The Seduction of Suzanne Page 6
“Andrew’s the kind of guy who likes to have the best toys,” he said with a crooked smile. “I had to promise all kinds of unnatural things to get him to lend it to me, on top of the car. I guess he felt this was more fragile.”
“If it’s made of one of those really high-tech alloys for lightness during racing, it could just snap in half if it’s mistreated.” She wanted to see him cringe at the thought, but he only shrugged casually. “Anyway I shall endeavour to keep the two of you safe then, with no off-road stuff.”
After stretching to limber up their muscles, they cycled very slowly up the hill away from Medlands.
It was the kind of unbelievably clear day that New Zealand does so well. The air was pleasantly cool and still. Sparklingly fresh. Once they were away from the beach the road was surrounded by farmland for a couple of kilometres. White sheep grazed placidly on the slopes, ignoring them as they passed.
As soon as the road became more level, Suzanne picked up the pace. If she were honest, she had to admit to a petty wish Justin would fall behind. She had a need for him to show himself as less perfect. So far his greatest flaw seemed to be his own self-confidence, which was only really a flaw if it were overweening. She was looking for something that would make him less appealing to her.
However Justin stayed beside her. He adjusted his speed to hers without any obvious effort. Their bike wheels whirred companionably as they cycled together. She broke into a reluctant grin of acknowledgment as it became clear that even if he was not a cyclist, his level of general fitness was enough to carry him through.
Her attention slid back to the pleasant and familiar ache of warming muscles settling down to do some real work. With simple, uncomplicated joy she drew deep breaths into her mouth, fancifully imbuing the air with a taste, so refreshing it felt on her tongue and throat. She sucked it in, pulling it down into her lungs, balancing her attention between that and her pumping legs.
The road hugged the side of the hills, winding in and out of small valleys and passing through areas of forest as it went. It was one-lane, so when they heard a car approaching from behind or in front of them, they pulled over to the side and slowed to let it go past. Yet vehicles were few and far between, and mostly there was a peaceful quiet broken only by the sound of their passage, and by birdcalls.
Neither of them spoke, and it occurred to Suzanne that she had seldom enjoyed a bicycle ride as much as this one. Usually she cycled alone, relishing the opportunity to set a pace that was comfortable or challenging, to slow or stop and enjoy her surroundings. If she went with someone else the journey was inevitably dominated by their presence.
Justin seemed to sense her feelings, and was silent. Thus she was able to feel all her customary pleasure in the activity, and also that joy which comes from sharing an experience you treasure with someone else, like giving a particularly precious gift.
She led them in a large loop, and they finally approached Medlands again two hours from the time they’d left it. On the long, steep slope back down to the beach they both stopped pedalling and lifted their fingers from the brakes to fly like the wind, faster and faster all the way to the floor of the valley. On the level they gradually slowed, obedient to the inevitable force of friction, until the bikes eventually came to a stop a dozen metres short of his friends’ house.
Drawn up at the side of the road, she propped herself up with one leg, unfastened her helmet and swept it off, then turned to him with a tremendous smile.
She was unaware of the way her tousled black hair framed her face, strands freed from her loose plait falling forward to stroke her flushed cheeks. Nor did she know how her warm brown eyes beckoned, her breasts rising and falling with recent exertion, or that her dampened shirt clung revealingly to her torso and rode above her long, straight legs.
But he saw it, and his hands tightened on the handgrips as he made an involuntary move toward her, and was stopped by the presence of his own bike. She seemed to glow with pleasure, and he felt an undeniable urge to be close to her, and bask in the warmth of her happiness. With a conscious effort he returned her smile, and hid his hunger.
“So, better than surfing?” she asked blithely.
“Different,” he said.
“But you enjoyed it, didn’t you?” she enquired, suddenly anxious lest she had misinterpreted his silence during the ride.
“Oh yes, very much,” he said, and she could tell that he meant it. Without warning she felt awkward. She didn’t know what to say to him now, having spent so long in silent enjoyment of his presence.
Really she knew virtually nothing about the man.
“I suppose we should get your friend’s bike back to him, so that he can stop worrying,” she said, hanging her helmet from one handlebar.
“It’d probably be a load off his mind,” he replied, his breathing already slowed back to a normal speed. He had a fantastic recovery rate. She had strong views about a needing to take good care of one’s body, and it certainly looked like Justin was making the most of the impressive gifts he’d been given by nature.He was a consummate athlete, totally physically competent, the penultimate healthy male animal.
And each time she thought about his masculinity she felt tendrils of heat unfurl through her body, her heart beating heavily. It was like she’d been asleep as a woman, her feminine nature ignored as an inconvenience. And she hadn’t missed it. Or at least, had never admitted missing it. The feelings this man roused in her left her reeling in confusion, searching for solid ground.
They both dismounted and walked slowly back toward the driveway of the big house. Under the shade of the final pohutukawa he stopped, and so did she, looking up at him warily with her head cocked, one hand fiddling with the buckle of her helmet.
“That was quite something.”
“The ride?” she asked.
