Addicted to Nick

by Bronwyn Jameson

  “You don’t have to sound so apologetic. I told you it was only a feeling, and you’ve proven that they’re not always reliable.” She let that thought set before continuing. “There’s been nothing since you changed the number, so likely it was kids. Let’s forget it.”

  Forget it, but don’t go, she willed. Stay and talk to me a while.

  “You returned Graeme’s bike?”

  “Yeah, I’m back on four wheels.”

  “Damn.”

  “Exactly.” He laughed, and she closed her eyes. Let the slow sensuous sound seep right into her, filling all those empty places. “You know you spoiled it for me.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. My last ride on that beauty, and I didn’t feel any of the usual. The whisper of freedom, of release. I didn’t feel like I was going somewhere. I felt more like I was leaving something behind.” The pause seemed chock-full of meaning, of importance. T.C. was sure her heart had stopped altogether. “I wanted you with me today.”

  “I know. I just… I’m sorry, Nick.” She took a deep breath, wound the phone cord tightly around her fingers. “I wanted to be with you.”

  He swore softly, impatiently. “I’m about to leave, so I should be out there before six. You want to go somewhere for dinner?”

  “We could stay in. Cheryl made something that smells like heaven.”

  “I’ll bring wine.”

  “Hurry,” she breathed, but she wasn’t sure if he was still there. The dial tone sounded in her ear.

  She showered, blow-dried her hair, slathered herself in skin lotion, even played with some makeup, although she removed most of that. She found her one set of matching underwear and agonized over clothes, eventually settling on a slinky knit top and cargoes that rode low on her hips, because, well, they were easy to get off. As far as being a seductress, it was the best she could do.

  After she had set the table, she wandered about the house in an excruciating state of anticipation. Half an hour to go, even if he had heard her last urgent plea to hurry. She couldn’t sit down, she couldn’t stand up, and her palms were starting to sweat. In the end she took herself off to the stables, the only place likely to calm her, and as she walked the well-known path she was surprised to see a flash of movement cross the window of the tack room.

  Odd. Unless Jason had come back, determined to finish cleaning today’s work harness, which was exactly the kind of stunt he would pull. Shaking her head with resignation, she walked along the breezeway, calling his name.

  No answer.

  An uncanny warning tiptoed up her spine, and she whipped her head around, caught a flash of red hair, a twisted sneer and a raised arm. Heard two crude words, and then her head exploded in blinding white pain.

  Hurry, she had breathed in that all-fire sexy voice. As if he had needed prompting. He checked his watch as the hired Land Rover bumped over the entrance grid. Grinned. All-time new land record, Portsea to Riddells Crossing, despite stopping for wine. And flowers.

  The wheels spun up gravel as he turned sharply into the yard, then lined up the garage entrance, braking sharply to park beside her Courier. He didn’t know why he was in such a hellish rush. Once he was inside that door he intended to take it very slowly, and very slowly again. Maybe then they would open the wine and think about eating whatever Cheryl had cooked.

  He forced himself to amble through the door. The kitchen light was on. The dining table set—with candles. “Nice touch,” he murmured. Anticipation hummed through his veins as he walked the hallway. The bathroom door lay open, revealing her work clothes scattered where she had discarded them. He inhaled the lingering scent of her shampoo, pictured her naked, skin gleaming as she stepped from the water. His whole body pulsed.

  Maybe the first time wouldn’t be so slow.

  Before he placed a hand flat against her bedroom door and watched it swing noiselessly open, he knew it would be empty. The whole house felt empty. Hollow, he realized, without her presence. He took a minute to digest the strangeness of that thought, strange because all the way back from Melbourne he had been feeling a sense of coming home. Now he was here, standing in the heart of that home, and feeling nothing but emptiness.

  The stables.

  He was already striding out, shouldering through doorways, and when he hit the path and heard the distant sound of Ug’s shrill yapping, the anticipation in his veins turned cold with dread. He broke into a run and didn’t stop until he came into the breezeway and saw her sitting there, propped against the stable wall.

