by Ally Blake
Compared with the intensity of what they’d just experienced she felt so slight. So small. So breakable. He felt an immense urge to hold her close. To keep her safe from all harm.
It was a crazy thought. Random. And impossible. Especially considering he was the biggest threat she had in her line of sight right then.
He slowly uncurled her from around him, hoping physical distance might make the floor of the spa not feel as if it was about to give way at any moment.
Only the second she lifted her head and smiled up at him, all lethargy and loose limbs, his gaze went straight to her mouth. To her moist pink lips. Between one breath and the next his body revved up like a hot-rod car, waiting for the green light. And all he could think was, More.
Apprehension flashed inside his head. If that hadn’t sated him, at least for the moment, what on earth would it take? Well, whatever it took, it had to be done by the end of the long weekend.
It was already after four in the morning on day two. They had hours of daylight in which to sleep. It certainly wouldn’t hurt him taking until sunrise to find out just what it might take to get Hannah Gillespie out of his system for good.
With a caveman grunt, he hauled her over his shoulder and walked them out of the pool.
‘Where do you think you’re taking me?’ she yelled, laughing, pounding useless hands on his back.
‘Bed.’
She lifted her head and tried to angle it around to see his face. Her backside wriggled against his cheek. He literally began to shake with arousal. Sunrise was an arbitrary end point, surely?
‘Bed?’ she cried. ‘But we’re sopping wet!’
‘That’s why I’m going to yours,’ he added.
She laughed. Easy, free, gorgeous. Ready for more. Ready for anything.
He kicked open her bedroom door. This was going to be some night.
Waves of gold and pink blurred across the backs of Hannah’s eyelids. Keeping her eyes closed, she stretched, her naked limbs sliding unhindered across her massive bed.
She creaked her eyes open to find sunlight pouring through the windows. It was morning. Make that late morning. And muscles she hadn’t even known existed twinged in protest.
Then, in a rush of bright and beautiful heat, it all came back to her.
Bradley. The slow dance. The kiss. The rebuff. The resolution not to take it lying down, so to speak. The spa. Oh, my—the spa! And lastly, but certainly not least of all, hours and hours of the most intense feats of sexual prowess in the bed in which she now lay.
Taking a sheet with her, she curled luxuriously onto her side. And grinned.
‘Wow,’ she whispered, her voice rough and husky.
Wow, indeed. If anyone had asked how she’d hoped the first day of her long-awaited holiday might turn out, she’d never, even in her wildest dreams, have imagined she’d end up in bed with the boss.
A whisper of cool air tickled at her feet. And at her conscience. She curled up tighter and rubbed them together.
Everything was fine. Gorgeous, even. Had been from the moment Bradley had opened his beautiful mouth and said the magic words, ‘Whatever happens in Tasmania stays in Tasmania.’
The second he’d uttered those words the fantasies that had niggled at the corner of her mind since she’d known him had been given free rein. Within limits. Limits that meant she had no choice but to put a stop to any hope this might become more. Limits that gave her the comfort that in the aftermath Bradley wanted things to go back to normal too.
And once they got back to town—to real life, to work—they could both count on the fact that everything that had happened that weekend would be over. Niggling desires satisfied. Blissfully, beautifully, erotically satisfied.
Bradley could go back to being aloof and cool and stubborn and untouchable.
And she could happily continue …
What? Not dating? Ignoring the sensual side of herself so as to concentrate on her serious side? While hoping to one day magically find herself a man who could give her the love and loyalty and romance and openness that she refused to settle without? A man who would somehow manage to live up to what had happened to her last night. Who could make her feel wanton and cherished and beautiful and sexual, as she did when Bradley’s lips were on hers. When his teeth scraped over her hipbone. When his tongue slid around her breast. So far, in the first twenty-five years of her life, she’d never even come close to feeling that way with any other man.
Hell.
The crackle of oil popping on a frying pan sizzled through the ajar door. Breakfast! The desire to stick her head under the pillow and stay there for ever had to wait. It turned out she was beyond hungry. Stomach-rumblingly, mind-numbingly famished. And the man of the moment had ordered Room Service.
She wrapped a massive king-sized sheet around herself, and made a quick stop to check herself in the bathroom mirror.
‘Wow,’ she said again.
Her eyes were huge wells of liquid green, surrounded by smudges of leftover make-up. Her lips were puffy. Her cheeks pink and warm. She looked ruffled, tousled, and well-ravaged.
She glanced towards the door. Well, he was the one who’d done that too her. And brilliantly too. What was the point of pretending nothing had happened when it most certainly had? Without fixing a hair on her head, she swept up her makeshift toga and headed towards the delicious smell.
Halfway to the über-modern, stainless steel and Caesar stone kitchenette, Hannah pulled up short.
Bradley was cooking. And he was cooking what looked and smelled a heck of a lot like eggs Benedict with extra bacon. Her favourite meal on the entire planet. She was ninety-nine percent sure she’d told him as much. A few dozen times.
He’d remembered. Just as he’d remembered her favourite drink. While seeming intent on nothing more than working her to the bone, he’d paid attention. Her stomach felt as if it had been inhabited by a chorus line doing fan kicks.
