When I open my eyes again, Ryan has disappeared around the side of his bungalow taking his spectacular toned body out of sight but not out of mind. My mouth may as well be full of sand, I’m so desperate to know what’s at the end of the trail of dark hair from his belly button dipping below the waistband of his shorts… How much of the visible bulge under the wet, clinging fabric is his penis? And am I brave enough to find out the answers?

Oh, God, I want to be brave enough.

I can do this, be true to myself, go forwards with courage, and demand more from life. Prioritise passion and adventure. Embrace more than work and obligation and live for all the moments Bryony couldn’t have. Starting with a drink with a stranger and followed by learning to paddleboard.

With determination dragged up from my toes, I trudge across the beach after Ryan.

My reassuring self-talk slows the fight-or-flight impulses firing in my brain as I rehearse what I’ll say to the sexy Irishman.

I would like that drink after all…

When you said drink, I thought you meant coffee…

I’m crap at this so can we just run through our conversation one more time…?

Or perhaps I’ll be honest about my feelings. Mmm… A little holiday flirtation with a man who looks like Adonis and sounds like Aidan Turner with laryngitis. Keeping schtum and not rocking the boat hasn’t worked out. My fresh start should be the complete opposite.

Hi, Ryan, sorry about my freak-out earlier, but if you still want that drink I’d love to. And if you fancy me as much as I fancy you, perhaps we could…

Could what? I’ve never had a one-night stand. How do we travel from strangers to shagging? I bet Ryan knows. My blood pumps harder just thinking about it. About him. About being intimate with anyone other than my ex…

Nausea and excitement battle for control of my body, but I forge ahead with renewed energy. I’ll have a drink with him and see what happens. Easy. And at least I’ll have something more to confess to Brooke and Neve than the books I read while working on my tan and staying hydrated.

Pathetic, Grace, real pathetic.

I step off the sand onto the wooden walkway, practically vibrating with anticipation as my bare feet pad along the sun-warmed timber.

This heady rush is the feeling I hoped to capture all those months ago when I’d woken up to my two-dimensional, mediocre relationship. This clarity is what I longed for when I experienced an epiphany after losing my patient—the fleeting fragility of life, the reminder of my beloved Bryony losing her final battle and how I most definitely wasn’t living my fullest version. If Bryony had survived beyond twenty-three, if she hadn’t died waiting for a heart transplant, there’s no way she’d have lived such a safe and sanitised life.

She’d have trampled me out of her path to go for a drink with a man like Ryan, if she’d had the chance.

Well, I can trample. I owe it to her and myself to find that courage of conviction.

The delicate scents of frangipani and honeysuckle hit me as I skirt the side of the bure, every nerve electrified by adrenaline. I’m momentarily blinded by the horizontal rays of the setting sun, and then I round the corner and jerk to a standstill.

Suck in a gasp.

Freeze.

Ryan is naked under the outdoor shower, one hand braced on the tiles overhead, every toned muscular plane taut, his right arm bulging and flexing with a jerky rhythm that can mean only one thing.

He’s masturbating.

My breath catches, wave after wave of longing coursing through my veins, burning me alive.

I should look away, tiptoe back the way I came on silent feet to avoid embarrassment, both his and mine. But it’s not shame causing my heart to bang at my ribs. It’s lust. Excitement.

Every inch of me incandescent. Bold. Alive.

I moisten my dry lips with the tip of my tongue, my stare raking his wet body—his thick thighs spread, his tight arse, every muscle delineated and bulging, an anatomist’s dream, as his hand works between his legs—his male beauty barbaric, primal, brutal.

My unblinking eyes burn. This is wrong. I’m trespassing, invading a private moment, perving unseen in the shadows, but my feet may as well be glued to the walkway.

My throat grows tight, my mouth flooding with saliva and my aroused nipples graze against the fabric of my bikini top. I press my thighs together to ease the fierce throb that has taken up residence in my ravenous clit.

When was the last time I had sex…? The final months of my relationship with Greg were barren, our excuses of fatigue and stress and apathy mutual.

Panic flutters in my veins as the seconds stretch. I worked myself into a frenzy with all those thoughts of one-night stands and by drooling over Ryan’s sexy dimples and washboard abs, and now he’s going to turn around and tell me to piss off…

I must make some sort of noise, a whimper maybe, because Ryan’s head whips around and our eyes meet, his fierce with arousal, as if he expected my sudden presence, and mine dragged half closed by the most erotic sight I’ve ever seen, even as adrenaline spikes to every cell in my body.

