He moved inside her, powerful thrusts that pushed her closer and closer to an edge she’d already fallen over three times. Taking her higher every time. Propelling her to the stars, to the heavens, to a place she’d never been.
He kissed her as he claimed her, worshipped her lips, her throat, her breasts. Reduced her to an insatiable being a carnal pleasure.
Owned her every moan and begging plea for more. More.
Until, face buried in the side of her neck, breath ragged and hot on her neck, his rhythm grew erratic. Wild. Frenzied.
Lifting his head, he stared down into her eyes, his cock deep inside her, his strokes faster. “I fucking love you, Tash,” he panted. “Fuck me, I love you so—”
The rest of his declaration was lost to a groan. It was singularly the most erotic, powerful, wonderful sound Tash had ever heard.
It was all she needed to tumble into her fourth orgasm.
They came together. Gasped each other’s names. Stared into each other’s eyes.
And as the throbbing contractions of her climax began to subside, she cupped his jaw in her palm and placed her fingertips on the scar running down the side of his face. “I love you too, Matt.”
A lifetime later, sharing smiles both shy and wickedly naughty, they dressed again. They needed to get back to Wallaby Ridge. As much as she wanted to stay where they were and make love to each other again, they needed to get back to work. Back to real life.
She had things to think about. Like what she was going to do with her life?
“What was that last thing you said to me?” he asked, reaching for her wrist as she moved to collect the blanket from the ground.
She frowned, the thought of returning to normal life an unsettling knot in her stomach. “When?”
He tugged her closer to him, lips curled in a smile, lowering his head to hers. And then he pulled away. “Someone’s coming.”
Tash blinked. Someone’s coming? “What?” They were out in the middle of nowhere. How could someone be—?
The unmistakable sound of a helicopter filled the morning, followed a second later by the kangaroos bounding away and a displacement of air that tugged at Tash’s hair.
Twisting on the quilted rug, she squinted up into the sky, frowning at the sight of a Robinson R22 Beta II helicopter heading their way.
“It seems,” Matt said behind her, his voice raised, the words humourless, “that we’ve been saved.”
* * *
Matt watched Ryan Taylor’s heli-mustering chopper land a few yards away from the Flying Doctors’ plane.
Damn it, the last thing he needed right now was for someone to come along and rescue them. And that’s the only explanation for the helicopter’s appearance out here. Rescue. Someone back at the RFDS had decided he and Tash needed to be rescued despite her earlier radio transmission declaring they were okay. Which would only make Tash despise herself more.
Damn it.
Forcing a smile to his face, he waved at the man jumping down from the chopper’s cockpit. Charlie Baynard wasn’t to blame for sweeping in to save the day. Someone from the RFDS base back at Wallaby Ridge had no doubt asked him to come, and why wouldn’t they? Their only doctor and their gun pilot had spent the night in the Outback after an emergency landing that may or may not be classified a crash. Of course they’d send someone to save them as soon as the sun broke, regardless of Tash’s transmission.
“G’day, Doc,” Charlie called as he drew closer to the quilted blanket. “Heard you were in a spot of trouble out here. Thought we’d swing by and see if you’re okay.” The cop shot a quick look at Tash as he drew to a halt beside her, the sharp instincts he was known for showing in his eyes. “But I see it’s not the kind of trouble we were lead to believe.”
Matt flicked Tash his own look, just in time to see her rise to her feet.
“Hi, Charlie,” she said, addressing the senior constable. “You borrow Ryan’s chopper or is he in there as well?”
Charlie snorted. “Ryan’s in there. Between you and me, that bastard still scares the shit out of me when he’s at the controls. I’m sure he forgets he’s got a passenger in the damn thing with him half the time. He’s too used to rounding up cattle in the thing, not actually transporting people. Don’t tell him I said so, but I’d take you as my pilot over him any day.”
Her answering laugh sounded warm and relaxed. Matt, however, heard it for what it was—polite and strained.
“I’ll just go and say hello,” she said before, with a glance at Matt—no longer than a heartbeat—she strode toward the helicopter. “Maybe give him some tips.”
