by Kris Pearson
He sent her another slow smile that had her toes curling in her sandals, and then returned his attention to the road. “I’d rescue you from anything.”
It was probably true. Jason was curiously old-fashioned when it came to keeping her safe, which was a refreshing change from the men she usually mixed with. He’d demanded she left the house after the electricity panic when they’d found the rat. Not politely, but she conceded he’d had her best interests at heart.
And his sideways grab to keep her upright when he’d had to brake so suddenly had been protective in the extreme. Almost as though her safety was more important than his. It was nice to be treated as something valuable. It hadn’t happened in a while.
She settled more comfortably into her seat and pushed the skirt of her dress straight. “So - back to being an optimist. What are you looking forward to?”
She expected a smart comment about having a good time with her that evening, and was no way prepared when he said, “Getting the contract for demolishing your old cottage and building the new house on that site.”
“But…” she said, brow furrowed, “I thought your father was doing it?”
“Nothing signed yet,” Jason said, guiding the van around a curve. “I want the job. I’ve let your dad and uncle know that in no uncertain terms. I have the architect’s designs and I’ve put in a quote.”
“Ambitious,” Anna murmured. “There’s a surprise.”
He turned to her now they were on a straight piece of road again. His eyes burned with determination, and he raised his chin in challenge. “Because you see me as a beach-bum surfing labourer type?”
She tried to backtrack, not wanting to spoil the atmosphere of their evening together. “No. I don’t see you as anything in particular. I didn’t meet you until this morning. I’ve no idea who or what you are.”
“I’m someone you’re going to know better,” he said with certainty, confining her hand in his again. “Someone you’re going to want to know better.” He returned his attention to the road.
Privately she doubted that. A builder with an obviously rough background when the Wynns were way up the social ladder? Not her sort of person at all. But here she was on some kind of date with him, and more or less at her own invitation, too.
Relax and enjoy, she reminded herself. Wind down for once.
He laughed, not happily. “I was brought up with nothing, Frosty, but that’s going to change. Or at least the company I’ve set up will make it change. Dad’s had his chance of being top dog. It’s my turn now.”
She gave a slow nod. “You project managed that whole house?”
“Every last plank and screw.”
“You should enter it in the House of the Year Awards, or the Builder of the Year, or whatever it’s called. May as well start at the top.”
She watched as his expression softened from pride to yearning.
“Yeah - entries close by the end of February. Costs a bit, but you get publicity. I admit I want more than… what I currently have. I want recognition for the hard years I’ve put in, and the standards I insist on.” Then he turned to her and smiled, and the butterflies began to tumble in her tummy again as he said, “And a good time with you this evening.”
*
He drove parallel with the ocean for another five minutes. On the wasteland between the road and the water, big clumps of toe-toe - the native pampas grass - waved feathery plumes. Low-growing yellow lupins sprawled right to the road’s edge in places. Gnarled ngaio bushes crouched low to avoid the worst of the salty wind where gulls wheeled and soared. His everyday view, but it never failed to thrill him with its wild beauty.
“No,” he said, reverting to the earlier topic. “Pukeko aren’t quite protected. There’s a shooting season. There are close versions of them in other Pacific countries where they’re often called swamp-hens.”
Anna’s big eyes regarded him solemnly for a few seconds, then her mouth quirked as she asked, “What are the males then? Swamp-cocks?”
It shouldn’t have been so funny, but they burst into laughter at the same instant, and pictures of unlikely birds filled his brain, wiping away the ongoing feud with his father and the burning need to beat him to the other house contract. “Yeah… they’d have big bright rooster-tails, eh. That’d be a sight.”
Anna wiped her eyes, still giggling. “Would they crow?”
Jason shook his head. “They shriek blue murder if stoats are after their eggs, or when a Harrier hawk is about. And this is us. Hold tight.” He slowed, and turned off the main road onto a crunchy gravel driveway, crawled under more pohutukawa trees, and grimaced as long arching leaves of flax brushed against the doors. “I need to cut those back or I’ll start losing paint.”
“So we’re nearly there?”
“Right around this bend.” He waited for her reaction.
“A log cabin!” She turned to him with an astonished expression and then gave the house a more thorough inspection.
Jason coasted to a halt. “Most of the ground floor anyway. I’ve done some alterations.” He cut the engine, slid out of the van, and came around to take the wine from her so she could step down. “I whacked a garage door into the main bedroom wall where the window was because I really needed secure storage for my tools and stuff, but I’ll be building a proper garage and reclaiming the bedroom before too long.”
She bit her lip, looking amused. “So where’s your bed?”
“Upstairs, if you’re that desperate.” He sidestepped to avoid the sharp dig from her elbow. “Another couple of bedrooms up there.”
Where I’d love to get you naked.
She tilted her head, listening. “I can still hear the sea.”
“Yep, not too far away. No view of it, but other compensations.”
He unlocked the front door and stood back so she could precede him into the main living space. What would she think?
She turned a slow circle, taking in all the timber, the tall dark green feature wall with his immense display of photos, and then the low window seat with its view out to his private forest. “What a magic place,” she said, heading immediately for the window seat, as all his visitors did.
