The Australian's Desire (Mills & Boon By Request)

by Marion Lennox, Lilian Darcy, Lilian Darcy

  ‘I’m trying to think how it would have been if I hadn’t found your address amongst Alice’s things,’ Janey said. He took in a quick breath. ‘Don’t.’

  ‘No, I know, it’s too hard to contemplate.’

  ‘Those maybes and what-ifs. I used to torture myself with them in London after Alice disappeared with him. You can’t think about the what-ifs.’

  ‘But I wanted to tell you that I’m glad I brought him here. Because it means there’s someone else who cares about him in the same way I do, and that’s so good.’

  ‘Yes. It is.’

  ‘I—I really need it, Luke. Whatever happens, I want you to know that I’m not going to be heading out of here on the next plane. I’m giving this some time.’

  ‘I appreciate it. You always were …’ He paused and fished around for a word. Came up with ‘sensible.’

  She made a face. ‘Gee, thanks!’

  He threw back his head and laughed, something he hadn’t done very often over the past two days. ‘Want to give me another shot at that?’

  ‘Not sure I’m prepared to take that much of a risk.’

  ‘You’re good, Janey, OK? You’ve been bloody great every single minute since our first talk on Tuesday afternoon …’

  ‘Our first fight, you mean.’

  ‘I like fighting with you. It clears the air. And I need you every bit as much as you need me.’

  They looked at each other over their mugs of steaming tea and teetered on the edge of saying more. Or doing more. The fridge stopped humming. Janey heard someone call out, ‘Bring in the bread.’

  Good. They’d be interrupted any second. It was the only thing that would save her from doing something really, really impossible and dumb with the man her sister had been so cruel to.

  But even the interruption didn’t save her in the end, because when most people had gone to bed a couple of hours later, and Janey herself couldn’t sleep, she went along to Rowdy’s room to check on him and there was Luke, in a white T-shirt and a pair of dark blue cotton boxer shorts, doing the same thing.

  Rowdy was breathing peacefullly beneath his light cotton sheet, lying on his back with his head turned to one side. It was a trusting position and he looked so relaxed and still, his skin as tender as a baby’s and his lashes dark on his cheeks.

  He didn’t need anything right now.

  ‘But how about you?’ Luke asked Janey softly. Now they stood just outside Rowdy’s door. It was the right moment to wish each other good night and just … just leave, head in opposite directions down the corridor. It shouldn’t be so hard!

  ‘I’m not expecting to sleep for a while,’ she said. ‘I had that big nap this afternoon, just like Rowdy did.’

  ‘Want to go for a walk or something?’ He shifted, and a floorboard creaked.

  ‘In bare feet and my nightie?’ Which had been in the overnight bag that had survived the bus crash, and was just a short, strappy bit of blue, lace-edged silk that kept her cool during Darwin’s hot nights.

  ‘I’ll lend you a T-shirt to put over it, and some thongs. Come on. I can’t stay in the house.’

  ‘All right.’ His almost impatient assumption that she would join him drew her in.

  He wasn’t being arrogant or pushy, he was just, oh, counting on her.

  Trusting her.

  Acknowledging this strong, rock-solid foundation they both seemed to be standing on together. She somehow knew that if she’d spoken the same words to him—Come on, I can’t stay in the house—he would have responded with the same agreement.

  She followed him to his room and stood inside the doorway, watching him dig through his T-shirt drawer in the dark, because he hadn’t wanted to blind both of them with a sudden flood of light. ‘This one’s pretty new.’ He held it out.

  ‘Because I couldn’t possibly wear one of your old T-shirts, could I?’ She stepped further into the room and took it from him. ‘Yuck! They must be disgusting!’ She realised too late how flirty she sounded, teasing him like that.

  His body went still as she took the shirt, and he didn’t let it go. ‘Don’t tease me,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry …’

  ‘No, damn it, do tease me! Do anything you want with me!’ He pulled suddenly on the T-shirt, reeling her close. ‘I don’t care, I just …’ He didn’t bother to finish. His body said the words instead.

