The Aussie Next Door

by Stefanie London

  “Bullshit.”

  “Seriously.” He pressed her against the tiles, and the shock of the cold at her back with his hot body at her front was enough to temporarily freeze her brain. “You’re the kind of girl I never thought I’d stand a chance with. Beautiful, funny, smart, kind.”

  “I like the way I look through your eyes.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  He grabbed her wrists in one big hand and pinned them above her head, his body easily moving hers into position. Using his free hand, he hoisted her leg over his hip. The hard length of his cock pressed at her entrance, and he rubbed back and forth, coating himself in her. Warming her up.

  “I want you inside me,” she whispered, but the drumming water swallowed her words. She grabbed his head and yanked it down to hers. “Jace, please. I can’t wait any longer.”

  Letting out one of the most incredible sounds Angie had ever heard, Jace turned to the shelf on the back wall of the shower stall that held a small collection of shampoo bottles and body wash. Sweeping one hand across the lot, he knocked all the bottles to the ground and then hoisted Angie onto it. The ledge was small, not really made for a human backside, but with his large body in front of her, she was totally secure.

  Jace ran his hands along her legs and pulled her ankles behind his back. Water streamed over them, and it ran in rivulets down his magnificent chest. She imagined this was how he looked emerging from the ocean—like a sea god coming to claim the land before him.

  “I love it when you look at me like that,” he breathed. He positioned himself at her entrance, one hand braced against the tiles.

  When his eyes connected with hers, strong and steady, her stomach filled with butterflies. Thousands and thousands of beating wings, making sure she’d remember this forever.

  “Ready?”

  “I was ready an hour ago.”

  When he pushed inside her, the sensation exploded through her body, sending champagne bubbles racing along her veins and making every muscle coil tight in anticipation. Jace swore against her neck, moving slowly at first as if savoring the moment. But Angie didn’t want sweet and slow. Her body was so wound up, she needed to know he was as uncontrolled with passion as she was.

  So she raked her nails along his back, and Jace’s eyes flew to hers, the blue of his irises eaten away by arousal. This time when he pushed into her, it was hard. Hot. Angie clung to him as he thrust into her over and over, whispering all kinds of dirty things in her ear. Each slamming heartbeat brought them closer together, and she was panting his name within minutes.

  Who knew sex could be as good as in the movies?

  Another orgasm curled deep inside her, building and building and building…

  “Oh my God,” she cried, arching into him. Her teeth scraped along his shoulder and when she came, shuddering hard in his arms, it was like she’d launched straight up into heaven. “Jace!”

  “I’m with you.” He pumped into her once more, long and smooth, and then his hips jerked. His arms tightened around her as he tipped over the edge, following her into the foggy cloud of pleasure.

  Chapter Twenty

  They didn’t move until the hot water ran out, and then it was a mad scramble to freedom. Laughing, they tumbled out of the glass stall and reached for the fluffy towels hanging on a rack by the door. Jace couldn’t believe how lucky he was to have Angie here with him again. Her cheeks were flushed pink, and her eyes were sparkly and wide.

  “They’re doing it again,” she said, covering her face with her hands. “We’ve got to start locking them out if we’re going to get busy.”

  Tilly and Truffle stood in the doorway, looking up at their half-naked babysitters. Jace pulled the towel tighter over his crotch. “Not cool, guys. It’s starting to get creepy.”

  Angie flashed him a wicked smile. “Not into voyeurism?”

  “What can I say, I’m a selfish guy.” He pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her waist. “I don’t like to share.”

  “Neither do I.” She tipped her face up to his. “I want every bit of you all to myself.”

  “For how long?”

  The question seemed to suck the life out of the room, but Jace had decided that he didn’t want to go any further before they talked about what it all meant. If his chance meeting with Julia had taught him anything that afternoon, it was that ignoring an issue wasn’t helpful. He could have saved them both a lot of heartache if he’d voiced his opinions and wants instead of letting the doubt fester silently.

  He wasn’t going to make that same mistake with Angie.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “You want every bit of me…for how long?”

  Her eyes suddenly became closed off, as if she’d shuttered part of herself away. “Is that a rhetorical question?”

  “No, it’s a serious one.”

  “I…I don’t know. I have no idea what this is.” She shook her head. “I’m having fun.”

  Jace frowned. It wasn’t exactly the response he’d been hoping for. Had Angie changed her mind about wanting to stay? Was this a last hurrah to her? “I’m having fun, too.”

  She toyed with the knot holding her towel closed and glanced awkwardly down at her feet.

  Wow. Way to kill the mood. Maybe you should have let the good feelings roll for a whole minute before you started infecting them with your awkwardness.

  “I wish I was better at this,” he said with a sigh.

  “At what? The extraction?”

  “Huh? No. I mean the ‘after’ bit.” This was not going how he’d wanted it to. “I’m not trying to extract anything. I thought maybe it was a good time to…”

  What did he think?

