Page 26 of Obsession Under the Southern Stars

OMG.

He finishes the conversation and comes back to me, collects his case, and gestures with his head toward the exit. “Come on.”

I follow him, my head still spinning. We go outside, and he leads the way down to the car park.

He glances at me. “What’s the matter?”

“I… um… Joel!”

“What?”

“Were you saying you thought about me while you… you know…” I make a hand gesture.

He bursts out laughing. “No! I meant that I dreamed about you.”

“Oh.” My face burns.

He notices, and his eyes twinkle. “You’ve got a dirty mind.”

“You’re a liar. You did mean that, and you’re trying to make me feel bad about it.”

He just chuckles and unlocks the car, then lifts my case into the boot. Grumbling, I get into the passenger side.

He gets in the driver’s side and closes the door. He’s still chuckling as he turns the engine on.

“You’re so wicked,” I scold.

“You’re the one who jumped to conclusions.” He reverses out, then heads the car back toward the main road.

“So you didn’t think of me while you polished the banister, then?”

That makes him laugh. “Might have.”

“I knew it. Was I good?”

He gives me an amused glance. “Always.”

That implies he’s thought of me when he’s done it before. Heat spreads through me. Wow, that’s a turn on.

No, no, no, I mustn’t think of Joel Bell and sex in the same sentence. I mustn’t think about him pushing down his boxers, taking himself in hand, and giving himself long, slow strokes as he tips his head back and closes his eyes…

I clear my throat. “So where are we off to?”

“Opito Bay,” he replies, naming a small bay on a peninsula of land the other side of the Kerikeri Inlet. “We’ll pick up the boat there and head out to Moturoa Island, close to the Black Rocks, which is where the Relentless is.”

“Is there anything on the island?”

“There’s a coastal battery of two guns that was erected in 1942 as part of the series of defenses that were set up around the coast to stop the advance of the Japanese through the Pacific. The Department of Conservation set up a hut there at the east end of the island for emergencies. There are a few houses on the west side. The rest of it is fringed with forest. No other landmarks.”

“And the guys are meeting us there at nine?”

“Yeah.”

I’ve been to the Bay of Islands a couple of times, once on a school trip to Waitangi to see the Treaty and the place it was signed, another time on a family holiday that we spent mainly in Paihia. But I haven’t been further north than Kerikeri, so I’m looking forward to the trip.

Joel instructs me to Bluetooth my phone to the car’s entertainment system. I set some music playing, and we settle back for the journey.

The road leading to Kerikeri is lined with roadside stalls selling blueberries, oranges, lemons, avocados, and tomatoes, while the town itself is full of coffee shops whose tables spill onto the pavement. Locals and tourists sip lattes beneath toweringpalm trees. Orange and blue flowers of birds-of-paradise plants provide a splash of color, as do blue and purple lobelia and pink geraniums that tumble out of hanging baskets outside the shops.

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