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Her door? Hadn’t he mentioned his bed?

But of course every bed in the house was technically his, she supposed, her body suffused with warmth.

He set her down gently, in a slow, erotic, mutual caress of bodies, at the darkened entrance to her exotic room, and Nora willed her wobbly legs to support her as she prepared to take the scariest leap of her life. A leap into the dark. A leap of faith.

She swayed to meet Blake’s lingering kiss, but when her hands moved eagerly up to cup his face he gathered them to his lips in a gallant, but chaste, salute.

‘Sweet dreams, Nora. I’ll see you in the morning,’ he said, and with another brief goodnight kiss on her stunned brow he strolled back down the hall without a backwards glance.

CHAPTER TEN

THE THIRD TIME that Nora woke up in the big white-swathed bed on Sunday morning, it was with a smile of rapturous bliss. Instinct told her it was still early and her eyelids fluttered dreamily open as she rolled over on her side, reaching out to run a lazy hand over the sun-burnished body of her thoroughly decadent sultan.

Instead of warm bare muscles toned by energetic bouts of lovemaking under the hot Arabian sun, Nora found cool, crisp one hundred per cent Egyptian cotton.

With a groan of frustration Nora continued rolling until her face was buried in the depths of the smooth, undented pillow that lay next to her. She couldn’t believe that Blake had once again sent her to bed with only her erotic fantasies for company. She was starting to wonder if he had any intention of living up to his bad reputation!

She had bounced out of bed on Saturday morning with the firm conviction that Blake’s gentlemanly conduct at her bedroom door had merely been his clever way of ratcheting up the sexual tension between them. She had been sure that, having asserted his dominance, he would swiftly make good his sensual threats and seductive promises.

Instead she had spent the day with a man who had been by turns infuriatingly casual and maddeningly friendly.

He had fed her breakfast while chatting about the difficulties involved in the building of the house five years ago, and how it had been designed by the same architect who had built his home on Auckland’s waterfront.

Afterwards he had given her a guided tour of the sprawling upper level, whisking her in and out of his aggressively masculine bedroom without a single suggestive comment, seemingly more interested in her opinion of the architecture and furnishings than in seduction.

Then he had chivvied her into changing and going for a run with him along the beach, taking her down the winding gravel road in the jaunty beach-buggy.

‘My nieces tortured me into buying this!’ he shouted above the roar of the engine and the wind in their ears as they shot on to the beach, but Nora could tell from the white grin that gashed the hard face below the black wrap-around sunglasses that he hadn’t taken much persuading.

The tide was only halfway up the wide sweep of black sand and apart from a few hardened surfers out amongst the waves the beach was empty but for a family with a dog out on the rocks by the point.

They jogged the kilometre or so to one end of the beach on the hard-packed sand just below the high-water mark, but when they got back to the dune where he had parked the buggy, and Blake showed no signs of stopping, Nora collapsed panting into the sand and waved him on. With an insufferably superior grin he took off towards the other end of the beach at double their speed and did another couple of complete laps of the beach in the same pounding rhythm, while Nora fetched a towel and water bottle from the bag he had stowed in the cockpit of the buggy. Kicking off her sneakers, she stripped down to her pale bronze bathing suit, a sleek one-piece with a deep V neckline and detail around the high-cut hips.

When Blake returned, his tank top and shorts clinging to his sweat-soaked body, it was to find Nora sitting on a towel absorbed in conversation with a sun-bleached young surfer who stood, his wetsuit peeled down to his waist, his muscled arm holding his upright board to one side of his smooth, deeply tanned torso.

‘Steve.’ Blake’s voice was as curt as his nod.

‘Blake.’ The surfie nodded back, grinning down at Nora.

‘Going out?’ Blake demanded even more curtly.

‘Coming in.’ The flick of a calculated hand through his long blond hair made Nora gasp as a glittering arc of cold drops splattered over her hot skin and slid down between her breasts.

‘Sorry. Shall I lick that off for you, darlin’?’ he offered with a playful grin that had her smothering a giggle.

Blake took a menacing step closer. ‘Beat it, kid. You’re playing out of your league. Especially if you want that summer internship you’ve been pestering me for….’

The fearless grin widened. Steve tipped a wink at Nora as he tucked his surfboard back under his arm with a flourish and lowered his voice to a stage whisper. ‘Just remember, I’m the first on the left going up the road if the old man pegs out on you—I have a soft bed, a great stereo and a fully stocked drinks cabinet….’

Nora turned her stifled giggle into a choked cough as the young man sauntered on his way up the beach.

‘You didn’t have to be so rude,’ she chided. ‘He was just being friendly.’

‘I suppose you were so busy simpering up at him you didn’t notice he was leering down your suit,’ he said tersely. ‘You do realise that’s his parents’ liquor cabinet he’s boasting about!’

Secretly encouraged by his dog-in-the-manger attitude, Nora stretched her legs out in front of her and leaned nonchalantly back on her braced arms.

‘So he said.’

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