  “What the hell…?”

  She moved her lips in a weak semblance of a smile, and then Nick was there, hunkering down, taking her head between hands that trembled.

  “Are you all right, sweetheart?”

  “My head…exploded,” she mouthed.

  He looked into her glassy eyes, saw the flash of pain when his fingers tightened involuntary. Swore silently. “I’m sorry, baby.” He swung her into his arms, and her head lolled against his chest.

  She murmured “Better,” and for a minute he couldn’t move with the tremendous weight of relief.

  She was all right. A concussion, he figured, but he was taking her straight to casualty to make sure.

  Halfway to the hospital she turned toward him and said very lucidly, “I know who it was. I saw him.”

  If people didn’t stop treating her like an invalid, she would scream…well, maybe not scream, since her head was still inclined to ache, but she would definitely whisper in a loud, aggravated tone. When the hospital released her after overnight observation she had breathed one mighty sigh of relief, but now she’d been home two days and it was worse than ward four.

  Tired of her own company and daytime television, she had ventured down to the stables. Nick had picked her up and carried her back here, muttering something about her not knowing how to stop working.

  “I had a bump on the head. I’m over it.”

  “Is it so hard to let someone look after you?”

  He had been so angry that she’d let it be. Last night he’d insisted she sleep in her own bed, alone, which hadn’t done anything for her head except make it spin with paranoia. Maybe that one night hadn’t been as wondrous for him as for her. Maybe her encounter with the rough end of a shoeing rasp had provided Nick with the perfect out. Maybe one night was all she would have.

  The notion had transfixed her with paralyzing force, so when he’d come to say good-night, when he’d leaned down to kiss her lips with heartbreaking gentleness, when she’d longed to rope her arms around his neck and draw him down beside her, she had lain motionless and said nothing lest she blab about staying and loving her, not just for this night but forever.

  When she woke, he had gone down to the stables, returning just before the police came to tidy up their investigation. They’d arrested Red the night he attacked her, and with several thousand dollars worth of Yarra Park harness in his trunk, he had little comeback. Drunk, belligerent and at odds with the world, he confessed to everything, including the phone calls.

  That had started out as a drunken game aimed at unsettling the woman he blamed for turning Jason against him. The thought of robbery had just started to take shape when Nick answered the phone, putting him on the back foot. A woman on her own was the perfect prey for a coward like Red Wilmot.

  After his fight with Jason, he had been seething with the need to retaliate, and he’d lucked out when he overheard Nick tell the service-station attendant he was heading into Melbourne for the day. He waited, watched and struck after T.C. went back to the house at the end of her day’s work.

  If she hadn’t happened along when she did, he might just have taken what he came to get—anything portable and salable—or he might have had his fun trashing the place and turning the horses loose. He had done a little of that, she gathered, although both Nick and Jase shrugged it off as minor.

  Don’t you worry your poor aching little head about it, was the tenor of their response to her questions.


  Now the police were long gone, and she had woken from an afternoon nap to find Cheryl had also left. She was alone, bored and gnashing her teeth. Somewhere in the distance thunder grumbled in sympathy, and she wandered onto the verandah to watch the approaching storm. A portentous bank of deep gray hung over the southern hills, split suddenly by a flash of lightning.

  Had it been only three days since the last storm? It felt like so much longer.

  The wild spirit of that day hovered around her, melding with her restless mood, until she grabbed her wind-cheater and took off at a brisk walk. This time she thought about her route, choosing a path that circled the property with an added loop along the river bank. At the farthest point the wind shifted without warning, blustering in from the south, and she knew she was about to get wet.

  That didn’t bother her. Instead she stopped to hold her arms wide and lift her face to the first heavy drops of moisture. With her eyes closed, the rain seemed to fall in slow motion. A plop on her forehead. A second striking the point of her chin and rolling down her throat. The next came in twin splashes on her cheeks, and then the heavens opened with a deafening roar.

