Breathless For You: Outback Skies, Book Two

by Couper, Lexxie

  “No wheezing. Quiet. And pensive. Like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. Not like Tash at all. And she kept cough—”

  Matt dropped the phone from his ear and smashed his foot against the door.

  White-hot pain lanced up the back of his head as the jarring impact rocked his entire body.

  He shut it off, hauled back his leg and kicked at the door again.

  A splintering crack filled the air and the door slammed inward.

  Matt caught himself before he stumbled across the threshold, correcting his forward movement into a run instead.

  “Tash?”

  His shout fell flat in the silent house.

  His heart slammed faster in his chest, his throat. The back of his head throbbed in painful rhythm.

  He hurried through her living room, into her kitchen. Down the hall to the room he knew she used as a gym. The bathroom.

  Empty.

  Dragging in a deep breath, he ran for her bedroom.

  Flung the closed door open.

  Empty.

  Not a sign she’d even been—

  His stare fell on something on the floor beside the bed and he froze.

  Two duffle bags. The kind the movies told him those in the armed forces used to carry their personal possessions and clothes.

  Swallowing at the lump in his throat, he stepped closer to them.

  Yep. That’s what kind of bags they were. Currently sitting on the floor of Tash’s bedroom, stuffed full of…what? Clothes?

  He raised his stare from the two bags and scanned the room, his brain—no longer convinced it was going to find an asphyxiated woman—noticing small details he hadn’t seen before.

  Her cupboards open. Empty coat hangers. Empty shelves.

  A dull pressure wrapped Matt’s temples. The lump in his throat grew thicker. His gut clenched.

  He dropped his stare to the duffle bags again, a strange numb sensation stealing over him.

  Leaving.

  She was—

  “Matt?”

  He spun at the sound of a voice behind him.

  Tash stood at the threshold of her bedroom, wearing loose sweat pants, a Nick Blackthorne T-shirt, and an expression of stunned disbelief. “Did you kick in my door?”

  “Don’t go,” he blurted out. “I’ve never felt this way before, Tash, and dammit, I was engaged. I should have felt this way before, but I didn’t. This is different. This, what I feel for you, it’s special. It’s so much more. I know that, and so do you. I can tell.”

  She stiffened.

  “Don’t go,” he repeated, the words barely more than a choked breath. “Don’t leave me…us. Don’t—”

  She balled her fists at her side. Turned her head away. “Matt…” she began.

  He destroyed the distance between them in three strides and captured her lips with his. “Don’t go,” he murmured, threading his fingers into her hair and pressing his forehead to hers. “I know you don’t think you have any purpose here, and I know it’s a shit ton of weight to put on you, and fucking selfish as all hell on my part, but when I questioned my life, when I questioned my purpose for breathing, I realized you were the answer. Every day, every call-out, all those flights with you…they were the answer. I’ve been living for them. And the moment you kissed me beside Old Man Dingo’s billabong… Well, I just want to see where life will take us together.”

  “Matt…” she rasped. But she didn’t move. Didn’t push him away. Didn’t step backward or turn her head. Just whispered his name, her breath warm on his lips, her scent forever in his being.

  “Please don’t go, Tash,” he beseeched once more, his heart a heavy hammer in his chest, his throat, his ears. “Not when we’ve only just begun. Let me help you discover who you are now. Let me be the one to hold your hand and dispel your fears and give you strength. In the very way you’ve given me the same. Let me be with you, Natacha. And let yourself be with—”

  She silenced him with a groan, her lips crushing his.

  He kissed her in return. Poured every want and longing and need and hope and dream into it. Surrendered his soul to her.

  Completely. Utterly.

  Their tongues met and mated. Their teeth clicked. He growled into her mouth and grabbed at her arse, jerking her hips to his, needing to feel her whole body pressed to his.

  She deepened the kiss, a soft whimper vibrating through her, the sound raw with desire and need.

  He worshipped her lips, her chin, her throat. He reclaimed her mouth and made love to it with his own.