Matt watched her go, doing his best not to chase after her.
“Does our timing suck?”
At Charlie’s question, he let out a ragged chuckle and turned back to the waiting cop. “You could say that.”
Charlie nodded. “Figured as much when I saw you two about to lock lips. Told Ryan we should just bugger off back to the Ridge and give you some privacy. If it weren’t for the fact Michelle Gribble’s baby is running a high fever and she’s hoping you can come take a look, we would have.”
Matt dragged his hands through his hair. A hot sting at the back of his head reminded him he still had a fairly serious wound needing stitches. He watched Tash climb up into the helicopter’s cockpit. Watched her close the door.
“She okay?” Charlie asked.
“If you mean is she physically well enough to fly the plane? Yes. If you mean will she ever again?” He shrugged.
Charlie cocked an eyebrow. “Lost her nerve?”
“Lost her self-belief, I fear.”
“You going to help her get it back?”
Matt chuckled, the sound wry even to his own ears. “That’s the plan. I’m sure as shit not letting her give up.”
“On herself?”
Shaking his head, Matt stared at the helicopter. “On us.”
At his side, Charlie snorted. “Always knew there was a stubborn bastard hiding amongst all that mild bedside manner of yours waiting to be let out. Of course, you know I’m about to make life tricky for you, right?”
Rubbing at the back of his neck, Matt returned his attention to his friend. “I figured as much. Ryan is going to fly me to the Gribble’s, isn’t he?”
Charlie inclined his head.
“And you’re going to accompany Tash back to Wallaby Ridge in the plane.”
“Yeah.” He gave Matt an apologetic grimace. “Sorry.”
Matt sighed. “Because I reported in she’d had an asthma attack this morning? When I was talking to Jen on the radio while Tash was still sleeping, right?”
“It was an asthma attack?” Charlie shot the helicopter a look over his shoulder. “I didn’t get told why she couldn’t fly you back into the Ridge, just that me and another pilot needed to get out to you both ASAP. I nabbed Ryan before he started his first job of the day and we headed out here. How long she had asthma for?”
Matt cast a long look at the helicopter. It was Ryan Taylor’s main mustering chopper. The one he used on big jobs requiring long distances. It wouldn’t have any problem getting Matt to the Gribble’s massive sheep station without refueling. The trouble was, Matt didn’t want to climb inside it at all, and it had nothing to do with Ryan’s ability to fly it and everything to do with the significance of its presence here.
He huffed out a slow sigh. “She was diagnosed just before she moved to Wallaby Ridge. Adult on-set, which really isn’t all that common. From what I’ve seen, the attacks are pretty severe.”
“So that’s why she left the air force.”
Turning back to Charlie, Matt frowned. “How’d you know she was in the air force? I didn’t know that until yesterday, and Jen’s been trying to get it out of her for weeks.”
Charlie didn’t answer. Instead, he nodded his head in the direction of Ryan’s chopper. “I think Ryan’s just told her what’s going on.”
Before Matt could turn to see why his friend had come to that conclusion, Matt heard t
he helicopter’s door slam.
“We’re taking off in five, Baynard,” Tash yelled, storming towards the King Air B200, stare fixed straight ahead. Matt didn’t need to see her face to know she was angry. Her whole body screamed it. “Whether you’re in the plane or not.”
His gut churned. “Give us a sec, will you, Charlie?” he said, hurrying after her. “Tash?”
She didn’t stop at his call. Nor slow her pace.
“Tash?” He lengthened his stride to a jog.
She ducked under the wing.
By the time he made it to the plane, she was inside it.
“Tash?” he said, leaping up into the interior. “Are you going to talk to me?”
“Sure,” she tossed over her shoulder, already buckled into the pilot’s seat, adjusting dials on the control deck. No, not the pilot’s seat. The co-pilot’s seat. The seat he normally occupied. “What do you want me to say?”
His gut clenched some more. “Tash…”
“That’s four Tashes, Doc. Thought you had a larger vocabulary than that.”
“Tash.”
