Seventh (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  The rain announced itself almost instantly as the palms and grasses began to hiss and sigh with the growing strength of the wind. The storm transformed quickly as the monsoon-like downpour rushed towards his home and across the surface of the water in the nearby moorings, causing the boats to quarrel with their restraints.

  It finally arrived with a stinging announcement onto his back and into her eyes. Whilst she struggled to see, she wanted more. Her hair was now matted to her face, a river of water running down her body and over her breasts before continuing downwards. His hands left their own unique impression upon the glass as he let go of what was left of his inhibitions.

  Whilst she apparently had none, this was a first for her and she hoped it would never end.

  He kissed her throughout the downpour, their lips forming together, almost as if providing life-giving air. She placed her arms above her head and grabbed the top of the window frame, willing him to penetrate her even more deeply.

  She shuddered involuntarily as they reached a crescendo and screamed, biting deep into his shoulder to lessen the chances of being heard.

  Sensing, incorrectly, that she was afraid, or cold he lifted her up and into his arms, carrying her once more across the threshold, catching the door with his foot and dragging it closed behind him. Another hammering crash of thunder accompanied the door as it locked into its frame.

  They stood for a moment in each other’s arms, breathless but innately happy. She wiped her hands across her face, over her eyes and pushed back her auburn hair before placing them onto his own face and guiding the last of the rain down across his chest, over his stomach and pausing just long enough to cool him down – once more resulting in a gasp of pleasure.

  The last of the storm passed Spindrift by, heading south until it would eventually run out of power.

  He lifted her up, her wet body slipping at first until he added more pressure. As he walked from the lounge the two sets of damp footprints became one.

  The music had finished, all that remained now was the indigo light on the Yamaha Hi-Fi, its blue glow matching the display of the appliances in the kitchen and illuminating the last of the Roaring Meg, now desperately clinging to the curves of the two half-filled glasses.

  They arrived at the bedroom; he paused, leant backwards and pressed the wall switch with his shoulder, instigating the four stainless steel blades that were hanging from the ceiling. The fan began to rotate with a distinctive ‘whop-whop-whop’ sound and got up to speed until its circular motion wafted cooler air onto their humid bodies.

  He got alongside the Californian king-sized bed and threw her onto the covers, somewhat harder than he had intended, but she cared not. She landed in the cooler, crisp Egyptian cotton and threw her arms above her head; once more indicating that she was his, to do with, as he pleased. He stood looking at her, waves of passion built up inside him; he was almost shaking with anticipation.

  He beckoned her to come to the edge of the bed.

  Pulling her towards him it was immediately obvious that he was ready to follow the path that they both desired. She took hold of him and guided him onto his bed and soon they disappeared under the cold fibres and into the shadows.

  She spent the next hour kissing him; the scarlet coloured numbers on his bedside clock slowly changing, unseen. She slipped out of the bed whilst he lay staring up into the whirring, hypnotic fan blades, drunk on the moment and most likely still intoxicated by the taste of the wine. She returned, wearing just his favourite, crisply ironed blue business shirt and an expectant grin.

  All that was missing was a pair of dark-rimmed glasses; he laughed inwardly at his stereotypical fantasies, but quickly set himself straight – tonight, this girl would fulfil them all.

  It was indeed as if all of his deepest fantasies had come true: Meet girl in bar. Fall out. Have make up sex: All in one night, all night long.

  And that is exactly what they did. She was extremely practised in the finer art of lovemaking, initially in the bedroom and later, much to his delight, the lounge and finally, the kitchen.

  Writhing around on the very same industrial, cold steel worktops that had earlier illuminated her face, she unintentionally left impressions of her exquisite body on the mirrored surface. Looking down at the burnished steel, their bodies were replicated in an erotic image that would probably never leave his sub conscious.

  Totally oblivious to the fact that she had only met him that evening, she lay on the cool surface, her back arched gently so that she could reach up and probe his mouth with her tongue.

