A Choice of Fate

by Jezz de Silva

  But instead of being sensible, Jarrah had pulled her into the shadows beneath one of Wingarra’s eucalypts and kissed her until she once again drowned in something way more powerful and foreign than adrenaline.

  “This isn’t over.”

  Her nipples pebbled beneath her T-shirt and heat pooled between her thighs as his whispered warning replayed over and over in her head. That’s all he’d said before he’d caressed her swollen lips with his thumb, gently turned her toward the Big House, and slapped her butt. He’d watched her stumble up the steps from the shadows like some sexy ninja stockman before disappearing into the night without another word.

  They were two fully grown adults who’d experienced enough of life to know exactly what they were getting into. Which probably explained why they’d snuck home like a pair of wayward teens. Something had changed out there in the moonlit desert that was hard enough to deal with without their loved ones finding out and highlighting just how stupid and selfish they’d been.

  She’d expected the inevitable questions about their run-in with Dean and his cronies. But after everyone had exhausted their anger on Jarrah for putting her in danger, they’d spent the rest of breakfast grilling them about what they’d gotten up to after leaving the Grand.

  She and Jarrah had exchanged more moans and groans than actual words beneath the Wishing Tree, yet they were well and truly on the same wavelength when it came to their families. Thank God for Jarrah, who switched back into lawyer mode to handle the prosecution. The only problem was the more he calmly redirected the interrogation, the hotter she’d gotten remembering the body that came with the brain and charm.

  She blew out a breath and mopped the sweat beading on her face with her T-shirt before flopping onto her stomach. If spending the day around Jarrah without attacking him hadn’t driven her insane, lying in bed reliving the strength and gentleness of his hands and his soft lips sliding over her slick skin sure as hell would.

  Her phone vibrated to life and wrenched her from her fantasies. She snatched it off the bedside table and blinked at the message glowing back at her. “Get dressed.”

  A dozen emotions hit her at once and she was too busy smiling to care.

  Her phone buzzed again. “Something easy to remove.”

  She shot upright and forced herself to count to ten. She wasn’t a giddy teenager, for Christ’s sake. She was a fully grown woman. She gave up after four and tapped in a reply. “Who is this?”

  A muffled buzz outside her window followed by a whispered curse had her fighting back laughter.

  “You’ve got two minutes before I’m climbing in after you.”

  Her fingers trembled so much she almost gave up on her phone, but the sheer absurdity only excited her more. “What about the two guys I’m with?”

  His growl shattered her self-control. She tossed her phone and scrambled in the half-light for her jeans and boots before sticking her head out the window.

  It was probably the lust that’d been gnawing away at her brain, because he somehow looked even sexier as he glared up at her and extended his arms. She was already clambering out the window before she’d even comprehended just how stupid they must have looked.

  As soon as her boots touched down, he wrapped his arms around her and captured her mouth with his. Clawing her hands into his back, she explored his mouth with her tongue and drove her hips against his. His erection hardened against her as she clung to him and ground up and down his length.

  “You’re going to end me, woman.” His guttural words tickled her ear as he nibbled his way along her cheek and down her neck.

  With a groan, he broke free and tugged her through the shadows toward the stables. She was still catching her breath and stumbling after him when she caught sight of two saddled horses tied to a fence. “But I can’t ride.”

  Of all the concerns swirling in her head that’d been the thing her brain had decided to broadcast.

  “I’ll teach you.”

  She’d had no shortage of volunteers to teach her what the stockwomen and men had turned into an art form. However, with Ethan’s accident and her pop-up medical clinic, the closest she’d come to an actual ride had been sneaking treats to the horses.

  “Doc, Delores. Delores, Doc.”

  Jarrah reintroduced her to the beautiful old girl he’d ridden the first day of the muster. Delores looked almost as happy to be saddled up in the middle of the night as Olivia was about her first riding lesson in the dark. Before Olivia had even begun to list off her objections he’d manhandled her into position, clamped her hand around the knobbly bit on the front of the saddle, and shoved her boot into the stirrup.

  “On three.”

  She was still reveling in the sensation of having his hand firmly cupping her butt by the time he’d reached three, and the next thing she knew she was sitting atop Delores and smiling into the night like a teenage Annie Oakley.

  Her glory was short-lived because no matter how elegant she thought she’d been, there was no way in hell she could’ve looked anywhere near as graceful as he did as he vaulted onto his saddle without even using the stirrups. One instant the smart-ass was grinning up at her from the ground, the next he was sitting astride the huge horse he’d saddled for himself and smiling even harder as he picked up Delores’s reins and led them around the back of the stables and into the desert.

  The peace that came with the desolation flowed over her as they walked silently through the scrub. The day’s iridescent reds, oranges, and yellows had surrendered to the night’s somber silvers, purples, and blues, and made the dreamlike scene even more surreal.

  “It’s…it’s…” She gave up trying to come up with the right words and turned to him just as they cleared the shadows cast by the eucalypts guarding the Big Pond.

