The Secret Lives of Emma: Distractions Read online

  About the Book

  The continuing adventures of Emma! A series of erotic novels that tap into our deepest romantic fantasies …

  After a steamy affair with her young neighbour, Emma Benson flees to her friend Sally’s beach house to recharge her emotional batteries. Her marriage to David has been going through a testing time, but now she’s determined to be the wife he would like her to be.

  If only it was that easy.

  How do you tame a woman who’s brimming with uninhibited sensual desires, a woman for whom pleasure is the ultimate goal in life?

  Sally’s beach house is the perfect place to relax and reconnect with a secret relationship Emma had thought had ended years before.

  But then the arrival of David at the beach house reignites her fantasies – and offers her a temptation she can’t help acting upon.

  CONTENTS

  COVER

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY NATASHA WALKER

  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  MORE AT RANDOM HOUSE AUSTRALIA

  Dedicated to my best friend,

  lover and muse

  ONE

  ‘I just had to get away, David. No, there was no reason. No, it wasn’t anything you did. It was spur of the moment. We just thought it would be fun. Well, you’re playing golf all day tomorrow. I know. I know. No, I didn’t think you’d mind. It’s just for the week. I will do my uni assignments. Up here is better. There are too many distractions at home. Yes, that includes you. You’re a distraction. I need to get the reading done. Sally will probably lie in the sun all day. You’re not angry with me, are you? Good. I just like to keep you on your toes. To keep you hungry. You want me now, don’t you? But you can’t have me. Well, come up next Friday. Can you wait that long? No? Good. OK. Bye-bye, baby. I love you.’

  Emma ended the call. She stood at the open balcony door, a glass of white wine in her hand, and tossed the phone across the room onto the couch.

  ‘He took that well,’ she said to Sally, before noticing she was bustling about in the kitchen with her back to her. Her friend turned around, eyebrows raised, when Emma spoke. Sally was speaking on her mobile, which she’d tucked between her ear and shoulder.

  Emma shook her head and mouthed, ‘Doesn’t matter,’ and the clatter of pots, the jingle of the fridge door laden with wine bottles being opened and closed, began again.

  She turned back to the balcony and listened to the ocean’s unvarying roar and the occasional distant boom. The night was darker than Emma had ever remembered. The ocean haze swallowed everything up. She noticed that the houses to the left and the right were vacant. The holiday season had yet to begin.

  She sipped the wine, enjoying its clean taste. Through the door, the beach house was inhaling a cool fresh sea breeze and exhaling the earthy aroma of garlic. She rubbed her bare feet together. They were still slightly sandy. She’d run onto the beach in the darkness when they first arrived. She had gone down to the water. She hadn’t gone in, it had been freezing but her skin now felt dry and salty. She closed the door and draped one of the throws from the couch over her shoulders.

  She remembered how cold it had become at dawn that morning as she lay with Jason under the blankets in her backyard. Was it really that morning? It seemed an age ago to her now. Her flesh hadn’t forgotten though. The merest thought of Jason sent heat through her body. The things he had done to her. She hugged herself.

  She had to stop this. She had to stop thinking about him.

  ‘Does Mark want to drive up tonight?’ asked Emma, loudly, breaking into Sally’s conversation.

  ‘Did you hear?’ asked Sally into the phone. ‘Right. Yes. No.’ She turned to Emma. ‘He says he can’t be arsed. Lovely, thanks, babe. No, I’m sure she understands. We don’t want you up here anyway …’

  Emma turned back to the ocean, but her mind had drifted to Jason. To the mini-market. He had taken her G-string. No, she had given it to him. Willingly. A minute or two more and they might have been interrupted by his mother. It was too awful to think of. She’d been right to leave. Things were getting crazy. And Jason, spending time with Jess instead of her. Unforgiveable. Un-for-giveable.

  She smiled to herself. She had already forgiven him really. In the car on the drive up, while Sally rattled on about her plans to go into business with a friend who made good money as a decorator, she had run over and over the short time she had spent with Jason. She had absolved him and blamed herself. Her anger had subsided and along with it her reason for leaving Sydney. Then she remembered the marks left by her young lover, the scratches and bruises of ecstasy. David could not be allowed to see them.

  ‘Dinner’s ready,’ announced Sally, carrying two plates of steaming pasta to the dining table.

  A groan escaped her lips as Emma sat down. Her muscles were sorer now than they were when she had woken that morning.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Sally, smiling. ‘Getting old?’

  ‘I slept badly last night. My neck hurts a little.’

  ‘You haven’t been coming to yoga with me, that’s why. If you don’t use it …’

  Emma smiled. Oh, I’ve been using it, she thought. She pictured Jason naked, standing over her. She shook the idea away and yawned.

  ‘Early night for you, then.’

  ‘Sorry, Sal,’ she said, before lifting a forkful of pasta to her mouth. ‘Mmm, this is really good.’