  A shout of laughter burst from her open mouth as she twirled in a wide circle and started to run. How long had it been since she had taken the time to run in the rain? Usually she was running from the rain, bustling to finish some chore or other, too busy to appreciate the freshness in the air, to breathe the rich scent of damp earth, or to jump the rivulets that trickled across the road. The other day she had wanted to outrace the storm; today she wanted to run with it.

  By the time she collapsed on the edge of the verandah, she was panting hard from exertion. Behind her, the screen door opened, then clattered shut. She heard the firm tread of boots and smiled broadly as she straightened out of her restorative head-between-knees posture.

  “Thank you,” she managed to breathe as she looked up past the denim legs and chambray work shirt into his set expression.

  “What the hell have you been doing?”

  Her smile froze. “Taking a walk. I needed the air.”

  “Couldn’t you see it was going to storm?”

  “It came in quicker than I thought.” She laughed a little, determined not to let his attitude faze her. “Isn’t it glorious?”

  “What it is, is dangerous. You better get inside and out of those wet things.”

  “I am a bit soaked, aren’t I?”

  She felt the touch of his gaze as it flicked over her, but his mouth didn’t lose its hard set. “If you hate being an invalid so much, you’d better get out of those clothes.”

  “I’ll drip water all through the house.”

  “It’ll survive.”

  Now he was starting to steam her, standing there with that grim look on his face. What had happened to the old Nick? The one with the easy smile and laid-back attitude. Poetry in slow motion, she’d labeled him that first day. Now he reminded her more of a funeral dirge.

  “Come on, Tamara. Quit mucking about and get out of those wet things.”

  “Okay,” she said affably, and she started undoing buttons. Her jacket came first, peeled off and dropped to the ground in a sodden heap. Next she wrenched off her boots, her socks. She had managed the pull her shirt out of her jeans when strong hands lifted her, swung her up and around in the one economical motion.

  Déjà vu.

  Except this time she didn’t stop herself from looping her arms around his neck and angling her body closer to his. He stopped in his tracks, and as quick as a clash of lightning across the storm-darkened sky, the mood changed. She felt it in his extreme stillness, broken only by the small movement in his throat as he swallowed.

  “I’m still furious, you know.”

  She smiled. “I know.”

  Twisting a little, she tried to see his face, but it was impossible from this angle.

  “It was getting late. I didn’t know where you’d gone.” His arms tightened around her in strong contrast to the concern that softened his voice. Her heart bounded, lodged in her throat, and something hummed vaguely around the edges of her memory, something else he’d said that had caused the same leap of hope. Something about leaving her behind. She wished she could remember….

  “What were you thanking me for?”

  “Pardon?”

  “On the verandah, when you came out of the rain.”

  “Oh. I wanted to thank you for making me stay home, for slowing me down and giving me the opportunity to run in the rain.”

  Said out loud, it sounded a bit loopy, until he bent his head and she felt a smile in the kiss he pressed to her forehead. “You’re welcome.”

  He held her easily in one arm while he opened the door, but the redistribution of weight brought her breasts into contact with the hard wall of his chest. They responded immediately, hardening, shooting desire into the depths of her body, and she wanted no impediment, no barrier. She wanted to be skin to skin.

  Impatiently she grabbed his shirt, pulling at the buttons and silently bemoaning her clumsiness. As he maneuvered them through the door a button popped free, then a second, and she slid her hand inside to rest against his heartbeat momentarily before moving restlessly on, touching the fine smattering of hair, measuring its harsh texture over the smoothly muscled flesh beneath, sliding over a nipple and back again.

  One bare foot swung down and skimmed the front of his fly. His extremely distended fly. He stopped stock-still in the center of the kitchen as she pressed her bare toes against him, as her whole body shimmered with heat.

  He drew a harsh breath. “Easy, sweetheart, there’s no rush. If you keep that up, I won’t get past the table.”

