His ability to read me was unnerving. I had the sudden feeling of being naked in front of him. Again. I stopped breathing for a second under his intense gaze and felt heat flood my cheeks once more. But if he noticed my discomfort, he didn’t say so.
‘Shall we order?’ he asked.
‘Okay,’ I managed lamely. I picked up the leather-clad menu, fanned myself twice, and then opened it. My mouth instantly watered as I remembered my hunger. ‘I’m starving. Do you feel like sharing an entrée?’
‘Sure, the tuna carpaccio is good.’
‘Ooh, that sounds great. I’ll have the seared fish curry for a main.’ I looked briefly at my white dress and prayed to the stain gods.
‘Perfect. Are you okay if I pick a wine?’
‘That’d be great.’
The wine when it arrived was beyond delicious, grassy and zesty. The food came quickly too; I was super impressed with the service here. The tuna was fresh and utter perfection, only topped by the seared fish in the coconut curry and served with flaky flatbread. It was exquisite, piping hot and tasted amazing. I ate everything on my plate and may have groaned several times over the meal, not particularly caring what Nick thought about it.
We finished the first bottle with the entrée, and he ordered a different wine for the main. Our conversation flowed through dinner. He seemed to relax after his second glass of wine. I had offered up my whole life: daughter, sister, grandmother, ex-husband. I told him I’d honeymooned in the Maldives but at a different resort, and then finally he gave me something of himself.
‘I come here every year.’
‘To this resort?’
‘Yes. My mother brought me here when I was a child.’
‘Do you ever get tired of coming here? Maybe you should do something else next year? We have great beaches in Australia.’
He grinned at me. ‘I have been to Australia many times.’
‘Ooh, were you a posh backpacker at some point? Maybe we kissed in the nineties?’
‘No.’ He laughed, and I liked the lines that appeared around his eyes and the dimples that flashed at me. ‘I’d have remembered.’
By the end of the meal, I realised I was having an amazing night. Inside the restaurant, Couples’ Night was in full swing. They had pushed back several of the tables and dropped the lights to mostly just candlelight. Music had started and a bunch of couples were dancing to a playlist that seemed composed of a Google search on the best songs to dance to on a date, which, naturally, included Ed Sheeran.
Nick stood up and held out his hand. ‘I’d like to dance with you.’
His manner of speaking, I’d noticed through the course of dinner, was sometimes formal, direct and carried authority. Sometimes it almost sounded like a challenge; him testing the boundaries of how far we could both push this accidental date, his tone checking in with me, an eyebrow rising. I always had a choice and there was something about that which felt safe, as if he was someone you could put your faith in.
‘I don’t want to be around couples,’ I said. There was no way on this earth I wanted to dance to Ed Sheeran next to people who loved each other.
‘Ah, a couple-phobe like me. We can just dance here.’
As if someone was hovering, listening to his every word, two waiters came and removed our table and chairs. Nick rescued the bottle of wine and our glasses before they vanished.Hero complex.
I finished my glass after taking it from his hand, having enjoyed the contact as our fingers grazed (regency-romance novel-esque). I set it down on the deck in the corner and then moved towards him. The song playing was Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Game’.Of course it was. My arm slid around his narrow waist, and I pressed my thumb into his side. He smelled amazing. I picked up herbal and citrus scents, but just his skin smelled great. Even in my heels, I only made it up to his chest, which was as solid as I remembered it being last night. I knew what was under that navy linen, and it thrilled me.
His hand pressed me from behind, moving me even closer, as his thumb grazed the exposed skin of my back. That tiny amount of skin-on-skin contact had me drawing an audible sharp breath, and I felt my body press into him further. His other hand had linked our fingers while we swayed, but he let my hand go, running a single finger up my arm, causing goosebumps to appear in its wake. It moved over my shoulder, continuing to my chin, where he tilted it up so that I was looking at him. His eyes were shining in the light and there was a heat in them that my body seemed to respond to. I had the desire to surrender to him completely.
‘This is a nice dress,’ he said simply.
‘Thank you,’ I managed, hoarsely. I hadn’t danced with a guy since my wedding day; it was intimate and romantic as hell, and I felt as if I was in a Taylor Swift song. I surrendered to the music and the moment, winding my arm up around his neck and running my fingers through the soft wavy hair at the nape of it. I caught the scent of his shampoo, which may have been the origin of the citrusiness about him.
He leaned his chin into my temple, tucking his head so his mouth rested against my ear, his breathing heavy. My body was reacting with pure desire, something I barely recognised. An overwhelming need to feel his lips against mine overcame me. I wanted that and so much more. Gone was the lukewarm desire that had plagued my marriage – this was searing heat and the urge to give in to it was strong.
Was I the kind of woman who slept with a man on the second night of a holiday? Maybe when I was twenty, before Peter. I was once someone who could make decisions about the opposite sex with spontaneity and casualness. Memories of nightclubs, being pressed against walls, and hot random strangers came to me. The taste of Midori, the sweat from dancing. I moved my body closer to him and his fingers dug further into my side.
The other thing in my mind, though, was that this clearly attractive man could have anyone. He did not need to get involved with a mum in her forties. He could have any woman on this island, someone whose body was firm and fresh, someone who did not have hangups or baggage. Someone not trying to remember who the fuck they were.
The song finished and faded into another, and I pulled back from him a little, trying to clear my thoughts by putting some distance between my body and his. It was hard to think straight in his arms with his intoxicating scent around me.
