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NORA DIDN’T BELIEVE in ghosts, but the white shrouds swirling around her in the smothering darkness made her rear up with a cry of alarm.
As she lashed out at the floating phantoms, the ghosts abruptly transformed themselves into billowing folds of mosquito netting dancing to the slow beat of the ceiling fan chopping quietly overhead.
She blinked and her vision cleared. Waking up in a state of horror seemed to be an ongoing feature of her relationship with Blake MacLeod, she thought wryly, batting away the wispy veils and scrambling off the wide bed. She could have sworn she had only closed her eyes for a few minutes, but her cramped limbs were telling another story.
Groping through the gloom, she located the familiar shape of a switch on the wall. The mellow glow of uplights sprang to life, but her relief turned to dismay as she stared at the dark rectangle looming behind the sheer curtains at the window.
She looked down at her watch in disbelief, verifying what her disordered senses were telling her. It was well into the evening. She had been crashed out all day!
A mortified groan rusted across her dry lips as she realised who must have turned on the fan. The thought of Blake looking in on her as she slept made her feel shivery inside.
Of course he had seen her asleep in his car, too, she reminded herself—but his disciplined mind would have been totally focused on his driving. This was different—even though she was fully dressed, the surroundings were far more intimate….
Crushing down her embarrassment, she ventured out, following the faint sounds of a tap gushing and utensils clattering, underscored by some mellow jazz. The kitchen, she recalled vaguely, was at the far end of that huge open living space….
She marched into the almost dark room and came to a halt with a stunned gasp.
There was a sharp movement off to her far left, where angled halogen spotlights bounced off polished surfaces.
‘What’s wrong?’
Nora pressed her hand to the fluttering pulse at the base of her throat, a foolish reaction to the sound of his voice. ‘Nothing…For a moment I thought there’d been some kind of volcanic eruption out there,’ she said sheepishly. ‘It looks like the whole rim of the earth is on fire!’
The wall of glass on to the west-facing terrace had been folded open, and far out in the darkness a thin line of molten red bled across the width of the sky, radiating hot colour up into shadowy clouds boiling with crimson, orange and gold: the last throes of the dying day. A velvety blackness, already pricked with stars, bore down from above, poised to smother the final rays of the red sun.
‘Another minute or so and you would have been too late. The sunsets here are always spectacular—no smog to diffuse the light particles.’ Even as Blake spoke, the last sliver of fire was swallowed by the black glitter of the sea and the hot crimson cooled to a golden-pink blush.
‘I wish I’d had a chance to see it properly,’ Nora murmured. When was the last time she had paused to appreciate the splendours of nature? Since she had come to Auckland she had allowed Ryan’s scorn for such unsophisticated pastimes to stifle her enjoyment of the simple pleasures of life.
‘There’s always tomorrow night….’
The cool assumption in the gravelly voice spun her around.
Blake was leaning behind the curving granite-topped breakfast bar that divided the big kitchen from the rest of the room. With a shock, Nora saw that he was bare above the low-slung waist of his white drawstring pants. His raw masculinity was like a punch to the stomach, a violent reminder of the last time she had seen him stripped for action. A faint glistening of moisture dotted the dark hair on his tawny chest and imparted a glossy sheen to the streamlined muscles which rippled in the arms braced against the gleaming granite. Not an ounce of surplus body fat marred the ridged lines of his abdomen or the taut curve of his waist where it tapered to meet his lean hips. Nora hurriedly lifted her gaze from the tantalising streak of damp hair that arrowed down from the flat scoop of his navel to disappear beneath the loose gathers of white linen. The hair on his head was also wet, gleaming blue-black under a halogen halo and slicked back from his hard forehead to emphasise the dramatic widow’s peak. The thick straight brows cast his grey eyes into shadow, but Nora could tell that he was amused at her flustered reaction.
‘Excuse my state of undress, but I’ve just had a swim,’ he said lazily. ‘The pool is solar-heated but it’s cool enough to be refreshing, if you want to take the plunge…’
Nora had the feeling that she’d already plunged in way over her head. He must have shaved very recently, she noticed with a fresh tingle of awareness, for the long masculine jaw was invitingly smooth and glossy.
‘Uh, no, thanks.’
‘I did pack a swimsuit with your things,’ he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, ‘but you might prefer to do as I do and not bother with any encumbrance. There’s no one overlooking us here, so you don’t have to worry about peeping Toms—’
‘Only peeping Blakes,’ she said, walking self-consciously towards him, the soles of her feet shrinking at the change from soft carpet to the slick hardness of the unglazed tiles.
‘Ah, but there’s not much I haven’t seen of you already, is there, Nora?’ he responded lazily, looking her over from sleep-creased cheek to dainty toes. ‘You have nothing to be shy about, as I recall—you have a very nice body.’
She could feel her freckles popping at the blatantly patronising phrase. Nice? There was that damning, dull-as-dishwater word again. She had a good mind to peel off all her clothes and prance out into his pool just to show him that being nice was no longer on her agenda!
‘Thank you, but I don’t feel like a swim right now,’ she said primly. Much less in a pool that dropped off the edge of a cliff!
He shrugged, a supple flex of his shoulders that drew her attention back to his tapering torso. Why had she ever thought that Ryan’s thick and chunky rugby player’s physique was the height of attractiveness? This man, nearly ten years his senior, had a honed sleekness which made Ryan’s slabs of gym-inflated muscle seem like puppy fat, and a potently mature confidence in his own strength and sexuality which was more persuasive than any boast.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, and she ran a self-conscious hand through her rumpled locks, wishing she had stopped to look in the mirror before she had come marching out.
‘Fine,’ she said, pleased to realise that it was only a slight exaggeration.
She glanced around. The breakfast bar stepped down to a working bench that ran around two sides of the kitchen. Beneath the windows overlooking the terrace was a double sink and on the opposite wall twin ovens topped with a fearsomely professional-looking gas cook-top interrupted the smooth flow of the granite surface. Lacquered grey cabinetry complemented the brushed stainless steel of the appliances and hooded extractor.
