PASSPORT TO PASSION

Somewhere between Lisa's second and third vodka and Red Bull, she decided to become a nun. No more of that sex stuff. Ever. To be honest, it wouldn't be much of a stretch. She couldn't remember the last time she and Daniel had done it. Weeks. Months, even. Maybe that's why he'd kissed that girl from Accounts...

She finished her drink and ordered another. The barman looked disapproving, but Lisa didn't care. She needed to get trolleyed. First, she hated flying. Really. Hated. Flying. If there'd been any other way to get to a sun-drenched Greek island, she'd have taken it. Second, her boyfriend of six years had cheated on her. With a girl so skinny, she made Posh look like a heifer. And third... or was it fourth? - she was losing track - she'd been made redundant from her dull but paid-the-bills PR job for the local council. This wasn't alcohol. It was medicine.

"Are you OK?" a voice asked behind her. She swivelled on her stool. The departure hall kept spinning, even after she'd stopped. She blinked hard at the man in front of her until he'd finished bobbing up and down. Tall, broad, blond. Just her type. If she hadn't decided to become a nun, of course.

"I'm not having sex with you," Lisa slurred.

"I'm not having sex with you either," he replied, trying - and failing - to hide a grin. Lisa borrowed her mother's best glare. "Can I help you?"

"Aren't you on the flight to Corfu?" he said.

"How do you...?" she stuttered.

"I was checking in behind you. Only, last call was five minutes ago..."

Turned out he was sitting across the aisle from her. Typical, Lisa thought. She decided to take a vow of chastity and some blond sex god pitched up right beside her. Almost close enough to... She unbuckled her seat belt and darted down the aisle, joining the queue for the toilet behind a bunch of tired, grizzling kids. She needed to splash some water on her face. Sober up. Calm down.

God, she could use another drink. She was pathetic - jobless, single, totally without a plan. Twenty-nine, and she hadn't got through a quarter of her list of Things To Do Before I Turn 30. What had happened to the adventurous, ready-for-anything Lisa, who'd planned to climb Ayers Rock, learn to scuba-dive and have hot, sweaty sex with a stranger before she left her 20s? Daniel had happened, that's what. And look where that had got her...

Which is why, when Mr Sex-on-legs from across the aisle joined her in the queue and winked at her, she felt her inhibitions drop. Jake pushed the toilet door open with one hand and grabbed her with the other. She didn't resist him.

They were grabbing at each other's clothes before the door had even shut behind them. He pulled up her T-shirt and bra, and Lisa groaned as he started kissing her, his teeth blurring the line between pleasure and pain. His other hand slid beneath her, and she hooked her left leg around his waist. She didn't know if it was the angle or the cramped space or if he was just really good at this, but he was totally hitting the spot - she had to bite her lip to keep from letting the other passengers know just how good.

A fire started to lick across her skin like a match set to newspaper. Her nails dug involuntarily into his back as they collapsed together, panting. "Jake," he gasped, as they both caught their breath. "Lisa," she returned. "Nice to meet you."

Quickly, they adjusted their clothing, apologising politely every time they bumped knees and elbows. As soon as they were both ready, Jake nodded, then opened the toilet door. Lisa followed him to her seat, head down, unable to decide if she felt shocked or pleased with herself. She really wasn't the sort of girl who had one-night stands. But... it had been fun, something that recently had been sorely lacking from her life. Wasn't that the whole point of this holiday? To rethink her life; to be a different sort of girl? It wasn't as if she'd ever have to see Jake again...

Clearly he felt the same way, because by the time she'd reclaimed her luggage, he'd vanished. Lisa shrugged off a vague sense of disappointment and collected the keys for her rental car.

The moment she left the cool terminal building, the breath was sucked out of her by a dry, suffocating heat. Pulling on her sunglasses, Lisa unlocked the dusty two-door Fiat and jammed her case into the ridiculously tiny boot, sweating already. She wound down the stiff windows and turned on the radio as she pulled on to the main road, not bothering to consult the map. She remembered the way to Aunt Mel's taverna from her last visit three years ago. With Daniel. They'd spent their days swimming in the warm aquamarine sea and their nights...

Don't think. Don't think. Don't think. Had he really thought she wouldn't find out? The video had been plastered all over Facebook before he'd even got home from the office party. He'd sworn it had been a drunken kiss, nothing more, but it didn't matter - how could she ever trust him again?

She forced Daniel from her mind and navigated her way along the familiar coast road to the north of the island, savouring the scent of bougainvillea, lemons and mint drifting on the warm breeze. It was late afternoon by the time she reached the curve of the mountain and saw the village where her aunt lived nestled in an olive grove below, the sea glittering in the distance. She parked the Fiat in the shade of an olive tree, and got out. Because it was Sunday, the taverna was shut - her aunt was probably still down at the beach.