  Want you.

  And he knew she felt the same. He had to know. The same strength. The same rightness. Everything.

  He bent and rolled his forehead across hers, dropped the T-shirt, curved his palms over her bare shoulders, bent lower and kissed her collarbone and her neck, and then the slope of one breast where the lace ended. She stood motionless and let her eyes drift shut, pretending to herself for one more moment that this wasn’t her decision, that it was all coming from him.

  But it wasn’t. It was in her just as much. All through her.

  She lifted her face in search of a kiss and felt the light brush of his mouth against her parted lips. He took it achingly slowly and sweetly, still holding her shoulders with his warm hands, tasting her lightly and then going deeper, making her lips part further to receive him, drawing her tongue into a dance.

  He stepped close against her, and she discovered how aroused he was. Mmm. Oh. Delicious. She grabbed his hips and pulled him as close as he could get, and he wrapped his arms hard around her, then ran his hands everywhere. Down her back. Into the soft creases at the tops of her thighs. Over her tingling breasts.

  He slid the straps off her shoulders, and kissed his way down to one nipple and then the other, and that was fine, it was perfect. Oh, it was so good, it made her gasp. He lavished her breasts with the touch of his mouth, ran the tip of his tongue around her nipples, cupped her and buried his face in the valley he’d made.

  ‘You have such a beautiful body …’

  ‘So do you. I want you so much.’ She curled her fingers in his dark hair, needing him to anchor her in a universe that had become unsteady down to its very foundations. She twisted her head back, breathless and desperate for more.

  There was too much fabric in the way. She lifted the hem of his T-shirt and helped him pull it over his head, and then her silk slip slid down between their bodies and pooled around her feet, and all there was left was skin.

  Skin and a fairly ineffective pair of boxer shorts, which he soon got rid of. They came together again and he felt like warm satin against her breasts and her stomach and her legs. Holding her upper thighs, he lifted her and she wrapped her legs around him while he carried her to the bed.

  ‘Do you want this?’ he demanded.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you using birth control?’

  ‘No …’

  ‘Then I will.’

  But he kissed her first, kneeling beside the bed and reaching for her, kissing her everywhere, everywhere, bringing her gasping to the brink, so that she began to beg him, ‘Don’t stop yet. Not yet.’

  ‘Ten seconds. I have to.’

  ‘Yes. OK. Yes.’

  And then he was inside her, with one effortless thrust. She held him, pushed her hips against him and drew them back, bringing them closer, bringing him deeper. He rolled, sliding her whole body on top of his, and buried his face between her breasts again, tightened his arms around her and rocked.

  The world exploded, a shattering of stars behind her closed lids, panting breath. They squeezed each other and clung and she heard a groan tear from his body, while she was almost sobbing with the power of her release.

  When she laid her head against his chest a few moments later, she heard his heart pounding, and could have stayed in his arms listening to it all night. All night, tomorrow night, for ever.

  ‘Janey …’ he said, after a few minutes.

  ‘I’m still here.’

  ‘I know you are. Happy?’

  ‘Yes.’ She slid to lie beside him, and he tangled his legs with hers and rested a hand on her breast.

  ‘I w
ish you could stay all night,’ he said.

  ‘Me, too.’ She thought about it for a moment. ‘I guess I can’t. Rowdy might come looking for me.’

  And if he found her in the wrong bed, with Luke, he wouldn’t even be able to ask the funny little five-year-old questions that would give them their cue for tackling the subject in the right way. She didn’t want Rowdy finding her in Luke’s bed.

  Not yet.

  ‘We probably—’ he began.

  ‘Don’t say that it shouldn’t have happened,’ she cut in. It might be true, but she didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want him to spell it out for her, speaking gently in case she didn’t realise.

  She did realise.

