by Julie Cohen
‘Pigeon’s fine,’ Nick called.
‘Your tyre isn’t,’ she replied. ‘It’s flatter than a pancake.’
Nick came round the side of truck and shone the flashlight down at the tyre. He swore again. She sort of liked the sound of him swearing. He swore like a guy who didn’t swear that often but when he did, he meant it.
‘It’s no problem,’ she said. ‘We can change it in a jiffy. Where’s your jack?’
‘It’s not as easy as that,’ Nick said gloomily.
‘What’s the matter—don’t you know how to change a tyre? Don’t worry, I’m a pro. Get out the spare and I’ll get started.’
‘That is the spare,’ Nick said.
Zoe put her hands on her hips. ‘The spare? As in, the only spare?’
‘Yup.’
‘What happened to your “be prepared” motto, Boy Scout?’
‘I punctured a tyre on a rock on a back road the morning before I went to Cranberry Island. I put the tyre in to be repaired and I was supposed to pick it up when I got back. But then when I got back, there was the letter from my dad, and I didn’t want to wait so I just drove down on the spare.’
‘That was stupid,’ Zoe told him.
‘I know.’
‘I might’ve done the same thing, though.’
‘That makes me feel better.’ In the darkness she could just make out a wry smile.
‘You got the number of a rescue service?’
‘That, I am prepared for.’ He pointed ahead of the truck. The headlights illuminated an emergency phone on a pillar a hundred yards or so ahead. ‘Stay a safe distance from the truck. I’ll be right back.’
Zoe watched him walking up the hard shoulder towards the phone. The headlights cast his shadow, long and broad shouldered, on the road ahead of him. They also illuminated his body perfectly. She could see the shape of the muscles of his shoulders and backside through the cotton of his T-shirt and shorts. Gorgeous man.
Strangely, she was glad he’d messed up by doing something so stupid as trying to drive nearly a thousand miles on his spare tyre. It meant he wasn’t such a Boy Scout, such a white knight. He was just a guy who made mistakes.
She went to the back of the truck and, with a grunt, hauled out the animal carrier with the pigeon inside. There would be no point in having hauled the stupid bird several hundred miles if it was going to get killed by somebody driving into the back of the stationary truck. She climbed over the guard rail and up a bit of a grassy slope, set down the cage, and sat down next to it.
Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and there was enough light from the truck and the stars to see the pigeon through the slots in the plastic cage. It was a bird-shaped shadow, but she could catch a gleam of soft green from the feathers around its neck and she could see its face, lit up in a bar of light from the truck. It gazed back at her, its beady eye unabashed.
‘Atta boy,’ she murmured to it. ‘You’re not scared at all, are you?’
She shouldn’t be scared, either.
She thought back to the conversation they’d had driving through New York. She’d never told anybody about that time she’d run away. Her parents had gone wild trying to find her, called the police and everything the day she’d left, but when she’d called from a pay phone in Grand Central Station the next morning they’d accepted her story that she was staying with Xenia. Xenia herself had never asked, even though she’d had to endure the lecture from Zoe’s parents, too. Zoe had kept the whole thing a secret, her own private proof that whatever life threw at her, she would be okay. She could handle it.
But she’d told Nick. She’d opened herself up to him in a way she hadn’t done with anybody for a long, long time. Because she trusted him, and she hadn’t been afraid.
It felt really good.
Zoe lay back on the bank. The grass was cool and slightly damp, and felt soft on her bare legs and the back of her neck. She looked up at the millions of stars. She’d never seen so many all at once. It was as if she were on a whole new planet. The only reminder she was on Earth was the occasional noise of a car rushing past at sixty-five miles an hour.
She heard Nick walking back along the road and then she heard him approaching her on the grass. ‘We’re in luck,’ he said. ‘There’s a rescue truck that’s just finished a call close to here. They’ll be here in ten minutes to tow us to a garage in Kittery.’
‘That’s good,’ Zoe said dreamily. ‘Come here and look at these stars.’
