by Morey, Trish
“Yeah, that’s what Aunt Margot says. She says sometimes the way isn’t clear straight up but you’re on the right track all along even if it winds around a bit. She’s got this Joseph Campbell quote she reels out at me whenever I’m feeling like I should be doing something serious with my life. It goes like this. She took a breath and looked skywards, as if she was concentrating on the words. ‘If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track, which has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living’.” She smiled and looked around. “How cool is that? It makes me feel better anyhow.”
“I like the sound of your Aunt Margot.”
“Yeah, she’s cool too. Always knows the right thing to say at the right time.”
“It won’t be long now until you see her.”
“Yeah.” And she did that measured blink of her eyes thing again and turned her head back out over the pit before she’d opened them. “Not long.”
“Uh-oh, that’s not good.”
Scarlett turned off her phone, peeved to find there were still no bids, to check out whatever Mitch had found. “What’s not good?”
Mitch gestured up to the TV in the corner of the bar by the ceiling as he put down their drinks. “The weather in Broome. They reckon there’s a system sitting off the coast and they’re worried it could make landfall late tomorrow or the day after.”
She looked up at the screen, at the chart that bore no resemblance to the weather charts she was used to at home and meant nothing to her now. “What would that mean exactly?”
“Anything from a bit of a blow to a full-on cyclone.”
The weather map disappeared and the news went back to a recap of the headlines. She pulled her wine glass closer. “Oh, that’s definitely not good news for a wedding. Will they have to cancel?”
“I suspect not. They’re already all up there, having a pre-honeymoon honeymoon before the real honeymoon in Bali.”
“Two honeymoons?”
“You can never have too many honeymoons, apparently.”
“And we’ll be okay to get up there?”
“Looks like it at this stage.” He shrugged. “Be awful to miss it.”
“Yeah, I’d be without a job.”
He twirled a spare beer coaster in his fingers. “I’m sure I could find something else you could help me out with.”
A waitress arrived with their food, hamburger and hand-cut chips—aka fries—for him, salt and pepper squid for her. “Yum,” she said, because it was easier thinking about the food than about his last comment. Did he really mean what that had sounded like? More fool him if he didn’t realize he didn’t have to pay her for sex. She’d do that for free.
The squid was excellent, melt-in-the-mouth tender with just the right amount of spice. Her thoughts were even spicier. She put her knife and fork down knowing she’d burst if she didn’t speak. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” Mitch was feeling mellow. He had a cold beer, a damn fine hamburger and the prettiest woman in the pub sitting opposite him. Right now he would have agreed to the sun not coming up in the morning.
“Why did you choose me?”
“What?”
“Back in Bella’s—why me? I messed up my lines and stood there staring at you with my mouth open looking like a goldfish. I thought for sure you’d choose Jasmine.”
He frowned. “You mean the Asian girl?”
“Yeah. Why didn’t you choose her?”
He considered his hamburger for a while. “Because she was tiny.”
“I know. She was exquisite.”
“Yes. No. Tiny. I felt like a giant next to her.”
“Oh.”
Mitch looked up at her. He’d knew that kind of ‘oh’. It was loaded. Clearly he’d said something wrong.
“And you looked cute.”
“Thanks, but you don’t have to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Try to make me feel better by pretending you were interested in me all along.”
Bam, there it was. “Who says I was pretending?”
“Me. You’re just saying that to make me feel better. You wouldn’t choose Jasmine because she was tiny. And so you chose me because I wasn’t.”
He put his hamburger down. It was his favorite, one with the lot, which in this part of the world meant onion, salad, bacon, cheese, beetroot, pineapple and pickles, so putting it down was a tough ask, but still he did it, because he’d just made a discovery, and he wanted to ruminate on that for a while. Because it seemed to him that even when a hamburger was complicated, it was still simple. There was a lot to be said for a hamburger. A hamburger might come with pickles, or sesame seeds on top, but it never came with a Catch 22. “I swear I will never understand how a woman’s mind works.”
“Then you’re not really trying,” she said.
He sighed. “So how about I just have a thing for redheads?”
“Uh-uh. I’m not falling for that one. You know it’s not really red and now you’re just trying to make stuff up.”
“So maybe I have a thing for women in corsets and pink boots.”
That was probably closer to the mark. “You mean, wearing nothing else but?”
“Hell, yeah. I loved those spangly pink boots. And maybe I have a thing too, for teensy tiny pink bows that look like sugar and like they might melt in your mouth.”
“You remember the pink bows?”
Did she really think he’d forget? “You’re kidding me. I do believe those pink bows were the ruination of my sleep for these last two nights.”
The slow burners inside her kicked on. Who needed alcohol when you were sitting opposite the man who kept you awake and wanting into the early hours, who’d just admitted she’d done the same to him. “Tell me, why do we need two rooms here in Kalgoorlie when we’ll be sharing only one in Broome?”
“You know why. Because sex was never part of this deal.” He paused. “And because up in Broome we won’t have a choice if we want to look convincing.” She liked that he didn’t sound too thrilled about it.
