by Leah Ashton
That made her heart flip over, which was just pathetic, really. “I was your teacher, Damon.”
“So what?” he said. He stood too, slowly unfolding his tall, powerful body. “I promise I don’t feel taken advantage of, Miss Banfield.”
She made a little huff of frustration. “And you’re five years younger than me. I wasted a decade of my life with the wrong man, I’m not making another mistake like that.” She met his gaze and then brought out the big guns – the words guaranteed to push him away. “I want to have kids, Damon, I don’t have time for another mistake.”
He looked, as expected, perfectly horrified at that statement. But it was fleeting, and then he calmly swung the backpack back over his shoulder and picked up the handgun she hadn’t even noticed lying on the ground.
“Well,” he said, “I just wanted to kiss the most magnificent woman I’ve ever met, just one last time in case I fucked things up and didn’t come back.”
“Pardon me?” Beth said, certain she’d misheard him.
“We need to go,” he said roughly. In the distance, Beth heard the buzz of an engine. “A motorbike,” he said, explaining the noise. “Just Gaff for now, I think, and he’s not close to us yet. But there’ll be more looking for us soon.”
In the hours they’d been alone, the state of terror Beth had been in had ebbed away. But that motorbike delivered a harsh reminder of their situation. Suddenly, discussing her dreams of a baby seemed totally ludicrous, even if only to explain why she’d rejected his kiss. Damon didn’t give a shit about that, he cared about surviving.
I just wanted to kiss the most magnificent woman I’ve ever met.
Why would he think that? Let alone say that? About her?
“Come on,” Damon said. “We need to walk as far as possible tonight. I can guarantee Knife will be out with the plane tomorrow, so we’ll need to take cover in the daylight.”
He was all business now, and he didn’t even bother to look at her. Instead, he looked out into the scrub, clearly planning their path.
Beth nodded, and headed into the dusk behind him.
Chapter Eight
They walked in mostly silence throughout the night, Damon leading the way, and Beth close behind.
The moon was nearly full, and the sky was packed with stars in a way you’d never see in the city. It was cool but not cold, and the landscape was far noisier than it had been during the day, with the local fauna rustling through the spinifex and crickets chirping steadily in the darkness.
Gaff’s motorbike had come into their vicinity only once, and they’d lost about an hour as they’d hidden amongst a mulga bush until the engine noises faded away. But Gaff hadn’t been close enough to really have any chance of discovering them, and besides, Damon didn’t think Gaff was all that keen on finding them tonight anyway. Gaff knew Damon was armed and that he’d killed the two prospects – why would he come anywhere near him alone? Damon suspected Gaff was only out on his bike as he knew that Notechi reinforcements and Knife’s arrival would be imminent, and no matter what bullshit story Gaff would’ve told Knife to explain their escape, sitting around waiting at the homestead would not be acceptable to the Notechi president.
It was probably just before midnight when they heard the sound of an SUV pelting down the driveway. He’d taken them a good distance away from the road, heading for a windmill and stock water point he’d seen in the distance during the daylight. It lengthened their journey, but they only had one bottle of water remaining, and they needed more than that to make it to Laverton.
He also wanted to get to the water point before the landscape was crawling with Notechis, as guarding water sources would be a good strategy for recapturing them – should they be that organised. Damon’s experience with the majority of the Notechi members was that they would not be that organised, but it could be fatal if he underestimated them. Likewise, while he’d told Beth he was confident they’d hear the searchers coming for them, should Knife have access to skilled trackers, then that wasn’t necessarily true. But he was certain Knife would be flying into the station at first light rather than driving the 1,000 kilometres from Perth, so it was unlikely there’d be any trackers deployed tonight, if they even existed.
As he’d said to Beth, the greatest advantage they had was putting distance between them and the Notechi – although the reality was that as they came closer to Laverton, they’d be walking into a nest of Notechi for sure. Laverton was literally their only possible destination, so having Notechi lying in wait was an obvious strategy. But in their favour, the perimeter of Tiger Snake Station was enormous, and it was impossible to guard it all. If they were smart and patient, they’d make it out of here alive.
But staying alive also required water.
The ground sloped up slightly as they approached the windmill, the sails of the wheel silhouetted against the starry sky.
“Wait here,” he murmured to Beth, and without a word she bunkered down behind a mulga bush. He left the backpack with her, and then with his Glock in hand, he approached the windmill.
Once he was confident it was clear of Notechi, he returned to Beth.
“It’s safe,” he said. “Come on.”
The windmill stood beside an elevated water tank, and beside that, a stock trough, full of water. He couldn’t see a tap anywhere on the water tank, and so they simply filled the four bottles of water they had straight from the trough. It was rainwater, and looked clean in the moonlight, but really, they didn’t have the luxury of being particular. Water was water, and it would do.
Beth took a long drink from her bottle, and once it was empty, refilled it. “Tastes okay,” she said, then added, “Do I have time to go to the bathroom?”
He nodded, and he watched as she disappeared behind a nearby bush, smiling at how politely she’d phrased her question. Even out here in the desert, she was still so much of the prim and proper school teacher he remembered. Despite all that had happened, he still didn’t think he’d ever heard her swear.
