Just for You (4 page)

“Good of you, but I’m not interested.”

She walked away, and he turned in his seat to watch her go. Another skirt, jandals, a sleeveless turquoise blouse, all of it showing off her firm, shapely arms and legs, her spectacular curves. Her hair knotted at the back of her head. Hair that, he knew, reached to her waist in thick waves of the darkest brown when she took it down. Or when he did.

He’d stood behind her in the hotel room on that warm summer evening, had slid the zip of that red dress slowly down her back, had watched it fall to the floor in a crimson pool, leaving her standing in nothing but high heels and a pair of undies that he’d already taken off once and couldn’t wait to take off again, and he’d held her by the shoulders, bent to kiss her neck from behind. Had pressed up close behind her, a hand going around to cup a full, round breast as if he couldn’t help himself, because he couldn’t. Had felt her shiver under his mouth, his touch, feeling her as attuned to him as he was to her, like they were connected, like he was in her skin and she was in his.

He’d pulled the pins out of her hair, then, one by one, watched the dark, curling mass fall down her brown back until it reached the devastatingly deep curve of her waist, and he’d plunged his hands into it, pulled her head gently back by it and kissed her neck again, and that had been the start of their second time.

Not their last time that night, but the last time he was likely to see, at the rate he was going. He sighed, picked up his hamburger, and asked himself why it mattered. He’d thought in the past that the first time was the best, or the second at most. The excitement of the hunt, the chase. But he’d already done that, with her. He’d caught her, he’d had her, and he’d let her go.

The problem was, he wanted to catch her again, and this time, he wanted to hold her. But she wasn’t playing anymore.

H
e woke early the next morning because, once again, he’d gone to bed early, sober, and alone. He rolled out of bed in his boxers, opened the curtains to another crystalline Northland day, heard the tui offering up their melodious calls in the red-blossomed pohutukawa trees, and decided that he wasn’t going to spend another minute of this last day of his holiday in this pokey room. So he pulled on togs and a T-shirt, shoved his feet into jandals and grabbed a towel, thought about taking the car, and decided to walk.

Well, jog, because somehow he always ended up jogging, even in jandals. Walking was so
slow
. Ten minutes over the hill, seeing a few early-morning drivers, a dog-walker or two along the way, and he had turned down the steep track through the bush to Long Beach. A few more quick steps, a hop down the bank, and he was kicking off the jandals and dropping the towel onto the beach, only a couple holidaymakers visible in the distance, a single swimmer in the water making pretty good progress toward shore.

The swimmer’s strong crawl brought her closer, and he stopped walking. She stood up in the water that reached just above her knees, and it was Reka.

Reka, in a bright yellow bikini that was doing some hard work to keep her naughty bits covered, and Reka had some
very
naughty bits. Her hair in a long braid, the water glistening on her brown skin, the wet fabric clinging, and he stood for a moment and just looked.

Finally, though, he walked towards her, and she saw him and stopped where she was, at the edge of the water.

“Morning,” he said. “I was just about to have a swim myself.” Another bloody brilliant opening line.

She glanced at him, then turned away, headed up the shore toward her things. “I see that.”

“I could miss that out, though,” he said, keeping pace with her, “if you’d like to go for brekkie with me, as we’re both here. You’re an early riser too, eh.”

“Thanks,” she said, “but no. I meant what I said yesterday. Not interested.”

She bent to her towel on the beach, and despite his frustration, he couldn’t help noticing that Reka bending down was a sight for sore eyes. A sight he’d seen before, without the bikini, and a rush of heat filled him at the memory. Reka from behind, bent over the bed, holding on…that had very nearly been his favorite.

But just now, she wasn’t bending over anymore. She wasn’t trying to show him anything at all. She was drying off with her towel, which he’d have liked to have been helping her with, and then, to his disappointment, she was taking a dress from her bag and pulling it over her head, and all those lush curves were covered again.

“Do you have a partner now, is that it?” he asked. Why hadn’t that occurred to him? Because he hadn’t wanted to think about it, that was why. And because it didn’t even matter now that he had thought of it, which was wrong of him, maybe, but true all the same.

“It couldn’t be,” she said, facing him again, “that I just don’t want
you?
Am I the only girl who’s said no, then? Bit hard to believe.”

He felt the flush rising. “Of course not. But you wanted me once, and it was good. It was bloody good, and you know it.”

“One time,” she said.

“More than one time,” he pointed out.

“One night,” she amended. “And, what? You want one more night? Here you are on holiday again, and here I am, still looking good and so convenient?”

Which was the truth, but somehow not all of the truth. He was struggling to answer that, but she wasn’t done.

“I don’t think so,” she told him. “I’m not interested in being your bit of holiday fun. Again. Shouldn’t have done it the first time, but I reckon a girl’s allowed one mistake, and you were mine.”

He did his best to rally. “That’s what it was? A mistake? Seemed to me it was more than that. Felt pretty good, for a mistake.”

She looked at him, the scorn coming off her in waves. “Haven’t you learnt any more than that, then? Mistakes can feel good. At the time. It’s what comes afterwards that lets you know if it’s a mistake or not. And what came afterwards between us?”

“Nothing,” he admitted. “Nothing.”

“Too right.”

“Because I didn’t call.”

“You’re quick, aren’t you? Yeh, because you didn’t call. I can’t exactly whinge about that, though, can I? I let somebody shag me against the wall a couple hours after I meet him, and I think he’s going to be sending me flowers the next day? Like I said. My mistake, which I’m not interested in making again.”

