If she’d been an inexperienced teenager, she might have been able to convince herself the attraction was all one-way traffic and she was just crushing on the bad boy she couldn’t have. However, she’d traveled along enough dual-lane highways in her time to know she and her guardian bad boy were headed straight for crazy town unless they slammed on the brakes. Drawing in the cool night air to calm her red-lining heart, she slowly turned to tell him she was getting off at the next exit…and crashed straight into a pair of soft, warm, chocolate-flavored lips.
Delicate and sweet, the kiss was as gentle as the breeze drifting over her superheated skin. And ended before she’d even had a chance to figure out what the hell had happened.
He drew his top lip into his mouth as if he was tasting her, only to do the same with the bottom before swallowing and clearing his throat. “Mum asked me to thank you for saving her baby boy’s leg.”
Olivia’s internal satnav shut down as his words filtered through the carnage in her mind and she plowed head first into crazy town. Any thoughts of exiting the freeway or slamming on the brakes evaporated with the air gushing out of her mouth as she clutched her mug to prevent her hands from shaking.
With a casualness that only increased her heart rate, he leaned in and kissed her again. He’d kept a few inches of night between them and hadn’t even spun her to face him while he’d caressed her lips with his, which was just as well considering the only thing keeping her legs from buckling was the veranda’s bannister.
He shrugged and carefully balanced his mug on the railing. “Mum said Ethan asked me to thank you as well.”
He raised one eyebrow and studied her as if he wasn’t quite sure whether she was going to pass out or knee him in the junk. She opened her mouth to respond only to discover that for once in her life she had absolutely nothing to say. She should’ve thanked him for passing on Naya’s and Ethan’s gratitude and for her hot chocolate before escaping inside. Yet the thought of leaving scared her almost as much as where they were headed.
With deliberate gentleness, he pried the mug out of her numb fingers and placed it on the railing before slowly turning her to face him. The continuing celebrations inside the Big House faded, as did their insect serenade, while she lost herself in his eyes. With agonizing tenderness, he captured her face and claimed her mouth with his.
This time, he allowed his lips to linger until the kiss melted her frozen limbs and thawed her brain. As if witnessing their impending car crash in super slow motion, she watched on helplessly from the sidewalk as everything she’d dreaded collided with everything she wanted and burst into flames. And she couldn’t summon even an ounce of regret.
He trailed fire down her neck with calloused fingers before cupping her shoulders and studying her as if he still wasn’t sure whether she’d take flight or fight. “I’ve been trying to figure out a better way to describe you, Dr. Williams.” He shrugged. “Amazing pretty much covers it.”
She’d shared kisses that had stolen her breath and turned her mind to mush. She’d enjoyed make-out sessions that had melted her bones, curled her toes, and had her lady parts jumping for joy. Yet no man had come close to pushing all her buttons at once with just a simple kiss. And no man had ever had her logical mind completely rolling over and playing dead to lust.
Reason exited stage left and dragged reality and the future right along with it. While what was left of her brain justified her body’s reaction with jet lag, over-indulgence, and the adrenaline dump that up until five minutes ago had been leaching from her system, she teetered up onto her toes and kissed him back.
What she’d intended to be a controlled exploration erupted into a full-body assault the instant she brushed her lips to his. The electricity that had crackled between them surged through her as she clawed her fingers into his hair and dragged him onto her mouth.
The hands that had been resting on her hips roamed over her body before crushing her to his chest. The only thing soft about him was his mouth and the confirmation of what she did to him only fueled her need. Parting her lips, she devoured him while grinding into him.
Something between a snarl and a groan leaked between their joined lips. She had no idea whose mouth it escaped from, and she didn’t care. Clamping his head steady, she speared her tongue deeper and ground into him.
He picked her up as if she weighed nothing and dumped her on the railing. Mugs tumbled into the dirt, the veranda shook, and she growled while clamping her thighs around his waist. Lights flashed, sirens wailed, and the tiny voice of reason that hadn’t been swamped by lust screamed into the hurricane swirling around her.
