“No bloody way.” He tilted her head back and kissed her slowly. “Do you want to stop?”
“No bloody way,” she echoed with a grin.
“I’m going to start calling you my little cockatoo if you keep mimicking me,” he said.
The nickname warmed her heart, and that was a little scary. Because her heart wasn’t invited to this dance—neither was her brain. This was strictly a hands and mouth and down-there-bits only kind of occasion.
“I don’t care what you call me, so long as you take me to bed.” Okay, so maybe she did have a few moves up her sleeve. Apparently, all she needed was one orgasm to get her sexy talk on.
“Why don’t we watch the storm?”
“Outside?” Her heart skipped a beat.
“Sure. You’re not afraid of anyone seeing, are you?” His smile was so wicked, it made her sex clench.
The house was pretty isolated, with its long driveway and densely packed trees and sprawling block. No would see them… Would they?
“Do you have a blanket?” she asked.
He nodded. Lowering himself to his knees in front of her, Trent placed a kiss at her navel and worked her denim shorts over her hips. Then her lace-trimmed panties followed and she was fully naked. He pulled a blanket from the back of the couch and wrapped it around her shoulders, rubbing over her arms and shoulders, as if drying her off.
There was something really gentle about Trent, something caring and sweet that she wouldn’t have immediately spotted. Because the first thing one noticed was how strong he was—physically and personality-wise. He knew what to say, knew how to touch her, and did it all with supreme confidence. Trent was a practiced seducer, and he would be a skilled lover beyond what she’d already seen. No doubt about it.
But even though this was nothing but chemistry, he never made her feel like an object. Like he was driving toward his own pleasure and she was just a vehicle.
“You have to get undressed, too,” she said, sucking on her lip as she soaked him all in. He was physical perfection from head to toe. And yeah, it was a little intimidating.
His hands went to the hem of his T-shirt, and he peeled it up, revealing all the ridges of muscle she’d felt only moments ago. Then it was the belt at his waist, and the sound of metal on metal was like a thunderclap in the quiet room. Then his zipper, fabric being pushed over his hips and his socks following. He left his underwear on.
He was even more glorious when mostly naked, but it was the sparkle in his eye that she was most attracted to—the playful, spontaneous, no-holds-barred nature of him. The proof that, he was as good on the inside as on the outside.
“Come here and share that blanket with me.” He reached for her, opening the huge piece of fabric and wrapping them both up, skin to skin. “You’re like a sexy burrito.”
“What? Burritos are not sexy.” She laughed, squirming when he turned her around so her back was at his front. “They’re squishy and messy and…”
“Delicious, just like you.” He pressed his lips to her temple.
“Smooth talker,” she said, letting his warmth seep into her. “I might have to watch out for you.”
Trent could easily fill her head with tempting thoughts and dangerous ideas.
He walked her to the door while they were both still wrapped up, and it was awkward and funny and she laughed harder than she’d ever laughed before. “I feel like I’m in a sack race.”
“Stop whinging,” he said, nipping at her ear.
“Whinging?”
“Complaining,” he said with a teasing tone.
“Oh, you mean whining.”
“Nah, mate. We say whinging here.”
She giggled. “Mate.”
“You are a little cockatoo.”
Eventually he let her have the blanket and he strode outside to the back deck, his ass perfectly on display in tight black underwear. Peach indeed.
They cuddled up on an oversize wicker chair, which was padded with a big, comfy cushion. The roof out back, which Trent called a veranda, protected them from the rain. It was magical to watch the storm waging its war on the land. She climbed into his lap and draped the blanket over them both, his body protecting her from the chill in the air.
The clouds shifted, like God himself was blowing them across the landscape. When lightning flashed, illuminating all the shapes in the sky, Cora sighed. Even in brutal weather, this place was impossibly beautiful. As they sat, Trent’s hands roamed her body beneath the blanket, skating over her shin and her knee, tracing the inside of her thighs. Teasing her.
“Could this be any more perfect?” She sighed.
“This was what you wanted, huh?”
“A hot man and a thunderstorm? Hell yeah.” She laughed when he waggled his eyebrows. “I’m glad you ended up being here.”
The statement popped out before she had a chance to wonder whether it was telling too much, giving too much away. Instead of allowing him time to ponder what she meant—or let herself go into an anxious thought spiral—she turned to him, clasping his face with her hands and bringing his lips down to hers. He tasted like heaven, and the feeling of his strong, rough hands on her body made her want to float away. Taking her time and not rushing straight to what she’d been taught to view as the “finish line” was new. He seemed content to touch and taste and explore, learning her curves and what she liked. And she did the same, raking her nails down his chest and watching for the flare of excitement in his eyes. Shifting so she could reach down and palm the hard length of him through his underwear.
When she freed him, sighing at the feeling of him skin to skin in her hand, the blanket suddenly felt too hot. Shrugging, she let it slip down to her waist. The cool air peaked her already hardened nipples even further, and Trent’s hands came to her breasts.
“So good,” he said, his eyes rolling back as she stroked him.
