Just Say Yes by Phillipa Ashley

this place hasn’t been used in months, by the look of it.”
    The house looked immaculate to Josh, but then he was hardly a domestic goddess.
    “And I’ve made the beds, the double and the single, so this Fiona can bring any combo of friends she likes. Is she gay?”
    Josh smiled softly. Not from what he’d gathered from his few meetings with Fiona. She’d almost pinned him against the countertop in her kitchen before he’d convinced her she wasn’t his type.
    “No idea,” he said, adding, “Tresco Creek attracts all kinds of people, you should know that.”
    Sara stopped midway to adjusting a heart-shaped tapestry cushion so that it was exactly in the center of the pillow. “Some more tasty than others,” she said, her gaze traveling to Josh’s chest.
    He glanced down and gave a rueful smile. He should have known, in hindsight, that it was a mistake to wander into the bedroom of the cottage, stripped to the waist. Even as Sara flicked a tongue over her lips, he guessed that the fence was going to have to wait a while.
    “Sweetheart, I’m filthy,” he warned as she took a step toward him.
    “So is what I have in mind.”
    She entwined her arms around his neck and touched the tip of her tongue to his bare chest, grimacing slightly at the bitterness.
    “I warned you.”
    “I don’t care.”
    “This is Fiona’s cottage,” murmured Josh. His fingers slipped inside the back of her white shorts, finding her skin deliciously warm. He was no longer worried about leaving dirty marks. He lowered his mouth to her ear. “I don’t suppose she’d be too pleased to know the hired help was having sex in her bedroom.”
    “What Fiona Thingy doesn’t know won’t hurt her, and you won’t get anything dirty,” said Sara, releasing him, only to whip back the rug off the floor. The next thing Josh felt were wooden boards beneath his naked backside and Sara sliding on top of him.
    ***
     
    An hour later he was back in the paddock, swinging a sledgehammer, almost wishing he hadn’t succumbed so easily. Almost, but not quite. If there was one thing he was sure of in this uncertain world, it was that he loved sex. He loved women, and until he’d met Sara a couple of years before, he’d wasted no time in indulging himself.
    Josh had been one of those lucky blokes who bulked up young. At eighteen, he’d had the body of a man of twenty-five and he’d known it. Despite what the social workers and, occasionally Marnie, had told him, his “reputation” hadn’t put off the girls. In fact, it had acted like a magnet. Local girls and vacationers alike had flocked round him but nowhere had his pull been stronger than with the girls who arrived in Porthstow, regular as clockwork, at the end of every June.
    Girls from places like Surrey and Cheshire. From universities like Durham, Oxford, and Cambridge. Places that would have probably ejected him from their manicured cloisters and halls if they’d caught him climbing up their ivy. Girls who were blond, raven-haired, brunette, and auburn. All with lithe bodies, shiny hair, and glossy accents.
    They had one thing in common: when they heard about his “challenging” background, seen him in a wetsuit, and discovered that “Oh gosh, you actually do manual labor ?” they turned to shiny, well-groomed mush. Forget their PhDs in Anglo-Saxon poetry, their MScs in the sex life of the potato, or whatever the hell they were into, all they really wanted was to get his boxers off.
    So he didn’t bother to tell them the whole story. How, after he’d stopped being quite such a bad boy, he’d worked his balls off to get a place at the local college and then done a part-time degree in business studies. How he’d worked as a community development officer for a while before he’d had to go back to Tresco Farm because, for the first time in his life, Marnie needed him more than he’d needed her.
    Those glossy girls just wanted a taste of bad boy for the summer and Josh had no problem