She bucked against him while their lips and hands fought for control. Chocolate, soap, cotton, leather, sweat…the scents drowning her were almost as overpowering as the strength of his worshipping hands. She wanted him inside her, wanted him pumping into her while she rode him into oblivion.
Yet with each pull of her mouth and drive of her hips, that tiny voice of reason screamed louder until it screeched over the muffled grunts escaping into the night. The superheated muscle flexing around her froze as if he’d heard the same screams.
She released the lips she’d been mauling and sucked in heaving breaths as she sagged against him. The hands that had been roaming over every inch of her stilled before sliding around her and cradling her to his chest. His soft lips trailed delicate kisses down her nose, across her chin, and along her jaw until he nuzzled her neck. “So—where—the—hell—do—we—go—to—from—here?”
Every desperate word had her wanting him even more and the rod of muscle locked between her thighs wasn’t helping. Christ, she had absolutely no freaking idea what to do except rip off his clothes and do unspeakable things to him right there on the veranda. For the first time in her life, she’d found a man who captivated so much more than just her mind or her body.
If he’d been just some random Aussie hunk she’d met on her travels, she’d have worked him out of her system and left him limping and smiling before boarding the plane back to L.A. If they’d lived in the same damned city, she’d have explored her newly developed dating standards to figure out just what the hell was happening between them.
Problem was he wasn’t just a nice guy who drove her crazy. He was an original member of the family she’d officially join as soon as Ethan was back. And in four weeks they’d return to their real lives and have the world’s largest ocean between them. Not only was a short-term, strictly no-strings-attached, wild-monkey-sex arrangement with him as bat-crap-crazy as it was complicated, if things went south, as they tended to do when you genuinely liked someone as much as you wanted to rub up against them, she’d have to relive the trauma every vacation.
The battle confusion, doubt, and lust waged inside her silenced the instant he leaned away and brushed away the hair that had fallen across her face. Only then did she realize how long she’d kept him waiting for an answer.
Shrugging, she cleared her throat and decided to go with the only thing her short-circuiting brain could process. The truth. “If I’d met you a year ago, I’d have jumped you as soon as you brought out those damned Ferrero Rocher.”
The shadows consumed her whispered words before a soft chuckle interrupted the silence. “Before or after you ate them all?”
No gloating, no pressure, no guilt. Then again, she hadn’t expected anything else. Despite all her preconceived ideas, Jarrah Harper wasn’t an arrogant playboy sowing his high-society oats. He was a hell of a decent guy who just happened to have almost as much money as raw sex appeal. “During.”
His playful groan had her smiling despite the turmoil swirling inside her. “A year ago I wouldn’t have made it past the bacon-and-egg roll before annoying you.”
Something warm and gooey flowed through her before reality chilled it. Four weeks was plenty of time to work loose the kinks and water the dry spell she’d endured. But so much had changed in the last twelve months, and there was only one person to blame. “Freaking Ab—”
>
“Bloody Ryder.”
His curse cut her off as she chuckled and dropped her forehead to his chest.
With a tenderness that had her hands once again encircling his neck, he eased her down and pecked her forehead. “I was perfectly content working my arse off, playing with my toys, and adding to my little black book. And then I saw that damned smile on my idiot brother’s face whenever he looked at your sister, and I realized I had no idea what true happiness was.”
“Ditto.” She nuzzled between his pecs and rode the rise and fall of his chest while memorizing every sensation tingling through her for her life’s highlight reel. The security of his embrace, the wood smoke mingling with his scent, the steady beat of his heart while the insects and frogs serenaded them, the billion stars illuminating the night sky.
She encircled his waist and kissed the valley of exposed skin below his collar. “I lived with them for a year.”
“Okay, you win.” He sighed and pulled her close before slow dancing to the muffled music escaping the Big House.
“We could swallow the red pill and check out of the Matrix for a little while?” He chuckled and squeezed her butt when she stiffened. “Or we could swallow the blue pill and ignore what’s happening between us.”
