She was ready.
Ready to be consumed.
To be—
The raucous laugh of a lone kookaburra shattered the night.
With a gasp, Tess sat bolt upright, heart hammering against her chest, nostrils flaring.
She stared about the room, her eyes darting from one dark corner to the next. Nothing but unpacked boxes, stacks of books and deep moon-cast shadows. Alone. She was alone.
A growl of frustration tore from her throat as she dragged her hands through her tousled hair. A dream. Just another goddamn dream.
Outside, the insomniac kookaburra screeched with mirth again.
Biting back a curse, Tess dropped back onto her bed. “Fuck.” Her mutter fell heavy in the silence of the night, as did her angry sigh.
Five nights. Five nights in a row of the most explosive sex of her life, only to awaken every time to discover it was just a dream. She stared up at the still unfamiliar ceiling of her bedroom, craving release.
Five nights.
She shook her head, pulse leaping into frantic flight at the tickling strokes of her hair on her neck. “This is getting ridiculous.” Jumping from the bed, she crossed to the window, gripping the sill with hands that still trembled from sexual tension.
The distant flickering lights of Kangaroo Creek dotted the blackness, like some higher being had thrown down a handful of stars on a velvet blanket.
Tess snorted. Stars on velvet; what a romantic way to describe the weird little country town. She’d only been in the Creek, as the locals so eloquently called it, for four months now but already she knew there was little romance to it. Outback Australia might look like an amazing adventure in all the tourist pamphlets, full of exotic life and breathtaking scenery, but for a girl from New York trying to find herself again, it was just plain lonely.
But isn’t that what you wanted? Isolation?
A shiver rippled up Tess’s spine and the hair at her nape stood on end. Yes, that was exactly what she wanted. After the hell she’d been through—the nightmare of Chad’s obsession—the thought of letting anyone close to her again made her stomach roll and her chest ache.
She should have known he was unhinged the very first date. After only an hour in, his ice-blue eyes shining with a fervour at the time she’d found intriguing, he’d begun talking about their future. She’d thought he was joking at the time, the detailed description he gave of their future home—a small apartment overlooking Central Park, with an office for you and a personal gym for me, their future days—cuddling on the sofa as Frank Sinatra plays softly in the background, and their future nights—exploring each other’s bodies on red satin sheets. Slowly. Completely. Nothing but the feel of skin on skin, sweat on sweat—making her laugh. By the third date, that zealous enthusiasm for their “Happily Ever After” had tempered. He didn’t mention their supposed days to come, only the minutes they spent together, complaining occasionally that they weren’t enough.
It wasn’t until three weeks into the relationship, just when she was beginning to relax and begin to contemplate the possibility of their “days to come,” just when she’d let him move beyond the heavy necking session in his car or on her sofa to the “exploration” of each other’s bodies he’d spoken of on their first date, that she noticed he was everywhere. If she was having coffee with friends or colleagues at an inner-city cafe, he would conveniently be walking past, explaining away the coincidence with a laughing “What are the odds I had a meeting in the same suburb?” If she was conducting an interview on the steps of New York’s Town Hall, he’d be standing at a nearby newspaper vendor, an open magazine in his hands.
When she’d called him on it, a sense of disquiet squirming in the pit of her stomach, he’d scoffed, laughing at her over-suspicious journalist’s mind. But his eyes hadn’t laughed. His eyes had been flat. Unreadable. And when they’d made love that night—the last time she’d ever let him touch her—he’d whispered into her ear over and over again that she was his, only his, forever and ever, he loved her, loved her, pounding into her, punctuating each feverish statement with such brutal, savage greed she’d yelled at him to stop.
She’d told him it was over the following day. When he’d turned up at her office with a dozen roses, a diamond necklace, and an apology she didn’t want to hear. She told him it was over and she didn’t want to see him again.
