Our Kind of Love (23 page)

Ry planted a kiss on the top of her head. ‘Coming right up.’

Joe knocked, waited a half a second for an answer and then simply opened the door. Light streamed into the room, all white walls, sheets and carpet, and all he could see was Anna’s shining, black hair splayed out on the pillow and the sexiest face he’d ever seen. She was still fast asleep.

He was mesmerised. She was on her back, her arms up on the pillow beside her ears, and the sheet was just low enough that he could see she was wearing something pale pink and silky. Her face, free of make-up looked peaceful and serene. Her lips were full and soft and her long lashes splayed on her cheeks.

Joe sat down on the bed beside her. The movement roused Anna and her eyes fluttered open.

‘Good morning.’ He tried not to let the happiness he felt at seeing her again show in his face or his voice. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her off. He could do stoic. He’d made a career out of it.

Anna yawned and, still half awake, stretched her arms out. The move rustled the sheet and it dropped lower.

Kill me now
, Joe thought. Her full breasts were barely covered and the wind blowing in from the window seemed to have had an effect on her nipples. They were budded into peaks and almost poking through her top. What he wanted to do with his tongue right about now …

‘Good morning,’ she murmured.

What he wanted to do with his tongue? Add hands and his lips to that list.

Anna smiled sleepily and it hit him. That face, that satisfied, slumberous look, was exactly how she looked the morning after their night together. Something slammed him right in the solar plexus and almost robbed him of the ability to speak. Who needed coffee when you can get an adrenaline rush like this? Joe leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together so they wouldn’t disobey him and reach out to stroke her soft cheek.

‘See?’ Anna yawned. ‘This is why I don’t trust sleepy coastal towns. All kinds of maniacs could be hiding out down here and just wander in to your bedroom when you’re asleep. Who knows what they might do to you when your resistance is low.’

‘Don’t tempt me,’ Joe said. ‘I mean it.’

They shared a look.

‘So what are you doing in my bedroom? I’m the one who gets to make house calls, remember?’

Why was he there? There was an answer to that question that almost tripped from his lips.
Because I couldn’t wait to see you. Because I was awake half the night thinking about fucking you
.

Joe cleared his throat. ‘Surfing, remember?’

Anna gripped the sheet and pulled it over her head. ‘Oh no.’

‘Oh yes. You promised. We’re going to get you up on that board today and turn you into a surfer girl.’

Anna slowly lowered the sheet to reveal her lips. ‘Can I at least get a coffee first?’

‘Go! Go, Anna! This is the one!’

Anna could feel the wave rumbling under her board and she pushed her palms down hard, feeling the sticky wax under her fingers. Then, in a move Joe had made her practice for what seemed like a thousand times, she pushed herself up, pulled her feet under her and found her crouching position. She lifted her hands, kept low, spread her arms wide and looked at nothing but the shoreline. Her quads ached but she ignored it. Everything seemed to be working.

And she was up.

Anna wobbled but caught herself, used her arms to balance on either side and rode the wave. She wasn’t out very deep, but it was a wave none the less, and she was riding that sucker.

‘Don’t look at your feet,’ Joe shouted above the wind. She didn’t want to look at her feet. She looked at Joe, lovely Joe, using him as a marker towards the sand. He was right in front of her, waving his arms like a maniac and smiling a smile so big she could see his white teeth shining.

‘Go, Anna!’

And she felt like she was flying through the water and the air at a million miles an hour, the noise of the waves around her, the wind whipping through her hair, the sun on her face. Her heart beat so fast and strong she could feel it in her eyes and she started to chuckle. This was better than almost anything she’d ever done. Graduating from medical school. Buying her practice. Her ridiculous, big, fat Italian sham of a wedding to Alex. Because this was about something just for her. This wasn’t about
la bella figura
. This was about Anna, the good girl. It was just for her, to fill her own heart. It was for the teenager who’d been too scared to let go. This was for all of her pasts and all of the futures she was going to create for herself.

For her. For her new life.

‘Woo hoo!’ she yelped into the wind.

