by Janine Grey
‘You need a break, mate,’ he said. ‘When you start talking to yourself, you need a break.’ He laughed and it echoed around the tunnel like a madman’s mocking taunt.
He gathered up the small opal pieces he thought might be worth something, shoved his tools into his belt and hauled himself back up the ladder.
A shower and clean clothes eased some of his tension and bad humour. He thought about going into town for a beer, a feed and some company but after days cooped up in the mine, the prospect of a two-hour return trip cooped up in a piece of metal didn’t appeal. In any case, he wasn’t sure if he was fit company, even for the blokes around the bar at the Helton Hotel.
Instead, he slapped on his hat as a shield against the glare of the setting sun and took his beer to the lookout on the Rise of Ruin, which dropped away at one side into Dead Man’s Gorge. This was his favourite spot. From time to time, when he had the energy, Fin came up here at the end of the day to think and dream, and to watch the sunset pour molten gold over the desert.
The show was at its most spectacular today, a dance of brilliant light and mysterious shadow. As Fin settled in, a lazy evening breeze kept the heat at bay. He had, he reminded himself, no reason to be unhappy with his lot. This was as close to perfection as most could wish. Solitude, a bottle of amber nectar and no boss in his ear – except, of course, the whispered threat of imminent bankruptcy.
Something caught his eye at the lake’s edge. A pale cloud of birds lifted in a flurry of wings from the muddy flats, and he saw a glint of glass and metal. It disappeared and then reappeared. A car, he realised, was moving steadily along the unsealed road. It was heading his way.
Fin put down his empty bottle and stood, hat in hand, squinting into the distance. He wondered if the garbage who’d killed Blue were back. If they were, God help them.
CHAPTER 8
Eliza saw him when she was still minutes away from the mine. In the final flare of the setting sun, he was in silhouette, standing in the archetypal pose of the man of the outback, with one booted foot propped on a rock, eyes fixed on the distance. On her.
Her stomach flip-flopped. At least he couldn’t accuse her of catching him unawares this time. Never had she felt a man more aware of her, even at a distance. She felt as if she recognised him on some cellular level. In reality, though, she barely knew him nor he her. It had been three weeks since they’d last laid eyes on each other. The possibility that she was about to make the most embarrassing mistake of her life turned her inside out.
He didn’t move from his position until she pulled the car off the road and got out. With an unhurried stride, he put on his hat and moved towards her.
God, he looked sexy, all tanned skin and dark stubble. Where his shirtsleeves were rolled up, she could see the bulge of muscle. His jeans were faded, boots scuffed and worn, and beneath his hat his unreadable eyes watched her like a hawk.
She wiped damp palms against the fine cotton of her loose sundress. If he was happy to see her, he gave no indication.
‘Say something,’ she said to break the silence.
‘What would you like me to say?’ His voice was gravelly, as though filtered through the landscape of rock and dust.
‘“Hi” would be a good start.’
She pushed the boat out, telling herself nothing ventured, nothing gained, but her voice wasn’t quite steady when she spoke.
‘I thought – hoped – that, perhaps, you’d missed me.’
He took a long time to answer, so long Eliza prepared for utter humiliation.
‘I missed you,’ he acknowledged eventually with a nod of his head.
Eliza let out a slow breath. ‘Like a hole in the head? Or in a good way?’
His mouth twitched a little and his eyes softened a fraction, though it could have been the fading light. ‘Mix of both, I guess.’
‘So what do you think we should do about it?’
He seemed to think about that as he leant in slowly to take her mouth. ‘I think we should make things complicated,’ he said.
Eliza’s eyelids fluttered closed as his lips touched hers. Oh, yes, she remembered this feeling from that damp Sydney night. But this time instead of wine, she tasted the tang of beer on his firm mouth as it moved steadily over hers. Tasting. Exploring. His stubble scraped her cheek, their noses bumped and realigned. She sank deeper, and his mouth slanted across hers to taste her more fully.
When she moaned, he drew back.