She angled her head. “You know, I’ve been thinking about that convincing thing,” and across the table from her, Mitch didn’t move a muscle. “We’d be far more convincing in front of your friends if we were an actual couple.”
He jacked up one eyebrow. “You think?” And it warmed the cockles of her heart that he didn’t need her to explain.
She smiled, their eyes locked, green with blue, flickering at the edges with heat. “I know. New lovers are just so convincing, don’t you think? They can never keep their hands off each other.”
She liked the way the fingers of his hands curled on the table. Liked it that he probably didn’t even realize he was doing it. “It’s your choice, Scarlett,” he said, his blue eyes as heated as a gas flame. “This time you get to choose.” And his voice was husky and low and thick with wanting and she had a burning desire to hear it from the pillow next to hers.
“Mitch Bannister,” she said, taking his hand, “I choose you.”
And for the first time in his life, Mitch Bannister failed to finish a hamburger with the lot and chips. But only because he had more important things to do.
They’d barely got outdoors before he’d backed her up hard against a veranda post
“What?” she whispered as she looked up at him.
“I’ve been waiting to do this for a long time,” he said, his lips the length of a whispered breath above hers, before breathless mouth met breathless mouth. And everything she promised was right there in that first kiss: the heat, the attraction, the sheer bloody bliss of it.
“Oh yes,” he murmured into her mouth as her body pulled away from the post at her back and molded to his as if it had been made for it.
They probably looked no different to a lot of other lovers, wending their way down Hannan Street to their accommodation, holding each other close, pausing every now and then to taste each other, with t
heir mouths and with their hands, feeding the simmering tension that bubbled inside, snatching the chance to drink in the feel of a curve or a dip before they pushed apart and moved on a few steps until the next hot clinch.
No wonder it seemed to Scarlett that it had taken forever until they were back in the apartment.
But no sooner were they inside that locked door than she was ripping the clothing from his body. “Oh my god, at last.”
He just groaned, and all the things he’d made her feel just yesterday at Bella’s, when she’d been dressed up like the hooker she was supposed to be and had been forced to use every weapon in her arsenal to feel nothing in the face of his electric touch and still it was not enough, all those things she welcomed. This was no place to bring out the times tables. This time those feelings felt right. This time she wanted to luxuriate in every single toe curling moment and simply enjoy.
He shredded her clothes from her body as fast as she shredded his, his hot mouth keeping her busy in between the attacks of his hands on her shirt and on her jeans.
“Your boots,” he huffed against her ear with hot breath as he wrestled with his own.
“Gone,” she said, shrugging them off with her toes. She felt the jeans follow and then his, and then there was nothing between them but air and even that was in short supply where their bodies met.
But who needed air when where their bodies touched was all kinds of bliss and beyond, flesh against flesh, heat against heat, his every fantasy about to come true. His mouth was busy with the feel and taste of her, his need was her need, or so it seemed as she sighed or gasped with every single stroke of his fingers or tongue.
He was thick and hard between them and her senses and flesh were pulsing with need, the ache between her thighs building so hard that when he took one nipple into her mouth, she almost exploded with it.
“Mitch,” she whispered breathlessly, at his next onslaught to the other nipple, “I don’t think—I don’t—I can’t wait.”
He growled low in his throat, frustration meshed with need. He’d wanted to take his time, take the slow road, make it as special for her as it felt for him. But with the drumbeat of his blood pounding in his ears, urging him on, he didn’t think he was capable. Because right at the forefront of his mind was this desperate need to be inside her. Only that. Hearing her put voice to his need only made him want it more. There was no way he could last now, no way he could wait.
He lunged for the bedside table drawer handle, so far away now, and wished he’d had time to plan, but putting them in his bedside drawer had seemed like wise planning back then and his hopes had only been that. And when he angled sideways, he felt her hand take him, squeeze him, stroke him.
Oh, god. Please god let him last.
And then his fingers found what he was looking for and he ripped the foil with his teeth and pushed her hand out the way to roll it on. He positioned himself between her thighs and rested there a moment. “This is so not the way it should happen,” he said, “but you’ve been driving me crazy a day and a half and I don’t think I can last.”
“For god’s sake, just take me,” she said, “and we’ll worry about how it should happen later.”
He loved a woman with common sense. A woman who could make a decision in a split second. Sure, she might be impulsive, but there was a place for impulsive.
But most of all he loved a woman who was warm and sexy and who wanted what he wanted. Good times and good sex and no complications. A woman like that had a hell of a lot going for her.
This woman.
He pushed into her, felt her around him, surround him; felt the clench of her muscles and slick heat of her desire, and damn near had to grit his teeth not to come there and then.
“Yes,” she whispered, as he pulled back, with her voice like honey and a beckoning sweet body that called him home. “Ahh, like that,” when he thrust into her again.
Then there were no more words, only the sighs and sounds of passion, quickening and intense and with only one place to go.
He felt her go, felt her body tense and still and erupt around him like a fireball, consuming his last shred of control as he followed her.
“I just knew you’d be good at that.” Sweat-slick and replete, she lay panting by his side, her head against her shoulder, his arm holding her snug against his body.
He kissed the top of her head. “Do I need to tell you how good you were?”