“That was good too. I was thinking more of a couple of hours watching you work. You have a magnificent body you know. It’s fascinating. With all that beautiful scenery, I know which part of it I like the most.”
He stood only inches away from her now, his bike held upright by an idle hand, all his attention on her. The sun shone on his blonde hair, which gleamed like gold in the light. She could smell him, the scent of clean male sweat, sandalwood and a faint musk. His eyes were a ferocious blue.
She blinked at him, wide-eyed, as she suddenly formed a mental picture of what he had been looking at for the past couple of hours from his position to one side and slightly behind her. She had focused on the landscape, but apparently his mind had been elsewhere at least some of the time.
When she didn’t respond he took a small sideways step, bringing his body within a whisper of touching hers. She looked helplessly up at him, feeling like a deer caught in headlights.
“Two hours of torture, locked in my own head. All I can do is stare at you and imagine doing this,” he lowered his head to brush his lips gently over her startled, open mouth.
“Huh,” she said, more the quiver of her diaphragm than an actual word.
“And this,” he continued, sliding his mouth across hers, once, twice, and then settling there as lightly as butterfly wings. He ran his fingertips up her arm. She swayed towards him. He urged her closer with just the pads of his fingers. With a sigh she met his body with hers.
The kiss deepened. Then he put one big hand on her waist and tugged her off balance so she was pressed against him from knee to breast. She only reflexively managed to keep her bike upright as she leaned on the rigid wall of rippling muscle that was him after a good workout.
She relaxed into him, her soft curves melting on his hardness. She sighed again into his mouth, and he skimmed his tongue between her lips. As her own came hesitantly to meet it, his hand cupped her neck. Distantly she heard the sound of their bikes falling to the grassy ground, and was glad to find both hands suddenly free to run over the muscles of his back.
Hope we didn’t snap the bike, she thought muzzily, and then he took her beyond thinkin
g with his kiss.
He dipped deeper, the decadent slide of his tongue on hers so strange after such a long time, yet so right to the very core of her woman’s body, awakening tremors that rippled through her, so her hands shook on the solid planes of his back. He pulled her even closer, so he was almost lifting her off the ground, only her toes still in contact with it.
Even as he used his strength, his kiss was still soft, gentle. Nothing fearsome about this tender heat that warmed her though and through. No alarm bells, no panic. Only a delicious ooze of pleasure, a languid liquid delight of hard man with sweet mouth poured into her.
They shared breath, his chest rising and falling, she barely knowing how to breathe with her whole being focused on the intensity of sensation engulfing her.
How long they stood there by the driveway, passionately kissing, she later had no idea. It was he who broke it off, moving his lips to her temple and pressing them there as they both stood holding on and panting, moulded together.
With a sudden jerk she pulled away. His arms dropped to his sides. She stared wordlessly at him, her heart still pounding tumultuously. Abruptly she turned and pulled her bike upright with trembling hands, swung it around and started down the drive, walking with quick, unsteady steps.
“Suzanne?” he called after her.
“That was a mistake,” she shot over her shoulder.
“A mistake?” he said incredulously, and caught up with her in long strides, reaching out and stilling the bike between them so that she had to stop. He gazed straight at her with those fierce blue eyes, brows drawn a little together as if trying to read her. She looked back at him under her lashes, defiant. Scared by the chasm that had opened under her feet where she thought the ground was solid.
“That was no mistake. Suzanne. Sweet, pure, delicious fire, yes. Hot enough to burn.” His eyes flicked to her mouth.
Her lips fell open. She clenched her hand on the hard metal of the bike handle.
“I wasn’t thinking.”
“Neither was I,” he said with a short laugh. “When something feels that good, who needs to think?”
“I do!” she cried. “I don’t want this!”
“Then why did you come today? Why do we feel so good together? Why,” he cupped her face gently with his strong fingers, “did you kiss me at all?”
“I . . . don’t know,” she said miserably. “Like I said, it was a mistake.”
“I don’t think it was. I think you’re trying to avoid the inevitable.”
“This is not inevitable,” she hissed. She wrenched her bike from his loosened grip, took a several running steps and flung herself astride it. For a moment she thought she’d fall right back off again. Then she found her rhythm and began to cycle furiously away as if demons were chasing her.
To her terrified heart, they were.
Suzanne spent the rest of the day in her large vegetable garden, energetically pulling up weeds and cursing herself for being stupid enough to fall into a schoolgirl crush.
A crush, dammit!
So he was breathtakingly handsome. So he was tall and strong, and had a magnetic smile and oozed charisma. So he was charming and possessed an easy sense of humour.
So what!
He probably left a forlorn trail of infatuated women everywhere he went.
He was also a man without a purpose in life, beyond enjoying himself. At any moment he could bundle up his surf board and leave the island. Besides that, a man with the appeal he had would no doubt have a long string of past relationships, and an equally long string of future ones.
“I am not prepared,” she said vehemently, as she buried her trowel deeply in the rich, black soil, “to be just one more woman in his drifting life.” No matter how unbelievably good he tastes, she added silently, and then went back to cursing herself.