  Finally, in a moment of sheer alcoholic madness, she poured what was left of the Roaring Meg onto her breasts and commanded that he remove it with his own inquisitive tongue. Like a highly trained sommelier he savoured every note, every flavour, allowing the taste of her and the taste of plum, cherry and cinnamon to mingle in his mouth. He declared that it had honestly never tasted better.

  As his tongue navigated its way down her stomach, he stopped momentarily to admire a bright green jewel set into her navel. It was as bright as her eyes and equally striking. He continued on his journey of discovery until they both arrived, exhausted, breathless and intensely sensitive.

  They awoke an hour later, still lying on the steel bench. He climbed off, picked her up and carried her to his bed.

  A few hours later the sun started to rise, heralding another crisp and impressive day. He opened his eyes, slowly at first, then completely. He had been having an R.E.M. dream, the type that offers intensity; touch, taste, sound, pain, his eyes started to become heavy again and once more he dreamt of the girl, the mysterious Slavic beauty; literally, the girl of his dreams.

  Waking moments later, he was instantly aware that she was not a vision. She was as real as he was. Gently he turned, lifted the cotton sheet and in the half-light of the room could see her naked form, coiled around his own; tanned, taut and incredibly attractive.

  In the lounge her summer dress lay on the Danish red chair, her shoes abandoned on the polished rainforest wood floor. His clothes were a reckless mess, for one so obsessively compulsive about his attire, he simply didn’t care. What had she done to him? Who was this astonishing woman who had left mesmerizing images of herself upon his home?

  Her breathing was rhythmic. He could feel it on his shoulders. It was incredibly calming and serene after such a frantic night. Without warning, he sat up in bed.

  “Christ! Who are you?”

  She awoke with a start, almost in a panic, to see him stood in the emerging light; naked as he was the night before. Her heart rate was desperately trying to recover, to provide her with enough energy to stand. She staggered slightly until regaining her composure. Finally, she grabbed the sheet to cover her exposed body. It was as if she regretted the previous evening; her face a mixture of shock and guilt.

  She started to sob.

  “What have I done? I thought I knew you. I leave, you want me to leave? I go, I get dressed and I leave, now.”

  He shook his head, put his arms out in an open gesture and encouraged her to walk towards him. His enigmatic smile and cool blue eyes persuaded her even more so. As she stepped towards him the sheet unfurled, once more revealing her arresting body, her bejewelled stomach and beautiful feminine form.

  She stepped into his arms, and he held her tight to his chest. It wouldn’t be long before they returned to his bed, but before they did, he explained his outburst.

  “Last night…”

  “Yes, I know, I can’t explain, I have never done anything so…I have no word for it…the lightning, the wine, the rain…” she replied, almost breathlessly.

  “No, let me finish. Yes, it was incredible, you, were, are incredible but…this is completely crazy…it’s quite the most wonderful thing I have done for a very long time, but…”

  “But what?” She could have easily slapped him.

  “But I don’t know your name!”

  She laughed, “Well, then I don’t know yours too!”


  They stood there, perfectly naked, perfectly connected and perfectly ready to be finally, perfectly introduced.

  She gathered her hair up onto her head in a temporary attempt to add some style and then playfully let it cascade over her amber coloured shoulders. She turned around, so that her back was towards him and then teasingly looked over her right shoulder.

  The dimples in her lower back were, he decided, beyond sexy.

  “My name is Elena Dimitrova. My friends call me Ele. It means ‘the light’ in Bulgarian.”

  He kissed her with a gossamer touch; onto her nose and then, gently, her eyes, alerting her senses once more.

  He guided them back into bed, where they would stay for the rest of the morning, exploring one another even further.

  “Well, Elena Dimitrova, my name is John Cade; but my friends call me Jack.”

  She grinned, placing her tousled red hair onto his chest; she took a moment to listen to his still pounding heart and spoke, in barely a whisper, “Hello Mr Jack Cade. I have waited a long time to meet a man just like you.”

