The buttons? Undoing the buttons?”
“Oh yeah.” He nodded, expression intent, focused on my neckline. “And since we sat down here, with the moon just outside, I’ve imagined undoing them on the beach. Seeing the moonlight on your beautiful breasts.”
I made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a girly squeak. “You can’t. It’s a public beach.”
He threw back his head and laughed. A sexy pirate laugh that made the other diners turn and look at us. “This, from the woman who had sex on an airplane.”
“Sshh.” My cheeks, overdosed on sun, breeze, and embarrassment, burned.
We’d had a lazy, lingering dinner, but now things moved quickly. Damien insisted on paying the bill, saying it was his signing, his celebration, and I’d already spent more than enough buying his books. I let him, guessing he made considerably more than I did. While I loved the academic life, the salaries weren’t one of the selling points.
Back in our room, Damien exchanged his pants for shorts but wore the same black shirt, now loose and unbuttoned, revealing tantalizing stretches of his tanned, well-muscled torso. We both kicked off our shoes. As I wrapped the filmy shawl around my shoulders, he picked up a colorful beach towel.
“Those aren’t supposed to be taken off hotel property,” I said, having diligently read the miscellaneous information in our room.
“You going to report me, Prof?”
“Maybe not. If you’re really nice to me.”
Downstairs again, I realized it was eleven o’clock—God knows what hour back in Sydney—and I was tired from jet lag and too little sleep. But a champagne-like fizz of exhilaration in my blood told me this adventure was too alluring to pass up.
We stepped from the hotel’s landscaped pool area down to the sand. It was pleasantly gritty under my feet, like a gentle scrub with a loofah sponge. We walked toward the ocean’s edge, where moonlight spilled a silvery-gold path across the velvety water, its swath broken by ripply undulations as gentle waves breathed their way to shore.
“Peaceful,” I sighed.
We walked at the edge of the water, me on the higher side where the waves tickled my feet, him a little deeper. Our clasped hands swung gently and from time to time we bumped hips or I brushed my cheek against his shoulder. Everything felt so relaxed and natural, even the tingles of sexual awareness. How could this be? Before, the only thing that had come naturally to me was excelling at school, both as student and professor.
The beach, which had been packed with sunbathers earlier, was now almost empty. “It’s quieter than I expected,” I commented in a hushed voice. “Maybe because it’s Sunday?”
“Sunday.” He laughed softly. “I keep forgetting it’s still Sunday. Crossing the international date line is so weird. Our flight left Sydney around six in the afternoon on Sunday. It’s like Sunday’s a never-ending day.”
A magic day, created just for us. A day out of time. But I wasn’t about to say something so foolish and romantic. “You know, Sunday really is going to end. It’s close to midnight.” I hoped the spell wouldn’t shatter when the day was done.
We had moved past the hotels and now the beach was even darker and more deserted. I might have worried about safety, but Damien’s presence banished any qualms. Unlike my academic colleagues, he gave off an aura of strong male capability.
When we’d walked for five or ten minutes without seeing another soul, he tugged me a few feet up the beach. There, he dropped the towel onto the sand and tossed his shirt on top of it. Staring admiringly at him in shorts in the moonlight, I saw the reverse image of a surfer-dude picture. Dark hair rather than blond; midnight sky and water rather than blue; silvery moon rather than golden sun. Edgier. Sexier. My body trembled with hunger for him.
Eyes glittering, he plucked off my shawl, then reached for the neckline of my dress.
“Damien, no.” I grabbed his hands to stop him, glancing around nervously and trying to ignore the way my nipples had tightened. “What if someone comes?”
“Then they get a beautiful eyeful. Come on, Tezzie. If Sunday’s finally going to end, let’s see it out in style.” He caught both my hands in one of his, gripping them lightly but firmly. Then, working with only one hand, he undid the next button. And the next.
If I’d said no and meant it, I knew he’d have stopped. Instead, mesmerized, I watched his deft fingers and the sides of my black dress parting an inch or two all the way to my waist. My body quivered at the cool brush of a gentle sea breeze and the heated caress of his gaze. A shock of need zipped through me, turning me hot, liquid, swollen.
He let go of my hands, probably realizing that if I hadn’t protested by now, I wasn’t going to. I reached for him, but he dropped to his knees and all I got was his thick, silky hair. I wound my fingers through it, anchoring myself as he kissed the front of my body, following the centerline down to where the dress was still buttoned. His tongue licked into my navel, swirled.
He undid the next button and pressed a moist kiss against the newly revealed flesh. And then he carried on. One button, one kiss. Tummy, mound, inner thigh. Each kiss soft, knowing, seductive, and with each one my body trembled with growing need. Finally, he reached the hem. Kissed the tender skin on the inside of my leg. Still kneeling on the sand, he gazed up and tugged on both sides of the dress.
I gave a shrug, let it fall. Stood in my peach eyelet bra and thong, a fine quivering rippling through me, trying to tell myself it was no worse than wearing a bikini.
“That’s damn pretty underwear.” He rose, shoved his shorts down, and kicked them off. Naked, the moonlight silvering him, the tattoos circling both of his upper arms, he was primitive and stunning. And supremely masculine, with his engorged cock thrusting up his belly.
Despite the hunger inside me, I whispered, “Damien, we can’t have sex on the beach. We could get arrested.”
“We’re not having sex, we’re going for a swim.”
“Wh-what?”
“You telling me you’ve never been skinny-dipping?” He reached for the front clasp of my bra and flicked it open.
Of course I hadn’t. I knew how to swim, but poorly. I’d never spent time at the beach, never hung out with someone who’d dare me to take off my clothes and run into the ocean.
Shouldn’t every teenager have an experience like that?
Better late than never. I flung the bra aside, skimmed the thong down my hips, and sprinted for the water. “Race you.”
His delighted laugh followed me as my feet hit the water
and I ran in, finding it got colder the farther I went.
Then he was plunging past me, creating waves that surged around me. Suddenly he dove, leaving me alone waist high in the ocean, breasts exposed in the moonlight. Hurriedly I followed his example, shivering with the shock of cold on my face, shoulders, chest.
I came up where it was deeper and my breasts were covered by water. Shaking my head and flinging drops, I looked for Damien.
He surfaced beside me, laughing, sleek as a seal, sexy as only Damien could be. “The water feels great,” he said.
“It’s cold.”
“You’ll get used to it. ’Sides, I’ll warm you up.” He pulled me into an embrace, and sure enough the front of his body scalded mine. How could he be so hot—and still erect—when the water was this cool?
Worriedly I cast a glance toward shore. “Someone might steal our things.”
“We can always get another room key,” he said nonchalantly.
“Our clothes! I’m not walking into the hotel naked.”
“Guess I’d have to do it then.”
Somehow, I knew he would and it wouldn’t particularly bother him. “Damien Black, you’re incorrigible.”
“We could steal palm leaves from the hotel garden,” he said. “Play Adam and Eve.”
“That was fig leaves.” I tried to sound professorial as I struggled to hold back a laugh.
“Palm leaves are bigger. I definitely need a big one.”
Now I did laugh.
He tugged me closer. “Come on, Tezzie, don’t chicken out on me now.”
He was right. The time to object had passed. I was the one who’d run into the ocean stark naked, and here I was in the arms of a hot—in all senses of the word—man whose erection ignored the temperature of the ocean.
Damien let go of me and dove again. I stared around, wondering where he’d surface.
My feet were tugged out from under me. I barely had time to suck in a breath before I went under. He released me and I kicked against the bottom, propelling myself upward. I came up, spluttering, and he rose beside me.
“What were you thinking?” I cried. “What if I couldn’t swim?”