  Sally stared at her, thoughtful, then said, ‘So, are you going to tell me what you and David fought about?’

  ‘What?’ spluttered Emma, her mouth full.

  ‘That’s why we’re here, right? You two had a fight?’

  Emma shook her head.

  ‘I had plans this weekend, Em. Mark’s friend is having his fortieth tomorrow night. Mark wasn’t very happy with me.’ Sally waited a moment before asking, ‘So why are we here?’

  Emma had thought she was going to tell Sally everything. She had almost told her on the way up but something kept her quiet. Now she knew what it was. Sally had retreated into normality. Sally wouldn’t want to know. Not really. That part of Sally’s life was over. Sally was nice now. A good wife.

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  Her friend was silent. Emma saw the beginnings of a frown forming on her usually trouble-free forehead.

  ‘Yet. I can’t tell you, yet,’ said Emma. What could she tell her? That her eighteen-year-old lover had cheated on her with his teen girlfriend? That she had to leave because she couldn’t allow her husband to see the marks her lover had left on her body? Or, that the life she had been leading had become a farce?

  Emma saw the
disappointed look on Sally’s face.

  ‘Maybe tomorrow. I just needed you to get me out of Sydney. And you did. And I love you even more for dropping everything just for me. OK?’

  ‘You love me?’

  ‘Always, darling. Always.’

  TWO

  The next day, after a brunch of fresh fruit, coffee and croissants, the two women continued to sit at the table on the balcony. There had been no rush that morning. They had slept in and taken their time getting up and ready. It was now eleven. A huge white umbrella kept the sun at bay. Both women perused last month’s glossy fashion magazines in silence while sipping their coffees. The vast, bright, glistening ocean was ignored. The pounding, rhythmic surf was reduced to white noise. Emma’s attention was focused squarely on the page devoted to solving the problems women have in bed. And the coffee, which was exceptionally good.

  ‘Did you sleep well, Em?’ Sally yawned.

  ‘Like the dead.’

  ‘Lucky you! I didn’t.’

  Emma said nothing.

  Sally left the table and lay down on the day bed, and said, ‘God, I love it up here. Whenever I come up I feel more alive.’

  Sally’s parents had owned the holiday house on the Central Coast since the seventies. Emma had been a guest there many times during her childhood. The awkward fibro house on stilts was bulldozed in the nineties and Sally’s parents had built anew.

  The new house was also raised on stilts but was two storeys, the top storey housing two large bedrooms that both opened onto a shared balcony. The large first floor was open plan with kitchen and living and dining spaces facing the uninterrupted view of the tumbling, pounding waves. Two smaller bedrooms with bunk beds were found at the back. There was also a pool out the front between the house and the beach, a feature which was repeated, house to house, along the entire beachfront.

  ‘Just close your eyes and listen to the surf, Em.’

  Emma did as she was told. The dazzling sunlight and the sea salt in the air were triggers to happiness. A buoyant mood rose from the depths of her being. She had been so angry after leaving Jason, angry with herself. He had injured her pride. She smiled at it now. Jason, David and Mosman seemed a world away. What did it matter?

  The slight breeze across her skin was tantalisingly cool.

  She would use the time away to get a grip. The beach house was now dubbed ‘Sally’s Sanatorium for the Criminally Sensual’. She’d come to be cured of her obsession with that young man. For a week now, since he had leapt over the fence, he had been ever present on her mind. He had texted her overnight, but she had deleted the messages. She longed for the life she’d led before seducing him. Now she had to banish him from her thoughts.

  ‘Shall we wander down to civilisation today?’ asked Emma, languidly.

  ‘You do mean the village? Not Sydney?’

  ‘Just down there,’ she said pointing, ‘to the surf club. We can observe the locals.’

  ‘Are you sure you want to? You know what they’re like.’

  Sally had long since tired of the ‘us vs them’ attitude of the locals and avoided the village shops where she was made to feel unwelcome. Her family had been visiting every year since she was a toddler. Whole summers had been spent at the beach house when she was a teen. But to the local girls she was a ‘tourist’ and never was or could be one of them. So she’d brought with her enough supplies to last a week. She had no intention of visiting the village at all. When supplies ran low she’d shoot off to the mall, half an hour’s drive away. Coming out of season meant she didn’t have to mingle with anybody. Even on a beautiful sunny Saturday she could see that the neighbouring houses were empty. As her parents’ beach house would have been, if Emma hadn’t pushed her to come up.

  ‘Besides, Em, haven’t you got homework to do?’

  ‘You’re not going to start sounding like my mother, are you?’

  ‘I might. I have to do something. I can’t have you wandering the streets looking for trouble. I know what you’re like.’

  ‘Bitch.’

  ‘Tart.’

  ‘Touché.’

  Emma picked up the magazine and considered whether she should have another coffee.

  ‘Em?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Why are we here?’

  Emma had hoped she had escaped the question. She placed the magazine down and turned to look at Sally.