She shifted in his lap, turning to straddle him on the big wicker chair. There was room for a whole football team on the damn thing, and she wanted to take full advantage of the space. “It’ll feel better when you’re inside me,” she said huskily.
“How did we go from ‘your butt looks like the peach emoji’ to that?” he teased, catching the edge of her mouth with his thumb and parting her lips. “Holy hell.”
“I guess I needed warming up.”
“You’re not warm, Cora. You’re making the sun look like a glacier.”
Who was this man? And who was she when she was with him—a siren? A seductress?
“I stand by it,” she said with a saucy shrug. “Your butt does look like the peach emoji.”
He laughed and splayed his hands over her thighs, his thumb stroking her tattoo etched into her skin. “And you don’t think you’re a butterfly yet?”
She looked down, her eyes catching on the ink that she looked at every day, reminding herself there was more to be done. “I’m a work in progress.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“I think I need more work than most people,” she said with a soft laugh.
“Here’s the conclusion I’ve come to,” Trent said, continuing to run his hands up and down her legs in that beautifully soothing manner. “Nobody’s got life figured out, and the ones who seem like they have are simply better at hiding their shit.”
“Their shit, huh?” She smiled. “Is that the technical term?”
“Pretty sure it’s what all the top psychologists would say, but what do I know? I’m just a blue-collar guy.”
“There’s no just about it.”
Trent was a force—maybe people didn’t see that about him because he was so affable and fun-loving and unpretentious. But Cora was the kind of person who looked deeply, who tried to find the true essence of a person under all their disguising layers—layers she knew intimately because she wore them, too. Trent was more than a joker.
“Can we stop talking now?” she asked, leaning forward. “As lovely as this has been, and as much as I’m enjoying this storm, what I really want is…”
He raised a brow, a sexy smirk dancing on his lips. “Tell me.”
“You.”
He leaned forward, pressing his mouth to hers and coaxing her lips open. His hands drove up into her hair, fingers threading through the strands and cradling her head, making her feel precious and cared for and…loved.
No, not loved. Never loved.
It was a star too high to aim for. All she wanted now was to feel good physically. To feel wanted and desired and to be able to return that want and desire. The rest…well, it had no place here.
Scooping her up, blanket and all, Trent strode into the house, still kissing her. Cora wrapped her arms around his neck, hanging on as she was swept into his bedroom and laid gently down on the bed. He disappeared for a second to grab a condom from his wallet. While she waited, Cora stretched out on the bed, letting herself sink into this delicious fantasy. Letting herself wonder what life might be like here with a man like him. With a passion like this.
When he came back into the room, he stood before her, naked. Inviting. The hard jut of his cock left her mouth dry.
“Good?” he asked in a way that wasn’t really a question. Trent knew he looked like a last meal and Christmas morning and fireworks rolled into one.
“Do you want me to stroke your ego?” She beckoned him to the bed.
He took a moment to roll the condom down onto his length, and he tossed the foil packet onto the floor. Awareness raced through her veins as the bed shifted under his weight and he crawled forward, muscles coiled and eyes like a hurricane.
“I want you so bad,” he said, his accent even more pronounced with the lust thickening his words. “I wanted you so bad the second you set foot in this house.”
“Really?” The word was a whisper.
How could he have wanted her then? She was a mess, a broken woman made of parts barely held together with hope and concealer. She’d been a shadow of herself, a mere sliver.
“Really. The fact that you didn’t turn tail and leave, that you wanted to help fix things and do your part, the fact that you were so beautiful and stubborn and sweet… God.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t resist wanting you.”
The revelation made her heart swell. How had he seen something in her then that she couldn’t even see in herself? It was like smoothing a balm over her soul, tending to the emotional cuts and bruises in a way that made her feel whole again.
She reached for him, pulling him toward her with an instinctive need to have him close. Her body sank farther into the mattress as he came down on top of her, muscular thighs parting her softer ones.
“Now,” she breathed, her body already crying out for more. “I want you.”
In the past, Cora had been a little self-conscious in bed, not finding her confidence until she had been with a man a few times and felt more comfortable around him. But Trent had tapped into something deep inside her, like flipping a switch that had needed the cobwebs to be dusted away.
She felt safe with him. Not judged.
“Don’t rush me,” he drawled, taunting her. One hand ran over her body, cupping her breasts in turn and tracing a line from her navel to her sex.
“Please,” she begged. “I need…I need you.”
As he pushed inside, her body gave in to him, melting and yielding and turning to liquid pleasure. The weight of him pressing her into his bed consumed it. It burned her up from the inside out because she felt truly beautiful in his arms.
She felt…cherished.
He moaned against her lips, his hips moving back and forth in deep, fluid strokes. Cupping his face, she pulled him to her and kissed him with everything she had. His lips probed hers, tongue delving into her mouth. Bodies fused together, finding a rhythm. His pelvis brushed hers with each stroke, fueling the fire he’d begun with his hands not long ago.
Everything else evaporated. Her past pains and insecurities stripped away as if nothing existed but right now. No past, no future. Only the glorious present.
