Just for You Read Online Free Page A

call.”
    “You’re quick, aren’t you? Yeh, because you didn’t call. I can’t exactly whinge about that, though, can I? I let somebody shag me against the wall a couple hours after I meet him, and I think he’s going to be sending me flowers the next day? Like I said. My mistake, which I’m not interested in making again.”
    “But I’m…I’m different,” he tried to explain. “That was before. That was that first year.”
    “That first year of what?”
    “When I was first selected for the All Blacks. When I was first getting a bit of notice, and everybody wanted to be with me.”
    Now she was the one flushing. “Like me.”
    “Nah. Not like you. With you, it was…it was me. I got that. And it was you.” He wasn’t explaining himself well at all. “I mean, it was special. It wasn’t because of the footy thing. It was because it was so good to dance with you, and there was something there, with us. I know there was.”
    “Huh.” It was very nearly a snort. “Pretty bloody special. Here’s what actually happened. You’re on holiday for a few days. You’re leaving, what, today? Tomorrow? You saw me, and you remembered that you had fun, because I’ll do anything, and you want to have another ‘special’ time before you go. And that’s all.”
    “Nah,” he found himself saying. “I’m staying on for another couple days.” He was? He was going to be taking the bus back, then, because the car was Nikau’s, and the boys were leaving today. “I’d make it more,” he hurried to add, “but I have to get back to Auckland for training. This is my last bit of time before the season. So have a heart. Go out with me, that’s all I’m asking. No strings.”
    “You want to go out with me? All right, then.” She picked up her bag, turned to leave. “I’ll be having a bit of a beach day here, tomorrow around noon with my family. You want to see me? See me then.”

S he didn’t expect him to turn up, of course. She helped Great-Uncle Matiu over the bit of dune and set up a chair for him, spread out a couple blankets for the rest of them, took herself into the water for a swim and barely looked around, because she didn’t want to be disappointed.
    But when she got out fifteen minutes later, there he was again, watching her. He waited for her to dry off, stood back until she introduced him to her family. She watched him greet Great-Uncle Matiu with a respectful hongi and handshake before turning to Auntie Kiri, then Ana and Ella, another cousin who’d come along for the day. Nothing wrong with his manners, nothing at all.
    Nothing wrong with how he looked, either. In togs again, thankfully not too long, which let her look at his thighs, at every hard, delineated muscle of them. She’d seen him on TV in his rugby shorts, and those were even shorter, but the effect was nothing to seeing him up close. His body was, if anything, stronger than the one she remembered. Extra time in the gym, she guessed. And just to make it better, he was wearing an NBA tank top that showed off the solid beef of his shoulders and arms. The whole effect was pretty overwhelming, and had Ana looking at Reka with a raised eyebrow that Reka ignored.
    He’d turned up. She hadn’t thought he would. A picnic with her family had sounded like the polar opposite of what he wanted from her. But he’d turned up, and her heart insisted on doing a Happy Dance at the thought of it, and the sight of him.
    “Who wants to go in the water?” she asked, laughing at the chorus of “Me!” from the kids. They had a few extras along, as usual. And then it got even better, because Hemi stripped off the tank top to come join them, and Reka got a bit distracted.
    Everything about him was perfect, and she remembered exactly why she’d danced with him, why she’d gone outside with him, why she’d gone to the hotel with him. The heavy bulge of shoulder muscle, the tapering vee of his torso, the horizontal ridges of his abdomen disappearing