Beautiful Illusion

by Jacquie Underdown

  My room was enormous, complete with queen-sized bed, duchess, and en suite bathroom. An adjoining patio shared the view of the landscape, uninterrupted to where earth met with sky.

  After placing my bag on the duchess, Brennan joined me at the glass bi-fold doors that led onto the patio. He put his arms around my waist, pulled me close and kissed me, filling me with heady desire.

  “How am I going to keep my hands off of you for three whole days?” he breathed, my earlobe now between his supple lips.

  My body tingled from the sensation of his warm breath in my ear, a light layer of goose bumps spreading over my body. I smiled, eyes closed, “You haven’t taken your hands off of me since we arrived.”

  “Like I said, it’s tough,” he whispered, moving his lips to mine, edging my mouth open, tasting me. “Almost impossible.”

  My stomach tightened pleasurably. My head was so light I felt it could dissipate like a cloud in a gentle breeze. “What should we do about that?” I said.

  He swept his hands under my shirt, over my back, my waist. “You could keep kissing me.”

  His lips moved more urgently, his touch firmer. He was as breathless as me. I knew we should slow down. Stop, even. But I couldn’t. I was overwhelmed with desire. Beyond the point of no return. Pushing my hips against him, I reciprocated his fervour, his breathlessness, his passion. I had never wanted anyone as I did in that moment and, as he gently pushed my body backwards towards the bed, I knew he felt exactly the same way.

  He lowered me onto the bed and climbed over me, straddling me. His lips were relentless against my own, his hands spreading his lust as they touched my body. I barely heard the faint footsteps echoing against the timber floor, padding along the hallway towards us. I pushed Brennan off me and quickly sat, straightening my clothes. He scrambled to the end of the bed, squared his shoulders, sat upright, but his cap was on the floor beside us and his hair was in disarray. I clambered to sit beside him, knowing my cheeks would be noticeably flushed. I could feel tufts of hair that had come loose from my long plait falling onto my face, but I didn’t even have time to smooth them back.

  Kerri poked her head into the room and smiled. “Breakfast is ready.”

  Brennan nodded, trying hard to appear composed, but failing miserably. “Thanks, Mum. We’ll be right down.”

  She smiled again and started back down the hallway. We sat on the end of the bed in silence until the footsteps faded, then burst into laughter.

  “Like I said, Leah, impossible,” said Brennan, with a cheeky grin.

  “She knows,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m so embarrassed. What do I look like?”

  I stood and scrutinised my reflection in the mirror that sat on the duchess. My once tight plait had come loose. Locks of hair had fallen out, and there was one obvious curl right on the top of my head. My cheeks were bright pink and I looked as sheepish as Hugh Grant after being caught receiving a blowjob from a hooker. Tears of laughter welled in Brennan’s eyes as he stood next to me and peered at our awkward reflections.

  “It’s pretty funny,” he said as he patted his hair down.

  I let out a chuckle. “I suppose so.”

  “If you weren’t so damn gorgeous, Leah… If you didn’t make me feel as though nothing other than you or I existed, then it might not be so hard.”

  I glanced across at him, eyes narrowed. “You feel that way?”

  He nodded, drawing his lips into a straight line. “Yes. I do. It’s almost surreal. It’s as though when I’m with you, you’re all there is and nothing else exists.”

  “I feel the same way,” I whispered.

  He kissed my cheek. “Come on. Let’s go have breakfast before we get into more trouble.”

  ***

  We met Brennan’s parents on the rear verandah. A table had been set, overflowing with breakfast foods. I sat next to Brennan, his parents across from us.

  “Please help yourself to anything you want, Leah,” offered Kerri.

  “Thanks.”

  Brennan had already started to pile bacon, scrambled eggs, mushrooms, and tomatoes onto his plate.

  “Brennan told me you met while you were in hospital together?” asked Jack.

  “I was very lucky to share my time in there with him; he made it a lot easier to get through,” I said.

