Twelve Hours of Temptation

‘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.’