Leaving at Noon (9 page)

Theo wasn’t unaffected. His breath came in
short, heavy pants, and his erection pushed against her belly.

God. His erection. It felt like a million
years had passed since she’d felt it pressed against her. Inside
her. Hard and thick and pulsing with life.

If they weren’t standing on a public beach,
Zoey would be yanking at the drawstring of his boardies, getting
the shorts off him. Didn’t matter how damn fine he looked in them,
he looked better out of them. Way, way better. Naked Theo, with
passion flaring in his eyes and a throbbing erection, was the
single most arousing sight, ever.

Besides, he’d planted a Scorcher on her.
That could only mean he wanted those boardies to come off as much
as she wanted to take them off.

She stared up at him, dazed, his gaze
invisible behind his dark lenses.

“
Your phone call?” he
prompted, as if he hadn’t just scattered her senses to the
wind.

She dropped her arms and stood unsteadily,
waiting for her balance and equilibrium to return.

Pretty damn hard when Theo had just rocked
her world. Even harder when she took into account just how long it
had been since the last time he’d rocked her world.

“
Y-you know…” she poked a
shaky, accusatory finger into his chest, “…I can never t-talk after
one of those kisses.”

“
Wish I did know. But
after the last few months, I’m making no assumptions.”

“
Well, let me…” Impossible
to articulate words without oxygen. She took several deep breaths.
“…Enlighten you.” Zoey held up the shaky finger she’d poked him
with. “I…can’t talk.” A second trembling finger joined the first.
“Can’t think.” She added a third wobbly finger. “And can’t breathe.
Need…a minute.” Or ten.

Theo’s mouth curved up on the left-hand
side—adding another ten minutes to Zoey’s recovery time. Because,
damn it, when he smiled that half-smile—or even his full smile—the
dimple on his left cheek came out to play. And when the dimple came
out to play, Zoey’s entire body reacted.

That dimple did her in. It was only just
visible beneath the growth on his cheeks, and still it crushed her
defenses, muddled her senses and made her nipples tighten.

No kidding, first time she’d noticed it,
before she and Levi had ended their relationship, her nipples had
stood to attention. Then she’d had to spend forever explaining to
her boyfriend at the time why another guy’s dimple had given her a
nipple stand. Levi had accepted the explanation with an amused grin
and a knowing smile.

They’d broken up the next day.

Now Theo, who’d just treated her to the
Scorcher, flashed his dimple and frazzled her synapses. The only
message her brain successfully sent to her body was the one that
told her to get Theo’s shorts off, stat.

He leaned in close. “Been a while since you
looked at me like that, babe.” His warm breath washed over her ear,
making her shiver.

God help her, she wanted Theo. She wanted
him naked and aroused and staring at her with hunger in his
beautiful blue eyes. Her yearning was so acute, liquid heat pooled
between her legs. She had to swallow the plea that formed on her
tongue—in case she begged him to fuck her, right there.

“’
S’been a while since you
smiled at me like that, Hughesy.”

His cheek lost its dimple. “It’s been a
while since I smiled at you at all.”

Zoey could do nothing but nod. There hadn’t
been a whole lot of warm smile exchanges going on between them.

With a sigh, Theo bent down and picked up
her hat and sunnies. They’d fallen in the sand, and she hadn’t even
noticed. He plopped the hat on her head and handed over the
glasses.

She let them dangle from her hand. “It’s
been even longer since you treated me to a Scorcher.”

Theo smiled again, this time a
self-deprecating grin that only flashed half of his gorgeous
dimple. “I was going for a Slow-burn.” Two down from the Scorcher
and pretty self-explanatory. “Lost my way the second my lips
touched yours.”

Zoey shoved her sunnies on and slipped her
hand into his, linking their fingers together. Then she turned and
began to walk again, their joined hands ensuring Theo walked beside
her. Not that he’d have walked anywhere else. His sole purpose in
coming to Noosa was to sort their shit out.

