by Heidi Rice
She’d been woken at dawn by the warbling of an unidentifiable bird, her sleeping bag warm and musty, to find herself alone in the tent. Once she’d gotten up enough energy to crawl out, she’d found Luke brewing coffee over the newly lit firepit, the rugged two-day stubble and creased shorts and shirt making her mouth water almost as much as the scent of hot caffeine.
Thank goodness she’d slept like a dead woman and been completely oblivious to that ripped body right next to her.
Nothing would have happened, because she was convinced she and Luke couldn’t be bonk buddies without dire consequences.
And the last time I was this sore and exhausted I’d just given birth to a twelve-pound baby boy with an unfeasibly large head.
Even so, the shimmer of regret had been undeniable. And now they were back at the cabin, alone again, her aching limbs pleasantly numb, with the definite hum of tension sizzling in the air, and in her gut.
‘If I ever see you getting in a kayak again, I’ll chop off your arms,’ Luke murmured, flopping down onto the sofa beside her gear. ‘As long as you promise to return the favour.’
‘Done.’ She stared at his long body arranged over the maroon leather, his lean muscular physique causing more mini explosions to detonate in her lady bits.
‘I need a hot shower, followed by cold Chardonnay and warm food,’ she said. ‘Any chance you could take care of the second and third order of business from room service,’ she added, ‘while I take care of the first?’
They’d never eaten dinner together in the cabin before, somehow managing to avoid that intimacy. But after a night sharing a tent, with no naughty business occurring, she figured a shared meal was fairly safe.
He toed off his hiking boots, leaving his white sports socks slouching around his ankles. ‘Sure. Any preference for your entrée?’
‘As long as it doesn’t look or taste like hamster kibble, I’m good.’
But as she walked past him, he took hold of her wrist. Her pulse jumped, the slow rub of his thumb making the mini detonations become somewhat major.
‘I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t we check out the hot tub?’
‘We?’
‘It’s a big tub. I can keep to my side.’
Really? ‘I’m not …’
‘I can’t think of a better way to work the kinks out.’ He rolled his shoulders.
‘Well, I guess …’ She certainly had kinks to spare.
‘Great.’ He stood to undo his shorts. ‘You mind if I wear my pants? I’m too knackered to go hunt up my trunks.’ He ripped open his flies to reveal loose white cotton boxers, which would probably be a lot more revealing once wet than the stretchy black cotton ones he’d been wearing at the waterfall.
‘Fine, as long as the essential bits are covered. I’m going to get my swimsuit on.’ She sent him a nonchalant wave that didn’t feel all that nonchalant once she’d reached the safety of her room and struggled out of her dusty hiking gear.
Maybe sharing a hot tub with Luke wasn’t such a great idea, she thought, recalling the pornographic vision she’d had of him on her first morning in the cabin.
No need to panic. You have excellent impulse control.
Plus, they’d just shared a tent for a whole night with no funny business occurring. And she couldn’t think of a better way to work out all the aches and pains from their kayaking adventure.
After a quick shower to wash the trail dust off, though, she made the mistake of wiping the steam off the bathroom’s mirrored wall, giving herself a full-frontal view of her naked body. And all its tiny imperfections. Imperfections accumulated over the past sixteen years, which in the harsh fluorescent light suddenly didn’t look so tiny.
When had the shallow creases around her eyes begun to morph into a road map of Canada? Or the slight thickening at her waist gotten so pronounced? And when had her breasts lost the last vestiges of their twenty-something perkiness—no matter how much she arched her back?
Hello, attack of the fifty-foot cleavage.
She touched her belly, examining the three silvery two-centimetre long marks she had acquired while comfort eating herself into a coma before Aldo’s birth. Did the stretch marks make the diamanté stud she still wore in her belly piercing look more cougar-ish than cool?
She leaned into the mirror. And what about all her newly acquired war wounds? The bruise on her chin, the scratch across her cheek, the tan lines on her arms and thighs, and the patch of reddened skin on the bridge of her nose, which would be peeling by tomorrow.