She clearly really didn’t like that he’d been her student, that was obvious, although he suspected it was mostly because of their age difference, rather than any concern of impropriety. All lascivious thoughts thirteen years ago had definitely only been on his side.
She was also thinking beyond their escape, which to be honest, Damon didn’t really think they had the luxury to do. He certainly hadn’t been thinking of that. He was a guy, and last night had been about lust and sex. When she’d kissed him today – and later when he’d tried to kiss her – it had still been about lust and sex, plus a healthy new layer of admiration and comradery. The woman he’d approached in the bar had been Miss Banfield – his teenage wet dream, just as she’d said. But the woman he’d kissed today was Beth – a smart, brave, resilient woman who was not part of some juvenile fantasy. She was real, and far more complex and vibrant than anything he could come up with in his youthful, smutty imagination.
He took his own long drink of water knowing he wouldn’t have this luxury again, then dumped a bottle of water over his head. Then he had a better idea. He pulled off his T-shirt and washed that with bottles of water too, not wanting to put his filthy shirt into the trough. The cotton had been almost stuck to him with sweat and blood and grime, and it was fucking awesome to have it off his skin.
“Why’d you do that for?” Beth asked from behind him, her tone accusatory.
He grinned. “It was dirty?” He turned to face her as he wrung the water out of his sopping shirt.
She stood with her arms crossed in front of her with loose sections of her hair falling forward over her cheeks.
“Why don’t you do the same?” he asked.
Her gaze flicked to the water trough and back. “No thanks,” she said. She met his gaze. “You’re not going to walk around like that, are you?” Her gaze dipped lower, travelling over his chest and abdomen and down to the low-slung waist of his jeans.
He couldn’t tell for sure in the moonlight, but he th
ought she was blushing.
His smile broadened. “Too distracting?” he said and deliberately flexed his muscles, then turned around slowly, giving her the full show.
Only now did she seem to realise she was staring, and she turned away. “Of course not,” she said, using her teacher voice again. “You can wear, or not wear, whatever you like. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“But you did,” he pointed out. He stepped closer to her, but she kept her gaze downward, one of her feet shuffling in the dusty soil. “Beth,” he said softly. “Don’t overthink this. You can’t pretend we’re not attracted to each other, and I don’t know why you would anyway. We’re going to be stuck out here at least another twenty-four hours, and I think surviving should be our goal, not worrying about what colour you’re going to paint your baby’s nursery.”
She spluttered as her head snapped up to look at him. “I’m not thinking about having a baby with you!”
She was so obviously incredulous that it kind of stung. Which was ridiculous. He was the one teasing her.
“You,” Beth continued, seemingly compelled to explain, “you’re practically a child, you’re totally the opposite to the kind of guy I would do that with. I knew as soon as I saw you in the bar, you were just all wrong—”
Her stream of words ended abruptly as his hands gripped her hips, and he tugged her hard against him.
“Really, Beth?” he asked, tension in his tone. “Do I feel like a child to you?” He rubbed her against the front of his jeans, his fingers digging into the soft skin of her bottom as he crushed her against him.
It was stupid and dangerous to linger here at the windmill, but he couldn’t let this go. There was something about this woman that made him crazy – that consumed him.
She gasped as he moved her lewdly against him, but she didn’t struggle. She’d liked this last night when he’d taken control and been a bit rough, and she liked it now, her gaze half-lidded as she looked up at him.
“I’m a man, Beth, and you know it.”
His hands found their way under the bottom edge of her shorts to cup her butt cheeks. She sighed as her hands slid up his arms and then her nails drew sharp little swirls on his shoulders. “I was maybe being overly dramatic,” she said. He lifted her up now and ground her against his erection as she clung to him. She gasped. “Okay, yes, definitely. Five years younger is nothing. You’re a man.”
“I’m—” he began, then stopped.
He’d been about to demand she said he was her man, which was absolutely the opposite of what he was trying to do here.
What was he trying to do here again? All his blood had rushed to his dick, and his brain wasn’t working at all.
He dropped his head, and nuzzled where her neck joined her shoulder, planting kisses and nips along the tendons there.
She sighed and gasped as his lips trailed along her salty skin, and as his hands kept her core flush against his hardness, rubbing her against him again and again.
“Maybe you aren’t all wrong for me either,” she said in breathy pants. “This all feels so, so good.”
He captured her words with his mouth, kissing her hard, and long, and thoroughly until she was squirming against him, her nails digging into his skin.
Then he wrenched her away, placing her firmly on the ground, and taking two big steps away as he took long, deep breaths.
“No,” he said firmly. “You were right the first time, Beth. I’m all wrong for you. But that’s my point – it doesn’t matter. Because once this is over, you won’t ever see me again.”
“What does that mean?” Beth asked as she scrambled along behind Damon.
He’d stuffed their water bottles into his backpack, pulled on his damp shirt, and headed back into the scrub without another word. Beth had just stood where he’d left her, attempting to pull herself together after that … after that event of a kiss.
“Less talking, more walking,” he said. “We’ve wasted too much time.”
