The Aussie Next Door

by Stefanie London

  “Sometimes I do things…” He sighed. “I would like to have a drink with you and listen to whatever you have to say.”

  “Do you even know how to make drinks?” she asked, a soft smile on her lips.

  “Step one, open gin. Step two, pour gin.”

  “Let me guess. Step three, drink gin?” She laughed. The sound carried on the night air and filled his heart. “I hope you’ve got something to go with that gin because I am not a straight liquor kind of woman.”

  “We’ll find something,” he said.

  Angie followed him back into his house, still dressed in her oversize dye-colored T-shirt and bikini. She could have been wearing a shopping bag from Woolies and she would have looked a million bucks. He’d been denying it for too long—at first because that was his MO, and then because he knew he wasn’t the kind of man she was looking for. But dammit, he was attracted to Angie. More than that, he liked her…a lot. She made him happy, made him question things. Made him want to attempt things outside his comfort zone.

  And then she told him she felt something when they kissed.

  Everything was muddled now. Because he’d started to wonder if maybe they were a good fit. But he’d have to tell her everything first. She deserved to know he wasn’t changeable. He was born this way, for better or for worse.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Angie watched as Jace made their drinks, his fingers deft and capable as he handled the two fancy crystal tumblers that looked like they were older than he was. The way those hands had threaded into her hair and kneaded her ass when they’d kissed had made her think they could do anything.

  A shiver ran the length of her spine. She hadn’t been kissed like that in a while. A long while. And it made her wonder why. For the last few years, the dates she’d been on never ended in a kiss. Not for a lack of trying for some of them, but every time one of the guys leaned in…

  She’d never been able to pull the trigger.

  Except Jace.

  When he’d put his lips to hers, it was like her world had suddenly been blessed by the sun for the first time. Every dried-up, hollowed-out, aching part of her had been comforted by him. He made her feel whole and good. So good.

  Jace carried the glasses over to the couch, where Angie was settled into the corner. Tilly lay protectively at her feet and Truffle was curled up in her lap. “Don’t I look like the perfect dog mama?”

  The genuine smile that lit up his face was like a knife twisting in her heart. “You’ve had a change of heart with Tilly?”

  “It dawned on me that maybe she’s a little misunderstood like the rest of us. And she took my side this afternoon, so I had to give her points for that.”

  “You girls always stick together.”

  “To drowning our sorrows.” She held up her glass.

  His gaze held hers as they clinked glasses, and she almost melted into a puddle. Heavy lashes framed his eyes, so thick and lush and sexy. Stubble coated his jaw and made him look even more brutishly handsome. His sandy hair was messy, as usual. Jace was the kind of guy who could kiss like a champ, take care of dogs, and didn’t mansplain things. It was unbelievable he hadn’t been snapped up already.

  Angie took a sip of the drink and her eyes immediately watered. “Jeez. You’re a heavy pour.”

  He grinned and took a sip from his own glass, trying to hold back a cough. “Okay, so it’s a little on the strong side.”

  “This might be the worst drink anyone has ever made me,” she said with a laugh. “But I appreciate the gesture.”

  “So I should give up on my hopes of one day owning a bar?” He attempted another sip and pulled a face. Then he held his hand out to take hers and plonked them both on the coffee table. “Yeah, that’s really bad.”

  “You can own a bar, but maybe don’t tend it,” Angie advised. Her stomach churned, because she had no idea where this was going and she really, really wanted it to go somewhere good. “Or maybe stick to those slushy drinks that look like something you get from a 7-Eleven. You could even have a little umbrella in them, let people think they’re on a tropical vacation instead of just going to the local watering hole.”

  Shut. Up.

  “You use a lot of words,” Jace observed. But he didn’t say it in a judgmental way, more like it was something he found interesting about her.

  “And you don’t use many at all.” Something compelled her to try and understand this mystery man—to untangle the knot of details and imperfections. “I thought you didn’t like me the first time we met.”

  She cringed at the memory. The first time she’d met Jace, she found him a little stuffy. Straitlaced. A little awkward. She’d tried to strike up a conversation and he did his best to evade her questions.

  But slowly they’d gotten to know each other, and she’d come to understand he took his time letting people in. There were a lot of layers to him, and most people probably didn’t get past the first few. But she had.

  “Is that your way of saying I’ve grown on you?” he asked.

  “Maybe it is.”

  “I think you’ve grown on me, too.”

  She gasped. “I was charming from the beginning, thank you very much.”

  He chuckled, and the sound ran down her spine like a caress. Heat spread through her, slowly tracking along her limbs and pooling low in her belly. Would she be acting like this if he hadn’t kissed her? If she didn’t know how skilled he was with his mouth?

  Get a friggin’ grip, Angie. It was one kiss, and you’re making out like it’s going somewhere.

  “I’m not good with people. With change,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair. “I, um…I’m on the autism spectrum.”

  Angie held her breath. This new information was like a puzzle piece clicking into place—and now some of his behavior made more sense. She didn’t dare move, dare speak, in case he clammed up. Because she felt the weight of importance in him sharing this part of himself. Knowing how intensely private he was, for him to open up about something so personal was a big deal.