The kiss was a good starting point, although
it shot him from frustrated and floundering to fully aroused and
fucking horny in four seconds flat.

“
I miss us,” she said on a
whisper.

He sighed. “Me too.”

“
What happened? What went
wrong?”

“
Fucked if I know.”
Helplessness clawed at him, like it had for weeks. “One minute we
were good. The next we weren’t.”

“
It changed that quickly?
In a minute?”

“
No.” He’d have noticed
such an abrupt transformation. “It crept up slow. Didn’t even
notice things were getting bad until they were bad.” Theo pressed
his lips together. They still tingled from the kiss. The taste of
Zoey’s breath lingered on his tongue—hot, sweet and purely
feminine.

But even a Scorcher—Zoey liked to name his
kisses—wasn’t enough to distract him from his apprehension. “Zo,
the suspense is killing me.”

She looked at him in confusion.

“
The phone
call?”

“
Oh yeah. I wanted to tell
you about work.”

Okay, he wasn’t expecting that. “So, it’s
not about us?” His relief was palpable.

“
No. This one’s about
me.”

“
Tell me.”

“
It seems silly now, after
that kiss. Unimportant even.”

Theo lowered his glasses and looked at her.
“It was important enough that you tried to phone me.”

“
I wanted to discuss the
clinic with you. Tell you how successful it’s becoming. After only
three months being open, it’s grown so big, we have to move. We
need bigger rooms and extra staff to treat all the new patients
who’ve joined the practice.”

“
That’s awesome, babe.”
Pride flared in his chest. He’d had no doubt the clinic would be a
success, but from the sounds of things, it had outdone all of
Zoey’s expectations.

“
That’s not all. Steve and
Katie are so happy with the growth, they’ve raised my
salary.”

Zoey worked set hours and was paid a
percentage of each of her consultation fees. The extra time she put
in was at her own expense. Theo had no doubt the raise was well
earned. “Did you just hear all of this from Katie and Steve?” he
asked.

“
No.” Zoey stared ahead,
giving him a strong sense she was avoiding his gaze. “Both the
decision to move and to raise my pay was made almost a month
ago.”

“
What the fuck?” His
fingers untangled from hers so fast her hand dropped to her side,
thumping against her thigh. He stopped walking. “Jesus, Zoey. A
month?”

And there it was, the chasm that existed
between them, opening up on the beach. Whatever closeness they’d
rediscovered through their kiss was sucked into the abyss.

Anger swamped him. “You’ve known about it
all this time, and you chose to tell me today?”

Zoey, a step ahead, turned to glare at him.
“When would you have liked me to tell you?”

“
When you found out would
have been good.”

“
You mean four weeks ago,
when we weren’t talking? Or maybe I should have spoken up a week
later, or two weeks later—when we still weren’t talking. I didn’t
say anything because the only time we’ve spoken in months was the
night before I left, and that would hardly have been
appropriate.”

“
Any day between now and a
month ago would have been better than today. All you needed to do
was open your mouth.”

“
And say what? Something
big’s happening at work? You stopped listening to my work stories
months ago.”

He stared at her. “Pardon?”

“
You lost interest in my
job a long time ago. And I lost the urge to come home and tell you
about my day around the same time. Hard to share my stories when
your attention’s a mile away.”

Oh hell no. She had the wrong end of the
stick. “I stopped listening because there was nothing to listen to.
The silence was oppressive.”

Zoey’s mouth opened, but she must have
decided against responding because she closed it again, tapping a
clenched fist to her lips. Then she tried again. “You’re saying
I
stopped talking to you?”

“
Pretty much.”

“
And you noticed?” Sarcasm
edged her words.

He gave her a derisive look.

Her lips thinned. “In one breath, you tell
me our problems crept up so slow you didn’t notice them until it
was too late, and in the next you tell me you noticed I stopped
talking to you.”

What was her point?

“
Make up your mind, Theo.
Either you were aware things were changing, or you
weren’t.”