Lisa lugged her case up the whitewashed stairs at the side of the taverna, and pushed open the door to her room. The quilt on the wrought-iron bed was new, but everything else looked the same. Sunshine spilled through the shutters on to the scrubbed pine floorboards. A lizard skittered across the white walls. On the bedside table was a lamp and a pile of battered paperbacks. Lisa unpacked, then showered the plane, the sex and the long drive off her skin. By the time she went downstairs, Aunt Mel had returned and was issuing a stream of instructions in Greek to a handsome young waiter.

"Goes like a stallion, but absolutely terrible at everything else," she confided as he left. "Had a good journey?"

Lisa grinned. Aunt Mel didn't change.

"Great, actually. Can I do anything to help?"

"Be a lamb and pop across the road to Spiro's Bar and ask if he's got any cheap red plonk. I'm totally out."

Outside, fireflies danced in the dusk. A balmy breeze caressed Lisa's bare shoulders as she crossed the unpaved village street and pushed open the wooden door to the bar. It was cool and shadowed. "Hello?" Lisa called. Behind the bar, a figure straightened. Lisa closed her eyes. "You have got to be kidding me," she said, jaw clenched.

"Be fair. How was I supposed to know you were staying in the same village?" Jake, aka Mr Sex-on-legs, grinned.

"You could have said!"

"As I recall, neither of us were in the mood for making small talk," he laughed.

She could feel her cheeks flushing. "Look," she sighed. "The plane was fun and everything, but I really didn't come out here looking for a holiday romance. I have enough problems as it is."

He shrugged. "You came on to me, if I remember. Not that I'm complaining, but frankly, this wasn't part of my plan either."

"We should pretend it never happened," Lisa said firmly.

"You stick to your side of the street, and I'll stick to mine," he muttered.

"Fine." Lisa slammed out of the bar. He hadn't put up much of a protest, she thought crossly. Evidently he was as happy to see her as she was to see him.

For the next 10 days, Jake stuck to his side of the bargain - she didn't even see him. Every evening she helped Aunt Mel in the taverna, but the days she had pretty much to herself. Each morning, she headed down the steep, twisting path towards the beach. By the time the sun was high in the sky, she'd had enough, and returned to her room for a siesta before the evening rush.

One afternoon, Jake overtook her on his motorbike as she struggled up the hill. He pulled the battered blue Kawasaki over to the side of the road. "Need a lift?"

Despite herself, Lisa couldn't help but notice the firm ripples of his chest and stomach beneath his thin white T-shirt, the strong muscles of his bare thighs wrapped around the bike. She hadn't had much of a chance to check his body out before, but he was seriously hot. She dragged her gaze up to his face. "I'm fine."

"C'mon. No reason why we can't be friends, right?," he responded.

She hesitated, then threw one tanned leg over his bike, pressing her cheek into his back as he roared off. God, he was sexy. So different to Daniel - blond where Daniel was dark, muscular where Daniel was slender, bold where Daniel was... well, not.

Daniel was a bit of a wimp, if truth be told. Terrified of heights, phobic about fire - he couldn't even bear a lighted candle - and he was a total hypochondriac when it came to his health.

She tightened her grip around Jake's waist. He was right - there was no reason why they shouldn't be friends. It was lonely, spending every day by herself. So when he dropped her off and suggested they meet up again the next day, she found herself agreeing.

Jake seemed to know dozens of tiny, private coves, accessible from hidden paths, and over the next few days, he took her to many of them. They swam, lunched and dozed in the sun. He didn't lay a hand on her, and kept the conversation light and impersonal - she still didn't know much more about him other than his name. And that she fancied the pants off him.

Why had she said she wasn't interested in a holiday fling? Here was this suntanned, handsome guy whisking her around a romantic Greek island, and she'd practically proclaimed herself a Vestal Virgin. What the hell was wrong with her?

After a week, she was climbing the walls with frustration. The following Sunday, when Jake dropped her off around midnight, instead of going upstairs to her lonely bed, she let herself into the deserted taverna and headed for the bar.

She was just knocking back her second neat vodka when the door opened again. "Lisa? You left your phone in my jacket..."

Their eyes locked and the next moment, they were all over each other. She had no idea who kissed who first, but as he lifted her on to the bar, she didn't care. He kicked off his jeans and yanked his T-shirt over his head. She buried her hands in his hair as he kissed her all over. Then she was pulling him to her, hungry for his touch. She raised her hips to meet his, muffling her cries against the salt and sweat of his shoulder.

"You," he whispered, as he helped her get dressed and escorted her up the stairs to her room, "are so not part of my plan."

He pushed open her bedroom door, then bent to kiss her again and she hungrily responded. As he did so, a lamp suddenly turned on behind her. Lisa whirled.

There, sitting on the edge of her bed, his face thunderous, was Daniel.

• Tess Stimson's latest novel The Cradle Snatcher (Pan Macmillan, £6.99) is out now.

NEXT WEEK: Caught in a two-man tug of lust, Lisa is forced to make a difficult decision and almost risks her life in the process

PHOTOGRAPHY: CAMERA PRESS/MORE, BCM/GETTY

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