  When she raked her hands down his back, when she reached for his belt, his head swam. Stilling her hands with a gentle grip, he pulled away from the kiss.

  Gazed down into her face, heartbeat wild, chest tight. “Please don’t go, babe,” he repeated, knowing it was the last time he would voice the plea. Knowing if she said she was leaving, he would respect her decision even as he died inside.

  She held his stare with hers, pressed the softness of her belly to the aching ridge of his need for her, the unmistakable beat of her heart radiating through her breast into his chest.

  “Please?” he whispered.

  She shifted on her feet, smoothing her hands over his back as she nestled closer still to his body. “Y’know…I’ve been thinking…”

  Matt swallowed.

  “If the RFDS will let me stay in the sky…”

  He waited, incapable of speech. Or breath.

  A slow smile curled the corners of her mouth. “Maybe I could be a teacher.”

  “Teacher?” he croaked.

  She nodded, rolling her hips against his. “I could teach you to fly. I do believe, Dr. Corvin, with some serious hoop-jumping, hand-holding and the right flight instructor, you’d make an amazing co-pilot. The perfect co-pilot, in fact, to keep my inhaler safe. Just in case my fucked-up lungs decide we need to spend another night making love under the stars out in the middle of the Outback. Interested?”

  A rush of pure shock and joy flooded Matt. A wave of concentrated happiness and amazement and relief.

  Was he interested?

  He kissed her.

  Thoroughly, until she moaned his name and he forgot everything but her. But them.

  Interested didn’t cover it.

  Burn For You

  (Outback Skies, Book Three)

  Available Here

  More Romance From Lexxie Couper…

  The Always Series

  Unconditional

  Unforgettable

  Undeniable

  The Outback Skies Series

  Bound to You

  Breathless for You

  Burn for You

  Bare for You

  Better with You

  The Heart of Fame Series

  Love’s Rhythm

  Muscle for Hire

  Guarded Desires

  Steady Beat

  Lead Me On

  Blame it on the Bass

  Getting Played

  Blackthorne

  Stimulated

  Blowing It Off

  Revving It Up

  Switching It On

  Rubbing It Out

  Pinning It Down

  Heart of Fame: Stage Right

  Compliance

  A Single Knight

  Balls Up

  Lust’s Rhythm

  Dangerous Desire

  The Bad Boy Next Door

  The Good Girl in My Bed

  The Bad Boy in Cuffs

  The Good Girl in Trouble

  See the full book list…

  First Chapter Preview: Burn For You

  Outback Skies, Book Three

  His past has destroyed him. But can it also heal him?

  Burn For You

  (Outback Skies, Book Three)

  Available Here

  “Here ya go, mate, get that inta ya.”

  Evan Alexander raised his head—heavier than it was five hours ago, surely—and took the beer offered to him by the owner of the O
utback Skies pub. “Thanks, Lacky.”

  His voice sounded scratched and dry, even to his own ears. It didn’t surprise him. His throat felt lined with hot sandpaper. He shifted his butt on the pub’s wooden step, unable to stop his gaze moving to the dense black smoke devouring the western sky. Smoke he’d just spent the last five hours flying around in. Smoke he’d just spent the last five hours inhaling.

  Smoke he was, in roughly two minutes—give or take a mouthful—heading back into.

  All around him, the small town of Wallaby Ridge writhed, rallying together in the face of a fire larger than any the area had experienced before. The Salvation Army had arrived from nearby Dubbo already, setting up outside the Ridge’s only green grocer, ready to offer support, sandwiches and water to anyone exhausted from fighting the blaze. Beside them, the first of the media trucks were unloading. Reporters sent from Sydney, no doubt to capture the drama of the history-making inferno.

  Evan could only shake his head at the women in high heels and thigh-hugging skirts tottering around their equipment vans, their immaculate make-up at odds with the dusty street. And then there were their cameramen, dressed in baggy jeans and T-shirts and gaping at the billowing smoke rising into the sky hundreds of kilometres away as if it was a cancerous monster.

