The South West Series Box Set

by Rebecca Paulinyi

  “It wasn’t on purpose! A gentleman wouldn’t have mentioned it.”

  “Who said I’m a gentleman? But if you’re swimming tonight, I can return it to you…”

  She was a little embarrassed that he’d kept it, but there was something very alluring about the idea of seeing him again, seeing him in that water, feeling the water droplets on his skin…

  She tried to stop the direction her thoughts were headed, but it wasn’t easy with this tension crackling between her and such a handsome, grumpy man.

  “Ten o’clock? Same place?”

  “I’ll be there,” he said, and then Beth realised how long they had been in that room, and quickly ushered them on for the rest of the much pacier tour.

  It was at the end of the tour, as she led the guests out into the sunny grounds and said goodbye, that she allowed herself to look at him again. He was talking to his mother, and she watched as his chiseled jaw moved, a smattering of stubble covering it. He was tall - so much taller than she was - and his dark hair looked almost black, even under the bright sunshine they were enjoying. Even in a polo shirt and dark jeans she could see the outlines of muscles in his arms.

  “Thank you for a wonderful tour.” She was forced to stop staring at him when his companion addressed her. “I’ve been going on at my Caspian for years to bring me here, and I’m so glad he did. You’re very knowledgeable dear, you must be quite experienced at this tour guide business!”

  “Thank you so much,” Beth said with a smile. “I’m so glad you had a good time. I’ve actually only been here for a few weeks, but I’m very enthusiastic about the place and its history!”

  “Well, I would never have been able to tell. Wasn’t she wonderful, Cas?”

  “Very enlightening,” he agreed in a dry voice, but when Beth forced herself to meet his dark brown eyes she saw a smile on his face that was reflected in them.

  “Well, we must be on our way, I’m sure he’s got time to take his old mother out for lunch before he has to dash off to work. All work and no play makes for a dull person!”

  “Very dull,” Beth agreed, smiling back and trying not to laugh. She watched as they walked down the hill, mother holding onto son’s arm, and it was only once they reached the very bottom of the hill that she tore her eyes away and disappeared back inside for the next round.

  She knew her reaction to him had been strange, but there was no time to dwell on that now. And nor would there be that evening, when she had somehow agreed to another late night swim with the handsome, mysterious Caspian…

  Chapter 14

  She wore a bikini this time, and took a towel - no-one could say that Beth Davis did not learn from her mistakes. It had been another gloriously sunny day, and she hoped the water would be as warm and inviting as she remembered - and that he would show up. Perhaps it had all been a joke…

  She found it hard to wait until closer to ten to drive to the beach, and tried not to over-analyse the thrill she was feeling about this meeting. She told herself it was just because it was an act of rebellion - a late night swim, meeting with a handsome stranger, retrieving her bra. Nothing more was going to happen…

  She was on the road by twenty to ten, unable to focus on the writing that had consumed her for the last few weeks. In the day time, the beaches were packed now that the summer holidays were in full swing and Devon had become the tourist haven it was known to be. But by this time in the evening, as the sky faded from reds and oranges to blues and blacks, there were very few people still there. A glow and a column of smoke in the distance with a group of what looked like teenagers huddled around it to one end; at another, a slightly hunched over man throwing a ball repeatedly for two large and bounding dogs - and that was it.

  For a few quiet, undisturbed moments, she watched as the waves gently lapped in and out, dampening the shingle and then softly retreating, taking a few smaller pebbles and grains of sand with them. Then a figure strode towards the spot where she had taken off her dress and shoes those few short weeks ago, and she hurried down to meet him.

  He was already in his swimming trunks - she presumed he had changed behind that rock again, although she hadn’t seen him as she surveyed the beach - and on hearing her approach, he turned to face her, holding one strap of her black, lacy bra between his thumb and finger tips.

  “No need to flash my underwear to the world,” she said, snatching it from his hands and stuffing it into her handbag.

  He raised his eyebrows and flashed a smile. “Says you!”

  She blushed, and dipped her head.

  “Coming for a swim?”

  “I’ve got a towel and everything.”

  “I was willing to share again…” he said, then took off towards the water, gliding straight in without pausing to let his body acclimatise. She was pleased he’d gone in first; it gave her a chance to take her dress off without being observed, and to hide her body in the depths of the water as it reflected the dying rays of the sunset.

  The water was cool, but pleasantly so, and she was soon submerged to her knees, then her stomach, all the while watching his repetitive strokes backwards and forwards through the gentle waves.

  Then he stopped, and looked back.

  “Are you coming?”

  With a deep breath, she submerged her shoulders and began to move through the water with a slow breast stroke that kept her head bobbing above the water, her hair in its bun occasionally grazing the surface.

