New Year, New Man. Laura Iding

extending the length of their affair.

      Of course, a month of non-stop sex with her at his holiday house on Happy Island might return him to a wiser course of action. He really hadn’t had enough time to burn out his lust for Sarah since the first night they’d spent together.

      Apart from anything, they’d been very busy, visiting Flora at the hospital and seeing to her health needs.

      Fortunately, the specialist had located the source of the angina, a minor blockage in one artery that had been successfully cleared without the need for open-heart surgery. When the doctor had suggested a holiday for his quickly recovering patient, Nick had offered Jim and Flora his penthouse on the Gold Coast, which was fully serviced, with meals readily available, either in the restaurant downstairs or delivered to their apartment door. They’d jumped at the chance of an all-expenses-paid jaunt and Nick had seen them off at the airport three days ago, New Year’s Eve.

      Which had left him alone in the house with Sarah.

      As Nick settled back to sip his champagne, his mind drifted back to the thirty-first of December…

      He’d chilled some white wine, ordered in a five-star meal from a local restaurant, then set everything up on the balcony to the master bedroom, the perfect setting for a romantic, candlelit dinner. The perfect setting for New Year’s Eve as well, with the uninterrupted view of Sydney Harbour—the water, the city and the bridge—which was always the showpiece of the fireworks.

      Not that they got to see the fireworks, either at nine or at midnight, each occasion finding them otherwise occupied inside. After nearly a week of abstinence, he was insatiable, both for Sarah’s beautiful body and her rapturous responses, Nick wallowing with wicked selfishness in the transparency of her feelings for him.

      Nick could not get enough of her that night. Or the next day. Oddly enough, he didn’t want to try out lots of different positions. He was content to just be in bed with her.

      That evening, however, she suddenly called a halt, claiming she was exhausted. That night she slept alone, in her pink-quilted, little-girl bed.

      Nick didn’t argue. He could see she was determined. But he wasn’t happy, resolving during that long, restless night that the following morning he would persuade her to go away with him to Happy Island, where she wouldn’t be able to escape him.

      Fortunately, he hadn’t cancelled the airline tickets he’d booked for himself and Chloe.

      Sarah’s reaction to his invitation over breakfast seriously surprised Nick.

      ‘Surely you can’t expect me to go away with you on the same holiday you planned with Chloe!’ she threw at him.

      Nick quickly saw that his sensitivity meter was registering very low, Sarah making it clear what she thought of his suggestion.

      He had to work hard all day to make Sarah see he wasn’t treating her as a substitute for Chloe. Some tender lovemaking seemed to soften her stubborn attitude a little. But he finally struck the right note when he said that he’d never taken Chloe—or any of his other girlfriends—to Happy Island before. She would be the first female to share his holiday house with him.

      It was both the truth, and a lie. He had taken Chloe there for one short weekend back in September. But, as it had turned out, she’d fallen ill with food poisoning on the flight there. She’d been unwell the whole time, unable to do anything but stay in bed and read. Nick decided in his male mind that that didn’t count.

      After agreeing to go with him, Sarah had surprised him once again when she’d insisted on spending last night alone in her bedroom. She’d said she needed a good night’s sleep, since they had to get up so very, very early.

      Nick had been wide awake well before his alarm went off, his desire more intense than ever.

      But it wouldn’t be long now. Soon he would have her all to himself again in a place where she had nowhere to run to. Or to hide.

      ‘Oh, I can’t see anything any more,’ Sarah said wistfully as she slumped back into her seat, her champagne glass still untouched. ‘The clouds are in the way.’

      Nick smiled. ‘Anybody would think you hadn’t flown before.’

      ‘It’s been years since I have,’ she said, then finally took a sip of champagne.

      ‘Really?’

      ‘I haven’t had much money left for holidays, what with paying for my rent and my car and general living expenses.’

      Nick frowned. ‘You could have asked me for some money for a holiday,’ he said. ‘I never did agree with Ray for leaving you that short of funds.’

      ‘It was probably good for my character. At least I’m not spoiled.’

      Nick’s frown deepened. No, he thought. She certainly wasn’t. But would spending time with him change her character? He wanted to educate her, not corrupt her. He would hate for her to turn out like Chloe, who thought of no one’s pleasure but her own.

      ‘Now, what’s that frown all about?’ she asked him. ‘You’re not worrying about Flora and Jim, are you? I spoke to them last night and they’re as happy as can be up there on the Gold Coast. It was a brilliant idea of yours to lend them your penthouse. Very generous, too.’

      Nick decided not to let her go back into hero-worship mode. Bad enough that she probably thought she was in love with him.

      ‘Come, now, Sarah, you know very well it wasn’t generosity that inspired my offer. It was a strictly selfish proposition. I wanted them right out of the way.’

      ‘You’re not the only one,’ she said, then blushed.

      It got to him, that blush, sparking a desire so intense that his flesh ached.

      ‘I wish I could kiss you right now,’ he said.

      ‘Why can’t you?’ she returned, her cheeks still pink.

      ‘Because I wouldn’t want to stop there,’ he ground out. ‘Next thing you knew, we’d be joining the mile-high club.’

      Her nose wrinkled with distaste. ‘No way could you get me to do that. I’ve always thought sex on a plane to be the height of tackiness.’

      ‘Hear! Hear!’ Nick said, and raised his glass to her. No way, he realised with considerable relief, would she ever become like Chloe.

      It would be damned difficult to go back to girls like Chloe after being with Sarah…

      As Sarah sipped her champagne, she wondered if Nick really approved of her view. Maybe he thought her prudish, since he’d always claimed to be a roué.

      But surprisingly, other than that first incident, when he’d pushed her down to her knees, her sexual encounters with him had not been the least bit decadent. Passionate, yes. But not dark.

      On New Year’s Eve he’d been very romantic, something he’d claimed he would never be.

      Sarah held the opinion that people were as good, or as bad, as you let them be. Certainly, that applied to children. She’d discovered during her teaching years so far that if she had high expectations of her pupils they usually lived up to them.

      Especially the so-called bad boys.

      Nick was a bad boy. But he wasn’t bad through and through, no matter what he thought of himself, and no matter what he’d done in the past. Her father had seen his worth. Her dad had also expected a lot of Nick. And Nick had lived up to those expectations.

      Admittedly, he’d lost his way a bit since Ray’s death. Sarah could not deny that he had earned his playboy reputation. Women had been relegated to sex toys in his life for so long that it probably was foolish of her to think he would ever embrace a better way of life. With her.

      Very foolish.

      But love was foolish, wasn’t it?

      Why