  She would use his name many times over during the remaining few hours.

  His run could wait; the beach would be there tomorrow.

  Chapter Two

  He was right. The beach was still there the next day.

  But she wasn’t.

  He left the bed in a heartbeat, searching his home for signs that she wasn’t a lurid, fascinating, intensely tangible dream.

  He threw on a pair of shorts and the shirt from the night before, then moved rapidly about the property looking for evidence; evidence beyond the smell of her, the haunting echoes of her laughter and sighs of pleasure. The overwhelming sense that she had become a part of his life drove him to find her – she had entered it in a heartbeat and apparently had left just as quickly.

  With precision borne out of training he cleared each room, bedroom, clear, bathroom, clear, lounge, wait. Signs of her existed, her handprints on the exterior glass and more intimate impressions of her on the kitchen worktops.

  Two empty glasses.

  Congealed red wine on the cool stainless steel surfaces.

  Her shoes by the side of the chaise.

  Her shoes, by the side of the chaise.

  He took a deep breath.

  “OK, so this wasn’t the best dream I have ever had? Now where are you, you incredible creature?” he offered to an audience of one.

  He moved around his home, opening doors, looking outside. He took a moment to reflect upon the storm and what they were doing, just there, only hours before. He smiled, shook his head as if to clear it, and carried on.

  Now he called her name for the first time since the night before.

  Nothing. So, she wasn’t hiding, a naughty child, trapped in a woman’s body. Oh she was wicked alright, my God she was incredible.

  He had no doubt that he would have never ended up wrapped around her, inside her, on her, as part of her, in a tropical storm – if she hadn’t had offered the intoxicating encouragement via her touch, her whispers and those damned green eyes.

  “OK, think this through, look at the options. One, she has had her wicked way and left. A one-night-stand with an older, more experienced guy and she has left; possibly with your wallet. Get over it. Two, she has left, but wants more, but doesn’t know how to broach the subject – pursue her, yes, follow her, find her, get her back whilst you still can. And your wallet too.” Now more serious. “Three – she has been taken.”

  She had got under his skin, completely, utterly. Was he hooked like a marlin in the deep, clear waters of the ocean, fighting for its life, thrashing, spinning and trying to throw off the predator? So if it was a one-night-stand, could he just forget her?

  Rhetorical.

  Had she caught him, tagged him, and released him? Or let him enjoy the fight and now just tipped him back into the ocean to die?

  “OK, calm down, work this out, put some coffee on, relax, turn on the radio, but please don’t sing, she’s not here, so you have no-one to impress and for God’s sake – don’t dance man!”

  He walked across to the kitchen, opened the cupboard and removed some Colombian Arabica, flicked the switch on the percolator – it made the very best coffee – and found himself removing two mugs from the top cupboard.

  He nudged the soft-close door, knowing with some confidence that it would silently do its job, closing, whisper-quietly. Boy, the Germans knew how to engineer things.

  He placed the mugs on the island worktop. Stopping for a moment to admire the outline of her naked body, ingrained in the clinical metallic surface. Christ, how could he ever remove that?

  He picked up his phone and thought about snapping a picture whilst he still could.

  “Cade, you weird bastard, what are you doing?”

  He laughed at himself, something he’d been unable to do for a very long time.

  “Perhaps next time you can film it for posterity?”

  He shook his head again, still trying to remove the recurring video playback. He cursed himself for thinking such a thing. Give it a week.

  The coffee started to bubble, filling the room with a heady scent, alerting his mind before it even reached his lips. Despite trying to be ‘normal’ he was distracted. “Where are you, girl?”

  A new song came onto the radio; a few lines permeated his subconscious until he became aware that he was singing along to it.

  He laughed again, “I don’t even know who you are, Olly Murs, but your song seems to sum up my feelings right now.”

  He repeated the last few words before turning suddenly. His hearing alerted to a new sound, deeper, a low snarl, an engine and a superior one too.