But she had. Everywhere. He joined her gym, despite having his own in his garage. He started to jog the same route around the park she did. He shopped at the same grocery store she did. He sat in his parked car half a block away from her apartment, watching her leave for work. Waiting there when she came home. He sent her roses, after roses, after roses.
Then came the attempted abduction and the accident.
Tess swallowed, the memory bringing a lump to her throat. Chad had taken more than six months of her life. He’d taken her ability to be free of fear and anger.
She’d known she needed to get away from New York the second she’d walked away from his grave. She could still see him everywhere she turned. Everywhere she went.
She’d needed to get away from the city she loved to learn who she had become, hoping to God it wasn’t a scared, paranoid female. She needed isolation. She needed disconnection.
But seriously, when she’d dropped a dart onto a map of Australia to find her new home she hadn’t expected to end up in a town of less than a thousand, all of whom seemed to exist in some weird plane of reality. She might be from the Big Apple, but that didn’t make her ignorant. Did it?
You can tear the world’s politicians to shreds with your words, you can spit out insults in five different languages, but you can’t handle four months living in the country without blaming the people?
Letting out a sigh, Tess turned from the sight of Kangaroo Creek and dropped back onto her bed. So much for being a ball-busting, woman-of-the-world journalist. Less than half a year away from New York and she was going crazy.
A feather-light tickle traced across the line of her bare shoulder up to the angle of her jaw and she shivered, nipples pinching into rock-hard peaks of longing. Not just crazy, sex starved as well, if the last five nights were any indication.
Another delicate tickle played across her skin, drawing a lazy line up the long, hideous scar that ran from the base of her spine to just below her right armpit She closed her eyes, enjoying the imagined tactile sensation despite the horrible scar it travelled. The car accident had left her with more physical scars than she cared for. But none as terrible as the one on her back, where a sheered-off panel of the RV that hit Chad’s car had almost severed her spine. It was as obvious as the nose on her face.
What hadn’t been obvious were the scars inside. Those on her heart. Those on her soul. Just as she’d never wear a backless dress again, she’d never let anyone close to her again. It wasn’t worth it. Better to live with her dreams. At least they didn’t hurt her.
She sighed and flipped onto her back. God, she’d become maudlin.
The finger moved again. Down the line of her stomach, over her belly button to her mons.
Tesssa…
Tess frowned. “Jesus, woman,” she muttered. “You’re so frustrated you’re not only feeling hands on your body, you’re hearing your name in the bloody night, as well!”
The hospital’s psychiatrist had told her she wasn’t ready to end their sessions. What if he was right? What if the accident had turned her into some sort of socially-crippled, sex-starved loon?
The thought was worrying. But it didn’t stop her sex fluttering and constricting with need. A need she’d denied since standing at Chad’s grave four months ago.
She sighed again, a numb chill rolling over her. Nothing could heal the scars from her ex, not even his death.
After six months of repeated reconstructive surgery, hours of painful physiotherapy and too many hours spent with a too intense psychiatrist, she’d been released from hospital an entirely different woman—body and soul—from the one
found almost dead in Chad’s twisted, crumpled car.
Her first destination after her release had been the cemetery. Until she saw Chad Fisher’s grave, until she saw the lump of dirt he was buried under, until she saw proof he’d never bother her again, all those hours and operations were worthless. She’d needed to see he was dead.
The walk across the cemetery had been surreal. The biting cold winter’s day had seemed brittle, the freezing air ready to shatter. She’d threaded her way between the graves, some old and forgotten, others fresh and still adorned with bright, gaudy flowers, trying not to think about the sadness surrounding her. The icy breeze had burned her cheeks, made her nose run. She’d stuffed her hands deep into the pockets of her over-coat, her fingertips aching from the cold, her still traumatized limbs aching even more.
With every step closer to Chad’s grave she took, the more convinced she grew he wasn’t dead. It was a trick. He merely waited for her. Watched her. As he had the duration of their short, volatile relationship. As he had the weeks after she’d ended it. Waiting in the shadows, studying her every move. Following her wherever she went, a constant presence she neither wanted nor enjoyed. Knowing she would be alone soon. Easy pickings.
