Just for You by Rosalind James

think.”
    “Well, no,” he said, the Maori in him rising fast. “Actually, you’re dead wrong, not that I think you’ll believe me, because it’s pretty clear you don’t. Yeh, I want to have sex with you. And yeh, I want to have sex, period. Course I do. I’m a
man
, and I’m not a monk. But here I am, drove all this way on my one day off, willing to take you for a swim, out to dinner, kiss you and hold your hand, if that’s what I get right now, if that’s what it takes, and drive straight back home again. I’m willing to do all that, and it still isn’t enough. What would be? What would be enough for you? I’ll tell you. Nothing. And if nothing’s going to be enough, then forget it. Forget this. I don’t need this, and I don’t need you. Not if you don’t want me. I’m not going to beg.”
    “Fine,” she said, her eyes flashing temper. “You don’t need me? I don’t need you either. Got along fine without you, haven’t I. And I’ll keep on getting along.”
    “Fine,” he said back. “Fine. I’m going.” He flung the front door open and strode down the footpath to his car, forcing himself not to look back, opened the car door with a jerk that just about took it off, slammed it with enough force to shake him, and took off. He didn’t squeal the tires. He was damned if he was going to give her the satisfaction.

    Driving to the ferry landing, trying not to speed, and failing, because the anger had to go somewhere, and it was going straight into his right foot, pushing the car too fast around the curves until the screech of tires told him he was too close to the edge and he forced his foot up again, eased off.
    How could she say that? How could she think it? When he’d done nothing wrong, nothing at all, nothing but say no, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t been tempted. Because it had been Lexi, Lexi and a girlfriend, and six months ago…Bloody hell,
three
months ago, he’d have been all over that. All over both of them, and thinking what a lucky bugger he was. Didn’t she know that? Couldn’t she see?
    On the car ferry, getting out for the brief journey because there was no way he could sit still. Staring over the rail at the deep green of the bush dotted by the emerald flash of fern trees, the islands of the Bay to either side, all of it receding, because he was leaving it—and Reka—behind.
    Those girls. His knuckles shone white on the rail. What would have happened if
he’d
done that? If he and a mate had crawled into bed with a girl who’d been sleeping it off, not in any shape to say no? He’d have been up before a magistrate before you could say Bob’s your uncle, that’s what, and sent down to play provincial rugby just about that fast, at the very least, his All Black career a thing of the past.
    Not that he would have, and why? Because there was a word for that, and he knew what it was. Why was it all right for girls to do it, then? And how could that have been his fault? It was wrong, that was what it was, and if anybody had the right to feel hard done by, it was him.
    Back in the car, headed down 12, through Kawakawa and merging onto the motorway towards Auckland, and this wasn’t how tonight had been meant to go.
    All right, then. Him. He’d known it would be like that. Not like he’d never been to one of Aaron’s parties before. He could have done it like Drew, kept himself to a couple beers so he could have left when things started to get out of hand. Drew had never put a foot wrong yet, not in three years in Super Rugby and, yes, three years with the All Blacks as well, selected after exactly one Super match at the ripe old age of twenty-one, and every time since. If he didn’t end up as skipper of the ABs this year, Hemi missed his guess, and why? Because he kept his cool head, on the paddock and off it. Because he did it right, because he practiced as hard as he played, because he fronted every single time, every single week, because he was consistent, because