Free The Seduction of Suzanne by Amelia Hart Page A

staring up at the gauzy drape of the mosquito net, dimly seen in the faint moonlight easing in through her open windows. With a sigh she gave up on sleep. As often as she had decided not to have any further contact with Justin, she kept coming back to gnaw over the decision. She knew what that meant.
    If she were brutally honest, she felt more desire for him than she had ever experienced before in her life.
    Frightening, heart-clenching desire, overwhelm-ingly intense. 
    Growing up on the island, she had known the boys who were her age from the time they were all children together. They had been friends and playmates. Occasionally she had thought about dating one or another of them, but she’d never felt a strong enough pull towards anyone to endanger a friendship trying to deepen it into something more significant.
    Her first tentative ventures into romance had been with visitors to Great Barrier Island. Teenagers who came with their families to spend a summer on the island were happy to share long days with her on the beach, to hold hands and make out under the pohutukawa trees.
    But always at the end of the season they would leave again, promising to write. One or two letters would come, and then she would be forgotten.
    After a couple of years where the same thing had happened, she decided it was all a waste of time and tears, and swore to be just friendly with summertime acquaintances, nothing more.
    Then there had been Gavin, so good-looking she imbued him with all sorts of characteristics of virtue that turned out to exist only in her own mind. He fired her blood so much she swooned around fantasizing about him for days on end. In her head they had a hundred sweet, tender conversations, delicate kisses and impassioned promises. For him she reversed her decision to avoid summer romances, with absolutely disastrous results.
    The crash and burn was devastating. She shrank from offering her heart to anyone after that. Handsome young men made her shut down, draw away, blank-faced with a churning gut.
    But she didn’t want to spend a lifetime alone. At the very least she wanted children someday. But not with anyone who made her heart race, made her forget wisdom and sanity.
    When she went to Auckland to study teaching, she looked forward to meeting a genuine young man her age. She wanted a chance to build a long-term relationship, a rich friendship. She deliberately picked one of her classmates, Michael. He was shy, and awkward enough she occasionally wondered if teaching was the right career path for him, before putting aside the thought as disloyal. And he wasn’t exactly good-looking. In fact she felt completely safe with him because he didn’t stir her body at all. She knew she could stay clear-headed with him. He was no threat.
    They had what Michael had liked to call a meeting of minds, and could talk easily to each other for hours. She enjoyed watching his confidence grow through their training, as he blossomed into a wise and compassionate young teacher. They had even kissed sometimes. However she never felt a strong desire for more than that, and when he didn’t press the issue, she settled contentedly into a virtually platonic relationship with him.
    It was she who had broken it off, in the final term of their course. After carefully observing the two of them during several weekends on Great Barrier Island, her father had taken her aside just before they were to leave on a Sunday.
    “ Suzanne, I don’t have anything against Michael,” he had said gently, “but I wonder why you see him as anything more than a friend. Can you honestly tell me that there is any spark between you two? If there is I can’t see it, and it seems a real shame for you to be with someone who doesn’t make you . . . well . . . thrilled to be with him. You deserve real love, sweetheart, not just friendship.” He had looked at her earnestly from under his bushy eyebrows as he spoke, gauging her reaction to his words.
    “Of cours e