Oh, no, not this time.
She didn’t want the opportunity for second thoughts to intrude, to do the sensible thing. She tangled her hands in the front of his shirt and tugged him down to her, knocking his hat off.
‘Jesus!’ he muttered as he backed her against the car. Big callused palms framed her face as his tongue teased hers, withdrew and came back for more.
Her pulse whispered and sang and blood thundered in her veins, lighting the fuse that touched off each nerve ending and set up a throbbing ache between her legs. He surged against her, closing down the last inch of space between them.
‘Fin,’ she whispered. To her own ears, her voice sounded thready, needy. Still gripping his shirt in her fist, she hoisted herself up his body until she had him where she wanted him. One of his hands curved beneath her thigh, holding her in place, pliant softness against unyielding heat.
On the end of a long, drugging kiss, their eyes met and held. Eliza felt their eyelashes touch. Everything was focused on that place where only rough denim and thin cotton separated them. He burnt against her, thick and heavy. In his throat, she could see his jerky pulse. His grey eyes were stormy with desire, lips wet from hers.
The moment lengthened, their stillness drawing out the sensation, the anticipation of what was to come. It became a battle of wills: who would make the first move?
In the end, a searching finger breached her panties – and then her – in one smooth, shockingly raw moment. Eyes locked on to each other, the only light in a dusky landscape. Eliza felt the warmth of the car bonnet beneath her, the brush of her hair loose down her back, his rough hand against her hot core. And when his fingers pushed into her again, deeper and harder, she let sensation take her.
For an instant, every nerve hung on a knife edge, each muscle burnt and throbbed. Then her climax coursed through her, wave after wave of exquisite release. Against her ear, she felt the texture of Fin’s shirt and the heavy thump of his heart; she heard his breathing as weighted as her own.
Eliza moaned as the last tremors of her orgasm subsided. She felt limp with relaxation and flushed with satiation, while the man holding on to her was still rigid with tension. She could feel it in every sinew. Then he sighed, and the tension in him ebbed.
‘Okay?’ he asked as he lifted her off the bonnet, propping her against him as he opened the car door for her. She felt the hem of her dress drop back in place as he helped her into the passenger seat. Dazed, she watched as he scooped up his hat and an empty beer bottle, and got in the driver’s seat. She glanced at his profile in the dusk. He looked remote and a little dangerous, but his knuckles were white around the steering wheel as he steered the car back towards the road.
‘Where are we going?’ she croaked. Her thighs felt hot and sticky, and she could still feel a throbbing burn in her private parts. She fought the urge to press her legs together.
He didn’t look at her. ‘To the camp. I have condoms there.’
There was nothing the remotest bit romantic about his words, but they told her exactly what he intended to do. To her.
She shivered.
‘Cold?’
No.
Yes.
She shook her head, keeping her eyes fixed on the road. She couldn’t think straight enough to know anything for sure.
Two minutes later, he pulled her rental Subaru alongside his Land Rover. She got out, feeling a little uncertain. Out there under the fiery sunset, in no-man’s-land, it had been easier to let passion take her than here in his territory at twilight.
Her territory too, she reminded herself, which was something she needed to tell him. Just not yet, not now.
While he set a match to the central camp fire, she drifted around, touching the things she remembered from her earlier visits. His towel on the line, the camp stove, the tent, the pickaxe and jackhammer. When she turned back to him, the fire blazed cheerfully and he had dragged out the groundsheet and sleeping bag from the tent.
‘It’s not a feather bed but . . .’
She lifted her head to the night sky – midnight-coloured silk shot with a trillion tiny diamonds. Fin was here and they had all night.
‘It’s perfect,’ she said.
*
If he moved one muscle, it would be to pounce. Fin had never thought of himself as the caveman type but a guy had his limits, didn’t he? His jaw ached and his fists clenched in desperation. Sweat snaked its way down his spine as he watched Eliza drift towards the makeshift bed. She stooped to smooth it and straighten the edges as though they were in a six-star hotel suite and had all the time in the world.