  “Charlie’s just got word the National Aerial Firefighting Centre has sent two choppers from Sydney.” Matt Corvin lowered himself onto the step beside Evan and handed him a bag of salted peanuts. “Here. Eat some of these. Doctor’s orders.”

  Evan snorted. Trust the town’s doc to make sure he was keeping his sodium levels up. Of course, with how much he’d sweated over the last five hours fighting the fire from the skies, his body would definitely be deprived of salt at the moment.

  Snaring a handful of nuts from the bag, he tossed them into his mouth and chewed, returning his attention to the smoke well on its way to blocking out the setting sun. If the fire currently on its way to destroying half of the Mutawintji National Park wasn’t extinguished soon, Wallaby Ridge was going to be plunged into an unnatural night. And with both aerial and ground backup not arriving from Sydney for at least another three hours, the air assault on the blaze was pretty much left up to Evan.

  Like the Blue Mountains fire? Are you going to fuck up this one as well? Is someone going to die before this fire’s out?

  A suffocating pressure wrapped his chest. The nuts in his mouth tasted like dust. A heavy ball of dark contempt churned in his gut.

  Dragging his stare from the smoke, eyes stinging with sweat and dust, he drained the glass in his hand and pushed himself to his feet.

  He had to get back to it.

  No rest for the wicked, eh, Evan?

  He flicked Matt a quick glance, noting the worry on the doc’s face. “Is the chopper refueled?”

  His friend nodded, rising to his own feet. “Ryan called through a minute ago. I figured you needed a few minutes rest before I told you. You sure you’re ready to go back up?”

  Scrubbing his palms on the tops of his thighs, Evan nodded. “Yeah. I’m good. I’ve done this before, remember?”

  Matt’s gaze moved to the twisted web of scarred flesh that covered most of the left side of Evan’s face. Evan didn’t need to ask what he was thinking. Everyone in Wallaby Ridge knew how those scars had come about. Was everyone in the Ridge now thinking about that? Wondering if Evan was up to the task of saving the national park, as well as keeping all those out there fighting the massive inferno on the ground safe.

  Would someone die today, because Evan couldn’t handle the—

  A red-dust-covered 4WD skidded to a halt directly in front of the pub, spewing dirt up from its back wheels. The driver’s door was flung open and a woman covered in ash and soot tumbled from behind the wheel, her stare fixed on Evan and Matt. “Captain Montgomery just radioed through from the north front,” she said, hurrying towards them. “The wind’s shifted.”

  Evan’s blood ran cold. He stiffened.

  Behind the 4WD, the big-city reporters stirred, as if sensing blood. One of the women grabbed her cameraman’s shirt sleeve and tugged at it as she fixed her stare on Evan. Dawning recognition flooded her face.

  “Hey!” she shouted across the street. “Hey, you’re that helicopter pilot who almost died in the Blue Mountains fire five years ago, aren’t you?”

  Adjusting his baseball cap low over his face, Evan jerked his stare back to Matt and their new arrival, ignoring the woman’s question.

  “Shifted?” Matt—ever the doctor—pressed his hands either side of her face and gently tugged at the skin beneath her eyes, no doubt checking them for whatever doctors looked for when they did such a thing. “What’s that mean?

  Tash Freeman, the town’s Royal Flying Doctors Service pilot shooed him away with a frown even as a warm smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

  “It means the fire’s on the verge of jumping the containment—”

  Evan didn’t listen to the rest. Throwing himself into Tash’s Land Cruiser, he yanked the door shut, slammed the 4WD into gear and took off, showering the female reporter currently hurrying across the street in a spray of red dust.

  Pushing the vehicle to its limits, he headed for the Wallaby Ridge Rural Fire Brigade’s helipad. He had to get to the north front of the blaze. Now.

  If the fire did jump the containment line, it meant the captain of the Wallaby Ridge’s fire brigade and the small team of locals working with her was surrounded.