  When she reached him, she was surprised to find he hadn’t simply swum off, but was stood there, watching her swim.

  “You’re very fast,” she said, feeling uncomfortable in the silence as they looked at each other, water up to their waists, shoulders glistening.

  “Lots of practice,” he said. “You could get faster, if you wanted to.”

  “Is that an insult to my current speed?”

  “No, I mean-”

  “Relax, I’m joking,” Beth said, pleased to have flustered him at least a tenth of the amount he seemed to fluster her.

  “I didn’t think you’d come.”

  “I thought you might be joking.”

  “Why did you come?”

  Beth ducked her shoulders back under, not wanting to reach the level of cold she’d somehow reached the last time she’d been in this situation and let herself get distracted by good looks and piercing eyes.

  “I don’t know. The thrill of a late night swim?”

  “You’ve not been back since that night.”

  Inside, there was a very immature part of her that was screaming out: He noticed! He noticed!

  “I’ve been taking earlier swims. Realised drowning when there was no-one else around probably wasn’t the best idea…” she admitted, feeling even shorter with him towering above her as she allowed her body to be submerged in the water. “You’ll get cold if you stay out of the water that long - trust me.”

  He blinked, then ducked his shoulders too, until they were the same height and somehow - and she didn’t know whose movement had caused it - even closer together.

  “I’ve never met anyone who strips off to their underwear and swims when everyone else is at home in bed.”

  She couldn’t follow his train of thought, so just focussed on answering the questions he threw at her - although that one wasn’t particularly a question. She shrugged, and went to run a hand through her hair before remembering it was in a bun and not loose for her to fiddle with. “I like to break the rules,” she said. “I like to be spontaneous.”

  “You’ve not been here very long, have you?”

  “About a month,” she said. “Another spontaneous decision.”

  She could have sworn she could feel heat radiating from him through the water - or maybe it was coming from her.

  “I can’t remember the last time I made a spontaneous decision,” he said, their eyes not leaving each other’s, as the sun disappeared behind the horizon.

  “You go swimming in the ocean at ten o’clock at night! That se
ems pretty bold to me.”

  “Never spontaneous, though,” he said. “I do this every night, from April to October.”

  “Disciplined.”

  “If I tell you I want to kiss you, does that take away from it being a spontaneous decision?”

  Her eyes froze for a moment, and she could find no words to answer this sudden declaration. Instead, she simply shook her head, and took a step forward in the dark waters.

  His hands moved slowly, painfully slowly, through the water, before resting on her waist, and she gasped at the contact, that sudden burst of heat in the cold surroundings, as he pulled her closer to him, and then they were standing, and her chest was pressed against his, and there was heat radiating from everywhere…

  “You are a very intriguing woman,” he said, his lips hovering above hers, her neck bent so she could still look into those eyes.

  “You make the words disappear from my head,” she said, unaware of how honest she was being, because all she could think of was his lips, the feel of his heart beating in his chest - or maybe that was hers, they were so close it was hard to tell - the stubble that she could feel under her fingertips as she allowed her hands to reach up and touch that perfect face.

  And then he kissed her.

  There was a saltiness to the kiss, and there was a gentleness that she had not expected. She let her arms wrap round his neck as the kiss deepened, let him hold the weight of her as their lips moved together; as the fireworks filled her mind and made her abandon all sense of place and time. They were kneeling in the water now, and his fingers were caught in her hair, and the only thing that could have separated them was a bolt of lightening. His tongue met hers and a noise that she did not recognise escaped from her throat, a longing and a hunger that had not been awoken in a very long time.

  She wasn’t sure who finally broke the kiss, or how long they’d been there, but when they eventually separated their lips, both were breathing heavily and neither could find words for several minutes.

  Slowly, they untangled themselves, Beth wincing a little as his fingers caught on a few strands of hair, and put a little space between themselves - although occasionally a hand floated through the water and brushed a thigh, or an arm, and another frisson of electric passed through that calm water.

  “That was definitely spontaneous,” Beth said, when her breath had finally come under her control.

  Caspian grinned, and she thought he might even be blushing, although it was obscured by the ever-darkening sky.

  “I think I might like spontaneous,” he said.

  “I think spontaneous was pretty… explosive,” she responded, trying to gauge whether he had felt that same ferocity of sensation. It had only been six weeks or so since she had last been kissed, by the ginger youth with the wisdom that night in the club, but the difference between the two kisses was phenomenal. She had forgotten what it could feel like - or perhaps she had never known. Had she ever been kissed to the point of her legs feeling like they might disintegrate beneath her? It was a good job the sea took most of her weight, else she thought she might be a heap on the floor.