  Instinctively he picked up both of the mugs and walked out onto the decking as a late-model gunmetal grey Porsche Cayman purred to a halt on his driveway, the thumping bass line to Cher’s Believe disguising the familiar tick of a hot engine, the crackling of super-heated brake discs.

  The driver was dancing inside, dancing like no-one was watching, but she knew that Jack Cade was of course watching. She wore a familiar dress; Bvlgari sunglasses concealed those bright green eyes, her dark red hair glistened, but nothing could disguise that beautiful smile. She raised both hands over the leather steering wheel, shrugged her shoulders and blew a kiss.

  She was back. Thank God.

  He tried not to rush towards her, like a worried father-figure or a schoolboy with a crush on his art teacher. He waited for what seemed like a lifetime as she exited the car, her wonderful legs revealed to anyone that was watching. She swung out of the Porsche and popped the bonnet switch. She leaned in, just far enough for a hint, a suggestion of bare thigh – and higher, to be offered to its one-man audience.

  She lifted out a brown leather overnight bag, leaving behind a matching case. Perhaps stereotypically, she stood up and swished her hair in the gentle breeze.

  She was back.

  “Good morning Jack Cade, you like my car? Now this is not a hairdresser’s car! One day, if you are a good boy I will let you drive it but I don’t think you ready for its power…” She ran her hand suggestively over the bonnet, caressing the V line of the panel. It reminded him of the very same area on her body.

  She stopped at the badge and pointed.

  “She handles like a very bad girl; fun, exciting, flirtatious, daring, occasionally dangerous and very, very naughty. Always, she is naughty.”

  He smiled, a relieved smile, but one that he hoped wouldn’t display a hint of relief.

  “It’s not about the car, it’s about the driver! Coffee?” he beckoned to the outdoor loungers – probably the only furniture to have escaped the previous night’s escapades.

  “We shall see, later, tomorrow, we have race no?”

  She dropped her bag on the deck and sat on the bed, flicking her shoes off.

  “The best thing about the car? I drive it like I rented it!”

  He laughed, hesitated, then followed with a cautious, “I’ve missed you.
”

  She looked straight into his cobalt eyes, took a sip of the heady brew, breathing in its vapour before saying, “I have missed you more, Mr Cade. Sorry if I worried you this morning. I leave to go to my apartment; it is my last day there before I move on. I don’t feel good there, there are some men who…”

  “They cause you problems?”

  “No, no, they just look at me when I go swimming, men from my homeland.”

  “I would look at you when you were swimming, Elena Dimitrova – you are a beautiful woman.”

  “I know.”

  “Modest too. Anyway, we never had chance to speak last night,” he paused realising that they had hardly exchanged more than a few conventional words in nearly eight hours, “I was going to ask where you were staying but I didn’t want to…be too…pushy.”

  She replied in her staccato English.

  “Jack, be pushy person, I like that, since I met you I want to be with you more than any man, like you say last night, I not sure why we come together,” she giggled at her choice of words, clearly it meant the same in Bulgarian too.

  “Me too, me too. By the way Mrs Richards from The Lofthouse rang me to complain about our nocturnal activities, she asked that next time we give her fair warning so that she can view the whole show.”

  She blushed intensely before throwing a cushion at him, then stood and leant across to kiss him, affording him a perfect view down the front of her dress, all the way to those adorable legs.

  She emptied her cup and asked a new question.

  “My, I take your shower?” she started to walk, then turned. “Jack, I want to stay – I know we don’t yet know each other but I want to stay, is that OK?”

  “Of course, how long for?” he asked, somewhat hopefully, hopefully not too desperate sounding.

  “Forever! No only joke, I must leave Monday, I have flight booked to Europe.” She pulled a theatrically sad face.

  Seizing the opportunity and suddenly fearing that she might leave his life as quickly as she had entered it he asked, “Do you have to go? I make great coffee and I can cook too, I have a nice home, what I thought was a reasonable car and I’m only minutes from great beaches,” he clicked his thumb and forefinger together and pointed at her.