‘Yeah, I’ll bet it was.’ Explicit knowledge glittered in Zach eyes, which suggested he knew all of Ric’s quirks and exactly how x-rated her introduction to island life had been. Evidently, her supposition that Ric Liddell tried it on with all the island’s newcomers was right on the mark. Yet, she didn’t detect any sort of censure from Zach. In fact, he continued to smile in a genuine way.
‘Word of advice, not that I especially think you need it, but just so that you’re straight. He’s not for keeps. As long as you realise that, I’m sure you’ll have a great time living here.’
Somewhat embarrassed, Kara grinned her way through another slurp of coffee. ‘Oh, that’s subtle,’ she muttered against the paper lip. She hadn’t particularly intended Zach to hear the remark, but he shook his head slightly, betraying the fact that he had.
‘Believe me. Nothing about Ric Liddell is subtle. He’s sexy as hell, but if you’re after an emotional connection look elsewhere. The guy’s heart is at zero Kelvin. You’ll get more affection out of a barnacle.’ Zach began walking back towards his van.
‘Hey, what about you?’ She couldn’t figure him out. Had that been intended as friendly advice, to warn her off, or to set himself up as a better option? Zach swung around to look at her. ‘Me? I go with the flow, Kara. Best way when your life’s dictated by the tide.’ He jerked a thumb towards the causeway. ‘Catch you later.’
‘Wait up.’ Kara hung out of the car window. ‘How did you know? Did Ric do you your first night here?’
Zach’s lips split into a brilliant smile, which he backed up with a chuckle. ‘I don’t live here.’
‘Oh!’ Now she felt like a fool, and the excitement that had started brewing in her stomach transformed into an odd sort of disappointment. She lowered her gaze to the cobblestones beneath Zach’s baseball boots – an odd choice to go with his clothes – only to find him moving towards her again. He bent down once he drew close. ‘Round the back of the Bunker in five minutes and I’ll show you what he did to me. But only come if you’re game. Otherwise –’ he tapped the side of her head with his index finger ‘– I guess you’ll just have to imagine the scene. You know, two hot blokes, getting a little bit intimate with one another.’ He straightened up, and then shoved both palms into his pockets in order to mooch off back to his business.
Kara watched him go while finishing off her ice cream. What the devil did he intend to show her? All right, fair dos to him, she was intrigued.
* * *
Kara North … Kara North. Zach shook his head. No way was she here. After she’d left him on the quayside with his fly undone he’d hoped they might run into one another again. Actually, he’d fantasised about it. But he hadn’t expected it to happen, especially not here and not after Ric had given her the serfdom speech. OK, so it wasn’t all that much of a speech. Ric tended to go for the more hands-on approach, not that he couldn’t sweet-talk the panties off any bugger he wanted if he set his mind to it. And who could blame him wanting a piece of the delicious morsel that was Kara North, with her pretty blue eyes, quirky smile and absolutely straightforward attitude. Her never-ending legs that disappeared into that tiny skirt didn’t hurt either.
The only galling bit was knowing that Ric had had his hands all over her. Sure, they had an open relationship, sure, he’d had Kara too – first in fact – but it still hurt to put a face to one of Ric’s passing flings.
Zach had been angry last night when Ric had admitted to shagging someone else; now his vexation was doubled on learning it was Kara. Somehow, even when he tried to tug away from Ric, things ended up turning back in that direction. Why her out of countless women? The one woman he’d like to know better and Ric just happened to have shagged her too. He ought to walk away from both of them and find someone altogether less capricious to pin his dreams on.
That probably made what he was about to do doubly stupid, but he was sick of giving in to Ric. If he couldn’t have Ric, then Zach was definitely going to have Kara.
He kept his pace relaxed as he headed back to the Bunker, not wishing to give off any revealing vibes to his blessed pain in the arse of a sister whom he’d been blackmailed into giving a job. Heather worked all right, the problem was that it left him with time on his hands, as there simply wasn’t space inside the van for two servers, and crap-all ever happened inside the Bunker. Sure, people came in and had a quick nosey about and picked up bits and bobs, but he did all the sales from out of the ice-cream van. The upside, he supposed, was that no one would bat an eyelid at him taking a mid-morning stroll. ‘Going off for a bit,’ he called to his sister, before ducking inside the Bunker and going into the storeroom for the necessary supplies.
The wind had dropped over the last hour, and it was gearing up to be a bright, sunny day. Zach followed the rocky coastline that the tide exposed when it went out, and then took a sharp left in order to weave back inland so that he’d end up behind the Bunker. The tourists stuck to the obvious paths and picnic spots, so he could guarantee seclusion back here. In essence the spot was little more than a blanket of ferns wedged between two ravines, but the sun normally managed to find it, whereas the wind didn’t.
Zach settled his back against one of the rock faces and rolled up his shirt cuffs. One thing he had learned from Ric was to always be properly prepared, that way you weren’t left cleaning up a mess when you ought to be enjoying a nice post-coital flush.
Mere moments later, Kara followed him into the dell. She glanced around, and then came forward with her hands raised, a position he rather liked as it caused her top to ride up and reveal a sliver of her midriff. Zach never quibbled over a show of skin. He wasn’t fussy over which bit, just as long as some was showing. He did like women’s ankles though, something about their shape, particularly in high heels.
Kara wasn’t wearing heels today, just a modest pair of deck shoes. They were the most sensible item on her. God, she was so wonderfully curvy and so totally inappropriately dressed it made him want to weep with joy. He didn’t think it had even crossed her mind that a short skirt and a titchy top weren’t exactly the best combo for stumbling about a rock in the English Channel.
‘OK, tell me. What did Ric Liddell do to you the first time you met?’
He loved that she was all business. It saved on the small talk. Zach pasted on his best butter-wouldn’t-melt expression and made an act of coyly nibbling one fingernail. ‘Let’s see. He cooked me dinner, and got me a wee bit tipsy on his excellent malt whisky.’
‘Yeah, and then,’ she prompted, edging a little closer to him, not so that they were touching, but close enough to scream intimacy to a casual observer, ‘I got my own whisky T-shirt.’
Zach pushed back against the rock, relishing the prospect of becoming trapped. He wasn’t a straight-up submissive by any stretch, he just enjoyed the sizzle Kara generated when she got an idea into her head and acted on it. Right now, she was staring at him like she intended to superglue him to the rock and then lick him all over. The prospect was absolutely fine with him. In fact, he’d brought just the thing to really make the experience simmer.
‘I’m waiting.’
Zach shot a glance up at her from beneath his brows. He figured it wouldn’t hurt to make her wait a teeny bit longer still. Matter of fact, he intended to maximise the anticipation. After all, he wasn’t about to share the most staggering story on the planet. In the annals of Liddell Island history, it barely rated as tame. Still, to set the scene, he raised the bottle he’d taken from behind the counter in the Bunker and squeezed a drop of sauce out on to his fingertip. ‘And then … and then, he fed me dessert.’
Kara frowned. ‘What is that – tomato sauce?’
‘Chocolate.’ He sucked off the bead upon his fingertip and squeezed out another. ‘Rich as sin, bitter, melt-on-the-tongue, expensive chocolate sauce.’
Despite sweeping her tongue over her lower lip in appreciation,