“I’ve never been on a seaplane before,” Teela said, giving him a more than adequate hand-holding excuse that he took full advantage of. “This is a real treat.” She preened like one of those swans in the park. “I’m so glad you took me up on my suggestions.”
She’d put their whole itinerary together. Conference managed a weekend for two and briefed Rick in on what they’d require. Haydn’s only request had been a swim in the ocean.
“Any chance it will win me a root?”
She turned from the window. “You’re incredibly rootable right now.”
He’d have kissed her then but she whipped her face to the window, not wanting to miss the sensational view. He had to make do with a mouthful of ponytail.
Every mouthful of the degustation menu they shared, tucked in a private room of the riverside restaurant was superb. The chef and her staff were absolute professionals, and the other guests, lingering through the late session, after some nodded hellos and a few enthusiastic handshakes, were too cool to do anything but pretend to ignore them.
Haydn was grateful this was a controlled environment, unlike the park where you couldn’t monitor a large area and there was the potential to get mobbed, because that meant he could sit across from Teela as himself.
“Tell me more about your business?” he asked over snapper, nashi pear and coriander.
He wanted her to talk, to watch her, to take in the way her body spoke as much as what she said.
“You’re not interested in my business.”
And there was another reminder, he didn’t always get what he wanted. “Just then, that was me asking about it.”
“That’s you being polite, using the good manners your mother taught you.”
Mom, ah she would’ve liked Teela. Dad would be a fan. He’d fill her head with all kinds of embarrassing Haydn growing-up stories. That was thought given too much rope. Teela’s answer was an acknowledgement of their deal. They weren’t destined to become entwined in each other’s lives. She was telling him to keep it light, talk about the view, the weather. Fuck that.
“Could be, Secret Weapon. Could be having sat in the offices of Carpenter Conference Management for some time yesterday, I am genuinely interested.”
Teela weighted that choice while the waiter put the second dish: trout, crab and daikon in front of them. She shook her head. “I don’t know how you do it.”
He raised a brow and a fork simultaneously. Daikon was some kind of root vegetable, like a white carrot. How appropriate.
She looked away, out at the river. “Make me feel that—never mind.” She turned back. “Will you need a disguise for the bridge climb tonight?”
His fork went down on his plate, the knife joined it. He steepled his hands. “Am I not supposed to notice you changing the subject?”
“No.” She put some of the crab in her mouth to stop herself laughing, and he waited without moving. “Most people want to talk about themselves. I’m not one of them,” she said.
Yes. She deflected attention expertly. “You figured I’d want to talk about myself.”
“I didn’t figure anything. Certainly not on being here with you.” She wagged her fork at him. “Frankly, of the two of us, you’re the interesting one.” Then came an eye-roll that he was meant to catch.
“Not to me.”
Another fork wag. “I have never worn a disguise in my life.”
“That doesn’t make me interesting.” He took a bite of the daikon. It was a tasty root vegetable to root for. “It makes me devious and that’s hardly a virtue. You’ve already read everything of substance written about me and no doubt a lot that lacks substance. Case in point, that damn Sexiest Man Alive thing. I think you only asked me about the dogs to avoid talking about yourself. I know next to nothing about you and I’m interested.”
She closed her eyes, a huge smile making her cheekbones round out and her nose scrunch. Surrender. Adorable.
He sipped from his wine glass as she started to talk. He’d essentially guilted her into it and that wasn’t exactly fair, like turning up at her office, but they were on an accelerated timetable here and there was no allowance for subtlety.
He learned about her planned move to a better office, about the pipeline of conferences she had on her calendar for the year and the ambitions she had to hire more staff and add on a training and a corporate meetings business. He saw intelligence, heard passion, and two courses including kangaroo, tarragon and radish came and went from the table while he mostly listened, asking a question here and there so she knew he was paying attention.
Teela was impressive. She’d done her homework. She was focused. She understood the stakes and she had a plan B. What would she make of his Oscar campaign strategy? The business plan for the satellite project? What would she make of the approaches he’d had to go into politics?
Over white chocolate, bergamot and crème fraîche—Rick would make him pay for that—he said, “I make you feel what?” Teela made him feel the deep absence of connection in his life. It wasn’t a new feeling. now that he was aware of it, he could and would remedy it in a way that didn’t compromise his lifestyle or his independence.
She blinked in confusion.
He filled in, repeating her words from the top of the conversation. “You don’t know how I do it? I make you feel what?”
She raised her glass in half a toast. “Your mother taught you to listen well.”
“My mother taught me that most people don’t listen and it’s an asset when you do. Stop changing the subject.”
“You make me feel like you are genuinely interested in me.” She put her glass back on the table as if that was her complete answer. He gave her a pointed look and she sighed.