  “If I’d known, out of the terrible circumstances, there would be a chance to have a friendship with Leah then I would get hit over the head with a crowbar a thousand times over,” said Brennan.

  “Just let me know, Brennan, I would be happy to oblige,” I said, grinning.

  “So it’s cheeky Leah that I’m going to have to contend with today?”

  I winked. “Whatever way you want to look at it.”

  Kerri exchanged a sideways glance with her husband and smiled.

  “Have you been having any more of those headaches?” asked Jack.

  I regarded Brennan, eyebrows raised. I didn’t know he had been getting headaches.

  “Um. A few, nothing too major.”

  “You’ve been getting headaches?” I asked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It’s no big deal. I’m not worried about it so I certainly wasn’t going to let you worry about it.”

  I nodded, not entirely convinced.

  “Really. It’s nothing. I’ve had a bit of a headache on and off, not worth mentioning.” Brennan shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Um, when we’re finished I’ll take you for a look around the property. We can take the quad bikes.”

  “Quad bikes?” I asked, eyes wide.

  He laughed. “You’ve never ridden one?”

  “No. It’s sounds scary.”

  “It’s not scary at all. Very easy, four wheels, and we’ll go slow,” he said. “Unless you want to go fast.”

  “Slow sounds more my style.”

  “The horses are there if you’d like to take those instead,” suggested Jack, in all seriousness.

  “I think I prefer the quad bikes. At least they don’t have a mind of their own and a tendency to buck,” I said.

  Brennan shook his head and laughed. “Typical city girl. I’ll have to work that right out of you.”

  “Will you now?” I arched an eyebrow.

  He leant over and kissed me on the lips. “Definitely.”

  The game was well and truly up.

  When breakfast was finished, Brennan packed a bag with things we would need during our exploration of the property. Once I put my hiking boots on and copious quantities of sunscreen, we wandered to the shed at the back of the house. Beside the tractor and ride-on lawn mower were four quad bikes. Anxiety panged my belly; they were larger than I expected.

  “They are easy to drive. Safe. We won’t go too fast, or down precarious hills or anything,” Brennan said.

  I nodded.

  “Okay, now you take a seat on that one there,” he said, pointing to the blue bike sitting at the front of the pack. I took a seat, placed my feet on the pedals and gripped the handle bars tightly.

  He gave a laugh as he ran his finger over my white knuckles.

  “They’re fully automatic, so you don’t need to do too much.” He gave me quick rundown on how to accelerate and how to brake.

  “One last thing.” He plucked a helmet from the racks nearby and pulled it over my head. “I’ll go first so I can lead the way. Follow beside me, though. You don’t want to get any spray from the rocks and dirt.”

  Brennan pulled his helmet on, jumped on his bike and drove out of the shed. Heart thudding hard, I breathed in deeply and slowly rolled the accelerator, gradually pulling it further back to gain the speed to keep up with him. We drove at a steady pace, steering left to head down behind the shed. We were tediously slow at the onset, but as Brennan sensed my confidence growing he picked up the pace and, before I knew it, we were cruising along a well-worn track over the glorious countryside. The smile never left my face as we drove past enormous sheds, a chicken coop, horse paddocks, dams and endless cows.
We continued riding through the luscious landscape towards the gorge, then rode parallel to the yawning chasm, headed for the rainforest that seemed to billow out of its mouth.

  Close enough to see each individual leaf on the dense canopy of ancient banksia trees and enormous strangler figs, we rolled to a stop. I kept my bike running until Brennan was able to turn it off for me; we hadn’t covered that part in my short training session. Bag slung over his shoulders, he led me, hand in hand, down a winding dirt path through thick forest. We hiked along the gently sloping terrain. The sound of gushing water grew louder. Soon we came a small clearing.

  “This property is like heaven on earth,” I said, mouth agape as I took in the crystal-clear, naturally-formed rock pool and waterfall flowing fast down the adjacent rock face, filling it to the brim.

  “I thought you might like this. Alex and I used to come here religiously when we were growing up. That’s why the track is so worn.”