  If he didn’t get there before that happened, Jess Montgomery and her team would not survive.

  An image of a blackened body flashed through his head. The haunting stench of burnt flesh filled his sinuses. The soul-tearing screams of a dying man filled his ears… A ghost from a lifetime ago he could never escape.

  Gut knotted, chest tight, Evan shut out the tormented memory and pushed his foot harder to the accelerator.

  Ryan Taylor was waiting for him at the chopper when he arrived. His best friend met him halfway across the helipad, holding his cowboy hat firmly to his head. Evan noticed the heli-musterer had already started up the Bell 205 and the blades slowly rotated in the smoke-hazy air. “She’s ready to go, mate,” Ryan shouted, grabbing Evan’s shoulder to halt his sprint for the chopper. “Watch it up there, okay. The wind’s being a fucking messy bitch and the fire is heading east. It’s jumped the containment line and Jess and the north front team are in the middle of it.”

  Evan nodded, heart wild, voice steady. “It’s all good. I’ll make sure they’re safe and get out alive.”

  Like Matt, Ryan’s gaze flicked to the scars on Evan’s face. “I know you will, mate. But it’s you I’m worried about. I know you’re brilliant at what you do, but there’s no way anyone can get to you if you go down in that fire. Not where it’s currently burning. Not even me. Got it?”

  Evan slapped his hand on Ryan’s forearm and gave his friend a wide grin. His body thrummed, charged with adrenaline and fear. “Is this your subtle way of finally telling me I’m a better pilot than you?”

  Ryan barked out a laugh. “Get the fuck out of here, Ev. Put the fire out and then get your arse back here pronto. You owe me a beer for a comment like that.”

  With his own dry laugh, Evan ran to the chopper, climbed into the pilot seat and took off.

  There was work to be done. Dangerous work.

  The best work in the world, in Evan’s opinion, even as he dreaded every fucking minute.

  It was work that had cost him his marriage, cost him his life in Sydney. Work that had cost his partner of ten years his life, period.

  Work that had scarred Evan as surely on the inside as it had the outside.

  Heart racing, he navigated the Bell 205 towards the thick columns of smoke turning the western sky black.

  He refused to let his mind replay the reason for the reporter’s recognition. Refused to think about a dying man’s screams echoing in his head now. Refused to acknowledge words uttered five years ago by the woman he’d thoug
ht loved him unconditionally, words of repulsion and scorn.

  Instead, he focused on the wall of smoke and fire roaring towards the perimeter of the Mutawintji National Park where members of the Ridge’s fire brigade, consisting mostly of volunteers, fought the blaze. Instead, he flew straight through the smoke to the deep water hole in the middle of the national park, sucked over 10,000 litres of water up into his chopper’s tank and then sought out the densest pillar of smoke closest to the team’s last known position.

  He swooped low through the smoke, blinded by it, relying on gut instinct.

  The wind slammed into the chopper, buffeting it with powerful force. The flames leapt high, dancing on the erratic gust.

  Heat blasted at the cockpit, turning it to an instant oven.

  Fresh sweat popped out on Evan’s forehead. He gripped the collective pitch lever, fighting against the wild lashes of wind as he searched for any sight of Wallaby Ridge’s fire brigade captain and her team below.

  There.

  Five men and one woman faced a wall of fire, their water-filled backpacks almost farcical in the face of such fierce flames.

  Evan fixed their position in his mind, soared higher above the flames and, judging the direction and speed of the wind by the smoke whipping past the windscreen, dropped his chopper’s entire load in a torrent of water on the fire below.

  He watched the majority of the water vaporize as it encountered the intense heat of the flames.

  Cursed the fire with every breath in his lungs like he always did and, committing the ground team’s location to memory—navigated back to the water hole over twenty kilometres away.

  He repeated the maneuver four times. With each return dump, the wind pummeled his chopper harder. It wasn’t just a wind anymore. It had grown into a gale, a malevolent squall hell-bent on preventing him from returning to the line.