  “The doctors said I was ‘high-functioning,’ so a lot of people can’t tell just by looking, but I have trouble making eye contact. I need my routine to feel like I can breathe. I sometimes say the wrong thing or I don’t say anything at all when I should say something.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I’m not the best at reading a room, either.”

  Now she knew why her knees turned to jelly when he did look her dead in the eye—it was so intense, because usually his gaze was a little off. Focused on something behind or to the side or above. It was as if she’d sensed how important that connection was with him, that it wasn’t something he doled out easily.

  He nodded, as if choosing his words carefully. “I was engaged once. I don’t know if you knew that.”

  Raising a brow, Angie watched him. She hadn’t expected him to come out with that detail. “I’d heard.”

  He paused for a moment. “Julia and I had been together ever since the end of high school. I got the courage to ask her out the night before our graduation ceremony, and when she said yes, I nearly fell over.”

  “You loved her?”

  “I was going to marry her, so yeah. But looking back, there were a lot of problems.” He picked at a loose thread on the couch, worrying it back and forth with his nail. “She knew about my autism, and for a while it wasn’t a problem, especially when we were younger. But I guess as the years went by, she finally understood there were some things I couldn’t change. My need for routine upset her, because she always wanted to do different things without planning beforehand. Sometimes I really needed to be alone, and she acted like it was because I didn’t love her. Well, I guess it was too much in the end. All those things don’t make me a very attractive fiancé.”

  Her heart ached for this wonderful man—for the pain he must have felt being rejected for something
about him that was out of his control. No wonder he had acted so strongly when she’d made that joke about him marrying her.

  “I was at the wedding rehearsal dinner, waiting for her,” he said. “We were all waiting for her. It was two days out, and she never showed up. I was worried. I thought she’d been in a car accident or something. When I got home, all her things were gone. There was a note on the kitchen bench.”

  “What did it say?” she whispered.

  Jace wouldn’t look at her now. He was lost in his thoughts, perhaps playing the past like a film reel in his head. She sat, waiting, giving him the time he needed. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked. This was so personal. So heartbreaking.

  “That she thought…” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “That she thought she was in love with Trent.”

  Oh no. The look on Jace’s face from the moment in his parents’ kitchen today made so much more sense now—the razor-edged hurt, the darkness. It must have been like a tiny little section of his history replaying. That comparison must have killed him.

  “She said she cared about me but that she knew it wasn’t love. She wanted the kind of passion that made her heart sing and no matter how I tried, I could never give her that feeling. I was too closed-off, too logical…too rigid.”

  Angie shook her head, her heart exploding with emotion on Jace’s behalf—anger, frustration, disbelief. How was it possible someone who was going to marry him didn’t see all the amazing parts of his personality? Sure, he might not be a hearts and flowers kinda guy—but he showed he cared in so many other ways. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” His voice was rough. She’d never heard him speak like that before. “It’s not like they had an affair. As far as I know, Trent was totally oblivious to it all. Julia wanted him from afar, but she never did anything about it.”

  “And then I poured a whole bunch of salt in that wound, didn’t I?”

  “It’s an old wound.”

  “But it’s not healed.”

  His gaze was still averted as if the conversation was embarrassing him. “No, it’s not.”

  “I can’t believe I did that.”

  “You didn’t know.” He stretched his arm along the back of the chair, his fingers tangling where her hair lay in slightly wild sun-drenched waves, kinked and textured from the summer air. The touch was so tender, so familiar, and it made her heart sing. “Hardly anyone does. I never told Trent because I didn’t want him to have to shoulder that burden. He didn’t encourage Julia by doing anything more than being himself.”

  “He steals the spotlight, doesn’t he?”

  “Since he was old enough to sit upright.” Jace laughed. “I guess since you never had siblings, you might not know this, but we’re always compared to one another. No matter how old we get, people like to put us in categories and rank us against one another.”

  “Really? I wondered if that only happened between the ‘real kids’ and the foster ones.”

  “It’s practically sport.” Jace’s expression had a faraway look to it—like he was sifting through all the moments that had led him here. In many ways, they had a lot in common. They’d both struggled to fit in, only it had taken them in different directions. Jace had curled in on himself, and Angie had worn a mask most of her life, trying to bend and twist and jump through whatever hoops people set in front of her.

  “I envy you, you know,” she said. “You’re so…yourself.”

  “I don’t have it in me to be anyone else.” His lip quirked. “I can’t spend my life trying to be someone I’m not.”

  “That’s very mature.”

  He chuckled. “I can be, at times. Well, for a guy who makes a living drawing cartoons.”

  “Don’t downplay it like that. Hermit vs. World is brilliant. It’s funny and relatable and somehow you manage to get these important things across in such a small amount of space. You’re talented.”

  “And you’re going to make my head so big it won’t fit through the doorframe.” He paused, glancing over her right shoulder. “I had no idea you read my comics.”