He wasn’t slowing his strides like he usually did to cater for her, and she was practically jogging to keep up.
“Just tell me what you meant, and I won’t say another word.”
Damon didn’t reply as they negotiated a few rocky dips and rises. Unlike closer to the homestead, the land here was slightly more undulating, and rocks and gravel skated beneath the soles of her shoes.
“I’m an undercover operator for Elite SWAT, Beth,” he said. “And I work deep cover. I’m not covert surveillance from a distance, I’m living the life of someone else. I won’t be working with the Notechi after this, but I’ll be assigned somewhere else. That lifestyle doesn’t work with a girlfriend. A girlfriend, or a wife, or kids – that makes me and anyone I love vulnerable. So, of course I’m totally wrong for you, Beth, or any other woman who wants a meaningful relationship. I knew that when I walked into the bar last night.” He stumbled, his back still to her. He righted himself, then continued. “Last night, I just wanted to fuck you.”
Beth sucked in a shocked breath.
“And that hasn’t changed. I don’t know why you’ve made this so complicated. I know you better now, after all that’s happened, and I still just really want to fuck you. It’s pretty simple.”
“Sounds pretty simple,” she said softly.
Damon sighed. “I’m not saying this to offend you, or upset you, Beth.”
Maybe not exactly. But he was being deliberately coarse, and his words were so different to those of before when he’d called her magnificent.
But she wasn’t going to ask him about that. Something had changed for Damon during that last kiss beside the water tank, and he obviously felt the need to clearly define what was going on between them. To obscenely define it and whittle it down to nothing but the physical.
The fact he wasn’t looking at her while he spoke was also telling.
But that suited her, right?
She was the one who’d – as he said – complicated this. She’d started extrapolating beyond last night, and today and into a future that wouldn’t even exist if they didn’t escape. She’d been worrying – even subconsciously – what people might think if she dated an ex-student, and a man so much younger than her. But that was a waste of time because she wouldn’t be dating Damon. Damon had never, for even a moment, thought beyond the here and now with her. It was, as he said, about sex. About fucking, although she didn’t think she’d ever said fuck out loud, or at least any more than under her breath if she stubbed her toe or something.
It was a little galling, maybe, that Damon didn’t want anything more from her.
But that wasn’t right, was it – to want him to want more when she didn’t?
Because she didn’t, did she?
Chapter Nine
As the darkness slid into the dawn, the engines of more motorbikes began to echo in the distance. Damon kept the pace up, having pin pointed their destination a few hours earlier from the top of what could almost be considered a hill amongst the pancake flatness of desert.
It was even further from the gravel driveway, and he knew he was creating more work for them, but they’d made good time. He knew Beth could cover the remaining distance to Laverton that evening, even with this additional detour. She’d done remarkably well, not making one complaint, or asking for any additional rest stops throughout the endless night.
But, the silence between them had been heavy. It wasn’t tense, exactly, but it was different, and obviously it was his fault because he’d been such an arsehole.
He hadn’t even looked at her as he’d been so crude. He could reassure himself he’d been honest – which he had – but he’d also chosen his words with intent, wanting to shock his prim and proper Miss Banfield.
But that was the thing. He already knew she wasn’t just Miss Banfield to him anymore. The Miss Banfield of his fantasies hadn’t been into having him grind against her like a fucking animal – but Beth had been into it. She had totally been into it.
But wanting
him that way – wanting him to fuck her – that was different to him reducing what they had down to the physical and her into nothing more than an object. She could want it hard and dirty but still expect more from him. Like his respect.
Which she already had, more than she would ever know.
He’d accused her of overcomplicating things, but he was doing a fucking good job at that too. When he’d kissed her at the windmill, it had just been too … much. There’d been the moment there where he’d felt a rush of possessiveness he’d never experienced before. He didn’t know how to deal with that – to deal with anything like that. He knew the type of man he was, and his relationships, when he had them, were brief. His job wasn’t entirely the reason for that. If anything, it was the opposite. His willingness to have no personal connections made him the ideal candidate to work deep undercover. His understanding of who he was had come first, the job second.
And quite clearly, as he’d told Beth, he wasn’t fucking noble. He wasn’t the protector, the hero she was trying to cast him as. Not even close.
“A lake?” Beth asked in surprise from behind him. “In a desert?”
The sun had just crept over the horizon, throwing their shadows long ahead of them.
“If there’s enough rain in a given year, then yeah, the station’s lakes fill up.” Damon said. “It rained heavily last winter. This is what’s left.”
He led them down to the edge of the lake. Mulga and mallee trees went all the way to the edge and beyond with trees dotting the perfectly flat surface of the water, their canopy’s poking out from near the middle of the lake. The lakes at the station varied wildly in how much water they contained year-to-year – from bone dry, to flooding the surrounding landscape. The tough desert trees and shrubs grew wherever, and just dealt with the water, or lack of it, although there were a few dead mulga trees here and there, their desiccated grey branches reaching for the sky.
The red dirt went all the way to the edge of the water. During the rain, that dirt could gain a temporary crop of green grasses, but it had been relentlessly hot here now for months, and any hint of green had long ago withered and died.