She reached for her make-up case, then hesitated.
Who cares what he thinks of your perfectly normal, thirty-six-year-old woman’s body?
Step away from the concealer.
Bypassing her bikini—what was I thinking packing that?—she dug out the plain black one-piece she’d worn on her last trip to Disney World with Aldo a year ago. After brushing her hand through her hair, which had begun to frizz at the edges, she declared herself good to go.
Sucking in her belly as she stepped onto the deck, just a bit, her breath gushed out when she spotted Luke. With his arms stretched out across the cedar lip of the tub, the water frothing under his sternum and his head tipped back, he appeared to be completely oblivious to her grand entrance.
Unlike Dream Luke, who had been smooth and tanned and oiled, Real Luke clearly didn’t wax his chest, the curls of dark hair fanning out across his nipples. But the shine of sweat and steam defining the pronounced muscles and the wisps that tapered into a thin line below the water managed to look a lot more earthy and inviting.
Two glasses stood beside a chilled bottle of wine in a wooden bucket next to the tub.
Nectar of the gods … And women on the verge of sharing a hot tub with the sexy ex they absolutely do not want to have sex with.
‘They delivered dinner already?’ she said.
His head lifted, and she wondered if she’d woken him up. His eyelids were at half mast as he squinted at her, and she remembered he had always been a bit myopic. He must wear contacts now, because she hadn’t seen him wearing his glasses.
‘Yeah, they brought it about twenty minutes ago. It can be reheated. Where have you been? I’m about to dissolve.’
Really? You look pretty solid to me.
‘I was having a shower. After a night sleeping rough, I didn’t want to pollute the hot tub with my grunginess.’ She noticed the damp curls of hair flattened on one side of his head, but dry at the scalp. ‘Something that obviously didn’t bother you.’
She padded across the boards of the deck. Luke remained riveted on her progress the whole way, making her feel like a catwalk model at London Fashion Week, except about a foot shorter and with love handles.
Stop stressing. You look great. And you don’t want to attract Luke.
‘I had a swim this morning in the lake,’ he said. ‘Before you woke up. I’m not as grungy as you.’
He had? She really had slept like the dead.
She stepped into the tub. The hot bubbles buffered tired calf muscles, and a contented sigh eased out as she settled onto the ledge a few judicious feet from him. The water rose to her breasts, making them jiggle and float despite the restrictive spandex, and lifting her nipples into ruched peaks.
She couldn’t make out a thing under the surface of the water thanks to the steam and bubbles, so she’d just have to take his word for it he’d kept the boxers on.
Her gaze lifted to his face, to find him watching her, and she began to feel a bit light-headed. Which had to be the heat of the water, and the pounding jets massaging sore muscles. Obviously.
‘How come you don’t weigh five tons when you’re surrounded by all those amazing cakes the whole time?’ he murmured.
The appreciative look had her heart bobbing up to join her floating boobs. ‘I may not weigh five tons, but I’m also nowhere near as trim as I used to be,’ she said, then felt annoyed with herself for employing the thirty-something woman’s automatic fallback position. Po
int out your every flaw before others do it for you.
‘Neither am I,’ he said.
Yeah, right. If he wasn’t as trim, that was only because every extra ounce was now pure muscle. He stretched to hoist the wine out of its bucket and pour them a glass and she got fixated on the bunch and flex of his biceps.
Solid definitely works better on a man.
He handed her a glass. ‘You look incredible.’
She shifted on the ledge to let the jets of water pummel her thighs and take her mind off the pumping pulse elsewhere.
‘Then cheers.’ She clinked her glass to his. ‘I never say no to a compliment.’ She took a long sip of the wine, the chilly oaken taste easing the dryness in her throat. ‘I’d like to say it had something to do with the cross-trainer that’s been sitting in my basement for over a year. But it’s actually the demands of the show.’
‘It’s a tough schedule?’