“Don’t sit for a moment.” He reached down, pulled the base so it extended, and then tugged one of the two upholstered squabs forward so it became a generous sleeping platform. “Extra guest accommodation. Other people would have kept the under-stairs cupboards but I wanted to bring the outside in.”
She bit her lip, apparently trying to stifle a smile, but it broke through anyway.
Yeah, she was right when she described it as magic. It got him that way, too.
“Why did you put the window so low?” she asked, bending to peer out.
“Partly because the stairs go up over it. Mostly because lying here watching the wildlife is amazing. It’s way above ground level because the land drops away.”
“So you’re in the treetops? I love it.”
He drew a deep contented breath and felt his mouth tugging into a grin. “Take a seat and I’ll get you a drink.” He waited until she was settled and then turned for the kitchen.
He had her. Here in his house, with no-one to disturb them. It was so much more than he’d been expecting. A man could always hope, but when hope turned into possibility, that was when the real challenge began. If he treated her right… maybe, then just maybe…
He chose two long-stemmed glasses from the cupboard, pouring the wine, and putting the rest of the bottle to chill. “We’re in luck,” he called, inspecting the contents of the fridge. “Blue cod. Eddie had a good day.”
He found Anna now reclining, shoes neatly on the floor, legs tucked up onto the upholstered squab, elbow resting on a tumble of cushions.
Satisfaction flooded through him as he walked across the big space. A woman had to be special before he invited her to his home, and this one had ‘special’ written all over her. No matter that she was prickly, defensive, and sometimes too quick to speak her mind. She
was also challenging, clever, and had a body that attracted his like the most powerful of magnets.
He’d spent a lot of the day half hard. He was in moth-to-flame territory - alternately attracted and burned. Hating it and loving it. Alive like he’d never been before.
Something elemental in his life had changed. Should he go with it or fight it? Add someone like her to his dream of ‘more’?
She was way out of his league, with influential connections, money, extra houses, a university degree. But he wanted Ms Anna Wynn. One taste of heaven as consolation for the hell of his past. Even though he’d now established himself in the world, the thwarted boy was never far below the skin of the man who looked back at him from the mirror… the artist carefully hidden, but far from buried.
Yes, he deserved Anna Wynn, for tonight at least.
His taste of heaven sat up as he approached and set her pretty little feet on the floor again. Her perfume wafted across in the warm air and he breathed her in slowly as he stood admiring her long streaky hair, her big eyes, the soft mouth that he had such trouble tearing his gaze away from. What would she taste like? Throwing caution to the wind he bent and handed both glasses of wine to her. “Hold these for a mo,” he said, leaning closer so the delicate scent of her skin mingled with the wine’s bouquet. He parted her knees with a hand on each and moved between them. She automatically held the glasses aside, unable to rise. He bent, slowly enough not to spook her, but fast enough that she couldn’t evade him, and as she started to protest, he raised his hands, cupped her face, and kissed her parted lips. Just once, lingeringly, dragging his mouth gently over hers.
Maybe it was all he’d get, but the contact was electric, his heart now thundered, and a pulse throbbed in his cock like a drumbeat. God, she was gorgeous. So beautiful. So classy. So desirable. There was no way he could have stopped himself.
Somehow he pulled back. Retrieved his wine, took a desperate sip, and looked his fill. Her lips were still parted. Her eyes were wide with either outrage or desire. Hoping, praying, for the latter, he said, “Back soon, smelling better than this,” and set his wine on a nearby table before thudding up the stairs to the bathroom.
The mirror showed how far gone he was. Hectic flushes of colour lit his cheekbones. His chest rose and fell far too fast for a one-flight climb, and his pupils shone huge and almost totally black like some bug-eyed creature in a sci-fi movie. This was the power she had over him.
The power I’m willing to give her.
He grabbed fresh clothes, tore off his old ones, and showered in record time, praying she’d still be there when he returned. Towelled himself so impatiently that his jeans were a battle to get up his still-damp legs and over his naked butt.
He cocked his head and listened. No sounds from downstairs. Was she still there?
The white T-shirt he dragged on became spotted through with the water droplets clinging to his chest and shoulders. Rubbing at his hair until it was semi-dry he tossed the towel aside and took the stairs again two at a time, barefoot, frantic to ensure she hadn’t left.
She was plenty ornery enough to have gone out to the van to stand there tapping her foot on the ground and demanding he take her back to the old cottage.
Instead, relief stole the breath from his lungs when he found her leaning on one elbow with her legs curled up again, half her wine consumed, following his progress toward her with wide eyes and an unfathomable expression.
“I didn’t come here just for sex,” she said.
His gut sucked in with anticipation as he drew another deep breath. His mouth quirked at her straightforward words. “No - not just for sex,” he agreed, putting the slightest emphasis on the ‘just’. “But we might get around to it.”
So he hadn’t been mistaken about the possibility crackling between them all day. Even their bad-tempered start had been filled with sparks, and after that they’d fenced around each other like cautious cats.
She’d come willingly to his home, looking pretty as a princess in a thin-strapped dress he itched to remove. Her hair lay around her shoulders in a soft tumble, and her lips were glossed a warm pink he ached to kiss away.
