After she had drunk a cup of tea as black as tar itself he leaned across the table towards her, smelling not of fancy aftershave but of soap and the undeniable scent of virile male.
‘Would you like to see the Wicklow Bay?’ he asked softly.
If he’d promised to show her the end of the rainbow she would have agreed to it at that precise moment. ‘Yes, please.’
They drove through countryside as green as all the songs said it was, until Finn drew to a halt next to a spectacular seascape and switched the engine off. ‘Let’s get out. You can’t appreciate it properly from here.’
They stood in silence
for a moment, watching and listening as the waves crashed down onto the beach.
‘There,’ he murmured. ‘What do you think to that?’
She thought of the view from her bedroom window back in Clerkenwell and how this paled in comparison. ‘Oh, it’s stunning!’
‘But not a patch on Greece?’
She shook her head. ‘On the contrary—it’s just as beautiful. But wilder. More elemental.’ Just like him, she thought, stealing a glance at him.
He stood like an immovable figurehead as he gazed out to sea, the wind whipping his black hair into dark little tendrils. He turned to look at her and something in the uninhibited pleasure in her eyes quite took his breath away.
‘So, do you have a sense of adventure, Catherine?’ he murmured.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘I’ll guess you haven’t been in the sea since your holiday?’
‘Well, no. There isn’t a lot of it in London!’
‘And you know what they say about getting straight back on a horse after it’s thrown you?’
‘Just what are you suggesting, Finn?’
His eyes burned into her.
‘Shall we let the waves catch us between the toes as we sink into the sand?’ he asked, in a lilting voice. ‘Take our shoes off and walk on the edge?’
It sounded unspeakably sensual, and unbelievably echoed the way she was feeling right then. On the edge. Yes. But the edge of what she didn’t know.
‘And you call that being adventurous?’ she teased, because at least that way she could disguise the sudden helplessness she was experiencing. ‘What a boring life you must have led!’
And she kicked off her sandals and took them in her hand, leaving her legs bare and brown as she looked at him with a touch of defiance. ‘Come on, then! What are you waiting for?’
He was waiting for the ache in his groin to subside, but he gave a wry smile as he bent to roll his jeans up, wondering how she would react if he said what was really on his mind. That she might like to slip that dress right off, and her bra and panties, too, and go skinny-dipping with him and let him make love to her in the icy water? God, yes! Now that really would be adventurous!
Then he drew himself up, appalled. He didn’t have sex in public with women he barely knew!
She ran ahead of him, wanting to break the sudden tight tension, and the sea was icy enough to achieve that. ‘Yeow!’ she squealed, as frothy white waves sucked up between her toes and rocked her. ‘I’m going back!’
‘Now who’s the unadventurous one?’ He held out his hand to her. ‘Here.’
Feeling suddenly shy, she took it as trustingly as a child would, safe and secure in that strong, warm grasp. But a child would not have had a skittering heart and a dry mouth and a fizzing, almost unbearable excitement churning away inside her, surely?
‘Blowing the cobwebs away?’ he asked, as they retraced their steps.
‘Blown away,’ she answered. And so was she. Completely.
Her hand was still in his, and he guessed that to the eyes of an outsider they would look like a pair of lovers, killing time beautifully before bed.