My face flames at being spotted invading his privacy, as I try to battle the arousal taking control of my body. But anyone could have walked around this corner. He wanted to be caught, or perhaps he just doesn’t care who sees him naked and aroused.

What now?

Don’t look down.

What would passion-seeking Grace do?

The old me would run like a startled rabbit, mumbling an apology. The old me would deny her feelings, shoving them down into a sterile version acceptable for others. But no more.

I look down. I can’t help myself.

He’s still tugging at his cock, which is long and thick and every bit as magnificent as I’d imagined. My stare lingers, mind blank, core pulsing with need—his big hand, those warm fingers that made me shiver pleasuring himself, albeit with less brutality now he has an audience.

Was he thinking of me as he jerked off?

‘Oh, my God.’ I must actually say this aloud, because he chuckles, drawing my eyes back to his, which are sparking with mischief and challenge, brows arched.

‘Care to join me, Doc? Or are you happy just to watch?’ Gravel infects his deep voice, which curls around me, sensual fingers teasing, touching and taunting. And I want it. I want his touch on me as much as I want to watch him touching himself, the shock blinding me to reason and sense.

But join him? In broad daylight where anyone could see, not under the covers with the lights out, missionary style…?

‘Perhaps you should shower inside, if you don’t want to be caught.’ My skin tingles, my nipples sensitive to the point of pain against my bikini top, a million feelings pounding me like the waves crashing against the reef beyond the lagoon. My body has disconnected from my overthinking mind, taking over, leaving me no choice but to stand here braced on the knife-edge of a delicious, dangerous decision.

His mouth twists, his smile slipping from cocky to downright sinful. ‘Who says I mind being caught?’

Blood thunders in my ears.

Why not take him up on the offer? Be honest. Don’t play it safe, always doing the right thing, the responsible, cautious, considered thing.

My whole body sags with relief as I admit that I want him and there’s not a reason in the world I can’t have what I want. I inch closer, drawn by forces almost too strong to resist doing something so unlike me. Unlike the old me.

But the new me? The me I came here hoping to nurture… I know what she’d do.

His hand slows, barely stroking, although he’s as hard and proud as ever. ‘You’re free to leave if my show offends you,’ he says with his trademark self-assuredness. I can tell he’s expecting a repeat refusal from me by the challenging curl of his mouth.

‘I’m not offended.’ Turned on to the point of delirium. Sick on my wild, unexpected thoughts. So tempted to take him up on his offer, but not offended.

But I’ve just met him. He’s clearly a man of the world and I’ve slept with one person in my entire life. He’ll see through me, see that I’m unadventurous, a charlatan. A woman who belongs in a nice neat couple, not a ‘wildly passionate one-night stand’ kind of woman. A ‘watching someone jerk off’ kind of woman.

My thoughts turn jagged, risky, caution crumbling, letting go of all the self-imposed constraints holding me captive. I followed him not for a drink, but for what might come after.

I want the kind of passion I see in his stare—raw, hungry, undeniable.

‘Good,’ he says. ‘Then you won’t be offended to know that you’re the inspiration for this.’ He looks down to where his hand now caresses his erection with slow, twisting tugs that make my internal muscles clench and my entire body go up in flames. Why is that the hottest thing I’ve ever heard? That I’ve inspired his flagrantly male display. That he couldn’t wait to indulge in a Grace-themed fantasy. That he’s not afraid to tell me, a complete stranger, that I turn him on, when I struggled to admit to my long-term partner what I wanted.

Because I didn’t know myself. I’d never allowed myself to be that honest. But now…?

I want to know what that feels like for him. I want to taste him and drive him back to that place he inhabited before I interrupted, just with my mouth. I want to be the kind of woman I imagine when he looks at me with sin and hunger in his eyes.

My feet move in his direction, while my brain screams and my pulse races so high, I’m scared of passing out before I reach the shower.

He drops his hand to his side and turns to face me, his angular face taut with arousal and his blue eyes blazing with challenge or need or something else.

Or maybe I’m hallucinating. But I’m past holding back, my body molten with the release.

Rather than dousing me in sense, the first shock of water cascading down my back inflames me higher. Ryan lifts his eyebrows, part impressed, part surprised, his expression shredding my usual caution.

He smells great, arousing—delicious shower gel, hints of sunscreen and seawater and maleness. As if magnetised, my body sways closer until I’m almost touching him, this stranger. This naked, turned-on man.

A head spin reminds me how I haven’t felt this heady, euphoric and frankly terrifying rush for a very long time. But I want to live out wild erotic fantasies with this beautiful man, here where I can re-invent myself.