  “Well, I had to do my due diligence when I moved in.”

  He quirked a brow. “You looked me up?”

  “Of course. Single girl traveling on her own and all that…you can’t be too careful.” She grinned. “I had to make sure you weren’t an ax murderer.”

  “As opposed to some other type of murderer? Would it be less of an issue if I didn’t use an ax?” The question seemed like a serious one until Angie detected the barest hint of a twinkle in his eye. “I’ve always wondered that.”

  “Maybe you should write a comic about it.”

  “Ax Murderer vs. World? Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.”

  “I have no doubt you’d make it work.”

  “Your faith is misplaced.”

  She searched his face, noting the way his eyes shifted away from hers when she complimented him. But they returned quickly, as though he wanted to make sure she wasn’t about to run away. He didn’t need to worry—this was exactly where Angie wanted to be right now. Not at a house party with his brother, not chasing down some local hottie for whom she felt nothing more than the barest of snap, crackle, pop. No, she wanted to be here with Jace—the one guy who definitely wasn’t going to solve her problems but who made her feel like she could power a whole fireworks display.

  The one guy she wanted at the top of her list from the start.

  “I don’t think it is.” She shifted on the couch, moving closer to him. Truffle grumbled and changed positions between them, but Jace slipped his big hands under the little dog’s body and moved him to the floor. “What I do think is that you’ve become a world-class champion at shutting people out, because it’s easier than taking the risk of having them reject you.”

  “A world-class champion in avoidance, huh?” The light shifted in his eyes. “Worst Olympic sport ever.”

  “You’ve turned being the lone wolf of Patterson’s Bluff into a full-time job.” Her hand came up to his face, her fingertips feeling for the prickle of stubble along his jaw. It was rough and soft at the same time, a perfect contradiction, much like the man in front of her. “Hell, you’re so good at it, you made a whole comic about it.”

  “And what about you, Angie? Why are you here if I only shut people out?”

  “That’s the biggest question in my head right now,” she whispered. “I have no idea. Maybe you got lonely.”

  “You’re not just a warm body.” His tone was deadly serious. “I wasn’t looking for anyone right now. Or ever.”

  God, how she wanted to believe it. All her life she’d had this craving to be someone’s “special one.” To be the person they sought out, who they leaned on. But it was never in the cards for her. Only her illogical lovesick heart kept ripping open the stitches and begging for another chance, no matter how likely that she’d end up hurt and disappointed.

  “If it wasn’t you here…” He leaned closer. “This couch would be empty. I don’t want anyone else. Only you.”

  She swallowed against the dueling mix of hope and fear. “I want to believe it.”

  “But you can’t?”

  “I don’t trust anyone.” Truer words had never been spoken.

  She couldn’t help touching him—tracing the curve of his biceps and the rounded thigh beneath a frayed patch of denim, hard muscle twitching beneath her fingertip. He caught her hand and kissed the center of her palm, jacking up her pulse. It was such a simple gesture, but he filled it with simmering heat.

  “Maybe I could help,” he said, tugging her toward him.

  “Help me with trusting people?”

  “Yeah.” Jace’s eyes were like blue fire—shimmering and beautiful and she knew she shouldn’t get too close. “I…want to help.”

  The memory of their kiss swirled in her mind. The tast
e of him, the scent of sunshine on his skin. The firm hands pulling her impossibly close, melting her body to his. She clamped her thighs together, trying to quell the insistent throbbing between her legs.

  What about tomorrow? What about my plans?

  Being with Jace now meant she would have to leave Australia, because he couldn’t give her what she needed: the chance to stay. He didn’t make decisions quickly. They wouldn’t fall in love hard and fast and end up married by her deadline. This was a fork in the road. A choice.

  Sleeping with Jace would mean giving up her dream home. Did she want him that much?

  Yes.

  “Just touch me,” she said, sinking into her swirling desire and need.

  His hands coasted over her knees, his thumbs rubbing insistent circles higher and higher until they brushed the edge of her T-shirt. She still had only her bikini underneath, and her body felt hot and heavy.

  Her worries from earlier were drowning under his touch, the protests fizzling out like dead fireworks. How could something that already felt so good be bad for her? Sure, this wasn’t part of her plan to stay in Australia, but that plan suddenly seemed wrong and pointless and this…this felt real and right. And so damn good.

  When his thumbs brushed under the hem of her T-shirt, grazing the edge of her bikini bottoms, she gasped.

  He hauled her into his lap as though she weighed no more than a feather. She’d never been the kind of woman who wanted to feel small and delicate—because those things had been a liability in her life—but right now, Jace made those parts of her feel beautiful and feminine. He made those parts feel right.

  His fingers stroked her skin, his lips possessing hers. Her knees dug into the couch on either side of his hips, and when she lowered herself down, rubbing against him, they both moaned. Their breaths came hard and fast, mingling together as they kissed. The gentle slide of his tongue stole the breath right from her lungs.

  “God, Angie,” he moaned into her mouth. “I’ve been thinking about this for so damn long.”