Somehow he managed to keep his hands off her, raising his glass and holding her gaze. “To a pleasant evening with no noise except what we make ourselves.”
She took a sip, and looked as though she was searching for a suitable reply. Instead she said, “Why all the big bird photos?” indicating the huge display meticulously arranged in colourful rows on the opposite wall.
What did she think of them? Her expression showed nothing past polite interest.
“My neighbours.” He pointed toward the low window backing the sleeping platform. “I spend time here with my camera, spying on them.”
She looked across at the wall again and her eyes widened as she turned to him. “You took them? All?”
He tried to tamp down the flare of pride, but they were so much part of him now that he felt the satisfaction of her praise deep in his gut. “There’s quite a piece of land goes with the house. A remnant of original forest. It’s close enough to the sea that I can surf, but no water view. The birds were extra icing.”
She tipped her head on one side, silent for a few moments as she turned and gave the photos her full attention again while he enjoyed another mouthful of wine. Then she rose and padded across for a closer look. “And you took them all out there?”
He sank down, setting his glass on the windowsill before sprawling onto his belly. “Mostly,” he said over his shoulder. “Not quite all. Some are from a holiday in the South Island last summer.” His gaze sharpened. “Fantail,” he said, pointing to the tiny fluttering shape chasing insects through the air.
Anna returned and stretched out beside him, sipped again, and set her glass down beside his. “We do get fantails in the city, you know. But you’re a surprise. Builder, surfer, bird watcher, photographer. What else?”
He unlatched the bi-fold windows and slid them fully open so the cooler air spilled in. She was still too far away for his liking. “Guitarist. You?”
She drew a slow breath, and he watched her breasts rise and fall - more visible now she was reclining.
“A lot of work. Too much work, maybe.” She trailed off, shaking her head. “I read heaps, sing in a choral group…”
A sudden burst of song washed over them, cutting through the rest of the evening chorus. “Tui,” he said, answering her enquiring glance. He peered out into the trees, searching for the distinctive white feathers beneath the big glossy bird’s throat. “There.” And Anna moved sideways to sight along his arm.
He turned his head. Her lips were right beside his, soft and inviting. He leaned the tiny distance toward her, and this time he had no intention of pulling away.
She stayed.
*
Anna’s eyes locked with his as he leaned closer. He had such dark, intense eyes, now full of things she hadn’t known about him until a few minutes ago. Fierce ambition. Undisputed artistry. Both were a surprise. The builder she’d thought physically spectacular and full of fireworks had transformed into a complex man who was much more than she’d anticipated. She’d wanted, indeed hoped for, a quick fling to unwind while none of the family spies were around, but now saw this might be difficult.
Freshly showered, his scent enticed her. Not that she’d minded the salt and sunshine and fresh sweat on his skin, but now he was positively lickable. She could hardly wait to explore the big body that filled all her senses with such powerful emotions. Touch and taste him everywhere.
No longer smiling, he stroked her face, and she’d never wanted anything so intensely. Fine tremors shook her from head to toe. Her mind had gone calm and dim. The anticipation was thrilling - full of dark desire.
Him. All him. Only him.
And at last his lips brushed against hers again, cool and delicious from the wine. Soft yet firm. Shaping themselves to her mouth as though he was the missing piece of a puzzle she’d searched years for.<
br />
She raised a hand and caressed the back of his neck, running her fingers up into his thick, still-damp hair, clutching at him with such yearning that her nails scraped over his scalp, making him groan and increase the fervour of his kiss.
In return, he threaded a hand into her hair, tangling in the long strands, holding her close as his lips lifted and slid, settled onto a new and delicious angle… as he moved nearer, dominant, demanding, full of passion, yet still controlled.
Anna wanted him fiercer than this, wanted him as helpless and alive to sensation as she was. Wanted him to grab and grasp. Take with greed so she could do the same. Make the absolute most of the few days they had together.
His tongue slid against hers, hot and smooth. She responded with a moan of satisfaction, open-mouthed, so they melded together with no certainty of where he began or she ended. One living, sensual being with the privacy to do anything.
His fingers gentled, moved softly over her jaw, angling her face for more long kisses that started civilised and soon turned ferocious again. Hunger burned through her as they ate at each other. Anna pushed her hands up under his T-shirt to stroke and knead the long smooth muscles of his back, and then clawed at him with her sea-green nails as her fingers clenched at his flesh.
Dimly she registered she was yet again attempting to take charge and steer the action the way she wanted. For years now she’d tried to arrange her life so everything was perfect, organised, and under control - even when deep-down her spirit craved wild and spontaneous.
This had been her idea and her invitation. Her fierce need to escape from her everyday existence had led her to instigate an affair with a barely known man. A man who was very different from those she usually associated with. A man her body was now on fire for.
To her unspeakable relief Jason suddenly used his huge strength to pull her sideways. He rolled on top of her, pinning her down with his hips, grinding his long hard cock into the notch of her thighs. He was heavy. Burning hot. His shoulders and chest bulged with muscle under her questing hands, and his breathing was fractured and uneven.
