by Nicola Marsh
The fire crackled. Waves crashed. He resisted.
This was it. The definitive moment where he crossed a line in the sand—literally.
If he kissed her now he wouldn’t stop. Not this time.
‘I warned you once about playing with fire,’ he said, his free hand reaching up of its own volition to cup her cheek.
Defiant to the end, she half turned her head, nipping the pad of his thumb and sending heat streaking to his groin.
‘I can handle it if you can.’
With one gigantic jump, he leapt over his metaphorical line and didn’t look back.
Gemma lived in the moment.
She’d always been a daredevil, but losing her dad had cemented her reckless streak. Life was too short to waste. It was a mantra she lived by daily. A mantra that had her knees wobbling ever so slightly as she strolled across the sand hand in hand with Rory.
She had a million thoughts whirring through her head, ranging from I hope that tent holds to With this kind of tension this promises to be the best sex ever.
Despite being opposites, they’d connected on so many levels, and tonight, by the fire on the beach, he’d revealed more than she could have hoped for.
Rory Devlin really understood her. He’d honed in on her feelings of rejection in the past and said exactly the right thing. She was worthy. Worthy of a guy like him. And the fact he liked her for who she was, without artifice, without pretence, had ultimately lowered her emotional defences.
She wanted to be close to him. In every possible way.
After their revealing chat he’d tortured her, holding her hand, cupping her cheek, staring into her eyes … and not kissing her.
She’d willed him to close the distance between them, to ravage her lips as he’d done previously on that memorable picnic. Instead he’d leaned so close their breaths had mingled, increasing anticipation, before moving his mouth towards her ear. Where he’d proceeded to tell her in great detail what they’d be doing tonight.
All night long.
They’d doused the fire so fast she hadn’t had time to grab a torch and, laughing, they’d grabbed the cooler and made a run for their camping area.
Her body buzzed, her knees shook, her senses were on high alert. To his credit, he didn’t break stride as they all but ran across the sand, and when she stumbled he caught her.
‘Nice save.’
His fingertips grazed the sliver of skin exposed between her jeans and T-shirt where it had ridden up.
‘Can’t have you breaking a leg now. Not with what I’ve got planned for tonight.’
The bold declaration hung in the air between them, brash, provocative. Barely restrained tension was zapping between them, creating more energy than any solar panel.
Her skin prickled with it—a sensuous tingling that made her want to strip off and bare her body to the faint moonlight.
‘Show me.’
Without saying another word Rory slid an arm around her waist and backed her through the unzipped tent flap towards the airbed, his slow, leisurely perusal like an intimate caress.
As moonlight spilled into the tent and the breeze cooled her skin Rory peeled her clothes off, worshipped her body and made love to her until she almost passed out from the pleasure.
Living in the moment had a lot to be said for it.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
GEMMA had been a conscientious camper in the past. She’d ensure the tent had been erected properly, she’d check the food had been sealed properly, and she’d anticipate possible problems before they happened.
But she’d never camped with a sexy distraction before—and therein lay her downfall.
After making love twice they’d gleefully tumbled into their sleeping bags, spending a blissful few hours in each other’s arms, only to be awoken at dawn soaked to the skin.
‘You did fasten the fly?’
Rory sent a quick glance in the direction of his groin and she rolled her eyes.
‘The fly for the tent. The sheet that goes over the tent to stop condensation on the inside and to keep it rainproof. In case of bad weather.’
His shamefaced expression said it all. ‘Told you I’d never camped before’
‘Yeah, but …’
No use blaming him. She should have checked it. And would have if he hadn’t started kissing her and the rest …
Wriggling out of a squelching sleeping bag and the wet tent, she tried to think quickly.
‘I could erect the tarp, but we’re already soaked. Hopefully it was a passing shower and we can dry off before—’
‘Freaking hell!’
Her jaw dropped as Rory started hopping around as if a bee had bitten his butt.
‘What’s wrong?’
He pointed towards his feet and downgraded his hopping to hobbling.
‘Something’s attacked the soles of my feet.’
She winced in sympathy. ‘You fell asleep with your bare feet outside the tent?’
He nodded and muttered another curse. ‘The tent’s too small for me, so when you dozed off I stuck my feet out the end of the tent.’
‘You’ve probably been bitten by bull-ants.’ She gestured towards a wet log. ‘Take a seat. Let me see.’
Glaring at her as if this was all her fault, he sat and presented his soles for inspection. And promptly lost his balance and fell backwards into a hole. A grumbling hole.
‘What the—?’
He struggled to get upright—only to come face to face with a growling wombat the size of a baby elephant.
Okay, so she was exaggerating, but the way Rory had paled she should amend her analogy to stegosaurus size.
‘What do I do?’ he breathed, scrambling backwards on his hands and sore soles, doing a fair crab imitation.
‘Don’t worry. Willemena won’t hurt you.’
‘Won’t hurt me? She’s growling at me like I’m supper.’
‘You disturbed her snoozy hidey-hole. She has every right to be upset.’