  Her breath hitched, and her throat clamped shut as moonlight washed over him. He looked more ghost than man. His dark hair and features blended into the night, yet even through the darkness, the weight of his gaze cradled her. Two rows of white teeth shimmered as he gestured to the sky. She followed his finger and nearly fell off Delores as she tried taking in the magnificence exploding above them.

  She’d read the articles, watched the YouTube clips, and listened to Abi’s stories, but nothing could’ve prepared her for the universe’s majesty unfolding above her in all its unpolluted glory. “It’s…it’s…amazing.”

  Amazing. She felt almost as insignificant as the word that’d leaked out of her mouth and dribbled down her chin as she craned her neck back even further in a futile attempt to absorb it all.

  “So are you.”

  She’d been so captivated by the view she’d failed to realize how close he’d drawn until his voice caressed her. Men had called her amazing before, but the word had never caused her heart to race or her stomach to churn.

  “Ditto.” The only thing more pathetic than her squeaky voice was the lameness of her response. Yet his widening smile had her feeling like a seductress. When had she ever been this nervous around a man? Normally, she’d have called the shots and done the flirting. The longer she spent with him the more uncoordinated she felt and the more balance she lost.

  Time evaporated into the night as they approached an oasis of eucalypts that must have marked another one of Wingarra’s magical springs. She’d been dying to explore the wonders she’d heard so much about. However, the last few days had been as hectic as the next few promised to be.

  “This aquifer’s much smaller than the Big Pond, but it has a surprise.”

  She was pretty sure the surprise he referred to wasn’t a naked Jarrah thrusting between her thighs, but she couldn’t blame herself for hoping.

  Sliding from his horse as effortlessly as he’d mounted it, he led them to the glowing white trunk of a fallen tree and tied up their horses before helping her down.

  She made sure to rub every part of her over every hard bit of him before straightening and innocently studying the area. “What’s the surprise?”

  He
shook his head while eyeing her. “You’ll see.”

  His smile had her wondering whether she’d unknowingly spoken her thoughts out loud or his legal success was purely due to his mind-reading abilities. A hefty dose of lust swamped her curiosity as he untied what looked like a blanket from his saddle and tucked it under his arm before gesturing to a gap in the trees.

  She was a big girl. She knew exactly what they were doing out here. That didn’t mean she had to take it easy on him. “So, how many poor innocent stockwomen have you lured out here with your Romeo routine?”

  He ducked beneath a low hanging branch before holding back another for her. “Counting you?”

  “Yup.” She squeezed past and took the opportunity to grope the healthy bulge beneath his jeans before edging around a chest-high rocky outcrop.

  She ground her teeth and waited while he looked to the canopy and slowly counted off on his right hand. She gave up and shoved him when he swapped the blanket to the opposite armpit and started counting off with his left.

  She was still muttering curses when she cleared the trees and rocks and stumbled into a shaft of moonlight plunging into a glimmering pool that exploded at her feet like a huge iridescent opal. The glowing beam must have come directly from God, or whoever the hell was in charge up there, because it transformed the water into a bottomless rainbow that appeared to descend forever.

  She slowly turned and found him gazing at her. The sly grin he’d teased her with had disappeared, along with the confidence that was as much a part of his arsenal as his charm. He looked lost, almost fragile, as he opened his mouth, only to close it again without breaking the silence that had closed in around them.

  …

  Jarrah stood frozen in the shadows as Olivia tilted her head and studied him. Her blond hair cascaded over one shoulder and shimmered in the moonlight like a golden halo while the playful smile she’d tortured him with slowly faded.

  The smooth line he’d been about to deliver tripped over his tongue and fell arse-backward down his throat as the magnitude of what stood before him finally sank in. He’d convinced himself lust had driven him to bring her here, but that was bullshit. If he’d just wanted a slow-motion replay of what they’d done to each other the previous night, he could’ve lured her back to his makeshift bachelor pad or one of the other secret hideaways he’d used to corrupt women in the past. Something other than his addiction for her had brought him to this magical place and he only now understood why.

  He wanted to show her how special she was. He needed her to understand this wasn’t just sex between two consenting adults. His throat had choked on the words as surely as his balls had crawled up into his gut. He’d spent the better part of his adult life honing his brain and mouth into weapons only to have this creature with the indestructible spirit disarm him in less than a week and turn him into a blubbering idiot. He raised one finger and prayed she understood.

  Her gaze slid to his finger before a smile exploded across her face. “One dozen or one hundred?”

  He slowly shook his head and raised his finger higher as her nervous laughter rippled through the silence. With each chuckle, her humor faded and her eyes darted between his hand and his face as if she were waiting for the same punch line that had slammed into his chest a few heartbeats ago. The tiny part of his mind that wasn’t completely captivated by her threw strategy after strategy at him to enable him to escape with his self-esteem intact. He didn’t need self-esteem; he needed her, in ways that had him scrambling for a distraction so he could get his stalled brain to kick over.

  He gestured to the pond as casually as he could and hoped the shadows would conceal his trembling fingers. “The colors come from the moonlight reflecting off the algae growing on the pond’s banks.” He tried swallowing only to discover his mouth had become as dry as the ground beneath his boots. “You can see the colors in the daylight, but they’re nowhere near as vivid.”