“Trent, I’m close.” She rocked her hips up to meet his, her body quaking again.
Her hands fisted in the sheets and she arched, shattering with him inside her. Her cries echoed off the walls of his room, and a second later Trent followed, his face pressed hard against the side of her neck as he roared in release.
As she lay there, heart full and body sated, she couldn’t help but feel that she wouldn’t be leaving Australia the same person as when she arrived.
Chapter Fourteen
Later that night, after they’d stopped for refueling and then gotten lost in each other again, Cora was curled up in Trent’s bed, drowsy and watching the storm through the bedroom window.
It was quieter now—the rain slowing to a steady pitter-patter against the glass and the lightning flaring across the indigo sky at infrequent intervals. They’d opened a window, and the scent of rain and wet grass and eucalyptus floated into the room, cutting through the haziness of their lust.
From his vantage point in the bedroom doorway, Trent was struck with how similar this image was. Cora’s sun-streaked hair was a tangled mess on the pillow, and she lay on her side, her arms curling the blanket up under her chin. She’d dragged his pillow to her side, as if she were building her own squishy fort. He could see her profile—the long, straight nose and shadow created by her high cheekbones and the fan of her thick, dark lashes.
She looked so much like his ex, it was almost like unpicking the stitches he’d thought had long healed on his heart, reminding him that to trust someone was to put yourself in the firing line. To sign up for being betrayed.
This is nothing to do with trust. It’s sex. Good sex, but that’s it.
If he were the type to read into situations a little more closely, Trent might have wondered if this was the universe trying to tell him he was stagnant…but he wasn’t that kind of guy. He didn’t believe in signs or horoscopes or fate or crystals or any of that bullshit.
Cora and Rochelle were two different people, and even if their outsides looked a bit—okay, a lot—similar, there was no comparison when it came to the inside. Cora was kind and sweet and open and funny. And he didn’t need to trust her, because it wasn’t like she was going to be sticking around.
Even if she was, he’d never put himself in a position to be hurt ever again.
“Are you going to keep standing there and staring?” she asked, cutting into his thoughts. She raised her head and looked at him with hooded eyes and a smile that was an invitation to sin. “It’s awful lonely in this big bed all by myself.”
“Maybe I should get you a teddy bear,” he drawled, teasing her. Cora laughed and he stood, feet rooted to the ground like something was holding him there.
Get out of your own head. This isn’t going anywhere.
But Trent couldn’t quite shake the feeling that Cora’s being here had a greater significance than some hotter-than-normal sexual attraction. It was like something in the air had shifted, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what, exactly, it was. All Trent knew was that he didn’t want anything to change in his life—he liked being single and free, liked the ability to change direction as he pleased.
And most of all, he liked knowing that nobody could get to him.
…
The following afternoon, Cora had been hard at work on the scrapbook until she’d hit a speed bump. They were missing photos. Likely, in the chaos of cleaning up after the “glitter incident,” some of their photocopies had been accidentally thrown out. And, given Trent’s parents were due to return from their trip that evening and he’d already returned the albums after their last scrapbooking session, they had to be quick about replacing them.
Luckily, Nick had let Trent tak
e the day off so they could sort this problem out. It was funny to see two men as big and powerful as the Walters brothers so terrified at the prospect of angering their little sister.
So she and Trent were now cruising with the windows open down the winding, tree-lined streets on the way to his parents’ house. The scent she’d come to associate with the town—briny sea air, eucalyptus, and something uniquely floral that she couldn’t quite identify—danced in her nostrils. Cora sighed in total and utter contentment.
She’d wanted her vacation to provide some much-needed rest and recuperation, but there was no way she could have anticipated how good it would be for her. But maybe that had nothing to do with the vacation itself and everything to do with Trent. He’d given her the recuperation. He’d breathed life back into her, warming her so the ice thawed around her heart and she slowly started to recognize herself in the mirror.
At one point in her life, she’d been hopeful about her future. And now, under his care and attention and desire, she was becoming hopeful again.
“Have you thought any more about that architect Nick told you about?” she asked, watching the way the wind streamed in through the driver’s side window, rippling his blond hair.
“Not really.” Hidden by the darkly tinted lenses of his glasses, Trent’s eyes stayed on the road. “I’ve been a little…preoccupied.”
Hmm. That made two of them.
“But you’re hoping to start work on it soon?” she prodded.
“Well, as soon as I’ve gotten everything else off my list. Fixing up Liv’s place is priority number one. And then Nick’s been talking about this big project he wants to get off the ground and I promised Jace and Angie I’d give their granny flat a facelift.”
“Do you always put everyone else before yourself?”
“Helping my family makes me happy.”
“And it’s an easy excuse for avoiding making a decision.” The words popped out before she had time to think about the consequences.
Having sex with someone does not give you permission to psychoanalyze them.
Trent pulled into the driveway of his family home and killed the engine. Turning to her, his eyes still obscured, he tilted his head. “I like to think things through before I make a big decision. I don’t know why people find that so strange.”
Her Aussie Holiday Page 14
