Tall, Dark & Distant by Julie Fison Read Free Book Online

suppressed memories of a hot shed in the middle of nowhere, the stench of stale urine almost overwhelming the reek of fear. It was confusing to have a name he’d associated with terror for so long now belong to someone he wanted so much.
    As he ran a finger over her name, the feeling of her wet thighs against his shoulders came back to him, like he was in the pool again. He felt the fabric of her bikini pressed against the back of his neck. God, she was hot.
    Shoulder wars – what genius had invented that game?
    Georgia had been doing his head in since he first set eyes on her in the national park. There had to be a law against looking that sexy at 6 a.m. But it wasn’t just that. Lots of girls were sexy. She was different – totally unlike any other girl he knew. (And he knew a lot.) She was … real. She couldn’t lie to save her life; she was way too honest and way too open. He’d never seen any of those things as attractive personality traits before. He preferred to keep things locked away. It had worked for him, so far. Well, it hadn’t exactly worked for him. He’d left a trail of screwed-up relationships from London to Buenos Aires.
    Guarded, remote, indifferent, selfish, thoughtless, unreliable … just a few of the adjectives that had been hurled at him as he’d walked (or in some cases run) away from relationships. Sure, he was all of those things. And a whole lot more. But that was just who he was. He didn’t see those traits as flaws the way girls did. They were essential for self-preservation.
    No-one could hurt you if you didn’t let them near you. He couldn’t guarantee that no-one else would get hurt in the process, but that wasn’t his problem. He wondered if he’d always felt like that. He guessed as a kid he’d been trusting. He’d trusted his father to take care of things. But he’d let Nik down in the worst possible way. Now there was no space in Nik’s world for trust and no reason for openness.
    Nik glanced at his phone again as he pulled into his garage. As much as he knew he should keep well away from Georgia, he also knew he couldn’t. He had to see her again. He would go for a run. One run. He just needed to see her once more.

    ‘So, which track should we take?’ Nik asked, looking at the map at the entrance to the national park. ‘You’re the local, I’ll follow you.’ He glanced at Georgia, trying to keep his eyes on her smile and off her legs.
    ‘The coastal track is the nicest but it gets pretty busy this time of day,’ she replied.
    As if to confirm her assessment, six middle-aged women marched past. Their perfume was so strong it nearly choked him. It reminded him of his mother. She used Chanel No. 5 as an air freshener – as if the fragrance would somehow cover the smell of despair in her apartment. Her home in Switzerland had a staggering view of Lake Geneva, but it still managed to be entirely depressing. His stomach clenched at the memory of his mother using her damaged hand to spray the perfume from the bottle.
    ‘On the coastal path,’ Georgia continued, ‘people are always dropping things like frangipani hair-ties. You’d waste a lot of time picking them up.’
    She paused, expectantly. Nik was aware that Georgia was waiting for an explanation of some kind about how he’d spotted the hair-tie. But he just smiled at her joke, his mind still on Switzerland. He noticed her face falter, disappointed by his lukewarm response. He smiled more enthusiastically and made an effort to keep his mind on the conversation.
    ‘The other tracks are out of the sun,’ Georgia went on, pointing into the bush. ‘They’re shady and a bit quieter, not so many people.’
    ‘Let’s take the quiet option,’ Nik said. It was too easy for people to hide in crowds.
    They pushed into the shadows of the rainforest. He didn’t need to look at her to know how well she ran. He could hear it in the rhythm of her breathing, even as the track got steep – she was definitely an