Thoughts of Neo, Morpheus, and epic sci-fi movies joined the chaos in her head as she stared up at him.
He grinned and raised one eyebrow before starting to dance again. “Do I make you nervous, Doc?”
She forced her numb feet to move and pretended her heart rate hadn’t kicked into overdrive as she allowed him to slowly twirl her around. “Y-You don’t make me nervous.”
He chuckled and shook his head before pulling her close. “Funny, because you scare the shit out of me.”
Chapter Eleven
Jarrah tipped back his hat and scrubbed the dirt and sweat from his face with an even dirtier and sweatier shirtsleeve. A day in the saddle had transformed the tension that’d kept him tossing and turning most of the night into exhaustion, and a certain blond-haired lifesaver still haunted his thoughts. Even with ten hours’ worth of dust caked onto his face, he could still feel her chocolate-flavored lips sliding over his. He shifted in the stirrups to ease the pressure on his groin and blinked away visions of what could’ve been.
Christ, why the hell had he let her escape last night without at least finding out what she’d wanted to do? If she’d swallowed the red pill and followed him back to the derelict feed shed he’d borrowed for his holiday accommodation, his crotch might be aching for a whole different reason other than saddle soreness. And if she’d chosen the blue pill, he could hang the Do Not Disturb sign over that damned body and get on with his life. Either way, he would’ve at least gotten some freaking sleep.
Yeah, right, like he was getting any rest soon. As long as Dr. Williams was within a hundred meters of him, there was no way he was getting any peace. What hurt even more than his aching back was the truth. He hadn’t pushed her last night because he’d been shit scared of her answer. And that scared him almost as much as the very real possibility that he may never kiss her again, or hold her, or—
“For Christ’s sake, Armani Dundee, pull your head out of your arse and focus.”
He cursed and flipped Maddie off. Nudging the thousand-year-old quarter horse the crew had saddled him with, he shook visions of the good doctor from his mind and pointed Delores after the strays that’d snuck into a wash-away. He couldn’t blame the exhausted heifers for trying to escape his sister’s wrath. He’d only been back a few days and was already calculating how much of a bribe it’d take for Ryder to drop Maddie out in the desert. Problem was, the mean shrew was just tough enough to crawl back through the scrub and kick both their arses.
As if sensing where his thoughts had wandered with that damned Special Forces ESP, Ryder swooped down in Wingarra’s toy helicopter and scared another mob toward the thousand-or-so head they drove toward one of Maddie’s custom-designed holding yards. Jeddah and Kira pounced on the newcomers and merged the gang of two-year-olds into the herd with the unconscious grace of stockwomen who’d spent most of their lives on horseback. He would’ve been jealous and a little ashamed of how fit and strong they looked if he hadn’t been so proud.
The wedding had been thrown into disarray by Ethan’s Evel Knievel impersonation. And no one cared, least of all the bride-to-be, who’d probably be just as happy skipping the whole thing and riding off into the sunset with her man. So with the ceremony on hold and the mustering crew primed and ready to go, Maddie had kicked off the muster early. Today had been a warm-up in one of the nearer paddocks to ensure the seasonal workers who’d descended on Wingarra for the dry season hadn’t gone soft during their wet season working holidays on the coast. No one had told his pride or his arse that today had just been practice.
During the shakedown run, his ball-breaker of a sister and her equally caring full-time crew had never missed an opportunity to remind him how little time he’d spent in the saddle over the last decade and how long it had been since he’d held the numero uno stockman title. He’d grown so used to their teasing over the years that he barely noticed it these days. He simply kept running tallies of the insults for the next time the smart-arses came crawling to him to pull their less-than-kosher businesses out of the shit or to save their dodgy butts from the tax office.