  “It’s simply beautiful. I could photograph this.”

  “You should,” he said. “And you should join me for a swim.”

  “I didn’t bring anything to swim in,” I said.

  “You don’t need anything.”

  I glared at him. “I’ve told you before, I’m not as confident showing my body as you seem to be.”

  “No. You only said arse,” he said. “And I could always just not look at your backside.”

  I smiled, but still squinted reprovingly. “I’ll swim on one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That you turn around as I hop in and no peeking.”

  He smiled. “Sure.”

  I pushed him in the chest. “I don’t believe you.”

  “You’ll have to take the risk, won’t you? And besides, what you don’t know won’t hurt you,” he said. “It didn’t in hospital.”

  “You peeked?”

  He grinned, shrugged one shoulder. “I may have.”

  “You looked at my arse after you said you wouldn’t?”

  Brennan laughed heartily. He pulled me closer and draped his thick arms around my waist. “I told you before. You make it so hard to be good. And besides, you have no reason to feel self-conscious. If the rest of your body is anything at all like your arse, then I’ll be a very lucky man.”

  I could barely look at him, deliciously flustered by his frankness. “There you go again with that candour I can’t help but adore.”

  “And there you go again with that seduction I can’t help but get turned on by,” he said.

  He leant his face closer to mine as though to kiss me, but didn’t. He smiled and pulled away. “Come on. Let’s go have a swim. I won’t peek.”

  “What are we talking about here? Full nakedness, or underwear still on?”

  “I’m going in buck naked. But you take your pick.”

  “Can I watch you hop in?” I asked.

  “You don’t have the nerve.”

  I chuckled. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

  He removed his arms from my waist and ripped his shirt off over his head. I couldn’t help but peek; nerve or no nerve, his tattoos thieved my attention. Starting above his right nipple was a black and grey Japanese dragon that curled all the way down his torso, right to his hip. On his left pectoral was an intricately scaled, black-shaded koi swimming up and over his left shoulder and arm.

  I traced my finger over the dragon, over his ribs, down to his muscled waist. It was a beautiful piece of art, on the most incredible canvas. I spun him around so I could see if he had any on his back. Clean and bright, there was another dragon that seemed to fly from his right shoulder blade, down the length of his back, its mouth open as though to bite the tail of the other dragon. The detail was amazing; each individual scale perfectly shaded with just a tinge of red. Awe-inspiring.

  “They’re incredible pieces of art, Brennan.”

  I had never thought anyone as sexy as Brennan in that moment. He appeared as the perfect gift, designed and created thoughtfully and specifically for me. Everything about him pleased me. His physique, grin, thoughtfulness, humour, hair, eyes, masculinity—everything.

  Brennan laughed. “Are you okay?”

  I shook my head. “I’m fine. Sorry, I was daydreaming.”

  “Was I in it?” he said with that adorable grin.

  I nodded. “You were the star.”

  He smiled and kicked off his shoes, unbuttoned his cargo shorts and pulled them off, then started on his underwear. I reluctantly looked away. The next thing I heard was a splash as he dived into the clear water.

  I untied my boots and slipped them off my feet. If I undressed quickly, and didn’t offer Brennan any eye contact, it wouldn’t seem so daunting revealing my body to him. I lifted my shirt over my head and laid it on my boots. I edged my shorts off feeling vaguely self-conscious as I stood there in my bra and knickers. I quickly unclasped my bra and flung it onto my other clothes, followed by my knickers.

  I raised my eyes from the ground and was met with Brennan’s full gaze. He didn’t smile, didn’t say anything, simply looked at me with an expression that didn’t convey disrespect, or perversion, or even overt desire. His gaze didn’t invoke self-consciousness, or embarrassment. Nor did I feel ogled. I felt, for the first time in my life, adored, admired, and completely appreciated. I smiled, unsure as to how he could possibly make me feel like that, but ever so grateful he could.

  I ambled to the water’s edge and slid into the clear water. It was freezing cold. Brennan swam to me and clasped his hands around my bare waist. “Leah,” he whispered. “You’re absolutely beautiful.”