He lay down on the grass next to her, just a few inches away. She didn’t take her eyes off the stars, but she could hear how close he was and feel the warmth of his body.
‘I didn’t think there were that many,’ Zoe said.
‘There’s less light pollution here than in New York.’ He settled himself comfortably, and she heard his soft breath of contentment. This was where Nick belonged. ‘And there’s still quite a bit of light here in southern Maine. You should go to Baxter State Park, up in Piscataquis County. On a moonless night the stars are so bright you feel as if you could reach out and touch them.’
Zoe didn’t think. She just did what she felt like doing without considering being afraid. She rolled over so that her body was lying on top of Nick’s, and kissed him.
His lips were warm. He didn’t seem surprised. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close to his body, and kissed her back. Their mouths fitted together perfectly and so did their bodies and Zoe kissed him slowly and savoured every taste and texture of his mouth.
Desire flared in her, beading her nipples against his chest and sending a rush of warmth between her legs. She could feel his penis hardening underneath her. And yet she still kissed him slowly. She let her tongue touch his and let her lips sample his mouth. She wanted him. He wanted her. It was under control. She could handle it.
She separated their kiss into smaller, separate kisses, touching his top lip, his bottom lip, the corner of his mouth, dipping into his mouth, each one brief and tender. She could feel him smiling and she stopped, her face a fraction of an inch above his.
‘This is very romantic,’ he whispered to her.
She smiled back at him. ‘Nobody’s ever accused me of that bef—’
She was interrupted by the roar of an eighteen-wheeler thundering up the Turnpike past them.
Both of them laughed, and that thrust their bodies even closer together. The root of his erection rubbed hard between her legs, sending melting pleasure through her, and she gasped.
Nick stroked up her back and held her head in one large hand so his palm cradled the side of her face. ‘I want you so much, Zoe,’ he said. ‘Don’t push me away this time. Please.’
‘You two need a tow or are you havin’ too good a time?’
Zoe didn’t get off Nick, but she did look over her shoulder. A tow truck had stopped on the shoulder behind Nick’s truck, and a man in a plaid shirt and a baseball cap was leaning against it.
‘Rescue’s arrived,’ she muttered, and rolled off Nick, but she made sure that as she did she pressed her breasts and hips as tightly against him as she could. Nick groaned quietly and she dropped another swift kiss onto his lips. ‘Be patient,’ she whispered, and then stood.
‘We’ll take a tow,’ she said. ‘Mr Bright Ideas here decided that driving round-trip to New York on his spare would be fun.’
‘Ayuh, that was a bright idea, all right.’ The man adjusted his baseball cap and then his jeans. ‘Well, you climb into the cab and I’ll hitch you up. I’ll drop off your truck at Maddie’s garage in Kittery, that’s the closest place, but they won’t be open at this hour. Won’t get your tyre fixed till tomorrow mornin’.’
Nick had stood and joined her. He placed a warm hand on the small of her back, a possessive touch that made her shiver.
‘Looks like we’ll be staying in Kittery for the night,’ he said. ‘Is there a hotel you can drop us at?’
‘Oh ayuh, there’s plenty.’
‘That’s good. A hotel’s much more
comfortable than the side of the road,’ he added in a low voice for Zoe’s ears only, and gave her a long look that sent another shiver through her.
‘Can’t see the stars, though,’ she replied. Her voice shook.
‘It’s not the stars I want to see.’ He touched her lips, once, briefly with his finger, an invitation and a promise, and then he joined the man.
Zoe could join them. She knew everything about cars, she knew how to hitch up a car to be towed, and she could shoot the manly crap as well as either of them. She didn’t have to wait in the cab of the truck like a helpless female.
But her blood was hot, her heart pounding, and every inch of her body was singing with anticipation and she wanted a moment to breathe. Because sex with Nicholas Giroux, if she had it, was going to be the experience of a lifetime and she wanted to calm down, slow down, get it right. Not rush in and fumble and mess it up.