Rory tried to keep on eye on the wombat while giving her a death glare. ‘You’re siding with this creature?’
‘“This creature” has lived here for years. The workers have probably been feeding her or leaving food scraps. That’s why she’s hanging around here. She’s made a shallow burrow near our campsite because she’s expecting food.’
His eyebrows rose further the longer her explanation lasted, and she stifled a laugh.
‘You fell on her while she was snoozing. I’d be growling too if I got woken like that.’
He eyeballed the wombat, which took a waddling step towards him.
‘She can’t hurt me, right?’
‘Those claws have been known to rip a man apart, but you should be all right.’
With another mumbled curse he managed to gain purchase on his sore soles and surge to his feet—only to start hopping around again.
Willemena—or more likely her offspring, though Gemma had left out that part—lost interest when no food was forthcoming and trundled off in the direction of the bush.
Smiling, Gemma swung her gaze back to Rory, and in that instant, with his wet jeans clinging to his legs and his hair mussed, his mouth compressed in an unimpressed line, her heart flipped over without a hope of righting itself.
She loved him.
Loved this man for all his intriguing facets: the powerful businessman, the commanding lover, the flexible guy who had accepted her chained to his precious display, camped on her dad’s land for the first time, the guy who truly understood her and liked her for it.
Their gazes met and his mouth relaxed, curving into a rueful smile that confirmed it.
How could she not love a guy who tolerated getting drenched, getting bitten and getting an up-close-and-personal encounter with a wombat, and still managed to smile about it?
She flew across the space between them and flung herself into his arms, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face in his chest.
‘If this is a sympat
hy hug, maybe I should get tortured by the local fauna more often.’
She didn’t answer, hugged him tighter, and her heart sighed with the rightness of it when he held her close as if he’d never let go.
She could always wish.
When Gemma steered his Merc into the underground car park of his penthouse and killed the engine he sent a silent prayer of thanks heavenward.
Aborting their camping trip should have made him guilty, but with his feet still stinging, despite a liberal dosing of calamine lotion, and his ego still smarting from making a fool of himself, all he felt was relief.
A nice hot soak in his Jacuzzi followed by a night tucked up in one-thousand-thread-count sheets with Gemma by his side sounded a lot more appealing than roughing it.
‘Home sweet home,’ she said, handing him the keys. ‘How are the feet?’
He wiggled his toes. ‘I’ll live.’
She grinned. ‘Remind me never to take you to the Amazon. The pythons, the killer tarantulas—’
‘I get the picture.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘If we’re heading in that direction, how about we skip the Amazon and head for Rio instead? Carnivale? Great beaches? Top hotels?’
‘You’re such a wuss,’ she said, shaking her head, her soft smile making something twist in his chest.
But I’m all yours, he wanted to say, needing to tell her how much she meant to him but unsure of the words.
He was kidding himself if he thought they weren’t in this for more than a fling. Which meant before they went any further he had to tell her the truth. He took a deep breath.
‘I need to tell you something.’
‘Let me guess. You’re planning on standing on a scorpion nest next, or crawling up a tree to wake a rabid koala?’
There was no easy way to say this. He searched for the right words, came up empty, and settled for the blunt truth.
‘I orchestrated that publicity about you in the newspaper.’
Her smile faded. The joy in her eyes was replaced with wariness and disappointment and disgust.
‘Why?’
‘For the company.’
‘The company?’ she parroted, her tone eerily flat.
It terrified him.
‘My dad’s constantly in the paper, flaunting some totally inappropriate woman, making a laughing stock of himself and the company—’
‘And you decided to use me to oust him and take centre stage?’
He nodded, ashamed he hadn’t told her sooner. ‘Devlin Corp was headed for disaster when I took over from dad six months ago. We had problems with protestors on that other job and the media constantly dredges it up. I needed to raise our environmental profile and you came along at the right time.’
Her eyes narrowed, sparking blue fire. ‘I get it. Hire the eco-warrior, tout her association with the company constantly, get your money’s worth. So did you?’
Her face had crumpled, and she made a god-awful strangled sound that slugged him.
‘Gemma, listen—’
‘What I want to know is was I an inappropriate woman too?’
She spoke over him, as if she hadn’t heard a word he’d said, and by the impenetrable mask settling over her face he knew he was in trouble. Nothing he could say or do would get through to her.
‘Is that what our relationship’s based on? You start something with me so once the papers get tired of my professional qualifications they can plaster us over the stupid society pages?’
Her voice wobbled and he reached for her but she slapped his hands away, her shoulders rigid.
‘Tell me this. Was this weekend just some dumb publicity stunt too? Get me onside as part of your ruse? Should I expect to see pictures of our beach campfire or worse spread across the papers tomorrow?’
‘Course not.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ she murmured, and turned away to stare out of the window, but not before he’d seen the shimmer of tears.
Those tears slugged him as much as her lack of faith in him. His grandfather hadn’t believed in him—not really. Preferring to hand the company over to his flaky dad rather than the kid he’d groomed.
