Undeniable (Always Book 3)

by Lexxie Couper

  “You asked.” His grin turned wickedly playful, hinting at a dimple in his right cheek, and he leaned a little closer to me, his brown eyes holding mine. “And you looked so damn sexy with your mussed-up hair and coffee-stained shirt.”

  A wave of embarrassment flooded my face. I slapped my hand to my left boob, hurting myself in a rather ridiculous attempt to hide the stain he’d already pointed out. Why do we do that, by the way? Try to conceal something once it’s been pointed out? Like the way mining corporations plant rows of trees around the boundaries of their open-cut mines, as if some greenery will conceal the massive gaping wound gouged into the planet by their machinery.

  His low chuckle drew a frown from me. “Are you mocking me?” I asked, a distant part of my mind telling me I still needed to use the bathroom.

  “No. Honest. The second you ran into me, I wanted to kiss you.”

  It was my turn to cock an eyebrow. I love that I can do that—it speaks volumes. Attitude from your waiter? Cock an eyebrow. Lip from your study partner? Cock an eyebrow. Absurd claim from a stranger in a public restroom? Cock an eyebrow.

  “The second?” I echoed.

  His lips twitched. Christ, he was hot. “Okay, maybe the second after the second. When you realized who you’d run into.”

  Who I’d run into? Didn’t he mean where I’d run into? The men’s toilet rather than the ladies’?

  I frowned.

  He frowned in return. “You do know who I am, right?” he asked, curious conviction in his deep voice. Have I mentioned the sexy Australian accent? “That’s why you asked for the kiss. Because of the way my sister met the prince?”

  My eyebrows shot up my forehead. I’d like to say I had a hand in their journey, but my brain was too busy being stunned by what I’d just heard for any conscious direction to body parts or facial features. What did he just say?

  “Prince?” I echoed.

  It was obvious I had no freaking clue what he was talking about. Clear enough for him to pull a grimace. A sexy grimace, if that’s possible to visualize.

  “You don’t know who I am?”

  I shook my head. Deep in the pit of my stomach, a twisting tension curled tighter. A sexual tension. Or maybe it was bladder tension, due to the fact I still hadn’t peed.

  He let out an amused sigh, dragging his hands through his dark hair as he did so. “Fuck, ’eh? So you just asked for a kiss because …”

  The question hung on the air between us, looking for an answer. One I couldn’t provide. What was I going to say? ’Cause you’re really, really hot? Instead, I said, “Who are you?”

  He flashed me that lopsided grin again, let out another laugh and ducked his head. “No one important,” he said.

  And then, before I could stop him, he closed the small distance between us, lowered his head to mine and kissed me again.

  Longer this time.

  Holy fuck, did he know how to kiss. He parted his lips, dipped his tongue into my mouth—when had my lips parted, I wonder?—and found mine with wicked ease, teasing it with a slow, lingering stroke.

  The heat in the junction of my thighs fluttered and pulsed and throbbed in a way it never had before, and a soft little moan vibrated deep in my chest. Whoa.

  And then someone cleared his throat behind us and I let out another yelp of surprise, this one a violent, full-body yelp involving jumping and spinning about.

  A massive man wearing a dark blue suit and dark sunglasses was standing a few feet into the bathroom’s entryway looking at Mr. Broad Shoulders. “It’s time, Mr. Jones.”

  Behind me, Mr. Broad Shoulders—correct that, Mr. Jones—uttered an almost inaudible “Fuck”.

  He slid warm fingers up my arm, making me flinch, and I turned back to face him, completely mystified as to what the hell was going on.

  “I have to go,” he said, a grin playing on his lips. Lips that only a second ago had been on mine. “I’ll make sure no one comes into the loo while you’re in there, okay?”

  And without another word, he strode past me, past the man in the dark blue suit, and out into the airport terminal.

  Leaving me standing in a public restroom that obviously wasn’t the ladies’, with the moisture of his kiss a cool memory on my lips.

  I gaped at the man in the suit, waiting for an explanation.

  It didn’t come.

  The man pivoted on his heel and stood with his back to me, muttering something into his shirt cuff.

  If that wasn’t a WTF moment, I don’t know what was.

  I blinked. Took a step to follow the now-absent Mr. Jones—could that really be his name?—and was suddenly hit with the need to empty my bladder. Again. With all the force of a wrecking ball hitting an outhouse made of paper.

  I let out a little cry, doubled over, rammed my thighs together and did that ridiculous sprint you do when you need to go to the bathroom in a hurry. The one where your knees are stuck together, your jaw is clenched shut and your hands are balled into fists.

  I hit the door running, spun 180 degrees, slammed the door shut, locked it, dropped my bag, yanked down my jeans and panties in one go and made it without a second to lose.

  If it weren’t for the man in the suit only a few feet away, I would have let out an ahhhh of relief.

  But there was a man in a suit only a few feet away. A mysterious man who seemed to be connected to an even more mysterious man who’d kissed me because I’d asked him to.

  What the hell was up with that?

  A few minutes later, with the sound of the toilet flush a loud roar in the surreal silence, I emerged from the cubicle only to discover I was completely alone.

  “Huh. Weird.”

  By the time I finished washing my hands, a string of men was pouring into the bathroom. They all balked at the sight of me just as they were about to approach the urinal, hands on flies. No one said anything.