  She knew it shouldn’t have happened. She also knew she’d be feeling just as restless and confused and full of questions if she’d managed to stay safely in her own bed. Was he looking for Alice? It hadn’t felt that way just now. All those times over the past couple of days when she’d felt as if Alice’s ghost had been hovering between them … Alice’s ghost hadn’t been here tonight, not for a second.

  And what am I looking for?

  If she gave Luke her heart, and found he didn’t want it because when he came to his senses he realised that he’d done this for one great big wrong reason, what would she do?

  Learn to live with her heart shattered in pieces.

  The idea frightened her.

  ‘We kissed once before, do you remember?’ she heard herself asking him, and didn’t know why she’d said it.

  He shifted and laughed, kissed her shoulder. ‘As it was only last night, yes!’

  ‘No. I don’t mean last night. Hope you’d remember that! Before. Way before. Eight years ago.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yeah, it was at a party and we’d had too much to drink. We’d both had a rotten week in A and E. Heroin addicts and yelling doctors, and patients we couldn’t save. So we all gathered at someone’s place to let off some steam.’

  ‘Not ringing any bells yet, Janey.’

  She pushed on, still not knowing why. ‘And I was crying on my friends’ shoulders, saying all sorts of extravagant things, and you were, oh, chatting up every woman in sight and showing off as usual—’

  ‘And this is your idea of the right conversation topic for an interlude like this.’

  ‘I want to say it, Luke.’

  ‘Apparently. Have I any power to stop you?’ He squeezed her, to soften the words.

  ‘And I kissed this bloke I didn’t even know.’ She knew she was testing Luke’s patience now, but for some reason this was important. ‘And he wanted to race off to his place, but I said, no, and then I just, basically, fell on you and locked lips.’

  ‘Sounds like a great kiss!’

  ‘To be honest, I can’t remember if it was.’

  ‘I don’t believe it really happened.’

  ‘It did. It probably only lasted a few seconds. I don’t think it was your first kiss of the evening, or your last. I’m not surprised you don’t remember.’

  ‘So why are we talking about it?’

  ‘I just wondered, that’s all.’

  ‘Wondered what?’

  ‘If any of it had stuck. I hadn’t thought about it myself for years, and then last night I did. But it didn’t trigger the same memory for you. And I just wondered.’

  ‘You’re spoiling something that doesn’t need to be spoiled, Janey. Spoiling something wonderful that I won’t forget. Can you stop?’

  He was right. She’d known it even while she’d been saying it, but it was hard to be wise when your whole life had just been shaken into pieces by one man’s touch.

  They caught the nine-thirty boat out to Charm Island the next morning. Liberally coated in sunscreen and wearing a broad-brimmed canvas hat, Rowdy hung on the rail for the whole journey, seeming captivated by the sight of the water. He’d probably never been out on the ocean before, and might not even remember having seen the sea.

  It was too soon to gauge what Cyclone Willie had done to the Barrier Reef itself, as they passed the halfway point of the one-hour trip. Skirting several kilometres to the south of Wallaby Island, which was much larger as well as closer to the mainland, they could see how much more extensive the damage must have been there. The island’s rugged skyline looked like a torn sheet of paper, with so much vegetation shredded and destroyed. Charm Island had fallen just beyond the outer edge of the worst damage.

  Some people were making dire predictions about the future of tourism and the Reef in this area. Others said that the marine life and the coral itself would fare well, and the focus of environmental concern needed to be the tracts of rainforest in the path of the cyclone after it had hit the coast.

  The resort at Charm Island’s southern end looked messy but its infrastructure was basically intact. As the boat approached the jetty, in the sheltered waters of a curving bay, Luke and Janey saw a row of roofless cabins fronting the water and a litter of trees and branches on the ground, but a second row of cabins further back towards the island’s forested slopes still had bright beach towels hanging on their wooden deck railings and groupings of outdoor chairs.

  On shore, a signpost and map board indicated various activities. The animal park and windsurfing were listed as closed, and they could see the torn netting and broken supports of what must have been an impressive aviary, but various other sport and water activities and two of the three nature trails that led into the rugged interior of the island were open.