That night, her pleasantly worn muscles should have sent her swiftly to sleep. Instead she tossed and turned, twisting the few bedclothes into knots. Finally she shoved them down to the end of the bed and lay spreadeagled, staring up at the gauzy drape of the mosquito net, dimly seen in the faint moonlight easing in through her open windows. With a sigh she gave up on sleep. As often as she had decided not to have any further contact with Justin, she kept coming back to gnaw over the decision. She knew what that meant.
If she were brutally honest, she felt more desire for him than she had ever experienced before in her life.
Frightening, heart-clenching desire, overwhelm-ingly intense.
Growing up on the island, she had known the boys who were her age from the time they were all children together. They had been friends and playmates. Occasionally she had thought about dating one or another of them, but she’d never felt a strong enough pull towards anyone to endanger a friendship trying to deepen it into something more significant.
Her first tentative ventures into romance had been with visitors to Great Barrier Island. Teenagers who came with their families to spend a summer on the island were happy to share long days with her on the beach, to hold hands and make out under the pohutukawa trees.
But always at the end of the season they would leave again, promising to write. One or two letters would come, and then she would be forgotten.
After a couple of years where the same thing had happened, she decided it was all a waste of time and tears, and swore to be just friendly with summertime acquaintances, nothing more.
Then there had been Gavin, so good-looking she imbued him with all sorts of characteristics of virtue that turned out to exist only in her own mind. He fired her blood so much she swooned around fantasizing about him for days on end. In her head they had a hundred sweet, tender conversations, delicate kisses and impassioned promises. For him she reversed her decision to avoid summer romances, with absolutely disastrous results.
The crash and burn was devastating. She shrank from offering her heart to anyone after that. Handsome young men made her shut down, draw away, blank-faced with a churning gut.
But she didn’t want to spend a lifetime alone. At the very least she wanted children someday. But not with anyone who made her heart race, made her forget wisdom and sanity.
When she went to Auckland to study teaching, she looked forward to meeting a genuine young man her age. She wanted a chance to build a long-term relationship, a rich friendship. She deliberately picked one of her classmates, Michael. He was shy, and awkward enough she occasionally wondered if teaching was the right career path for him, before putting aside the thought as disloyal. And he wasn’t exactly good-looking. In fact she felt completely safe with him because he didn’t stir her body at all. She knew she could stay clear-headed with him. He was no threat.
They had what Michael had liked to call a meeting of minds, and could talk easily to each other for hours. She enjoyed watching his confidence grow through their training, as he blossomed into a wise and compassionate young teacher. They had even kissed sometimes. However she never felt a strong desire for more than that, and when he didn’t press the issue, she settled contentedly into a virtually platonic relationship with him.
It was she who had broken it off, in the final term of their course. After carefully observing the two of them during several weekends on Great Barrier Island, her father had taken her aside just before they were to leave on a Sunday.
“Suzanne, I don’t have anything against Michael,” he had said gently, “but I wonder why you see him as anything more than a friend. Can you honestly tell me that there is any spark between you two? If there is I can’t see it, and it seems a real shame for you to be with someone who doesn’t make you . . . well . . . thrilled to be with him. You deserve real love, sweetheart, not just friendship.” He had looked at her earnestly from under his bushy eyebrows as he spoke, gauging her reaction to his words.
“Of course we have a spark, Dad,” she said indignantly, taken aback that he should doubt it. “I love Michael!”
“Or perhaps you are in the habit of thinking you do,” said he soberly.
It was a week before she would admit to herself that her fury had been a knee-jerk reaction, covering her sudden fear that he was right about her relationship with Michael. Or more, he was right she needed more. She didn’t want to need more. She wanted to settle for safety, find fulfilment without threatening her guarded heart.
She wanted for this to be enough.
And it wasn’t.
In the dark fastnesses of her woman’s soul she wanted more, but lacked the courage to chase it.
She couldn’t hold on to Michael, knowing he wasn’t enough to keep her happy. He deserved a wholehearted love.
Deeply apprehensive, she broke the news she couldn’t be his girlfriend anymore. He took it calmly, once she reassured him that it wasn’t because of anything he’d said or done.
“I don’t want to stop being friends, though,” he said. “That would really hurt, because I can talk to you about things that I can’t tell anyone else, and you always understand.”
If anything, their break-up had seemed to strengthen their friendship. Michael often came to stay for a weekend or even longer in the holidays, now that she lived alone. He would bring a stack of videos if it were winter, or the weather forecast was particularly bad, and she would catch up on all the movies that she never saw on the island, or they’d stay up late talking. When the weather was fine they would usually go tramping, which he particularly enjoyed. Suzanne never stopped being glad that the end of their romance hadn’t damaged their friendship. These days – knowing rather more about the world – she wondered if her increasingly self-assured friend might someday produce a boyfriend for her to meet.
Yet she hadn’t had any significant relationship with a man since she had broken up with Michael. Sometimes being steadfastly single made her feel out of kilter with the rest of the world. More often she simply felt lonely, despite her friends and the other talkative, nosy individuals on the island.