“I’m sure everyone you talk to feels the same way. That older woman whose hand you shook on the way to our table. Of all the people who wanted your attention, you picked her out especially because she’s a grandma. She fell in love with you the moment you complimented her on her fine family. You didn’t have to do that. You didn’t have to find out it was her birthday and ask the kitchen to do something special. The chef would turn her restaurant inside out for you, not because you’re the Sexiest Man Alive, or you want to do good in the world, but because you asked intelligent questions about ingredient sourcing and food miles. You didn’t do it to make a new fan. You don’t need new fans. Anyone can learn to be charming but you’re not just going through the motions so you can root me later, I’m a sure bet. You’re charismatic. It’s in the way you move and hold yourself, it’s in the tone of your voice and how attentive you are. It’s the wild combination of your confidence and humility.”
He raised a hand to signal enough, enough, and she gave him the same do as you’re told pointed look he’d given her earlier.
“You’re a complete disaster because you are simply impossible to ignore and you’re a good man. You’re going to make a fantastic statesman.”
He closed one eye trying to process that. At this stage, the statesman thing was a rocky proposition and politics was about more than being recognizable. “A complete disaster?”
“To me.”
Still not clear.
“I would root you wearing the bogan get-up. I would still want you with false teeth, bad breath, toe jam and one inch.”
Haydn knew how to pick the one person in a crowded room who least expected and most appreciated being singled out. He knew how to engage in small talk that wasn’t cheap and empty. In this moment, he did not know how to react to Teela because despite the private room, they were in a public place, and what he most wanted to do was sweep his hand across the table and send the dishes and glasses scattering so he could get his hands on her, his lips on her, his several more highly invested inches inside her.
Instead, he had to act like the statesman she thought he could be, raise his glass and offer his thanks while he planned what he’d do when they were alone and done with seeing the sights.
Talk about foreplay.
NINE
Monday was going to suck. Tuesday was going to blow. By Wednesday, Teela figured she’d need an intervention. Evie would be happy to oblige. On Thursday, she was going to go out and buy a kitchen appliance she didn’t need and by Friday, God, if she made it to Friday without losing herself to thinking of Haydn, without being a procrastinating, unfocused wreck, she might just make it through the rest of the year.
He was that spectacular at making her feel special.
The pampering helped. The massage, the shared mutual-pleasure bubble bath, necking on the couch, then taking that energy to bed and spending it oh so wisely getting all hot and dirty. He’d made her chase her orgasm with a kind of savage determination she’d never experienced before. It was exhilarating and exhausting and next thing she knew he was standing there in that bizarre outfit because his training regime came on tour with him.
He looked indescribably awful. So utterly unlike himself or any character he’d ever played she’d had trouble keeping it together in the car on the way to the park. At one point, she’d sniffed him because she’d not been able to get the idea that he’d smell like Vietnamese food hidden in your apartment for a month out of her head.
In the park, while he went running, she’d responded to Evie’s Talk to me about the one-inch message with It may be small but it’s mighty, to which Evie replied Mighty hard to see. She’d win this debate by sending a photo of Haydn on the red carpet walk in Cannes where he looked immaculately melt your eyeballs handsome, with the caption Mine for the weekend, to which Evie said, fittingly, Well fuck.
All that came before the seaplane and the restaurant and the questions he asked and the way he listened. And now they were standing on the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge as the sun set, turning the sky shades of pink and gold and it was all she could do to watch the view and not Haydn. Thank goodness they were roped on to the climbing scaffold because when he held her hand, her knees got weak.
She wasn’t a weak knees kind of person. She was what other people described as a go-getter if they liked her, a ball-breaker if they didn’t. It had nothing to do with the altitude, the dizzying drop from the top of the bridge to the deep green sea below with its ferry traffic and departing cruise ships, and everything to do with how outside of herself she felt because she liked him.
Really liked him.
Not as the random experience of a lifetime she’d grabbed hold of for the memory, not as an idealized man made real from the celluloid heroes he played on screen, not as a next-level weekend lover, but as a person of worth and substance.
He was going to be difficult to forget, especially as he’d be out in the world making moves meant to be seen.
“You’re quiet. Are you okay?” he said, squeezing her hand.
They’d climbed with a family group who were busy posing for photos and hadn’t bothered to spare them a glance all trip. Haydn had worn a fake beard and bushy eyebrows because the climbing jumpsuit made everyone look like a Teletubbie so he only had to worry about disguising his face.
“I’m fine. Taking it all in.” Not the view so much as the state of her own emotions.
“Don’t get all philosophical on me. You’ll make me think I broke you.”
What was the point of introspection? Staying in the moment was the best idea. He’d be gone too soon, and she’d truly be feeling post-show blues for no good reason but that she’d let herself fall into a whirlwind romance. Heart first.
She put her hand behind her ear. “Tickets flap really loudly up here. Can’t hear you.”
“Shame, because I was going to describe in detail what I want to do to you when we get back to the hotel.” He ran a hand down her back. “You’re driving me crazy in that sexy little jumpsuit.” And settled it right over her bum.
“There is nothing sexy about this jumpsuit.” Absolutely no lie in that. It was unisex, shapeless and specially designed to keep you safe on the climb but offend your fashion sense in every way.
He gave her butt cheek a squeeze. “It’s totally sexy from where I’m standing because you’re wearing it.”
