Twelve Hours of Temptation by Shoma Narayanan Read Free Book Online

next second Melissa caught sight of Samir, and she tossed the bat to the next player and came towards him.
    ‘I just got run out,’ she said, making a face. ‘I’m brilliant at bowling and fielding—batting’s not so good. though. Where were you? Jogging?’
    ‘Running,’ he said.
    She probably didn’t care if he’d been running or sprinting or playing hopscotch, but it seemed important to make the distinction. Jogging sounded like the kind of thing you did when you were forty and over the hill. Of course, to someone Melissa’s age thirty might seem just as ancient.
    She was looking at his shoes now, inspecting them as carefully as if she meant to buy them from him. ‘You have proper running shoes,’ she stated, sounding surprised. ‘Everyone I know uses everything interchangeably—tennis shoes and football studs and running shoes.’
    ‘Or they just run around barefoot,’ Samir said, before he could help it.
    Even covered in sand, her feet were very pretty, the nails painted a bright turquoise and a little silver anklet around one ankle. He’d been trying to keep his eyes off her legs and her small, pert breasts jiggling around under her yellow top, but her bare feet were pretty sexy as well.
    Melissa made a face. Her spontaneous reaction when she’d seen Samir had been to come across to him—she’d forgotten what a sight she must look, with her muddy denim shorts, windswept hair and bare feet.
    ‘I didn’t bring proper shoes,’ she said. ‘And it was a spur-of-the-moment thing, joining these guys—I was planning to go and splash around in the sea, so I wore beach slippers.’
    ‘You can still do that,’ Samir said. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Devdeep, abandoning his wicketkeeper role to come towards them, and he wanted to escape. ‘Come on—race you to the water.’
    He won, of course, but she came a close second, retaliating by running into the water and splashing him while he stopped by the edge to take off his shoes and socks.
    ‘Just you wait,’ he said, grabbing her around the waist and swinging her bodily into the next wave.
    Their actual physical contact was brief—his hands touched her waist for a few seconds, and then she was back on her feet, spluttering and laughing. For a few more seconds their eyes met—then a massive wave came rolling in, almost knocking Melissa off her feet, and the moment was lost.
    When the water receded Melissa discovered that her pavement store spaghetti strap top had taken the opportunity to turn completely transparent. Given that it was pale yellow, and that she’d chosen to wear a neon pink bra under it, the whole effect was a little B-grade Bollywood.
    Samir was keeping his eyes studiously averted from her chest—great, that showed he was a gentleman—perversely, though, Melissa wanted to know if she had any effect on him at all. The flicker of interest she’d seen on the drive in had been so slight that she might have completely imagined it.
    ‘Oops,’ she said, looking down at herself. ‘Need some help, here. I can’t go back to the beach looking like India’s answer to Baywatch . And no one handy to be rescued either.’
    At that, Samir laughed. It wasn’t a boastful comparison—in spite of her slim frame Melissa’s bust offered fair competition to the world’s most admired bathing beauties. He was having a hard time pretending to be indifferent.
    ‘I can pretend to drown, if you’d like,’ he offered. ‘In the excitement you could slip away unnoticed.’
    ‘It’d be more useful if you gave me your T-shirt,’ she said, eyeing the beach apprehensively. The cricket game had wound up and the boys were heading purposefully towards the water.
    Samir looked around and assessed the situation in a glance.
    ‘Here you go,’ he said, yanking the shirt over his head in a single fluid movement and tossing it to her. ‘I’ve been running in it for an hour, though, and it’s a mess. Not to mention the salt water.’
    Melissa