And then it was over. She’d zipped past Joe and jumped off the board, as he’d instructed her, before the water got too shallow. She landed on her feet, stumbled, and fell in under the wave. Joe had caught her board and was right there, reaching down under her arms to haul her to standing. She held on to his forearms, losing her balance a little with another wave buffeting her, and steadied. She spluttered and caught her breath, full to overflowing with the thrill of what she’d just done.

And then Joe lifted her into his arms and whooped. ‘Oh my God! You did it!’

Anna laughed, reached up and threw her arms around his neck.

And kissed him.

Salt and Joe and desire slammed into her and she kissed him. He reacted in the exact way she’d hoped. His lips parted and their tongues met in a tangle: cool water, hot lips, searching hands and gasping breath. She pressed her wetsuited body to his. When they stopped to take a breath, she nudged his nose with hers and linked her fingers behind his neck.

‘You did it,’ he murmured and his eyes searched her face.

Anna struggled to breathe, her racing heart thumping so hard in her chest she was certain he could feel it through two layers of neoprene. ‘I couldn’t help it. I wanted to kiss you.’

His sexy grin had parts of her tingling that had felt dead for a long, long time. ‘I meant the surfing.’

‘Oh yeah, that too.’

Joe released her. She unlinked her fingers from behind his neck and they slid a slow trail across his shoulders, down his arms to his hands. Her feet found the sand but she felt weightless.

‘That was pretty good.’

‘The surfing or the kissing?’

‘Both. Although I think I liked the kiss better,’ he said.

She’d liked that kiss better than anything else ever in her life up to that moment.

The waves lapped around them but neither of them could find any more words to say. A tsunami could have swept in around them and they wouldn’t have noticed.

‘Shall we do it again?’ Anna teased, winding her fingers around his.

‘The surfing or the kissing?’

Anna took a deep breath to give her the fortitude to say it out loud. ‘You asked me yesterday if I wanted to have some fun this weekend.’

‘Uh huh.’ Joe could barely remember five seconds ago, much less what he’d said yesterday.

‘Ask me again.’

‘You want to have some fun, Anna Morelli?’

‘Well, that depends.’

He pulled her hand behind him and their bodies crushed up against each other. ‘On what?’

‘On what kind of fun you’re talking about,’ she replied.

If they were in a cartoon, a light bulb would have suddenly appeared above Joe’s head, aglow. ‘I can do fun.’

‘I’m thinking consenting adults kind of fun.’ An ache started low and strong at the top of her thighs at the thought of having that kind of fun – again – with Joe.

‘There’s a lot of choice right there.’

‘I’m thinking the horizontal kind.’

And then his lips were a breath away from hers. ‘Horizontal?’

‘Naked and horizontal.’

‘I would have picked you as someone a little more adventurous. Doc.’

‘Vertical?’

He shrugged.

‘Upside down?’

‘Up. Down. On top. Sideways. Backward. Every fucking way.’ Joe grabbed her hand. ‘Let’s go.’

CHAPTER
28

It only took a minute to walk across the esplanade. They stacked the boards in the back of Joe’s car and two minutes later they were back at Joe’s place.

In the backyard they stood, barely breathing. Joe had already peeled the top half of his wetsuit down and the sight of his bare chest sent Anna’s pulse into the stratosphere. There was no reason anymore to pretend she wasn’t looking at him, every square, tanned, muscled inch of him. This was the new Anna, unleashed. As he leaned down to turn on the water and pick up the hose, Anna studied every feature. His strong arms. His wide shoulders. She forgot, for once, what the medical names of all those muscles were. They weren’t triceps, biceps, the
latissimus dorsi
or the
gluteus maximus
anymore. She wasn’t looking at him like a medical professional now. She was looking at him like a woman, and he was a lean, sculpted package who was simply hotter than hell.

‘Anna,’ he said and their eyes met. Standing there holding the hose, an arc of water reaching across the lawn, he looked like a Greek god water feature. She let her eyes drop to his lips, and then slowly, deliberately, she trailed them down the wet skin of his throat, across the form of his chest and down to his hips.

‘Yes?’

Joe grinned, his eyes full of awareness as he dipped his gaze to her body and nodded. ‘You need to take that off.’

She wasn’t mistaken. He was feeling it too; she could hear it in his voice, deeper and gruffer than before. Could see it in his suddenly serious eyes and almost-there smile.