I want to be honest and brave.

‘Kiss me,’ I whisper, so profound is my desire now I’ve surrendered to the idea.

He reaches for my face, his palms big and directive on my heated cheeks, and then I rise up on my tiptoes, my fingers dragging at his wet hair until our mouths connect.

The first foreign, and oh-so-thrilling taste releases an involuntary moan. I collapse against the wall of muscle that is his chest, my knees soft and my body flooding with wild, wonderful and freeing endorphins.

He angles my head to the slide of his mouth, his lips soft but demanding, exploratory, his eyes fiercely connected to mine, and the spray of warm water a welcome antidote to the inferno burning me alive.

He pulls away to gruffly say my name, a groan, and then we’re kissing again. This is crazy, exotic like this island. I’m sucked under by the waves of desire pounding my body. I’ve never kissed or been kissed this way, with such feral abandon.

My hands find his hips and I tug him out from under the worst of the deluge until my back hits the tiles and he’s a wall of naked maleness and hard muscle trapping me there.

Triumph sings through every cell. Would cautious, serious Grace kiss a naked, aroused stranger she’d interrupted masturbating in the shower? Would she hell. But I’m done with her.

I pant, my grasping hands jerky on his wet, slippery skin as I try to drag him impossibly closer. Here I am, surging against his kisses, bucking against his hips and the firm prod of his erection and practically climbing him, so desperate is my need to be consumed by whatever spell has taken hold.

When he leans back, pinning me with those piercing blue eyes of his, I almost cry aloud. I don’t want this to stop.

‘Condom.’ His breath gusts over my lips. ‘Let’s go inside.’

Condom…?

My brain clamours for a solution to the problem, which feels as wispy as the steam rising from our bodies. But those few seconds are enough time for sense to return like an unwanted party-crasher.

I push at his hips, shoving him a few inches away. No, no, no. I don’t want to be sucked into reality.

‘I shouldn’t have interrupted,’ I say, lips buzzing from the delicious scrape of his stubble. But I don’t want to go back to safety and caution. My fingers curl, digging into the flesh of his flanks and lower back, the only part of me bold enough to be completely honest.

Ryan braces one hand on the tiles above my head and pushes back the wet hair clinging to my forehead with his other hand, his body held inches away from mine so the only contact between us is my hands, still gripping his waist. ‘Do you always do what you should, Grace?’

Yes! I do…

I’m trapped between my bold and honest leap into the unknown and mortification that he sees my failings so clearly.

‘Don’t you?’ My voice is breathy, tinged with the ferocity of my desire. I already know the answer. I see it in his carefree body language and the rakish ease with which he’s embraced the chemistry that led us here.

‘Never.’ His stare pierces me. ‘I do what I want, when I want. That’s why I invited you for a drink.’ His finger traces a line down my cheek, leaving a trail of fire. ‘Why I didn’t stop when I turned around and saw you watching. Why I suggested you join me.’ He drops his hand to his side and steps back as if releasing me to my decision.

My body clamours for the return of his touch and his incendiary kisses, even as I list what-ifs so deeply ingrained, they’re part of my DNA.

‘You should try it,’ he says, ‘now.’ A shrug. ‘Leave or stay, just do what you want, not what you think you should.’

This is it—my call to make.

My brain scrambles with static. What do I want? And can I be honest enough to verbalise my desires? I know what I don’t want. I don’t want to move, because if we go inside, I’ll have time to second-guess and revisit well-worn paths of overthinking.

I sag back against the tiles; I can have what I want. I just have to say the words.

‘I want to watch you finish what you started.’ The words rush from the darkest corner of my mind, bringing with them a lick of shame but a flood of exhilaration. Until I spoke them I didn’t know what I’d say. But they’re three-dimensional, so raw and true they make me burn.

His eyes blaze. He grips his erection once more and slides his hand up and down his length with agonising slowness. I’m envious. I want to touch his beautiful cock.

‘Like this?’ His voice drops an octave as arousal takes him.

I nod, my breathing too thin to generate speech. Shaking off invisible shackles and acting on my desires is so foreign, it feels part of this landscape. A mirage. A fantasy that will cease to exist when I board the plane home. But I’m here in this moment. A moment I created. One I can orchestrate.

‘Yes. Kiss me while you touch yourself.’ I tug his hips closer and curl my hand around his neck. The minute our tongues touch, tangle, I surrender on a protracted sigh, further doubts or cold feet forgotten. I can barely stand I’m so aroused by what I’ve seen and what I’ve said and what I’m doing, caution thrown to the warm tropical breeze.