  T.C. imagined the glossy patina of polished cedar sliding against her naked skin and gave a dreamy little shiver of pleasure. “And that’s a problem?”

  He laughed softly as he resumed walking, the fall of his boots loud against the slate floor. For the boots of a man urging her to slow down, they seemed to be moving in a mighty big hurry. She smiled her approval as he carried her into his room and lowered her to his dresser.

  “These wet jeans will have to go.” His words were a statement of fact, but his voice…oh, the glorious things that dark velvet voice could do. Then his hands skimmed under her shirt, his long fingers tucking into the waistband of her jeans. The pleasure reached so deep she swore it stroked her very soul, and she knew only Nick had the power to touch her so deeply.

  She smiled a siren’s smile. “Be my guest.”

  His eyes darkened as he unsnapped the waistband and eased the zip open. Then the back of his hand brushed against her bare belly, and her swift intake of breath sounded loud and harsh. He drew back a fraction, so when he touched her again it wasn’t only with his hand. She felt the heated caress of his gaze trailing his fingertips as they dipped into her navel, as they pressed lightly against the soft curve of her belly, as they slid lower to trace the lace banding her bikini panties.

  A delicious heaviness pooled low in her body and flowed through her like liquid heat. Her throat closed around a soft moan—of pleasure, encouragement, hunger—as she willed those teasing fingers to push away the scrap of material, to touch the core of her need, so hot and wet and demanding.

  Oh, how she craved that touch.

  “Lift up,” he growled suddenly, startling her out of her sensual lethargy. Obediently she lifted her backside so he could peel the wet denim over her hips and down her legs.

  Then he picked her up again, lowered her to his bed. Eyes closed, she heard a click she recognized as the lamp.

  “Hell,” he swore softly. “The storm must have knocked the power out.”

  “We need power because…?”

  “It’ll be dark soon.” He touched the backs of his fingers against her cheek. “And I want to be able to see your face when I’m inside you.”

  The words, spoken so slowly, softly, definitely, painted the most erotic images. Her fingers curled instinctively, gripping the covers. “There are candles
,” she managed to say. “In the pantry.”

  “Perfect.” He ran his knuckles lightly over her cheek again, her softly parted lips, whispered, “Don’t move,” and headed for the door.

  “Hurry back.”

  She felt his eyes on her, burning her. “Oh, I’m running.”

  With a frustrated groan, she turned her face into the covers. Closing her eyes, she rubbed her cheek languidly against the cool, crisp linen, nostrils flaring as she inhaled his scent. She stretched her limbs and frowned when her rucked-up shirt tightened uncomfortably across her shoulders. God, her shirt… She fumbled with the buttons, tearing one off in her haste to rid herself of the cumbersome old thing.

  “Tip one in seductive technique. Lose the flannel work shirt,” she muttered as she tossed it aside, revealing her plain practical cotton chemise.

  For the first time in her life she wished for lacy, diaphanous underwear of the kind Nick would be used to. Exotically scented skin and voluptuous breasts to fill the lacy, diaphanous underwear would be nice, too, but she saved her breath on wishing for them. And oh, for the confidence to strip, to arrange herself artfully on his bed wearing nothing but a sultry come-hither smile.

  Her decidedly unsultry snort of laughter destroyed that image. “Who am I kidding?” she muttered.

  Tamara Cole doing sultry was as likely as Tamara Cole enticing Nick to stay, and for all the heat in his eyes, for all his concern and caring these past few days, Nick was leaving. The knowledge should have cooled her ardor, but it didn’t, for she knew that loving Nick, even for this brief time, would be worth the heartache that followed.

  He returned on silent feet, and she sensed him moving around the bed, heard the faint clunk of a candleholder placed on the bedside table, then the scratch of match against flint. The distinctive smell of burning candlewick reached her nostrils a second before she opened her eyes to find him standing over her, his eyes glittering with golden shards of reflected candlelight.