  I closed my eyes and smiled, breathing in his unfaltering sincerity.

  He kissed me gently on the mouth, stirring my eternally present desire. “You know, for such an incredibly sexy woman, you are surprisingly modest,” he said.

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to talk. His naked body so close to mine evoked a screaming lasciviousness deep in the fabric of my body. I wanted to feel his body against mine, for him to kiss me more. I pressed closer, leaning into him, kissing him, tasting him, his neck, his jaw, those inviting lips.

  His hands slid down to my thighs, reached under and he lifted me. I wrapped my legs tight around his waist. “How far do you want to take this?” he whispered, brushing his lips against my cheek.

  “All the way,” I breathed.

  I felt him harden instantly, his impressive erection pressing along the length of my arse. I had forgotten how my body could react, knowing, feeling, a rock-hard cock was only centimetres from being inside me. I bucked against him, an involuntary action, and felt my swollen clit brush against his abdomen. I stifled a moan. He breathed in heavily and threw his mouth to mine. Eager, generous kisses.

  He worked down my neck with lush kisses I rolled my body back, exposing my breasts to him. His lips and tongue found my tight nipples quickly. Each bite, each suck exploded sensation through me, reaching me in that place that yearned for release. The combination overwhelmed me. He swept his hand over my stomach, between my legs, to my clitoris. He circled his finger gently over the throbbing nub, then further down, where he slid a finger into my wet centre.

  “Oh, God, you are so ready for me.”

  I nodded. “Don’t make me wait.”

  He didn’t.

  Chapter 9

  My body was limp against Brennan’s. I nestled my head against his shoulder, waiting for my breaths to regain a leisurely rhythm. I finally released my legs from their stranglehold around his waist and reached my toes to the muddy floor of the rock pool.

  Brennan clasped my hand and softly kissed the back of it, a satisfied grin on his face. “There’s no way I can act platonic after that.”

  I smiled. “Then don’t.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “No,” I said. “But what about your parents?”

  “I think they’ve a fairly good idea what you mean to me already.”

  ***

  Back at the house
, we were like two infatuated school kids—giggling, holding hands, kissing. His parents walked past several times as Brennan and I ate lunch on the verandah. They saw Brennan whispering naughty comments in my ear, as I kissed him on the cheek, as he stroked my hair or my face. But they didn’t say anything, never interrupted us.

  We took our plates into the kitchen to rinse them off when Kerri came in.

  “Okay, you two,” she said. “What’s the story? I can see you’re far from being friends.”

  Brennan extended his arm around my shoulder and kissed me on the cheek. “The truth is, Mum, I’m totally besotted with Leah.”

  I could feel my cheeks burning.

  “That’s as obvious as a sledgehammer to the forehead. But what I want to know is why you felt you had to keep it from your father and I?”

  Brennan’s shoulders slumped. “Sorry. It’s only because we’re so new. Still getting to know each other. I thought it would be easier to not pressure Leah with having to meet the parents.”

  “Always so thoughtful. He gets that from me,” she said, winking. “But if you lie to me again, Brennan Lee, I will give you a clip around the ears.”

  “Okay! I’m not eight anymore, you know,” he said with a nervous laugh.

  “I know that, Bren, but I still like to know what’s going on in my son’s life.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said, dismissively.

  She flicked at him with her tea towel. “Now, Brennan, your father wants you to help with the cattle this afternoon.”

  “I know.”

  “I thought I could show Leah how we make our cheese and then we could prepare tonight’s dinner together.”

  I looked at Brennan and smiled, gentle nerves twisting my insides. The thought of spending the afternoon alone with his mother was daunting. I stretched my lips into a tight smile.

  “That sounds good.”

  ***

  Brennan and his father headed off in the Land Cruiser with the two working dogs in the tray at two that afternoon, leaving Kerri and I alone. We hopped into another of the family’s cars and drove to the large sheds Brennan and I had passed earlier that morning on our quad bikes.