  “Explosive - that’s definitely one way to put it.”

  “I’ve interrupted your regularly scheduled swim,” she said, grinning at his agreement.

  “I feel like I’ve had a pretty good work out,” he said, and there was that dry sense of humour again - but this time it made Beth laugh, and give him a gentle shove backwards. She was surprised that he actually lost his footing, splashing slightly as he fought to right himself, and she took advantage of the moment: “Last one back to shore loses!”

  ***

  He won, of course he did, despite her underhand tactics and head start. He had the experience, that was for sure, and he overtook her smoothly, splashing a little more than she felt was necessary as he passed her.

  He was towel drying his hair when she finally stepped out of the water, feeling less self-conscious this time about being in her bikini - which was the same colour as the underwear set she’d been wearing anyway, but did at least soak in less water.

  “What do I win?” he asked with a cheeky grin, as she pulled her own towel out of her bag. “Or are you just going to throw your underwear at me again?”

  “You are insufferable!” she said. “You know full well that I left it there by accident.”

  “Seems a little convenient to me,” he said. “I think it was all some great plan…”

  “What, to lure you back to the beach and kiss you senseless in the sea?”

  He grinned. “Well, look what happened.”

  “I don’t think I’m the mastermind here…”

  “This was not planned,” he insisted, drying off the water droplets that clung to the hair on his chest. She found her gaze wandering from his eyes, out of her control… “Spontaneity, remember?”

  “So,” Beth said, feeling she was as dry as she was going to get without taking off her bikini - which was certainly not happening this time - and throwing her dress over the top. “Do you think we’ll spontaneously meet again?”

  “Well, this is the third time it’s happened…”

  Silently, Beth disagreed - this had most definitely been organised, even if only through a whispered comment - but she didn’t want to take the impulsive moment away from him. And she wanted her question answered.

  “Say I was to be at the bar at The Fort in Dartmouth at seven o’clock on Saturday, do you think we might happen to run into each other?” he asked, pausing in his towel ministrations to watch her reaction.

  “I think there would be a good chance of that happening,” she said.

  “So, can I claim my prize?”

  Beth looked confused. “Prize?”

  “For coming first in the race. There has to be a prize…”

  “Just the joy of not being the loser which, unfortunately, I am,” she said, with a hand on one hip.

  “You don’t look like a loser to me,” he said, taking three quick steps towards her. “But since I am the winner… one kiss seems a fair prize, don’t you think?”

  “It depends on your definition of one kiss,” Beth said, feeling a little breathless at the thought, at his proximity. “I mean, back there, in the sea…”

  “The explosion?”

  “Uh-huh. Can that really count as one kiss?”

  “You mean we need to think about length,” he took another step closer, “And intensity…” His hand hovered at her waist, making her ache for the contact, and any clever thoughts swam clean out of her mind as she nodded her head.

  “Yes,” she said, not even knowing what she was saying yes to - his words, the kiss, him - but she wanted him to claim that prize. He could have as many kisses as he wanted if they made her feel like that.

  He pressed his lips to hers for a fraction of a second, then pulled them away. “One kiss,” he said, and although even that brief contact had made the fireworks start fizzing in her mind, she felt bereft at the loss of another earth-shattering moment.

  She almost said something. Almost begged for him to give her more. Almost shouted at him for sticking to the silly rules she seemed to be creating in her flirtatious words - and then she pressed her lips closed and remembered that leaving him wanting more was never a bad strategy. Even if she wanted to grab hold of him…

  “I’ll see you around then,” he said, taking a step backwards, and after looking at her for a moment longer, Caspian turned on his heel and jogged away down that unknown path.

  Beth felt like she needed to sit down. No, scratch that, she felt as though she needed a lie down in a darkened room with a stiff drink. Never could she remember someone affecting her to the point where she wasn’t sure if she had control of her words, her mind, or even the movement of her legs anymore. Never had she wanted a kiss to go on longer so desperately… Never had she been so thrilled by a simple kiss.

  But, as she drove home without really paying attention to the directions, she realised there had been nothing simple
about that kiss. That kiss, in the middle of the ocean, with the sun setting behind them, was the sort of kiss that only happened once in a lifetime. And she would treasure the memory of her impulsiveness.

  ***

  Sleep didn’t come easily that night, as she replayed the evening in her head, and thought forwards to their planned meeting on Saturday. Was it a date? She supposed so, although things were not so clearly defined as that - which made it all the more exciting. She was desperate to tell someone about it, but telling Lee of her night-time water adventures seemed a little premature… and if Lee judged her, she might well question her own sanity, which was not something she wanted to do. So she messaged the person who she knew would happily climb into her crazy little bubble without an ounce of judgment.