But even with a wall of determination at my back, tendrils of the old me persist. ‘This is crazy… What are we doing?’ I say in between the hot and frantic kisses I’ve demanded and which make me feel reborn.

Without breaking his pumping rhythm, Ryan rests his forehead against mine and grins. ‘Well, if you don’t know, Doc, I think you need to go back to med school.’

I can’t help a smile. How can he make such a momentous and sexy moment light-hearted? Does it matter what we’re doing? There’s no one else to consider. We’re just two strangers caught up in a perfectly honest moment of mutual lust.

‘Do whatever you want. Ask for whatever you want,’ he says, his breath warm on my lips.

I allow my stare to touch every magnificent inch of his aroused, naked body. I drag in a shuddering breath and cover his pumping hand with mine, learning the contours of his tight knuckles and how much pressure he likes in his grip. I want to know what this feels like for him. What makes his buttocks clench and his steely thighs judder against mine. While our pants of breath mingle, the heat from his body a thick cloud between us, I stroke my thumb over the crown, trace the slit at the top of the silky head, an exploratory move that drags a sexy warning growl from deep in his throat.

As if he’s reached a limit, his mouth mashes to mine, blocking my delicious view. My tongue rushes to meet the bold, thrilling thrust of his, every thought unrelated to Ryan and his mounting pleasure banished from my mind. I’m tempted to slide my other hand inside my bikini bottoms and join him on the race to climax, I’m that heated and slick down there, but instead I slide my free hand between his legs and gently cup his balls. For reasons I can’t explain beyond the fact that it makes every inch of me feel alive and free, I want to see and feel his moment of release. To see him complete what I interrupted, knowing he’s thinking about me while he pleasures himself, and I’m part of this snatched moment.

At the last minute he tears his mouth away from mine to roar my name as he comes, hot jets spilling over the back of our combined hands. His head lolls back in glorious release as he wrings the last spasms from his orgasm in a sight so male, so primitive, my clit throbs with shocking violence before he collapses forward, his head buried in the crook of my neck, breath gusting.

I’m breathing just as hard with euphoria, the rush almost as good as if I’d come with him. And I never want this moment to end. This feeling. This freedom.

‘For fuck’s sake, woman. That was the best hand job ever,’ he mumbles against my skin as shower after shower of elation rains down on me.

I did that. Took a leap. A risk. Made a decision based purely on instinct and impulse. But try as I may to cling to the high, my skin grows cool, goose bumps rising.

What now? Do we wash the evidence from our hands and shake on a job well done? Do we go for that drink and learn superficial things about each other? Do we say goodbye and avoid each other for the rest of the holiday?

I swallow down my questions on casual-sex etiquette, my heart galloping anew.

When Ryan looks up, vulnerability replacing the harsh arousal in his face, my instincts polarise, half of me desperate to kiss him with tenderness the way I would if I knew him beyond his first name, and the other half wishing I’d gone inside with him in the first place so that I wouldn’t have to stand here horny and awkward and covered in goose bumps.

It’s one thing to touch someone else, to kiss someone else, but to have a stranger touch me…? To be that intimate with a man I don’t know having only ever been intimate with one person? Not that he’s offering any longer, of course.

I peel my cooling body away from the heat of his. ‘I should go,’ I say to fill the silence.

Something like disappointment flashes in his eyes for a split second. ‘Should…?’

His question slashes like a whip across my back, unleashing white-hot stings of regret. So I’m still me, then? Still hesitant and cautious. Still overthinking. So much for the new improved version…

When I look up again, Ryan’s face is blank.

Almost of its own accord, my head bobs in confirmation. I need to get away. To regroup and analyse where I went wrong. To probe my instincts, which it seems can’t yet be trusted for all my brave talk of sexual adventure.

Ryan appears oblivious to the cyclone of heat and chills and pressure inside me, which replaces the heady abandon and arousal of seconds ago. ‘Sure.’ He slides his hands from my hips and presses a brief, almost polite kiss to my mouth. ‘Always do what you want, Grace.’

He steps back under the shower spray, water bouncing off his back and shoulders and cascading down his abs to his still-hard cock, his stare free of judgment, but also devoid of the addictive heat as he shakes the water from his face and slicks back his hair.

I waver back and forth a thousand times in those few tense seconds, my triumph decimated by the return of doubts. Now I’ve said I’m leaving, I have to follow through and he’s making no move to stop me. Perhaps this is the hook-up code.

Thanks for the orgasm. Have a great evening.

With heavy limbs, I walk away from his bold nakedness and his bland expression, my mind the only fucked thing about me.