Maybe she did but he was about to explode if she didn’t touch him somewhere. Any-damn-where! She flicked him a look from beneath her lashes, and let it drift down to the front of his jeans. His cock jerked in reaction, and he saw the realisation of her power bloom on her face. Her knowing smile said she was going to use it.
Fin watched her, his muscles coiled, as she kicked off her sandals. She crossed her arms across her chest and slid the narrow straps of her dress down her arms. A single tug and the loose dress floated down to lie around her ankles.
Proudly, she stood there, arms by her side, making no move to cover herself. Flames from the camp fire licked higher, light and shadow painting her body, which was naked but for tiny briefs and the curtain of straight dark hair that fell across her shoulders down to her breasts.
Nearly nude, there was a classical grace to her figure that reminded him of an alabaster statue. Dusky pink nipples peaked through her long hair, and the only decoration she wore was a slender tattoo he’d never noticed before – a twisting chain that curved around her left ankle. Whoever would have thought?
‘You’re full of surprises,’ he rasped, half-impressed that he was able to produce a coherent comment.
‘What?’
‘The tatt.’
‘Oh.’ She glanced down, looking a little confused, as if she hadn’t known she had it. ‘My one rebellious act.’
Fin’s addled brain stored the nugget of information away for further discussion. ‘I like it,’ he said simply.
‘You’re only interested in my ankles?’ she teased.
Fin wanted to whimper. ‘Other places too.’ He gestured towards her panties. ‘Those next.’
With just a hint of hesitation, she bent gracefully at the waist and skimmed them down her legs so she stood before him completely bare. Fin’s finite control snapped. He tugged his shirt over his head, not bothering with the buttons, and took her in his arms down onto the ground.
She laughed as she wriggled out of his grasp, kneeling up to help him drag off his boots and socks – just as well, as he was suddenly all thumbs.
‘Eliza,’ he murmured, and she smiled at him. Her lids drooped as her gaze travelled down, down over his chest to his groin. Eager fingers followed the direction of her gaze, following the arrow of his body hair. She slipped open his fly, and drew his aching cock into her hand. He cursed, fighting to think straight . . . to remember . . .
‘Wait – pocket,’ he muttered, fumbling in his jeans for the packet he’d taken from his tent, but she already had it. Passing it to him, she lay on her side, head supported in one hand as she watched him sheathe himself.
The moment he was done, she mounted him. Fin froze in the motion of dragging off his jeans and underwear as he was suddenly gripped tight by her hand, and then tighter still inside her. He tried to say her name but nothing emerged, and his eyes met hers, fever bright in the dark, and the time for talk and thought was over.
Fin slid her legs wider until she was fully impaled on him. Her mouth rounded in shock as the position pushed him full inside her, and then her eyelids drifted shut as she began to move. He held her hips to support and guide her, but she seemed in a trance, moving to her own throbbing beat, rising and falling, slow and then not so slow . . .
Fin watched her ride him, back arched, hair streaming. He moved his fingers up to her breast: smoothing, stroking, squeezing the soft flesh and rigid peak, feeling her body grow tauter in response, her movements take flight.
His arousal caught the faster rhythm, surging up when she pressed down, and he angled to find the sweet spots that opened her mouth in a wordless chant. His palm flowed down from her breast to her hip, grinding her against him on the upward thrust. Now, her chants found voice. She was saying his name. Fin. Fin. Fin.
It was a question and a command. Instinctively, he responded, rolling them over until she sprawled languidly beneath him in a tumble of limbs, hers pale against his dark tan. Now, it was his turn to drive them onwards, to the very end, and he wanted all of her while he did it.
‘Open your eyes, Eliza,’ he murmured, and she did. Wide and unfocused, they found his as he came onto his knees and pulled her legs high around his back. Her hands rested meekly on his shoulders, his fingers entwined in her hair.