  ‘Play on the beach?’ Luke suggested, and that seemed fine with Rowdy.

  They spent two hours on the sand, digging holes and making castles in between taking refreshing dips in water that had settled back to its brilliant tropical colour instead of its recent stormy brown. Then they explored the resort buildings and at the gift shop Janey bought Rowdy a stained-glass kit which he could make up into a circular picture of tropical coral and fish.

  He looked pleased about it and wanted to carry it himself, but she told him, ‘We’d better keep it in the day pack. Wouldn’t be good if you dropped it or forgot it somewhere.’ He gave a silent nod.

  In the end they’d decided not to bring a picnic, because the mere mention of one had thrown Mrs Grubb into such a flap—she’d apparently pictured goat cheese tartlets and smoked salmon croquettes, even though they’d insisted salad sandwiches would be fine. She had enough in the catering department to worry about at the moment, so they’d told her, ‘We’ll buy lunch there.’

  There was a buffet on offer in the resort’s biggest restaurant. Rowdy piled his plate high, trying everything from crab claws to sliced roast beef to peppers stuffed with spicy rice.

  Luke ruffled his hair. ‘You are a brilliant eater, kid!’ He didn’t let the physical contact linger. He had to hold himself back sometimes, Janey could see. Had to force himself to show less than he felt. They hadn’t even begun to talk about how or when to tell Rowdy that this man was his dad.

  And they hadn’t talked about last night, which repeated itself over and over in her mind. It ambushed her whenever she looked at him and so did the knowledge that it might never be repeated.

  After the big meal, Rowdy looked a little sleepy, so they found a shady place beside the kids’ playground. The shade sail above the play equipment had survived the cyclone—probably by being taken down and stored away. It stretched above them, a cool jade green, offering relief from the midday heat of the sun. Rowdy played on the equipment for a while, then came and lay down on his towel at Janey’s suggestion and slept.

  ‘He seems good today,’ Luke murmured, watching him.

  ‘Maybe it’s easier for him, in some ways, when Max and CJ aren’t around, even though they’re building a nice friendship, the three of them. But when it’s just us, he doesn’t have to keep such a close watch on himself, doesn’t have to keep reminding himself not to talk. There’s not the same exuberance.’ Janey rolled onto her stomach and propped herself on her elbows, so she could look at Luke as she talked to
him.

  Luke wished she hadn’t.

  Or he wished that Georgie had a different preference in swimsuit styles.

  This was Alice’s sister, and it disturbed him, this new awareness of her and need for her as a woman. It irritated him, disturbed him, confused him, made him restless and unsure. He knew he shouldn’t have given in to it last night, but even in hindsight couldn’t pinpoint the moment where he should have or could have turned away.

  The whole thing played in his head like a loop of videotape, only that wasn’t quite right, because there was so much more to it than mere sight and sound. The feel of her skin. The taste of her. The trust in the whole length of her body when she pressed against him.

  And there’d been no games.

  However right or wrong or just plain crazy it had been for them to pull each other’s clothes off and explode in each other’s arms, there had been no games. She’d kissed him because she felt the same need that he did. She’d given in to their blazing desire because, as had happened to him, it had taken control of her whole being and she hadn’t been able to think straight.

  Then they’d both come back to earth and had that weird, awkward and unsettling conversation about having kissed before. Why had she asked him about that? He had no idea.

  But at no point had she pretended to feel more than she did, in order to see how much passion or vulnerability he might betray.

  Alice had been the Stafford sister who’d played games.

  These comparisons—they unnerved him. The idea that he’d kissed Janey eight years ago unnerved him, too. It must have been very dark, very late, and she’d said they’d both had too much to drink. Was it possible he hadn’t even realised who she was? He tried to think. What might she have been wearing? No, it wasn’t going to come back to him. It had totally gone.

  ‘How long since you spoke to your parents?’ he asked quickly, to distract himself.