He looked up, his quicksilver eyes grazing her naked shoulders before moving down the massive expanse of white sheet trailing behind her. It felt as if his hands had followed the same path.
‘Good morning,’ he said.
‘Oh, so it is still morning?’
‘Just.’
‘How long have you been up?’
‘A while.’ He glanced at the empty coffee cup and open newspaper on the glass-topped breakfast table.
With a yawn, and an inelegant hitch of her sheet, she said, ‘You should have woken me.’
His mouth hooked into the kind of half-smile that made the chorus line in her stomach start bumping into one another in blissful confusion.
‘I could have,’ he said. ‘But I thought you might need the rest.’ He didn’t need to add, After last night’s marathon efforts.
‘I’m fine,’ she said. Unfortunately another yawn cut off her declaration halfway through.
Bradley laughed softly, then turned away as a pair of English muffin-halves popped up from a toaster.
Hannah and her sheet managed to curl up on a gilded, beautifully adorned, wrought-iron dining chair. ‘This place does have Room Service, you know.’
‘Where do you think I got the eggs and muffins?’
‘Good point. So, it appears as if the man can cook.’ And sing. And dance. And create amazing television that changes people’s lives. And make love like no man I’ve ever known.
A warm glow began to fill her. A glow the likes of which she’d never felt before, but her deepest feminine instincts understood all too well. She pulled her sheet tighter in an effort to suffocate it, to forcibly remind herself: what happens in Tassie stays in Tassie.
That’s your only lifeline here, hon. Hang on tight!
Bradley said, ‘A person can’t survive on café food and Chinese takeaway alone.’
Hannah flicked the newspaper before closing it. She could beg to differ.
‘I am a single man,’ Bradley continued, ‘living alone. It was learn to cook or starve. You don’t cook?’
She shook her head.
‘So Sonja cooks?’
Hannah laughed so hard she all but pulled a muscle.
‘What do you live on?’ he asked.
‘Fresh air, hard work, and as many eggs Benedict with extra bacon as I can stomach.’
He laughed again—only this time a small frown creased his forehead. As if he was trying to figure her out. Really trying. She couldn’t remember her boss ever doing anything but taking her at face value. The glow inside her began to pulse.
It didn’t help that every few seconds images kept springing unbidden into her head. The sensation of hot water lapping against her thrumming naked body as she watched Bradley strip. His mouth becoming more intimate with parts of her than she had herself. The feel of all that hot muscle bunching under her fingernails as she bucked beneath him …
‘So, what’s the plan for today?’
Bradley’s voice cut into her daydreams. She glanced at her wrist, and then rubbed at the naked spot. She must have put her dad’s watch somewhere during the night.
‘Today’s grand plan? Well, I’m sorry to say we missed the practice releasing of the doves. But no matter. Just after lunch there’s a sewing class for the girls. And burping contests for the boys.’
She contemplated adding something that involved the entire wedding party getting together to decorate the chapel. But he was making her breakfast.
‘You are kidding?’ he said.
‘Am I?’
She looked up to find Bradley’s eyes had finally contacted fully with hers. Deep, dark, smoky, beautiful grey. Perhaps more distant than they had been hours earlier. But that was forgivable. She was feeling a little tender and unsure herself.
‘God, you’re easy,’ she said. ‘There’s a day-long movie marathon in the ballroom. Beanbags and blankets to snuggle into as you watch Tim and Elyse’s favourite romantic films, one after the other. And this time I’m not kidding.’
His eye twitched at the thought.
‘Relax,’ she said. ‘Since you’ve been so nice as to make me breakfast, I’m letting you off the hook.’
‘Whatever will we do instead?’ He licked a blob of hollandaise sauce from his finger, switched off the stove, and moved around the counter. Her body responded like a heat lamp on a chilled lizard—it stretched and unfurled and curved towards the source of heat.
She held on tight to her sheet and put her bare feet flat on the ground. She realised she needed a little time to fully come to terms with what had happened. What was still happening. What Bradley was imagining would happen. At least till Tuesday. And jumping back into bed with Bradley was not going to help.
She held up a hand. ‘I have a proposal.’
The last time those words had been spoken between them it had directly led to her pouncing on him. Clearly he remembered it too.
‘Do tell.’
She waggled a finger. He stilled. Good boy.
‘There is a beautiful mountain right on our doorstep. It’s a foothill compared with what you’re used to, but it’s still something really special. There are twenty-odd walking trails, plant and animal varieties found nowhere else on earth, horseback rides, mountain-biking, flyfishing. Let me show you a sneak peek. If you don’t get to see any more of this island than the inside of this hotel, I’ll never forgive myself.’
His dark eyes flickered to life, and his mouth curved into the kind of smile that told her that getting to know every inch of the inside of this suite was fine by him.
Her blissfully aching inner thighs tingled in anticipation. But they needed a break. They needed time to recuperate. What better way than an arduous walk around a mountain on a freezing cold morning?
She was going to be the best, most professional tour guide ever.
‘Indulge me?’ she begged.