  Instead of bursting out laughing at his lame-arse David Attenborough impersonation, she lost herself in the kaleidoscope shimmering beneath the pond’s surface. “I-I’m glad you brought me here.”

  Her voice was just above a whisper, yet he’d heard every word. His senses were so tuned to her he’d also picked up the most un-Olivia-like stutter, which he wasn’t too proud to admit made him feel a hell of a lot better.

  “Last night meant a lot to me.”

  She flinched even though he’d whispered. Instead of turning to face him, she steadied herself and continued starting into the luminescent rainbow glowing at her feet like it was a window into the future. “Ditto.”

  He had no idea why he was still holding his breath. Her admission should’ve eased the tension in his chest enough for him to suck in a breath. Yet he remained rooted in the dust like the ancient eucalypts surrounding them.

  “Have you ever felt anything like this before?” He could almost see his words drifting through the moonlight separating them on the tattered remains of his pride. He’d spent the day trying to figure out what the hell was happening to him. He’d even considered consulting his oracle mother. But that would’ve filled her with hope that time and reality would eventually squash. And for once he doubted even his mother and all her indigenous voodoo could’ve helped. There was only one person who might have had any idea what he was going through, and she stood like a dream before him in a shaft of moonlight that somehow made her even more mesmerizing.

  Silence once again fell over the pond like a heavy blanket as his mind thudded almost as hard as his heart. Even the insects that had been serenading them paused their nighttime make-out sessions to watch him make a fool of himself. His heart stopped mid-hammer as she slowly turned and locked her gaze on him. A smile flickered across her face as if she was searching his features for the hidden joke before she sobered and rocked back on her heels.

  Fear allied with the panic clamping around his chest to squeeze what air remained from his lungs. He wasn’t sure whether he was scared she’d burst out laughing or she’d slowly shake her head and introduce him to a world he knew nothing about. He’d cared for every woman he’d slept with, but this was different; she was different.

  Her chest rose beneath her T-shirt as she nibbled her bottom lip and drew in a deep breath. Even the sight of her breasts stretching the thin cotton couldn’t shift his focus from her wide, searching eyes. She took a hesitant step toward him. Time stood still as she stopped in the epicenter of the moonlight, as if she’d been sent to him from the heavens before she shrugged and slowly shook her head.

  He had no idea whether that was good or bad. He returned her shrug like the fool he was because he was powerless to do much else. Releasing the breath he’d held, he eased into the moonlight and inched toward her. “I guess it’s too late to take things slow?”

  Seconds dragged by before she nodded and took a step closer. “We could pretend last night never happened?”

  A decade of corporate law and social networking had turned him into a Jedi bullshit artist. He could fake enthusiasm in his peers’ status and possessions, impersonate the corporate and social elite when he had to, and ignore the homesickness gnawing away at him when he fell asleep at his desk. His chances of pretending last night never happened ranked right down there with convincing himself their way-too-brief escape from reality had just been lust.

  The dirt beneath his boots turned to quicksand with each hesitant step. “That’d be the smart thing to do.” He’d passed smart days ago and rocketed past the exit to stupid last night. That only left the exits to regret, pain, and misery before insanity.

  The life seemed to drain out of her as she slowly waved a hand between them and sighed. “Better to end this now before things get out of hand.” She chuckled and shook her head. “I mean, it’s not like we don’t know where this road’s headed.”

  Yeah, off the end of a freaking cliff. Dragging in a steadying breath, he unclenched his fists and rolled the tension from his shoulders. His childhood may not have been all sunshin
e and rainbows, but what it had taught him was that if given the option of giving up or facing your fears, it was always better to come out swinging.

  “What’s—” Cursing the chicken-shit squeak in his voice he cleared his throat and shrugged as if he wasn’t standing just a few meters away from the most terrifying creature he’d ever faced. “What’s the matter, Doc? Afraid you won’t be able to control yourself around me?”

  The fire that had set him ablaze the first time he’d tumbled into her eyes erupted to life as she straightened, folded her arms across her chest, and glared at him. “I’m not the one whose voice just cracked.”

  Damn, what a woman. He suppressed a smile and used the time to ensure his puberty held. “What did you have in mind?”

  He was strung so tight he was ready to snap clean in half, and she plucked him like a five-dollar ukulele as she nibbled her bottom lip and inched her gaze down and up his body. “Rumor has it we’re two fully grown adults who’ve played this game long enough to know the difference between reality and make-believe.”

  If he hadn’t spent so much time studying her over the last week, she might have fooled him with the tough talk, but something foreign had leaked into her opening argument: uncertainty, regret? The part of him that wanted to protect her from the world screamed for him to say something, to ease her apprehension, to comfort her, yet a lifetime negotiating multimillion-dollar contracts had taught him when to shut up. And this deal was a shitload more important than money.

  She shrugged and lowered her arms. “I’m sure we can come to some sort of understanding.”

  The air separating them grew thicker with each word as he forced himself to smile. He’d lived his life floating from one friend with benefits to the next, and he was proud to still call most of them friends. The problem was he didn’t want to be just her friend. Then again, no one ever said life was fair, and sometimes you just had to man up and play the hand you were dealt.