  With heat flooding my face yet again, I hightailed it out of there as quickly as I could. I tried not to look around for the mysterious Mr. Jones and the man in the blue suit, but how could I not? There was no sign of them anywhere.

  That was probably a good thing. My first few hours in Australia hadn’t exactly gone to plan, and truth be told, if I did see Mr. Jones again, I’d probably make a fool of myself and ask him to kiss me again. It had been that good. I still had the tingles and a fluttering belly to prove it. But whoever he was, he was gone.

  Life back to normal for me. Well, as normal as it could be given I was on the other side of the world from everything I knew and loved, in the country of my father’s birth without a single person I could call a friend and—

  Okay, let’s stop right there and get off the self-pity bus. I was here, in Australia, about to start the most amazing experience of my student life. No need for dramatics.

  Hitching up my bag, I took a deep breath, scanned the crowd one more time for any sight of Mr. Broad Shoulders and then headed out the exit. I had to catch a taxi to Sydney University, my home for the first half of my adventure.

  Two steps outside, I was almost knocked over by a man running with a camera in his hand.

  “Hey!” I protested, staggering to regain my footing. It was never fun to lose your balance, especially when the disease fighting to control your body liked to throw you off it just for shits and giggles.

  The running man didn’t slow down. Nor did the one following him. Or the one after that.

  Suddenly, it dawned on me there were lots of hurrying, rushing, sprinting men with cameras, all heading toward a stretch black limousine parked at the curb a few feet away. A limo that Mr. Broad Shoulders, AKA Mr. Jones, AKA my mysterious kisser, was now climbing into, the man in the blue suit guiding his head as he glared at the approaching wave of frenzied photographers.

  Confused by it all, I frowned. Who the hell was this guy to deserve so much manic attention?

  Camera flashes detonated around the limo. The photographers shouted. Most of the calls sounded like, “Oi, Raphael.” Which co
uldn’t be right. Who had a name like Raphael these days? The crowd around me surged forward, sirens wailed from somewhere nearby and then, in a moment of surreal calm amongst it all, a gap in the madness formed between me and the limo, and Mr. Broad Shoulders’ stare met mine.

  Met.

  Melded with.

  Fixed on.

  Pinned.

  Our gazes held, and in that gaze, an entire conversation took place:

  I liked kissing you.

  I liked being kissed by you.

  Shame it had to end.

  Ditto.

  And then the man in the dark blue suit shoved the photographers backward and slammed the limo door shut, ending my ocular correspondence with Mr. Broad Shoulders, just like that.

  I blinked.

  The limo engine roared, the man in the blue suit hurled some rather unpleasant words at the horde and then pulled open the front passenger door and disappeared into the cabin.

  A chorus of boos rose from the paparazzi—it’s safe to assume that’s what they were—although I still didn’t know who they were photographing. Someone famous, obviously.

  Someone famous who’d kissed me. In the men’s restroom, no less.

  I tracked the limo’s path as it sped past me and everyone else on the sidewalk, my tummy twisting and knotting and fluttering and generally being all manner of unsettled. It wasn’t until the limousine vanished around the sweeping bend a few yards away that I finally found my brain and grabbed the photographer nearest to me.

  “Who was that?” I asked the sneering man trying to disengage my grip on his wrist.

  “In the limo?”

  “Yes,” I answered, trying not to sound agitated. Who else would I be talking about?

  “You don’t know?”

  I shook my head.

  “That was Raphael Jones.” The man smirked.

  “Who—”

  But before I could finish asking who Raphael Jones was, the photographer had shaken off my hold and was hurrying away, studying the small screen on the back of his camera.

  I stood and watched the dispersing photographers and crowd, racking my brain to find any clue as to why the name should mean anything worthy of such frenzied excitement.

  Nothing.

  I shrugged. “Must be an Australian celebrity.”

  Deciding to google the guy when I finally made it to my campus accommodation (my iPhone wasn’t talking to the Australian network yet, damn it), I headed for the first available cab, climbed into the back and gave the driver the address I’d be staying at while I was a student of the University of Sydney.

  The memory of Raphael Jones’s kiss sent a delicious little thrill through me and I wriggled deeper into my seat. So I’d been kissed by an Australian celebrity not even a few hours in the country. Not bad for a college dork from Plenty, Ohio, even if I do say so myself. It kind of made up for the otherwise dismal start to my adventure. Pity I was never going to see him again or I’d show him how an American girl did things.

  Okay, maybe not, given how much of a twitchy, emotional wreck I was, but a girl can kick ass in her fantasies, can’t she? It’s not like I was going to see him again. Australia’s a big country, after all.

  Right?

  About Lexxie Couper

  Lexxie Couper started writing when she was six and hasn’t stopped since. She’s not a deviant, but she does have a deviant’s imagination and a desire to entertain readers with her words. Add the two together and you get erotic romances that can make you laugh, cry, shake with fear or tremble with desire. Sometimes all at once.

  When she’s not submerged in the worlds she creates, Lexxie’s life revolves around her family, a husband who thinks she’s insane, an indoor cat who likes to stalk shadows, and her daughters, who both utterly captured her heart and changed her life forever.

  Lexxie lives by two simple rules – measure your success not by how much money you have, but by how often you laugh, and always try everything at least once. As a consequence, she’s laughed her way through many an eyebrow raising adventure.

  You can find details of her writing at

  www.LexxieCouper.com