“Yes please.”
He chuckled, more like a rumble, and she liked it. “You’re amazing. In fact, so unbelievably amazing, that I can honestly say, that you are, without exception, the best Buck I ever had.”
“Hey!” she said, sitting up and smacking at him with her hands, “quit it with the Buck jokes.”
He laughed and grabbed her wrists. “Make me,” he challenged, and she pulled at her hands and wriggled, jiggled and growled and made him laugh all the more until she stilled and said, “I know how to make you shut up anyhow.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” And she used his arms for supports and dropped herself over his chest and teased his mouth with a nipple.
Oh, yeah, he thought, as he opened wide to accept this unexpected gift, that’d do it
Chapter Six
They got away early the next morning on time, a seventy-minute hop to Perth before a short break for the connection to Broome that would have them there around mid-afternoon. Flights were still moving while the tropical storm continued to hover directionless off the north-west coast.
“Damn,” she said, as they passed through clouds and the view disappeared. He watched as she flicked through the flight magazine and found the puzzle page and dug out a pen.
“How much have you seen of Australia?”
“Not a lot.” she said, as she started jotting down numbers. “A bit of Perth. Kalgoorlie.”
“That’s it?”
She shrugged. “I’ll see Broome. That’s a bonus.”
“So why Perth? Most people would head to Sydney, especially when they’ve come from the States.”
“Well, I didn’t exactly come to be your traditional backpacker-type.”
“No?”
“No. So... Perth suited me.”
“Okay, are you going to tell me why?”
She screwed up her mouth. “You really want to know?”
“Scarlett, give.”
She looked at him, her lips tight. “Only it’s not something I’m real proud of or anything.”
“Scarlett!”
She pouted. “Okay, seeing you insist ’n’ all. It’s like this. I came to g—” and whatever else she said was masked under her hand as she turned her head towards the window.
He captured her chin with his hand, and pulled it around. “You came to get what?”
Green eyes sent out an SOS. “You really want to know?”
He was impervious to SOS’s sent by green-eyed minxes “Yes. I really want to know.”
“Okay. I came out to get married. Well, I thought I was going to get married.”
“Seriously? Who to?”
“Just some guy I met.”
“What? In Marietta?”
“Well, kind of. I was in Marietta, at any rate.”
“Oh Scarlett, tell me you didn’t find this guy on the internet?”
“So?”
“You’re kidding me. You fell for that?”
“He was nice! And we started out as just friends. We chatted. He told me about Perth, and I told him about Montana. It was fun. He was like a pen pal.”
“And so you came out on the strength of that?”
“No! Do you think I’m nuts?” Her fingers flicked at the corners of the magazine, her eyes watching them work. “No, we’d been talking for a while and we were getting to be more than friends. We Skyped every Sunday. He told me I was his soulmate. He told me he loved me. That we belonged together. But it was impossible for him, he said, because he worked such long hours. He couldn’t see a way for us to be tog
ether just yet. But we would be, just as soon as he could get leave.”
Her eyes flicked up to his. Big green eyes that still bore the hurt. It didn’t take much to know it hadn’t ended well.
“It was his birthday coming up and I wanted to surprise him.” A pause, before she continued, her voice flat. “And I did.”
“What happened?”
“I texted him once I was in Perth. I said from the airport, ‘Surprise, I’m right here in Perth!’ He texted back right away. Said what a surprise and he was thrilled and where was I staying?
“And fool that I was, I couldn’t see it even then. I said, with him of course.
“That’s when he said he was away on business and to get myself booked in somewhere overnight and he’d fix everything when he came back the next day.
“And I sat in this dingy tiny box of a hotel room, because it was all I could afford after blowing my money on a one way ticket, and there was nothing in it but a fuzzy TV and a Gideon’s Bible and a phone book. And because stupid me hadn’t ever bothered to find out his address, because stupid me thought he’d be so happy to pick me up from the airport, I wouldn’t need his address, I had no idea where he lived. So I looked him up. And I found him.”
Her fingers were still troubling the pages of the magazine. Mitch put his hand over hers and she looked up at him, tears swimming in her eyes. “I knocked on the door of this very suburban house in a very suburban street with a car out the front that had kiddie seats in the back and I remember thinking, please god, let me have this wrong.
“He opened the door in the middle of saying something to someone behind him and I remember there was a kid’s trike hanging from his hand and toys spread all over the floor. Then a woman appeared from another room asking who it was and she had a belly the size of a basketball and I died on that front porch. I just died.
“And I remember I said, ‘Sorry, wrong house,’ and he shut the door in my face and went back to his suburban existence and his pregnant wife and his kids and just left me standing there.”
Mitch put his arm around her and pulled her close. She shook her head. “I’m not crying because of him. I’m crying because I was so stupid. Everyone warned me and I didn’t listen. Because Tara told me I was crazy and that he’d be some sixty-year-old pervert but I knew better, because we’d Skyped and he was so good-looking and I knew she was probably just jealous because she’s such a stick-in-the-mud and her Simon is so darn dull. And I just, I just wanted to show everyone that I could do something right.”