‘Not too bad. We tape two a day for two weeks. It’s not so much the workload. It’s the nerves. I get terrible stage fright. But I try to manage it without relying on my happy pills.’ She sent him a quelling look—recalling his reaction to her Xanax on the plane. ‘So far I haven’t acquired a prescription drug habit and the extreme stress means the last thing I want to do during a taping is eat. So it’s all good.’ She sipped her wine to interrupt the babble. Momentarily. ‘Except for the two grand I splashed out on that cross-trainer, of course.’
‘You always look really chilled on screen.’
She sputtered, choking on her wine. ‘You watch the show?’ she squeaked, so astonished she didn’t even mind she was squeaking.
‘Sure, I catch it when I can if I’m not on assignment. Try to record the episodes I miss. They broadcast it in Europe on BBC Worldwide.’
‘You’re joking, right?’ Surely that earnest expression was faked? It had to be. He hated pop culture.
‘I like watching it. You’re exceptionally good at what you do.’ A wry smile split his face. ‘Smart, funny, sexy. The nerves don’t show. And there’s all that great bakery porn, too. I did your triple fudge indulgence cake for Lizzie’s birthday this year. It turned out OK, even though I had to substitute a few things. It’s hard to get exactly the same ingredients in Paris.’
Her jaw sagged. ‘I don’t believe it. You? Baking?’ And from one of my recipes?
Why couldn’t she get the stupid heart bumps under control? The stupid heart bumps that reminded her of when she was a teenager and she’d basked in even the smallest praise from him. Funny to think that while she really didn’t care what he thought of her physical imperfections—or not too much—his opinion of her show mattered enough to cause those heart bumps.
He hooked a finger under her chin. ‘Close your mouth, and stop looking so astonished. I cook for myself all the time. It’s called being a new man.’
‘When exactly did that happen? Because, as I recall, you were pretty old-school when it came to cooking at our flat in Hackney.’ As in, he’d been more than happy to mind Lizzie, do laundry, even hoover the living room, but the kitchen had always been her domain. To the extent he hadn’t even been able to make a decent cup of tea, if she remembered correctly.
‘You were so good at cooking, and you loved it. So it never made any sense for me to learn back then. But when you’re on your own six weeks of the year with a toddler who doesn’t do table manners, you have to pick up the basics quickly, or get banned from every café and restaurant within a two-mile radius.’
‘None of your many girlfriends ever offered to cook for you and Lizzie?’ The question sounded cynical and maybe a tad waspish. Probably because she’d always had this galling picture in her head of him being waited on hand and foot by scantily clad, wafer-thin Frenchwomen.
His brow crinkled in a humorous frown. ‘If they had offered, I would have refused. My time with Lizzie was precious. I didn’t want to share it.’
The comment brought a bubble of guilt to the surface to go with the ones pummelling her thigh muscles at the thought of how she’d so easily dismissed his devotion to their daughter before this trip. ‘But didn’t any of them ever move in with you?’
He choked on his wine, shaking his head as he punched his solar plexus. ‘Jesus. No, thanks. On the whole, Frenchwomen are way too high maintenance.’
‘But surely you must have introduced some of your girlfriends to Lizzie?’
‘Not much point,’ he said. ‘None of them lasted very long.’
He refilled his wine glass, then tipped the bottle at her. She nodded, letting him top up her glass, disconcerted by the information. And the thought of all the energy she’d wasted hating those faceless Frenchwomen, starting with Amelie Brouchard.
Then his thumb brushed her chin, the touch taking her mind right off Amelie. Forever. ‘Does that hurt?’
‘Not any more.’
The silent communication telegraphed between them, and she knew that he knew she wasn’t only referring to the bruise on her chin.
‘Good.’ He stretched out his legs and his calf brushed hers under the water.
She jolted, the soft bristle of hair and hot skin as the bubbles died both shocking and thrilling. She plopped her glass on the side, feeling a bit woozy and very, very … aware of him. ‘What happened to the bubbles?’
‘They’re on a timer.’
‘Oh.’
‘I can press that button over there—’ he dipped his head to indicate the switch on the opposite side of the tub ‘—and they’ll kick in again.’