When she’d finally arrived at his grave, a chill colder than the mid-winter wind bit at her soul. She’d stood staring at the marble headstone, her eyes fixed on the epitaph.
Chad Fisher.
With tears and love.
Devoted eternally to life.
1980-2014
A lump had formed in her throat and she’d felt her heart smashing against her breast bone. Devoted eternally to life? Devoted eternally to being a stalking, obsessive creep, was more like it. She had wanted to get closer, wanted to touch the marble stone, trace the words engraved in its smooth, black surface to prove they were real, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t stand any closer in case a cold, clammy hand burst through the dirt and grass and grabbed her ankle.
Foolish? Yes. Ridiculous? Absolutely. But she couldn’t move. No matter how stupid she was being.
It wasn’t until she’d read the epitaph one more time—Chad Fisher. With tears and love. Devoted eternally to life. 1980-2014 that she’d finally released the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, and a fear she didn’t want to hold anymore. She’d taken that final step, stood on the slight grass-covered mound directly before the headstone and, with a surprisingly steady hand, dropped her hospital identification band onto the ground.
She’d looked at the small strip of white plastic lying in the grass for a long moment, bitter hate welling through her. Hate and anger so strong she’d almost thrown up. “That is the last thing of mine you will ever get, Chad Fisher,” she’d whispered, the words whipped away by a blast of icy wind. Her identification band shifted, rolled once across the grave, before a blade of grass snared its edge, trapping it still.
An overwhelming urge to bend down and scoop up the band had rolled through her. Even giving her dead ex her hospital band was giving him too much. The wind lashed at her, making her blink and she shook her head. “Goodbye, Chad,” she’d said, as with one final look at Chad’s gravestone, the hideous scar on her back a molten line of agony, she’d turned and walked away.
She’d left his grave and had never been back, traveling to Australia a week later on a work visa, settling in Kangaroo Creek the week after that.
Yet that hate had never left her, and somewhere along the line it changed, manifested itself into a simmering odium directed solely at herself and her sexual needs.
Chad’s obsession with her had hung entirely on his driving need to possess her body. To fuck her anytime, every time he wanted. Since then, the thought of sex, of being on the edge of sexual ecstasy, sent cold shivers of fear through her. Except in her dreams.
In her dreams, she went to the edge. Went to the edge and fell over in the arms of her silent, dream lover. Willingly. Wantonly.
Would she ever be capable of that raw, instinctual connection again?
She didn’t think so.
A deep sigh escaped her and she closed her eyes, trying not to think about the slight throb beating along her scar. One day, she thought, feeling sleep creep over her again, languid and seductive. One day I’ll find it.
Until then, there were always her dreams.
And, as though he’d been waiting, her silent, ethereal lover was there. Reaching for her. Eyes burning with a hunger that sent ripples of eager anticipation through her sleeping form.
Tessa…
He hurried away from the window, heart pounding. Shit. She’d almost seen him.
Grass, deprived of water by the blistering Australian summer, crunched under his feet, a brittle sound that seemed to echo across Tess’s backyard and into the surrounding bush. He closed his eyes for a second, biting back a curse. She could have discovered him and then all sorts of hell would break loose. He had to be more careful. What had he been thinking?
A hot ball of squirming tension rolled through his gut as the memory of Tess at her window filled his head; long dark hair dishevelled, sublime body free of clothes. Chocolate-brown eyes ablaze with a light he longed to see directed at him.
You were thinking with your dick.
He shook his head, moving deeper into the night-shrouded bush. No, he wasn’t thinking with his dick, though he desired her more than he should. For too many nights to bear he’d watched her toss and turn in bed, unable to do anything to release her of her dreams no matter how much he wanted. As the sun kissed the sky each morning, he knew without doubt he was falling deeper and deeper into trouble. But it wasn’t his cock driving him. It was his heart. That small, vital organ so revered by poets and songwriters alike.