  ‘I had to get away. I suddenly felt …’ She couldn’t complete the sentence. ‘I just couldn’t stand it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My life, I suppose. It was as though I had shrunk overnight and nothing seemed to fit.’

  ‘Even David?’

  ‘Yes, even David. The whole life I had chosen seemed a mistake.’

  ‘How can that be?’

  ‘It doesn’t now. I feel better now. I can breathe again. Maybe I shouldn’t have neglected our friendship. Maybe I just needed more Sally in my life. I feel so much better today.’

  ‘Shall we go home then?’

  ‘No, no! Let’s never go home. Let’s live here together. Or let’s pretend we are going to. Please?’

  ‘OK, Em,’ said Sally, aware that there was more to the story. Something had happened that Emma was reluctant to share with her. She had always wondered at Emma’s choice to settle down with David. It seemed out of character. Indeed it seemed doomed to failure. She thought now that she was witnessing the end. But she wouldn’t push. Emma would tell her in her own time. It was the pattern of their friendship.

  Emma smiled at Sally, thanking her for not pressing her further.

  ‘Is that your phone, Em?’

  Emma listened. She could just make out the ring tone. She got up and walked inside. It was on the kitchen bench. She picked it up thinking it would be David or her mother, but it was Paul, her lover. She glanced around. Sally had stayed outside. She answered.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Guess where I am?’ asked Paul, without any preamble.

  ‘I have no idea? Peking?’

  ‘Peking? Jesus, Em, it doesn’t even exist any more!’

  ‘Constantinople?’

  ‘You’re just fucking with me.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘I’m in your lounge room.’

  ‘What the hell are you doing there? How did you get in?’

  ‘David let me in.’

  ‘Oh, shit.’

  ‘Oh, shit, indeed.’

  Emma was keeping an eye on Sally, making sure she didn’t come in the house.

  ‘Why is he home? He’s supposed to be playing golf.’

  ‘He said he has a cold, but he doesn’t look sick. He was still in his pyjamas. He’s taking a shower now. I said I had come to take you to lunch but as you weren’t home I’d take him. He tried to decline the offer but I insisted.’

  ‘You and your impromptu visits! I knew this would happen one day.’

  ‘You love my impromptu visits!’

  Silence.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Up at Sally’s beach house.’

  ‘Shall I come up?’

  ‘No! Jesus, Paul, do you want me to get in trouble?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Right, the bastard probably did want her to. But it was good to hear his voice. He was entirely immoral. It was cleansing.

  ‘Did David say anything?’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Are you fucking my wife behind my back?’ said Emma, with a smile.

  ‘Yeah, and I was honest with him. I also told him about the night before your wedding.’

  ‘You’re a shit.’

  ‘As if he would say anything! Even if he suspected there is no way David would ever give me the satisfaction. He would just divorce you and move on. He’d probably never speak to you again.’

  Emma was silent. She hated Paul for saying that. It was true, though. David would just move on. There would be no middle ground, she thought, and this had always frightened her.

  ‘Look, Em, don�
�t worry about any of this. Nothing is going to happen. I’ll take him to lunch, we’ll talk about the rugby or the cricket or I’ll tell him stories about the women I’ve been fucking and he’ll be fine. Hey, why are you up there?’

  At that moment Sally stood up.

  ‘I’ve got to go. We’ll talk later,’ she said and ended the call.

  ‘Who was that?’ Sally asked as Emma returned to her seat.

  ‘David.’

  Later on, Emma sat with a novel under the shade of the umbrella. She hadn’t noticed Sally had left her side till she passed by the top of her page. She was down by the pool in her bikini. Emma watched her for a moment then fell back into the novel. Some time later she heard a splash and looked up to see the blurred figure of her friend swimming the length of the pool underwater. Sally emerged by the wall of the shallow end. As she stood up and pushed her hair back, Emma saw she was naked. And, like many other admirers of Sally in the past, she was startled by a sudden new impression of her friend’s beauty.

  Emma liked Sally’s decision to drop the bikini and break the norm. Though with no neighbours to spy on her, and a low sand dune screening views from the beach, it was hardly a brave break with convention.

  Sally began to swim again and Emma could not take her eyes from her.

  After ten or so laps, Sally gripped the side of the pool and pushed herself up. Emma saw her rise out of the water, lifting herself with an easy strength. The dynamic bend of her body accentuated the muscles in her back and thighs, revealing how fit and strong she was. But as she stood the muscles retreated and the soft, lean figure returned. Sally moved gracefully towards her towel and the outdoor lounge. She stretched the towel out over the lounge seat, bending this way and that before, briefly, kneeling on all fours and then lying flat on her stomach. Emma realised she had been holding her breath. She exhaled.

  Some time later the sound of a car door slamming and the laughter of children interrupted Emma’s voyeurism. She hadn’t been able to read. She rose to warn Sally of the arrival of her neighbours but saw that Sally had already wrapped the towel around her and was walking back to the house, out of view.