‘The wetsuit,’ he said. ‘We need to hose them off.’ Joe took a step closer and the cool spray of water from the hose splashed Anna’s feet. ‘The salt water dries out the neoprene. We don’t want them to get stiff.’

Anna put her hands on her hips. Fun, huh? She could do fun. She wasn’t so uptight and serious and doctor-y that she didn’t have fun firmly embedded in her repertoire. She reached her hands up behind her neck and lifted her chin, fluttering her eyes closed against the sun and flicking her hair out of the way. ‘Could you unzip me?’

Anna felt a delicious thrill at knowing he was watching her every move. She turned her back to him but glanced over her shoulder, could see his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat and a serious expression where his smile had been.

She felt the release of pressure against her skin as Joe pulled the zip down, between her shoulder blades, and it tickled against her spine and slowly came to a stop in the small curve of her back. ‘I got it from here,’ she told him. He stepped back while Anna crossed her arms and reached to opposite shoulders, gripping the wetsuit and pulling it down over her arms until it dangled at her waist. A quick glance at Joe revealed flash of desire in his eyes.

This was fun. This was more than fun. Anna gripped the wetsuit and tugged it down over her hips and her thighs and when it was down to her calves, she stretched her feet out of it and kicked it off onto the grass.

The way his mouth dropped open just a little made Anna think he’d never seen a woman in a red bikini before.

Without saying a word he aimed the spray of the hose over the inside-out wetsuit, which was now lying in a tangled clump on the ground. Droplets of spray pinged up and splashed the curve of her calves. He moved the hose nozzle from side to side, rinsing a sleeve, a leg, the back zip.

Then he took a step closer and handed Anna the hose.

‘Hold this.’ Joe reached around and slid his hands down over his backside, using his palms as a wedge to separate the clinging neoprene from his body. Never letting his eyes leave hers, he tugged the wetsuit down his thighs and stepped out of it. He planted his feet on the grass, and met her eyes, his chest rising and falling, silvery droplets of water trickling down his legs.

Damn it, she’d found an imperfection; a tan line, low on his hips. But, Anna decided, perhaps in this case it was something she could overlook. Hell, she was so strung up with desire she wanted to lick the line with her tongue. Instead, she lifted the hose and let the spray trace that tan line from hip to hip, saturating his boardshorts so they clung to his thighs – and other interesting bits of him – like cling wrap.

Then his fingers were on her wrist and he took the nozzle from her. Joe reached up and drizzled the water over his hair, the move broadening his chest and making his biceps work in all kinds of jaw-dropping ways. As he rubbed his palm over his head, rivulets of water made their way down his face and neck, over his chest and down his stomach, past the tan line and down into his boardshorts.

He shook out his hair and tossed Anna a huge grin. His eyes drilled up and down her body, leaving tingling marks, like miniature paint bombs, throbbing under her skin.

She moved towards him, held her arms out to the sides.

‘Now me.’ Her words were an invitation and a challenge. She reached for her hair, pulled it to a high ponytail and held it. The spray of water starting at her toes, cooled her knees and her thighs and then splashed her bikini bottoms. It only added to the ache she had there, a throb that had only one remedy. She felt it in every nerve ending in her body, every hair on her head, each toe and every place in between. Joe’s eyes were dark and aware, trained on her like radar. And then the water got higher and his hand was on her, his fingers teasing along the edge of her clinging red bikini top, pulling it away from her skin. The cool water drizzling down over her left nipple, then her right, couldn’t suppress the scorching need she felt, was tremulous with. An index finger caressed a line between her breasts, down along soft skin to her belly button, teased a circle there, then drifted down.

Then he was so close she could feel his ragged breathing on her lips. When he teased the elastic of her bikini bottoms away from her skin, the heat from his fingers almost burned her, and his eyes followed their path, past the curls of hair, down lower. Joe leaned in, his lips so close to hers she could feel their heat, as he trickled the water down low, and she felt like she was burning up from the inside.

‘Joe,’ she moaned.

‘Jesus, Anna.’ Joe dropped the hose and reached for her. He pulled her to him, their wet skin slick against each other, his strong hands at her shoulders, pulling her to him.