  “It’s fine, Jace.” She walked into the hallway and started making her way through to the kitchen, scooping up her clothing as she went. “I promise I’m not going to get all stage-five clinger on you.”

  “I don’t even know what that means.” He scrubbed a hand over his face.

  “It’s been clear from the start that we want different things…and then we fell into bed. I don’t regret it at all.” Her cheeks turned a deeper shade of pink as she clutched her clothing to her chest. “But I’m telling you not to worry, because I’m not expecting you to change your stance. I understand why now.”

  Was this more about his failed attempt at marriage with Julia or because he shared that he was on the spectrum?

  “So based on that,” she continued, “I know that two nights of great sex won’t magically solve all our problems. We shared something amazing and that’s it. I’m going to lock that happy memory away.”

  “You’re already viewing it as a memory?”

  She talked like it was over and done with, a check in the box. Like they weren’t still together right now.

  “I didn’t want to make this difficult on either one of us.” She bit down on her lip. “I thought if I focused on the good…”

  “Isn’t it all good?”

  She made a noise that sounded a hell of a lot like his family did when they were frustrated with him. “What I’m saying is that I’m trying not to expect things that will leave me disappointed.”

  The conversation was going south quicker than a newbie wiping out on a heavy wave. “We haven’t even had a chance to discuss expectations.”

  Jace was certainly not an expert in reading subtext—that had been proven many times over. But nothing coming out of Angie’s mouth was ringing true, not even a little bit. She was trying to shut him down before he had the chance to say what he was thinking, like she assumed he was going to be a jerk about it. That stung, if he was being honest. But Angie must be trying to protect herself, and he had to respect that.

  “I’m not trying to kick you out,” he said, closing a hand over hers. “But you’re not even giving me a chance to say what’s on my mind.”r />
  She eyed him warily. “Is this a conversation where I should be dressed?”

  “I honestly don’t know. The more I talk, the less I understand how communication works.”

  That seemed to slow down Angie’s spiral, and the corner of her lip twitched. “You and me both.”

  It was times like this that Jace wished he’d been better blessed with the gift of gab like every other person in his family. Clearly, he’d been standing in another line when God was handing out interpersonal skills.

  But he was going to try. Because that’s all that was in his power.

  “I like you, Angie,” he began.

  “But?” Her eyes glimmered.

  “But this isn’t a normal situation.” He raked a hand through his damp hair. “There’s a clock ticking.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” She looked away from him.

  “I feel terrible that you’re in this position because of someone else’s ineptitude. It’s not fair.” He paused for a minute to select the words as carefully as he could. This was not a time to stuff things up. “I want to help.”

  There was only one way he could help. Only one way he could keep Angie here, with him, so they could keep exploring each other. Keep learning. The thought of her leaving now—thinking they were nothing but a memory—it felt so wrong, he wanted to scream.

  He’d been looking at everything with the lens of his failed relationship with Julia, but talking to her had changed his perspective. Marriage wasn’t the problem. It was communication, or lack thereof. And with Angie, he felt like maybe he could be better.

  Frowning, she looked back at him. Something he couldn’t quite read was swimming in her eyes. “How?”

  “I’ll marry you.”

  She blinked. “Excuse me.”

  “I’ll marry you so you can stay. I can fix your problem.”

  He’d expected her to show some reaction to his offer, but instead her face was a mask. Dammit. He hated being like this. He hated feeling like he was messing things up when he was trying to make them better. He wanted her to stay more than anything.

  “It’s what you wanted, right?”

  She blinked slowly. Once, twice, three times. “No, it’s not what I wanted.”

  Shit.

  “Jace…” Her expression was definitely somewhere in the gray area, and Jace suddenly found it hard to breathe. “I know you probably think you’re doing the right thing, but I said from the start I didn’t want a fake marriage. I’d hoped I might be able to find love and get married and have a chance at finding a home here, a real happy life.”

  “That’s what I’m offering.”

  “No it’s not. You’re offering to help. You’re…fixing my problem, like it doesn’t even have anything to do with what you want.” To his horror, her face went white. “This wasn’t a pity screw, was it?”

  “What? No! Were we not experiencing the same thing in there?” He gestured to the bathroom. “I like you, Angie. A lot, in fact.”

  “But you’ve made it clear that you don’t want to get married. You want to be the hermit from your comics and live alone in your quiet, un-messy little world.” She pressed her hands over her face, but her towel slipped and she swore. She sounded as though she was spiraling inside—he knew that because that’s often how he felt when things went wrong. He knew that tornado of thoughts, each one worse than the last. “This conversation definitely needed us to be fully clothed.”

  He was digging a hole, and now he couldn’t see the way out. “I thought that’s what I wanted, but the foundation of that entire belief was based on something false.”

  “Which was?”

  “I never wanted to marry Julia in the first place. I had doubts, but I kept them quiet, and then when she left and I was hurt by what she wrote in the note…so I focused on that. I knew it was wrong at the time, but I couldn’t admit it to myself.”