She picked up the pigeon carrier, climbed into the tow truck, and rested it on her lap. Breathe, Zoe, she told herself. She took the pine-and motor-scented air deep into her lungs, in through her nose, out through her mouth, slowly and with discipline, as she’d trained herself to do as she exercised. And concentrated on her breathing, her body, her blood rushing through her veins. And nothing else.
Because if she really started thinking, she wouldn’t touch Nicholas Giroux again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE HOTEL WAS called The Lobster Trap. It didn’t seem like an auspicious name, really.
Swinging the room key from her fingers, Zoe walked towards Nick where he stood in the motel parking lot, having just paid the tow truck driver. He had his backpack on his back, and Zoe’s bag slung over one shoulder. When he saw her approach he bent to pick up the pigeon carrier case, too, but Zoe beat him to it.
‘Where are we sleeping?’ he asked cheerfully.
Zoe didn’t think his choice of words was all that accurate. After their kiss, they’d spent half an hour together in the cramped space of the tow truck’s cab. Her leg had pressed against his from hip to calf and even though he hadn’t laid a hand on her she’d been aware of every breath he’d taken, every small movement of his body as the truck had juddered over the road.
He’d spent most of the journey chatting with the driver about the weather, the roads, the fact that they had a New York City pigeon as a passenger. Zoe had been able to get a couple of cracks in—that was until she’d let herself turn her face towards Nick and their eyes had met.
Even in the dark cab, she’d been able to see what he’d been thinking about. The fact that they were going to a hotel to make love with each other. And at the thought such a huge wave of desire had swept through her body that she hadn’t trusted herself to speak again, for fear it would either come out as a squeak or a series of undignified horny gasps.
And now she was walking across the parking lot with him, towards the room where they would shortly engage in what she was sure would be the most pleasurable sexual intercourse she had ever experienced in her life.
‘Room sixteen,’ she said, checking the plastic fob on the room key and not meeting Nick’s eyes. The motel was a motor court, with the rooms arranged in a low white clapboard building lining two sides of the parking lot. Zoe headed for the left hand side, without looking to see if Nick was following her; she knew he was. ‘Right next to the ice machine, the lady said.’
‘That’ll be handy if we need cooling down,’ Nick said. She didn’t need to see his expression. The man was sex personified.
‘You’re a real smooth talker, do you know that?’
‘Hey, you have to develop a good line in charm when you’re trying to coax a wounded deer out of a thicket.’
‘Well, I’m not a wounded deer.’ She reached the door and slid the key into the lock. It took a little bit of jiggling before it turned.
‘No, you certainly are not.’ Nick stepped into the room after her and she barely had a chance to put down the pigeon and look around before his hands were on her shoulders, turning her gently around to face him.
‘You’re a sexy, intelligent, exciting woman,’ he murmured. He trailed one of his fingertips down the side of her cheek and over her lips, so tender and warm it felt like a kiss. ‘I’m glad you decided to get one room instead of two, Zoe.’
With his words she realised that he had arranged it on purpose so he had been busy paying the driver while she’d booked the room. He’d wanted to give her a choice about whether they’d share. About whether they’d sleep together.
‘They weren’t cheap,’ she hedged, and then felt her cheeks flush as she realised what a stupid thing she’d said. ‘Of course, I could probably buy the whole hotel if I wanted to, huh?’
‘And the one next to it,’ he agreed. ‘We didn’t even have to be in the same building if you didn’t want to.’
‘Well, we are,’ she said, and turned away from him to look around the room. It was mainly decorated in the sort of orange that had been in style in the seventies. The carpet was burnt umber, the wallpaper was beige with terracotta diamonds, the bedside lamps were tangerine. There was a picture of a lobster on the wall.
And the bed was big. Big and bedlike and orange with some sort of wicker headboard. Big and obvious and unavoidable because that was the place where the two of them were going to have sex with each other, because Zoe had made that decision, she’d decided it as soon as she’d kissed Nick, she’d decided it when she’d decided to come with him to Maine, and she wanted to have sex with Nick more than she wanted anything else in the world so why was she getting cold feet now?