“But I’m…I’m different,” he tried to explain. “That was before. That was that first year.”

“That first year of what?”

“When I was first selected for the All Blacks. When I was first getting a bit of notice, and everybody wanted to be with me.”

Now she was the one flushing. “Like me.”

“Nah. Not like you. With you, it was…it was me. I got that. And it was you.” He wasn’t explaining himself well at all. “I mean, it was special. It wasn’t because of the footy thing. It was because it was so good to dance with you, and there was something there, with us. I know there was.”

“Huh.” It was very nearly a snort. “Pretty bloody special. Here’s what actually happened. You’re on holiday for a few days. You’re leaving, what, today? Tomorrow? You saw me, and you remembered that you had fun, because I’ll do anything, and you want to have another ‘special’ time before you go. And that’s all.”

“Nah,” he found himself saying. “I’m staying on for another couple days.” He was? He was going to be taking the bus back, then, because the car was Nikau’s, and the boys were leaving today. “I’d make it more,” he hurried to add, “but I have to get back to Auckland for training. This is my last bit of time before the season. So have a heart. Go out with me, that’s all I’m asking. No strings.”

“You want to go out with me? All right, then.” She picked up her bag, turned to leave. “I’ll be having a bit of a beach day here, tomorrow around noon with my family. You want to see me? See me then.”

S
he didn’t expect him to turn up, of course. She helped Great-Uncle Matiu over the bit of dune and set up a chair for him, spread out a couple blankets for the rest of them, took herself into the water for a swim and barely looked around, because she didn’t want to be disappointed.

But when she got out fifteen minutes later, there he was again, watching her. He waited for her to dry off, stood back until she introduced him to her family. She watched him greet Great-Uncle Matiu with a respectful hongi and handshake before turning to Auntie Kiri, then Ana and Ella, another cousin who’d come along for the day. Nothing wrong with his manners, nothing at all.

Nothing wrong with how he looked, either. In togs again, thankfully not too long, which let her look at his thighs, at every hard, delineated muscle of them. She’d seen him on TV in his rugby shorts, and those were even shorter, but the effect was nothing to seeing him up close. His body was, if anything, stronger than the one she remembered. Extra time in the gym, she guessed. And just to make it better, he was wearing an NBA tank top that showed off the solid beef of his shoulders and arms. The whole effect was pretty overwhelming, and had Ana looking at Reka with a raised eyebrow that Reka ignored.

He’d turned up. She hadn’t thought he would. A picnic with her family had sounded like the polar opposite of what he wanted from her. But he’d turned up, and her heart insisted on doing a Happy Dance at the thought of it, and the sight of him.

“Who wants to go in the water?” she asked, laughing at the chorus of “Me!” from the kids. They had a few extras along, as usual. And then it got even better, because Hemi stripped off the tank top to come join them, and Reka got a bit distracted.

Everything about him was perfect, and she remembered exactly why she’d danced with him, why she’d gone outside with him, why she’d gone to the hotel with him. The heavy bulge of shoulder muscle, the tapering vee of his torso, the horizontal ridges of his abdomen disappearing into the tops of his togs, which she didn’t want to look at too closely. The slabs of his pectorals, one of them completely overlaid by the intricately
curved lines of his moko, the Maori tattoo that extended over shoulder and arm, all the way to his elbow.

His pendant was a hei matau, a fish hook, she saw, rather than the toki, the adze she would have expected. She’d have thought it would have been all about strength and willpower.

Take the kids swimming
, she reminded herself, so she did that, and he helped, not trying to talk to her, focusing on the kids, diving with them, swimming with them, giving them tosses through the air that had them shrieking and begging for more.

When they were back on shore again, and he was leaning back on an elbow on the blanket, still with that shirt off, his legs outstretched, eating a sandwich and seeming happy to be there with them, she gave in to temptation and looked her fill at his tattoo and his pendant—and the body they decorated.

He caught her looking and smiled, and she smiled back, because she couldn’t help it.

“Why a fish hook?” she asked him.

Uncle Matiu answered before Hemi could. “Probably for safety over water. For good health and good luck. For the rugby.”

“That’s it,” Hemi said, sitting up and nodding at her uncle with deference, holding the bit of carved greenstone in one of those clever hands, caressing its curves. “My dad gave it to me when I made the Under-19s. Letting me know that he believed I’d be traveling, that he believed I’d be doing this with my life. That he believed in me, I guess.” He smiled, and it wasn’t the cocky grin. It was sweet, real, and her heart melted a little.

“Where’s your whanau, then, Hemi?” Auntie Kiri asked.

“The Far North,” he answered. “Near Ahipara.”

“Quite a distance from Auckland,” Auntie Kiri commented. “Must get lonely.”

Reka wanted to snort at that, because if there was one thing she was pretty sure Hemi wasn’t, it was lonely.

To her surprise, though, he answered seriously, “It does. I asked my mum and dad about moving to Auckland, but they didn’t want to leave, even though my sister and brother aren’t there. They’re both in Aussie, one in Queensland, one in Western Australia.”

“That’s where my man is,” Ana put in, adjusting Tamati in her arms as she fed him, a nursing blanket draped over them for modesty. “Perth. For the mining. Wants us all to join him there, but I don’t know. So far, and having my kids grow up Mozzies, it’s hard. But we’ll probably go all the same, because it’s hard to be apart, too.”