“
I assumed you were
preoccupied. I waited, figuring you’d talk when you were ready.” He
let her process that before adding, “You didn’t.”

She chewed on her lower lip. “Maybe by the
time I was ready to talk, you’d stopped listening?”

“
Maybe.” But she hadn’t
tried to talk, so he couldn’t say for sure.

“
I wanted you to ask about
my work. You never did.”

He held his palms open. “Since when do I
have to ask? There was a time you’d tell me stuff
spontaneously.”

“
I assumed you didn’t
care.”

He gaped at her, incredulous. “We’ve been
married for five years. You’re my wife.” The most important person
in his life. “How could you think that?”

“
You weren’t talking! You
weren’t saying anything about what you were thinking or how you
were feeling.”

Theo frowned at her. What had she expected?
He’d never been one to wax lyrical about his thoughts or
emotions.

She must have read his expression. “You
withdrew so completely, I had to guess. My mind started wondering,
filling in the blanks, making up for your silence. I drew my own
conclusions but had no way of knowing if they were right or
wrong.”

“
And one of those
conclusions was that I didn’t care?” Man. How had she distorted
things so badly?

It took a while before she responded. “Do
you?”

That she even needed to ask… “I care, babe.”
His voice came out rough. “I’ve cared since the minute I first laid
eyes on you.” She’d been dancing in Levi’s arms. “Still care,” he
added, in case she wasn’t getting the message.

Her shoulders trembled. “I didn’t notice you
waiting for me to talk.”

“
You weren’t looking at
me.”

Her face fell. “Did I break us?”

“
You want me to lay the
blame for our troubles at your feet?”

“
I want to find a solution
to our troubles,” she said. “I want to do whatever’s necessary to
put all of this behind us.”

Something in her voice made Theo’s stomach
tense. “Put all of what behind us?”

“
Our problems.” Zoey
dropped her gaze to the sand. “Or our marriage.”

Her words hit him like a blow to the solar
plexus, making breathing and speech difficult.

Theo couldn’t begin to wrap his head around
the idea of putting their marriage behind them. He’d come to Noosa
to work things out, not bail on their relationship.

One thing he knew for sure, he wasn’t
leaving the problem-solving to his wife. Not if ending their
marriage was even a remote possibility in her eyes. “So, your
fault, therefore your solution? You’re taking the blame
and
the responsibility now?”

She gaped at him.

“
Takes two to tango, babe.
Half the blame is mine. Same thing goes for finding an answer to
our problems. Half the responsibility’s on me.”

“
God.” Her voice was thick
with despair. “I’ve spent so much time resenting you, I’ve
forgotten how to be a part of a couple.”

Her words came at him like daggers. “Do you
still resent me?”

Zoey took too long pondering her answer.

“
I guess that’s a
yes.”

“
I resent how far we
drifted and how little you seemed to care.”

“
Already established I
care.”

“
Then I resent that you
never let it show.”

He’d take responsibility for that. “Fair
enough.”

“
And I resent that we
stopped talking and started shouting.”

“
We shouted a
lot.”

Zoey stepped closer. “The not-shouting is
worse.”

“
The silence?”

She nodded. “And the iciness that follows
the fighting.”

“
It sucks.”

“
Know what else
sucks?”

Besides everything about their relationship?
Theo shook his head.

“
Not touching. Not holding
you.”

She took a hesitant step closer.

Understanding dawned on him. For the first
time in months, Theo needed what she needed. He hooked his arm
around her neck and hauled her against him with a hoarse groan.

Zoey whimpered. She wrapped her arms around
his waist, pressed her body against his—thigh to thigh and belly to
groin—and rested her cheek on his chest.

Insistent on full-body contact, Theo plucked
off her hat and dropped it in the sand. Then he slid one hand into
the silken softness of her hair and the other around her waist,
holding her close. He rested his chin on her head and closed his
eyes, letting the sensation of holding his wife register. “Feels
good.”