She turned back to Nick. He’d put down his pack and her bag and was standing watching her. He still wore his shorts, running shoes and T-shirt and the outfit left little to the imagination. She could see the strength of his shoulders, the broad outline of his chest. She remembered what he looked like without a shirt on, and what he’d felt like when she’d touched him in the gym. His legs were muscular, perfect. The man even had sexy knees. And at his crotch, the material of his shorts was beginning to tighten and outline his arousal.
Yeah. Sexy man. This was not the problem. She met his eyes and faced the problem.
His eyes were dark and intense. His mouth was both firm and gentle. His cheekbones were noble, his chin was masculine. He was absolutely everything she dreamed about in a man and she was right back to what she’d been afraid of in the gym because if she slept with him she was going to tumble right into stupid, idiotic, kick-yourself-in-the-head type love with him.
‘Zoe?’ he said softly, and didn’t make a move towards her.
He was coaxing her. Like a damn injured deer.
Zoe straightened her spine at the realisation.
He thought she was afraid? He could have another think coming. She’d decided on a NewYork sidewalk to come up here to Maine with him and she’d decided by a Maine highway that she wasn’t going to be scared of anything. And she wasn’t.
This was Nick’s world, pine scent and lobster and all. It wasn’t her world. She wasn’t staying here, and she could take care of herself, and when she went back to NewYork she could carry on from where she left off. Because she always had.
Zoe smiled at Nick. She’d show him how scared she was.
She grabbed the hem of her T-shirt and pulled it over her head.
Nick’s eyes just about bugged out of their sockets. She saw him stare, saw him swallow, saw him not breathing. She watched his eyes travel over her chest. Her sports bra was black and not the most feminine thing on the planet, but Nick didn’t seem to care.
Zoe knew she wasn’t pretty, but she did like her body all right. She worked out just about every day; she was trim and fit and healthy and she’d had enough lovers to know that her body was attractive.
But the way Nick was staring at her was different from the way any other man had looked at her. He wasn’t assessing her or ogling her.
He was looking at her as if she were a goddess.
‘Zoe,’ he said again, and this
time it wasn’t coaxing. It was raw and full of hunger.
He took a single step towards her and Zoe saw the outline of his erection, full length now and taut against his shorts.
She wasn’t a goddess. But Nick wanted her, badly. And that made her feel powerful.
Zoe kicked off her sneakers and then hooked her fingers in the waistband of her shorts and pulled them down her legs. When she straightened up, she was wearing only her sports bra and her matching thong, and she could see Nick was breathing now, so hard he was nearly panting.
‘I need a shower,’ she said. ‘How about you?’
And she turned and walked into the bathroom, not checking if he followed her.
The bathroom wasn’t orange, mercifully, but it did have fish painted on the white tiles. The tub, with shower attached, wasn’t that big—not really big enough to get up to what she wanted to get up to in it. Zoe turned on the taps anyway and stood beside the tub in her underwear, testing the water with her hand as it warmed.
She didn’t hear him come in above the sound of the water but she felt his hands, big and warm, settle around her waist, and she felt his breath on the back of her neck. Zoe smiled and leaned slightly back against Nick. He was still dressed and his T-shirt felt soft against her bare skin, covering the hardness of his chest.
‘What took you so long?’ she murmured.
‘I was trying to believe my luck.’ He kissed her neck where it joined her shoulders and she shivered. Then she felt him unfastening her bra and gently pushing it off her shoulders. Her breasts were heavy and full, and her nipples puckered erect in the now-steamy air.
Nick smoothed his hands down her naked back and then stroked her underwear down over her hips and down her legs. His soft hair feathered the skin of her bottom as he bent to pull off the wisp of Lycra, and then his hands trailed up the backs of her legs, over her buttocks and to her hips as he straightened.
She was naked in front of him. In his hands, open to his gaze and his touch and his body.
She’d felt powerful. Now she felt like jelly.
Zoe turned around in his arms. The desire on his face nearly took her breath away. I wanted this guy from the minute I saw him and now I’m going to have him, she thought, and the thought spread a smile all over her face.