‘Fine,’ he said, finally turning back to the bench where he finished plating up. ‘Breakfast first. I need to regain my strength. Then you can be my tour guide. Prove to me why this place makes you go all sentimental and glistening and get that crazy schmaltzy look in your eye.’
Hannah shook her head. ‘I’m not sentimental, or a glistener, or in any way schmaltzy. I am a sharp, cool-headed professional.’
He slung a plate in front of her. It smelled insanely good. Soft gooey egg, perfectly toasted muffin, gorgeously rich sauce. She felt herself curling towards it, her nostrils flaring, a hum of appreciation buzzing in her chest. She might even have licked her lips.
‘Sharp, cool-headed professional?’ he said, grinning at her. ‘Want to know the three words I’d use to describe you right now?’
She sat up straight. ‘No. I really don’t.’
Bradley did as he was told and said not another word as he dug into his food.
She did the same. And it tasted as good as it looked. Better, even. Way better. As the egg yolk popped in her mouth and the strong tang of the sauce curled around her tongue she knew it was the best eggs Benedict she’d ever eaten or would likely eat again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BRADLEY followed the puffs of white from his breath up the steep walking track that took Hannah and himself around the edge of Dove Lake and up into the craggy edges of Cradle Mountain’s beautifully eerie crater.
Ice-fresh air burned at his lungs, a clear pale blue sky hovered above, tough and challenging terrain disappeared beneath his feet, and all around was the kind of pristine, unblemished, singular view that climbers and TV audiences alike would go ga-ga over.
This gem of a place had been on the periphery of his life all this time and he’d never even known it was there. Forever in pursuit of the next extreme challenge, he’d never cared to look right under his nose.
Half the thrill had been the fact that he was miles from where he’d come from.
But this felt just as good. It seemed that at some point it had become about new experiences, and not about the exorcism of old ones.
Speaking of new experiences … He felt a tug on the back of his jacket. He turned to find Hannah puffing laboriously behind him.
‘Slow … down … please,’ she begged, between heaving breaths.
He did as she asked. Her face—or the small part of it he could see in between her beanie hat and the furry neck of the massive parka she’d borrowed from the hotel—was bright pink.
So caught up in his need to burn off some of the adrenalin that still infused him, even after the marathon efforts of that morning, though more likely because of them, he’d forgotten she wasn’t an experienced climber herself.
She didn’t cook. And by the looks of her she didn’t exercise. Two things he’d never known. That, and the fact that she had an adorable strawberry-shaped birthmark in the very centre of her right butt cheek. He wondered what other gems he’d discover about his able assistant this long weekend.
‘How much further?’ she asked, hands on her knees.
‘I thought you were meant to be my tour guide?’
She looked up at him, green eyes sharp. Then she waved a hand around. ‘This is Cradle Mountain. That’s Dove Lake. Gorgeous, huh? Now can I go back to the hotel?’
He laughed. She glared at him for even being able to laugh. It didn’t help that she was trying to look angry while dressed in enough clothing for three people. If it wasn’t so cold that he couldn’t feel his nose, he would have believed she’d gone out of her way not to look sexy.
Little did she know he’d spent half the walk intent on getting their little field trip over and done with just so that they could get back to the hotel, where he planned on stripping off those layers one by one.
He glanced ahead. ‘Come on. I see somewhere we can stop.’
‘Oh, thank God.’
He laughed again. Then moved around behind her to give her a push up the track.
‘Now, why didn’t I think to wear rollerskates?’ she threw over her shoulder. ‘You could have done this the whole way.’
‘Downhill too?’
‘Right. Good point.’
From their position they had a perfect unheeded view over the curving lake and the ragged peaks of once sub-volcanic rock covered in winter green. Spirals of chimney smoke gave away the location of the Gatehouse, otherwise hidden discreetly in the alpine forest.
And if this was a glimpse of what the island had to offer then he was certainly willing to discover more—and soon. Lucky for him he had a human guidebook on the island on his team. One who had indicated an interest in taking a leap forward into producing. He’d half thought she was teasing. Maybe not. The creative wheels in his head began to crank up for the first time in a whole day.
‘Having fun?’ Hannah asked from her prone position.
‘Loads. You?’
‘Mmm. Would it be a complete faux pas to ask why on earth mountains float your boat?’
The wheels ground to a halt. The wide-open feeling he’d been experiencing closed down as tight as a submarine preparing to submerge.
‘Why not mountains?’ he shot back, giving her the same line he’d given a thousand times over, in press interviews and private conversations alike.
Her stare was blank. ‘That’s all I’m going to get?’
After last night, was left unsaid.
Bradley shuffled his backside on the hard ground.
Hannah rolled her eyes, not even pretending she was happy to await an answer with unlimited feminine patience. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Go into shutdown mode. Just remember you’re the one who said what happens here stays here. I took that to mean my attempt at Karaoke last night and my mother’s undie-flashing high-kick extravaganza, as well as any other private revelations we might encounter.’
He looked down at her prostrate form. She was right. He’d been privy to parts of her life she’d clearly have preferred to keep separate from her Melbourne life. He owed her something of the same. A glimpse, at the very least. Just so that at the end of this strange weekend there would be no debts owed.