  “So you’re telling me that you know you want to marry me because you were about to marry someone else who you actually didn’t want to marry…only you were going to do it because you felt obligated?” She stared at him like he was an alien species. “That makes no sense.”

  “It made sense in my head,” he replied with a sigh.

  “Even the non-proposal?”

  Was that what this was about? Because he hadn’t gotten down on one knee? “Can we start this conversation again? It went in a direction that I didn’t want it to, and I’d like to try again.”

  Angie bit down on her lip. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “I want you to stay.” He stepped closer to her. “I like you and I want you to stay here. The only way for that to happen is for me to marry you.”

  “And how will I know that the night before the wedding, you’re not silently regretting your decision, hoping I’ll back out so you don’t have to?”

  Ouch. “I don’t make the same mistake twice.”

  “Neither do I, usually.” Her eyes fluttered shut for a moment. “I shouldn’t have come over.”

  She headed for the door, going straight outside in his towel. Jace wasn’t sure how long he stood there, watching her cross the lawn and wondering what the hell had happened. How did he manage to screw everything up even when he had the right intentions?

  Tilly trotted out to the main room and plopped down by his side. But when she looked up at him, he got the distinct impression she was judging him.

  …

  Angie avoided Jace all day on Thursday and for most of the day on Friday, but not because she was annoyed with him. She was more annoyed with herself. They’d had amazing sex where she’d felt this deep connection, only for the moment to be ruined by both their baggage the second things got real.

  It wasn’t his fault. She’d started to wrap her head around the fact that the thing between them wasn’t going anywhere, and then he’d thrown a wrench in it by suddenly wanting to swoop in and save the day like some kind of matrimonial superhero.

  It’s a bird… It’s a plane… It’s marriage man!

  Ugh. He wanted to “fix her problem”…not exactly what all her little-girl fantasies had been building up toward. She’d hoped one day that a man might be so enraptured by her that he’d fall to one knee and profess his love. Was it old-fashioned? Maybe. But it’s what she wanted. The whole twinkling fairy tale complete with a big red-bow-style happily ever after. The passionate love that couldn’t be tamed.

  Not a pity proposal.

  In a fit of disgust at her own pathetic-ness, she’d boxed up the VHS player and all the rom-com tapes. She would return the player to him, and if he didn’t want the tapes, she’d ride them down to the charity store next week. She had no use for them now.

  After being with Jace, she knew there was no way anyone else in this town—or possibly anywhere else—would compare. Sure, he didn’t always say the thing she wanted to hear, but there was no denying he made her heart flutter. That was the worst part of it all—she really liked him. Liked the way he made her feel, liked the fact that he listened to all her grand plans for the retirement home and offered thoughtful suggestions. She liked that he was creative and good with dogs and a total family guy. He wanted to help her…but she needed more than that. If she was going to marry someone, it would be for the right reasons.

  You’re asking for too much.

  But was she? Hadn’t her childhood taught her that she was responsible for finding her own path, her own happiness? That if she didn’t think herself worthy of a good life, then nobody else would be lining up to give it to her? She had to seize it. Demand it.

  And as much as Jace was everything she could have wanted, she wouldn’t settle.

  She stood in the middle of her cozy little granny flat and looked around. When she’d moved in six months ago, she’d done her best to make it feel like home.

  She loved this
little place. Never mind that she could reach the kettle from the dining table or that her bedroom was barely more than a ruler’s length around the double bed. It was the first place to ever make her happy. The first place she’d looked forward to coming home to.

  “Maybe you should be grateful you had it, even if for a short time,” she said to herself.

  There were people who’d come out of the foster system a lot worse than her—people whose scars were external as well as internal, who had more to worry about than living their life in a fishbowl. Angie was grateful to have had the opportunity to come to Australia, even if it felt like her heart was breaking knowing she’d have to leave.

  Jace popped into her head. Whenever she thought about the future, he was there. That crooked, sexy smile. Those bluer-than-blue eyes.

  “Stop it,” she cursed herself. What kind of self-inflicted torture was this?

  A thump on her front door startled Angie out of her reverie. She was supposed to be working on her proposal for the retirement home board today, making plans to call local businesses and get their agreement to donate classes.

  She headed to the front door and pulled it open.

  “Hey.” Jace stood there, a crinkle between his brows and his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. “Can we talk?”

  “I’m working.” Liar, liar, pants on fire.

  She wasn’t ready to deal with this yet, mainly because she still hadn’t figured out how to protect her heart around him.

  “Please.”

  She hesitated a moment longer, but he looked so earnest that eventually she stepped back and allowed him to come inside. God, what was she supposed to say? Or maybe she shouldn’t say anything at all.

  This was just like all those times she’d been shuffled to a new home. That period of awkwardness got shorter every time, once she learned how to quickly insert herself into people’s lives. But even though she didn’t let that weirdness show, it didn’t mean it wasn’t there on the inside.

  “What did you want to talk about?” she asked.