“Anyone ever mention you sound like someone clever wrote your lines.” And wasn’t that a good reminder that he was a master of creating a mood. She’d been looking out towards Sydney Heads, but at the contact she turned to face him. He wasn’t watching the view.
She gave his beard a little pull and was surprised at how stuck to his jaw it really was. What would it feel like against her face, against her thighs? Maybe he’d keep it on for a bedroom antics test drive.
“Someone clever often does. They write the memorable lines. I do my own meaningful ones. I’m a maverick like that. You think I’m spinning you a line.” He sounded a little indignant.
She thought this was all a lovely game, that he wasn’t so much spinning her a line as he was acting out a scene he’d no doubt performed before and would again. The co-star and the locations would change; the seduction would be the same.
“I think the city is beautiful and I’m grateful to be sharing it with you,” she said.
“Grateful, huh. Not exactly the feeling I was going for.”
“What’s the feeling you were going for?”
“I’d accept turned-on, hard up, horny.”
She laughed. “I can offer you chafed, tender, a tiny bit sore.”
He clasped her shoulder. “Shit, are you?” Genuine concern in his tone.
She shook her head. Not even a little bit. He took good care of her.
He groaned and stroked his beard. “I’m trying to seduce you.”
“Aw honey, with your own words? You don’t have a screenwriter on speed dial?”
He narrowed his eyes under those unkempt stuck-on brows. “Don’t need a wordsmith to tell you what I’m going to do to you when we get home.”
Home. Hers had wilted pot plants, a near-empty fridge and a blown bulb in the bathroom she needed to borrow a ladder to change. “You don’t?”
He moved closer, right up against her ear, his body pressed on hers, that beard brushing her cheek, making her shiver. “I’m going to make you so wet you glisten, wet enough we can both hear how slick you are. I’m going to put you right on my mouth, have you ride my face, feel how talented my tongue is without a script. That’s where you’ll come the first time.”
The first time.
“The second time I’m going to take you on your knees, that sweet ass in the air, that pretty pussy all pink and juicy and ready to suck my fingers, squeeze my cock. I’m going to pump into you, hard as you can take it, fast as you can handle it until your brain shorts and your body is an electric current of pleasure. The third time.”
A nibble on her ear that made her gasp. Third.
“The third time I’m going to lay you down, all your hair fanned out on the pillow, your hips propped high on another, your amazing legs around my waist, your gorgeous lips on mine. I’m going to fuck you gently, slowly, draw your orgasm out, make you tremble for it, make you go flying, tandem with me. How does that sound to you?”
She got a breathy exhale out because all her critical faculties were fluttering their eyelashes and that air was left over from when she was a real person, not a hyperventilating mindless bag of lust.
“Then you can tell me you’re chafed, tender and a tiny bit sore,” he finished.
Before she could reboot her brain, the headsets they’d lowered to wear around their necks crackled into life with the climb leader’s voice. Five minutes more before they began their descent.
Teela’s descent, when it came, wasn’t going to be slow, steady and simple like the bridge climb, but steep and brutal and she’d be lucky if she didn’t trip over her own feet.
That was before they got back to the suite and she saw the dress.
It was a confection made of gossamer webbing and ivory silk strands. An impossible construction that clung to her body like fro
sting on a cake, light, airy, miraculous.
“Divine,” Haydn said, smoothing his hand up her bare arm. She faced a full-length mirror. He stood behind her wearing a towel and a love bite she’d planted on his neck.
“This is extraordinary. I appreciate the gesture, but I have nowhere to wear a dress like this.” Even her most formal occasion didn’t accommodate a red-carpet-worthy dream gown.
He kissed her bare shoulder. “Wear it for me tonight.”
There wasn’t much of tonight left. They’d come back to the hotel after the bridge climb and had a room service dinner, followed by some explicitly raunchy face-riding beard sex as promised that did cause some chafing in very private places.
Kissing his bearded face took some getting used to. It was like starting over, learning to kiss a different man, one who was a little more wicked, a little more persistent, positively bossy. That beard prickled, ticked against her teeth and was foreign on her tongue and it wasn’t easy to kiss when you kept grinning.
“It’s a bit like kissing a broom,” she’d told him.
That’s when he started kissing her other places. She’d liked his lips on her neck, the little bit of rough with the smooth, a rasp followed by softness, a tickle followed by a hot, wet, drugging drag. The effect on her nipples was electrifying. They were already sensitive, and the prick of beard made her squirm and writhe, and he was the one smiling when she asked for more, heels in the bed, shoving her body against his, hands in his hair.
Then he put that beard to work, taking it on a journey down her sternum, over her ribs and belly and down, down and around the curve of her inner thigh, all the way to her goddamn knee. The rudest noise came out of her when he bypassed the main destination for an inferior landing place. He laughed that beard up the length of her other thigh, grazing, nibbling and skimming her goose-bumped flesh and then skipping X marks the spot again to rub his face on her hip bone.
“You bastard.” She tried to push his head where it belonged.
“Want me to stop?”
“It’s a term of affection here. I want you to start.” Now who was bossy.
One Night with the Sexiest Man Alive (The One Book 1) Page 9