“And there’s the fifth.” She flicked a switch, twisted a knob beside it and flicked the switch again. “Impressive. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to be flown back to Wallaby Ridge while you go do what you do—be a doctor.”
“Don’t do this.”
She turned. Matt wanted to curse at the black sunglasses hiding her eyes. And the tension in her face and jaw. “Do what? Get angry because my boss has sent out another pilot to supervise the flight back to Wallaby Ridge? Sure. Okay. I won’t get angry. Look at me, I’m fine.” She gave him an emotionless smile. “See? Now, as I said, I’ve got to be a passenger in my own plane while someone else flies you to your next call-out, so you really need to get going.”
She turned back to the control deck and flicked at another switch.
“Doc?” Charlie’s voice wafted into the plane through the open door. “Ryan’s ready to go.”
Matt studied the back of Tash’s head, his chest tight. “Please, babe. Don’t let this destroy you.”
“I’m fine, Doc,” she answered without looking at him. “Don’t worry about me at all.”
“Matt?” Charlie called from the doorway. “You gotta go, mate.”
Matt stared hard at Tash, but she didn’t turn. Didn’t acknowledge he was even there anymore. “We’ll talk about this when I get back to Wallaby Ridge, Tash.”
“That’s six, Doc,” she whispered. The bitter dejection in her voice tore at his heart.
“Matt?”
Biting back a curse, Matt spun on his heel, grabbed his on-flight medical bag from its storage area and hurried from the plane. Every fibre in his body told him to go back, to take Tash in his arms and hold her. Just hold her as she worked through the mental and emotional slap of Charlie’s and Ryan’s arrival. Help her see her life wasn’t over, that he was there for her in any way she needed him to be. To whisper calm words of support and strength. To show her she wasn’t defined by her profession, but by her soul.
But everything that made him a doctor told him he had to leave now. A baby’s life was possibly at risk. He had to go. As soon as he got back to the Ridge, however, he’d be knocking at her door.
He refused to let this undo her. Not just because he loved her, not just because he’d come to the realization he didn’t want to be without her, but because she was more than just a pilot. And he wanted to be the one to help her find who and what that more was.
The rotors on Ryan’s chopper were already a spinning blur when he yanked open the cockpit door. “Ready, Doc?” the heli-musterer shouted as he climbed up into the small cabin. “It’s going to be a fast trip. Can’t guarantee it’s going to be a smooth one. There’s a storm brewing south of the Ridge and we’ve gotta fly straight through it, I’m afraid.”
Settling into the seat, Matt fastened his seatbelt and gave Ryan a nod. “Understand. Who wants a smooth flight anyway?” He took the headphones Ryan handed him and rammed them over his ears, ignoring the hot pain in his head wound the sudden pressure caused. “Where’s the fun in that?”
Ryan barked out a laugh and adjusted the beat-up cowboy hat on his head. “That’s the spirit.”
And without another word, the heli-musterer pulled back on the cyclic stick and the helicopter took off, turning the RFDS plane into a small toy below them quicker than Matt could fathom.
Taking him away from Tash just as quickly.
7
She didn’t answer his knock on her door five hours later.
Nor did she answer her phone when he rang.
He stood on her front porch, arm and forehead pressed to the smooth wood of the door, stare locked on the toes of his boots, the back of his head a throbbing heat.
He’d admitted Michelle Gribble’s baby to the small Wallaby Ridge hospital three hours and thirty-five minutes ago, suspecting the tiny five-day-old girl had measles. While there, the hospital’s only resident doctor—a stern woman in her fifties with no discernible sense of humour and the unfortunate name of Dr. Ophelia Dickie—had noticed the cut at the base of his skull, once again seeping blood, and announced he wasn’t going anywhere until she’d stitched him up and X-rayed his head.
It didn’t matter how many times he protested or told Dr. Dickie he needed to be somewhere else. It wasn’t until she threatened to sedate him with a dose of Propofol that he finally accepted he wasn’t getting to Tash’s place until the obstinate woman tended to his injury and declared his skull free of fractures, contusions or bruised bone.