The water had settled, revealing the rest of his torso. Her gaze slid down through the now clear water, inexplicably drawn to his lap, where white cotton billowed, waving like a flag of truce. Until her gaze focused and she realised that white cotton when wet was indeed a great deal more revealing than black stretch boxers. Especially when the man sitting next to you was sporting an enormous erection.
Heat throbbed into her face and the pulse in her clitoris went into overdrive. But for the life of her she could not tear her gaze away.
Luke’s penis had always been magnificent. So magnificent it had terrified her when they’d first started going all the way as teenagers. And for a very good reason. Size really did matter when that much magnificence was at the disposal of a seventeen-year-old boy who had no clue what to do with it. And the recipient of it was a sixteen-year-old girl who was far too eager to please. But now, seeing that magnificence straining against billowing white cotton, the broad circumcised head peeking above the waistband, she was fairly sure she’d never seen anything so erotic.
She hadn’t had any idea at sixteen that Luke was phenomenally well endowed, and to be honest, size really didn’t matter when it came to the actual act, in her considered opinion. But those kind of porn-star proportions could be a powerful aphrodisiac, especially when their owner was lounging in a hot tub, making no bones—or rather boners—about the fact he was fully armed and extremely dangerous … Particularly to her flagging impulse control.
‘So, about your lack of a vibrator …’ The tone was rough with arousal and provocation.
Her gaze finally detached itself from his lap and flicked to his face. And, God help her, she laughed at the hopeful smile on his lips.
Heat fanned out across her chest and throbbed into her bobbing boobs. ‘What about it?’
The smile took on a wolfish twist. ‘I was wondering if you were looking for a substitute.’
She should have told him no. That a substitute was the last thing she wanted. Especially one supplied by him. But as he studied her over the rim of his glass, the flirtatious dare hovering over the steamy water, her brain short-circuited and something entirely different came out of her mouth. ‘I’m afraid Bugs is going to be a very hard act to follow. No pun intended.’
He choked on the sip of wine. ‘You gave the thing a name?’ He sputtered, placing the glass on the side of the hot tub. ‘I think my balls just shrank.’
She grinned at his horrified expression. ‘Of course I did
. I happen to have a close personal relationship with it.’ OK, way too much information. But she couldn’t bring herself to care, the mischievous sparkle in his eyes a heady relief from the physical and emotional stresses of the past week. She glanced back at his lap, the heat rising up her torso more exciting now than scary. ‘They don’t look as if they’ve shrunk very much to me.’
‘I guess I lied about that.’
She laughed, the hum of arousal all but deafening now. ‘Have you had that sitting on the bench the whole time we’ve been talking?’
‘Are you kidding? He’s been raring to get on the pitch for days now. Why the hell do you think I had a swim in a lake full of bollock-freezing snowmelt this morning at six a.m.?’ He edged closer, until the long muscles of his thigh rubbed against her leg. ‘If you tell me you’re not raring for kick-off, too, I’ll back off and never mention it again. But if you are …’
With his face dewed with steam, the rough stubble of his beard beaded with moisture and those pure blue eyes sparkling with his invitation to sin, he was as good as irresistible. And it was fairly obvious he knew it.
She hadn’t felt this light-headed, or reckless, in years. Was she actually going to do this?
She cleared her throat. Determined not to go down in flames too easily. ‘While these football analogies may work wonderfully as pick-up lines in Paris, I’m going to require more finesse.’
He placed his outstretched hand on her nape, his thumb digging into tight muscles.
‘I can do finesse.’ The easy confidence was echoed in the delicious play of his fingers. ‘What sort of finesse did you have in mind?’
‘Maybe a conversation about what you envision happening after the final whistle?’
‘I’m thinking we reheat the dinner, finish the Chardonnay and then either crash out or see if you’re up for a rematch. Because I probably will be. I’ve always been insatiable where you’re concerned.’
She tilted her head, giving his playful thumb better access, and let the ripple of sexual excitement steam through her body.
Could it really be that simple?