His dad hadn’t believed in him either. He’d given him a year before Devlin Corp was bankrupt, but slapped him on the back regardless, with a jolly ‘Don’t worry, son. Business isn’t everything.’
His dad was wrong. The family business was everything to him. It had been all he’d had. Until Gemma. Now she didn’t believe in him either, and that hurt most of all.
His grandfather’s lack of faith? Almost expected. His dad’s? Foregone conclusion. Bert didn’t have faith in much beyond Jack Daniels and the next warm bed.
But Gemma? He’d grown to value her opinion, grown to treasure those moments when she looked at him as if he was a giant among men.
He’d grown to love her.
The revelation slammed into him like a kick to the gut, leaving him just as winded.
Blindsided, he stared at the woman he loved, wanting to tell her all of it, desperate for her to understand his motivations, but unsure how to make her believe.
He needed her to believe in him.
‘Gemma?’
She half turned towards him, a blond strand curling over her cheek, her top teeth worrying her bottom lip as she deliberately averted her eyes.
‘I love you,’ he blurted, cringing at his delivery but frantic to get the words out there, for her to hear him out.
Before he could say anything more she muttered, ‘I don’t believe that either,’ flinging open the door and making a run for it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
FOR a girl who never cried, hooking up with Rory-bloody-Devlin had made a true mockery of her.
Gemma sobbed all the way home in the car, thankful she’d left her VW at his place.
Everything they’d shared had been a sham. He’d hired her for positive publicity and to deflect environmental lobbyists; he would have had to keep her sweet and what better way than to charm her and woo her?
Every tender moment they’d shared flashed before her eyes: his sweet, tentative greeting kiss when he’d picked her up for the Yarra Valley jaunt, the passionate picnic kiss, holding hands on the boat, making love in the tent.
Had it all been a lie? A calculated ploy to keep her onside so his all-important damn company could complete the Portsea project on time?
Her anger rose exponentially as her sorrow petered out. By the time she’d battled Chapel Street traffic and pulled into her driveway she was ready to thump something.
Stomping into the house, she headed straight for the coffee machine. Not that she needed to be any more wired, but she was desperate to do something familiar to soothe her rampant fury.
And she was furious: furious at Rory for lying to her, furious at him for using her, but most of all furious at herself for falling in love.
There were reasons she didn’t take risks with her emotions, and this all-pervading, cloying, utterly soul-shattering devastation was one of them.
She enjoyed her life too much to feel this crappy, and from what she’d seen with colleagues over the years the moment you let love into your life was the moment you said goodbye to clarity and perspective and independence.
She should be thanking Rory for snapping her out of this so called love before she really invested her heart.
More than she already had.
She slammed the cupboard shut and plonked a cup on the counter, glaring at the coffee machine in the futile hope it would produce coffee sooner.
When it didn’t, she whirled around to head for the fridge. And her gaze clashed with Coral’s.
Great—that was all she needed. Another draining confrontation.
Unable to speak past the lump in her throat, she waited for her mum to speak. Instead, Coral stepped into the kitchen and opened her arms.
Gemma froze.
When was the last time her mum had embraced her? At the funeral? At the wake?
Too much had happened for her to
want comfort from a mother who hadn’t been available when she’d needed her most, but in that moment, looking into her mum’s understanding eyes, she needed a hug more than she would have thought possible.
She took a few hesitant steps, stiff-legged and awkward like a colt, before Coral met her halfway, bundling her into her arms.
The sobs in the car were nothing to the tears tumbling down her cheeks now.
She had no idea how long her mum smoothed her back and murmured ‘Shh …’ in her ear, but eventually her tears ran out and she was left feeling awkward and embarrassed.
Coral didn’t give her time to dwell. ‘Sit. I’ll make coffee.’
For once Gemma did as she was told, waiting for a barrage of questions that didn’t come.
Finally, when she couldn’t stand the silence any longer, she blurted, ‘I’ve fallen in love with Rory Devlin.’
Coral didn’t spill a drop of milk as she topped up the stainless steel jug.
‘I figured as much.’
‘How?’
Coral shrugged. ‘The only time I’ve seen you cry is over your father, so I assumed this had to be over another man.’
Gemma didn’t know if that made her sound like a weak female but she left it alone. Her mum was being nice, they’d glossed over their last confrontation, and she was dying for that coffee.
‘What’s the problem?’ Coral placed a steaming cappuccino in front of her and took a seat opposite.
‘He used me.’
Coral’s eyes narrowed and her lips thinned. This evidence of her mum’s protectiveness meant a lot.
‘How?’
‘He only hired me for my credentials, not my skills. Then he tipped off journos about me for good publicity in the paper for his precious bloody company, and got close to me to keep me onside.’
Coral nodded. ‘Smart lad—trying to go one up on Cuthbert’s antics spread over the tabloids for all and sundry to see.’
Gemma gaped. ‘You’re agreeing with what he did?’
Coral’s exasperated sigh blew the froth off her cappuccino. ‘From a business perspective only.’ She wiped the froth with her fingertip. ‘From a personal viewpoint, I don’t believe he used you for a minute. He cares about you. Any fool can see that.’