He caught himself sighing with relief as Wingarra materialized through the heat haze and straightened in his saddle as much as his screaming muscles and stiff joints allowed. He’d laid off the muffins and cupcakes Charlie insisted on baking him and their clients and sweated his arse off each morning before work. Yet nothing short of time in the desert could prepare a body for fourteen-hour days in the saddle with the sun beating the crap out of you and the dust grinding its way into every last one of your body’s orifices. He crunched down on the grit coating his teeth and leaned forward on his stirrups to take the weight off his butt before whispering another thank-you into Delores’s floppy ear for taking it easy on him.
“What’s the matter, big brother? That fancy city life softening you up?”
Even with his filthy shirt sticking to his soaked skin and his lower back begging for mercy, he couldn’t help smiling as Jeddah trotted over to him on Buttercup, the ferocious quarter horse his sister half stole, half rescued from a shit-bag breeder as a foal and hand-raised and broke in herself.
He pretended to check Delores’s bridle before patting his lazy mount’s fleshy flanks and faking a smile. “Just checking on the old girl.”
Delores huffed out a rebuttal but was thankfully too exhausted to take her objection further. Jeddah raised an eyebrow and pulled up beside him looking like she’d just returned from a lazy afternoon canter in the countryside. Christ, even Buttercup looked as fresh as a daisy, which was as impressive as it was annoying since they’d done most of the heavy lifting throughout the day. He was no longer anywhere near the horse whisperer Jeddah was, and probably never had been, yet he could’ve sworn Buttercup rolled his eyes at exactly the same time as his sister.
Twenty-four minutes separated him and his twin, yet the full-grown woman floating beside him would be his kid sister till the day they buried him in the scrub. “So, how many eligible bachelors do I need to run background checks on while I’m out here?”
This time he was sure his sister’s first true love grunted and stink-eyed him. Jeddah chuckled and soothed her overprotective mount with the same calm she managed the station with. “Like any guy I date is going to be worried about you after Mum, Maddie, and Kira have put him through the wringer.”
He’d made his fortune debating the undebatable, yet he couldn’t argue. Any man who made it through the coven of witches running roughshod over Wingarra deserved his sympathy rather than scrutiny. And if worst came to worst and the guy turned out to be anything other than a gentlemen, Ethan and Ryder could dispose of the poor bloke’s remains in the desert.
“Danny didn’t work out?” He knew damn well the ha
rdworking foreman Jeddah had dated for the last year and a half hadn’t worked out. However, the emails and video calls he and Jeddah shared hadn’t given him the information he’d been chasing. Even after everything they’d survived, he still couldn’t see through the mask she hid her pain and fear behind unless he looked her dead in the eyes.
Jeddah shrugged and stared at the Big House’s shimmering roof through the dust cloud enveloping them. “He was offered a position in Brisbane he couldn’t refuse.”
The hurt concealed in her casual dismissal hit him square in the chest and had him grinding more grit between his teeth. Outback life was hard enough without trying to find someone to settle down and raise a family with. It was even harder when you were a twenty-nine-year-old black woman with a biological clock counting down and a bond to the land that was almost as important to her well-being as breathing. Danny hadn’t been perfect; then again, no man would ever be good enough for any of his sisters. Yet the thirty-year-old stockman cum foreman had cared for his sister and made her happy, which put him in the okay basket.
He unclenched his jaw and drew in the dung-tainted air. “You know, I could use a hand in town. You could stay with me until you find a place of your own, or move in with someone.”
The all-knowing smile that had driven him insane throughout their adolescence spread across her face. “Nice try. But that cowboy has well and truly ridden off into the sunset. And there’s no way in hell I’m living with you and making small talk with a different woman each morning over breakfast.”
He faked an innocent smile and tried remembering who’d been his last breakfast partner. Veronica, or had it been Astrid? It’d been so long since he’d had a woman hang around long enough to eat breakfast he couldn’t figure out if it’d been the Bentley & Allan’s straight-talking senior partner or the genius business analyst from Sharp Consultancy. Either way, his sister wasn’t buying his bullshit so he met her condescending glare and widened his grin.
A Choice of Fate Page 10