He shot a quick glance over his shoulder, finding the hulking shadow of Tess’s home without any difficulty, despite the darkness. The pull on his soul to go back there, to enter her house, her bedroom—to enter her—was strong. Stronger than strong. A commanding desire almost too compelling to deny. To feel his hands, his flesh on her velvet-soft skin, to feel her heat permeate his being was a sin he’d willingly forfeit his existence to commit. But he couldn’t.
Picking up his pace, he moved fluidly over the underbrush, getting as far from Tess’s home as he could. The bush devoured him, startled animals scattering in his path. A distant part of his mind marvelled at their intuitive reaction; they knew what he was. He could sense it. Their fear tainted the small sphere of actuality he occupied, rippling over the surface like sullied oil on water. They knew what he was and feared what his existence on this secular plain could do. But it mattered little.
Because the rest of his mind sensed Tess more.
He couldn’t take it anymore. Sinking to his knees, he tore open his trousers, wrapping trembling fingers around his turgid cock and pumping its length with brutal force.
Every creature had needs. Even those with damned souls.
He would pay for it later, would burn in Satan’s heinous hold, but he couldn’t stop. As long as Tess Darcy was in his mind, his need consumed him and he could deny it no more.
As hot cum burst from the end of his cock in white spurts, arcing through the dark night to land in the dirt at his knees, Jared Pierce closed his eyes and held his breath.
He’d been sent to protect her, not covet her. But covet her he did.
May the Almighty have mercy on his libidinous soul.
Chapter 2
Kangaroo Creek’s main strip—Hill Street—was one mile long and as flat as they came. At the east end sat Divine Intervention, a small Christian bookshop run by the very shy Miss Kerry Peters that seemed far more busy than any Christian bookshop Tess knew of. At the other end, where Tess now stood, sat the Creek’s one and only library, ruled over by the silent Ms. Robyn Jones. Tess had been assured by one of the locals that the librarian could in fact speak, but in the six or so times she’d entered the somber building she’d seen no evidence of it.
To Tess’s cynical journalist’s mind, there was a p
erverse irony in the sun rising each day on the word of God and setting each night on the words of just about everyone else. It was as though Faith and Knowledge faced off each day in the small rural town. The fact that Divine Intervention had at least triple the number of souls crossing its threshold every day made Tess a little uneasy and for some reason, sad.
She moved her camera strap higher onto her shoulder and continued walking east. A dry gully sat behind the library, overlooked by a long dead weeping willow. By its massive size and impressive trunk, the tree had survived more than one summer presiding over the once watering hole, but this drought seemed to finally have beaten it. Its long branches, devoid of leaves, hung listless from gnarled branches, lifeless fingers reaching for the hope of moisture in soil long cracked and barren. The tree spoke to Tess, a sad testament to the brutal nature of life in Australia away from the lush rain-soaked coastal edge. She wanted to capture its moving story in black and white.
The first thing she’d done after moving into her new home, well, after locating the unwanted dead houseguest—a bloated, rotting possum carcass well on its way to decomposing into mush in the bottom of the bathtub—and giving it a hasty burial in the backyard, was turn the house’s small outside laundry into a dark room. She’d paid her way through university working as a freelance photographer and wanted to reconnect with that first love. Photography already afforded her a chance to immerse herself in the visual, a world of light and shadows and color and tone. A world where words were superfluous and hidden meaning just waited to be seen, to be brought into focus by a carefully framed image or exposure.
She’d made a small fortune by manipulating the written word, but she’d known there’d be no need for a political investigative journalist this far from civilization. Capturing the harsh beauty of the Outback, its isolation and tenacious spirit, was one way of finding who she was now. If there ever was a town that encapsulated the Australian wilderness, it was Kangaroo Creek. The thought of losing herself in her camera sent an excited thrill through Tess she hadn’t felt for many, many years. Not since the first interview she’d conducted at the beginning of her career.
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