As soon as he was cleared to leave, he did. He wasn’t a good patient at the best of times. What doctor was? Especially a doctor who’d survived not only a militia attack and a coma, but an almost plane crash as well?
Drawing a slow breath, he knocked again.
Silence answered. Again.
“Damn it,” he muttered, pushing himself from the door.
He shoved his hands in his back pockets, in part to stop himself skimming his fingertips over the six stitches sticking out from the back of his head, in part to stop himself banging on the door in frustration.
“Damn it,” he repeated.
The dull throb of his head wound grew hotter. His gut clenched.
Where was she?
In the whole time he’d known Tash, she pretty much spent her time in two places—the plane or here. Occasionally, she’d go to the Wallaby Ridge public swimming pool to do laps, but that was only in the early hours of the morning, when dawn was breaking and the sweltering heat of the Outback sun had yet to scorch the day. Of course, she could be doing something as innocuous as grocery shopping at the town’s only supermarket, a four-aisle shop that was lucky to stock more than a hundred different items.
He yanked his phone from his hip pocket and, scanning through the list of contacts, located the one he wanted and hit dial.
“Gary’s Foodmart,” a chipper voice said on connection.
“Kitty, it’s Doctor Corvin,” he said, scanning the dusty, empty street in front of Tash’s house. “Any chance Natacha Freeman is there?”
“Sorry, Doc,” the supermarket’s owner answered. “Haven’t seen her all this week. Everything okay? You meant to be flying somewhere?”
Matt dragged his hand through his hair and then winced as the stitches in his scalp let him know they were still there. “No, it’s all good.” He flicked his fingers a quick look. No blood. That was good. “Just need to ask her something. Take care.”
He disconnected before the woman could question him further. Knowing Kitty, the whole of Wallaby Ridge would know he was looking for Tash within the next fifteen minutes. That could be a good or a bad thing.
Turning back to the door, he knocked again. Thanks to Jen, he knew Tash had a treadmill and exercise bike in the spare room. Maybe she was working out? Perhaps she had earplugs in and was on her way to destroying her eardrums as surely as she thought her life was destroyed thanks to her asthma?
What
did he do now? Break in? Drag her off the bike or treadmill if she was on either, silence her inevitable protests with a kiss and then fuck her senseless? Or more to the point, fuck some sense into her?
The thought—at once thoroughly selfish and thoroughly appealing—sent a tight lick of heat through his groin.
He bit back a growl, disgusted with himself.
“C’mon, Tash,” he ground out. “Where are you?”
What if she’s had another asthma attack? What if it hit her before she found her inhaler? After all, she didn’t have it in the plane yesterday. She’d somehow lost it at Old Man Dingo’s place. Probably while you were trying to get into her pants by the billabong. Maybe she doesn’t have a spare and she’s now asphyxiating somewhere all because you couldn’t keep your hands—
He cut the thought off before it could finish. If he didn’t, he’d really start to panic.
Huh! And you aren’t now?
His pulse drummed in his neck. His blood roared in his ears. Shit, what did he—
In his hand, his phone burst into the Doctor Who theme song.
Matt looked at the screen, his heart slamming into his throat. It was Tash. Making the connection, he rammed his mobile to his ear.
“Tash?” he damn near shouted. “Where—”
“It’s me, Doc,” Jen cut him off. “Natacha left her phone at my place and I figured I’d call you to let her know.”
“How long ago? And why’d you think she was with me?”
“About thirty minutes ago.” The confusion in Jen’s voice stirred the churning tension in Matt’s gut. “She was here having a cuppa with me.”
“What did she tell you?”
“Nothing really.” Surprise replaced confusion. “We chatted a little about the weather, Old Man Dingo’s hip, and then she told me she had something important to tell you and left. I thought she was heading to your house when she left.”
Matt swung back to her door. Stared at it.
“How did she seem, Jen?” He ran a slow gaze over the wooden panel before him. How solid was it? Could he kick it down? “Tight in the chest? Wheezy?”
Breathless For You: Outback Skies, Book Two Page 8