Her eyes never moved from his as he surged back inside her. Their sensual dance turned savage as he took possession, driving into her, feeling her sheath flexing around him, giving as he took and took.
When he ran a thumb over her core, she jerked, her body clenching. But she fought completion, her fingers digging into his shoulders, body tight as a bowstring and eyes at half-closed.
Fin’s arm muscles trembled, everything focused on the soft, yielding flesh beneath him. He dropped his mouth to hers, then whispered into her ear as he stroked again just above the place he possessed her.
‘Come.’
She cried out and Fin felt the powerful contraction of her body as everything coalesced where their bodies joined. And then the tight, tugging clasp of her ripped his control to shreds.
*
‘Shame we didn’t get here a few minutes earlier,’ Davy Bannister said, pressing the binoculars a little closer to his acne-scarred face.
Leonard Twomey just grunted.
Davy didn’t display surprise at Twomey’s response – they’d spent enough time together for the idiot to know that Twomey wasn’t interested in anything apart from getting the job done. Twomey watched the passionately entwined couple sink to the ground and waited a minute before lowering his binoculars. Nothing more to see for a while, he reckoned.
‘That him, you reckon?’ Davy whispered, an annoying mosquito in his ear. ‘McLeod?’
‘Must be.’
‘Well, what do we do now then? What did Uncle Charles say?’
‘Shut up. I’m thinking.’
Thinking wasn’t something that Davy had much experience with and he sighed and rolled onto his back. Twomey had to admit, the rocky ledge wasn’t the most comfortable location for surveillance.
Muttering a complaint, Davy shifted again, dislodging loose stones that rolled down the slope.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ Twomey hissed, glaring at Davy. ‘Do you want them to hear us?’
The halfwit had no idea – or discretion. Just like when he’d taken a knife to the fucking lizard that had come from nowhere and scared them half to death when they’d been scoping out McLeod’s camp while the guy was away.
Twomey shook his head. Davy was a joke, and in Twomey’s report to Bannister he’d make it clear he wasn’t happy about working with him. Idiots were idiots, however far their connections extended up the food chain.
‘It’s getting cold, boss,’ Davy whined. ‘Nothing more to see out here.’
‘I’ll decide when there’s nothing to see,’ Twomey said. He drew his binoculars back to his eyes, moving them steadily around the small camp below. The camp fire h
ad burnt low but still gave off enough light to make out the shape of the two vehicles, a one-man tent, something that looked like a concrete mixer and the entrance to the mine.
Just a tin-pot operation. He knew that for a fact from their earlier reconnaissance. No heavy equipment, which probably meant the guy couldn’t afford any. It hadn’t been hard to find out the guy had lost his job at MineCorp a while back.
Twomey grinned. McLeod’s arse was probably half out of his pants. In fact, it was surprising that he hadn’t leapt on Charles Bannister’s offer for the claim.
He nodded to himself, already formulating in his mind the positive report he would present to the chief. The old man, Paul Daly from Helton, had been a useful source of information. He hadn’t hesitated to tell them about McLeod’s unplanned night in the mine, completely unaware it was thanks to Twomey’s tampering. By now, McLeod should be ripe for the taking; they just needed to press the case a little. Maybe raise the stakes and include a tight timeframe for accepting the company’s offer.
Twomey felt his shoulders relax, grateful he could offer a simple solution. The chief wasn’t the kind of person who took bad news well.
*
The fire in the rocky hearth was just cinders, its fuel supply spent; inside the snug sleeping-bag nest it was still touch and go. Feeling the early morning air continue its chilly creep across her belly and breasts, Eliza shrank back into the blast furnace at her back, muttering under her breath. The blast furnace responded with a grunt, his arm tightening around her front and his penis stabbing her in the back.
Her eyes half opened as awareness returned. He couldn’t. Not again. Well, maybe he could. But she most certainly could not and would not. She shifted until he slipped into the notch between her thighs. That would have to satisfy him.
It didn’t.
‘Stop it,’ she muttered.
‘Can’t.’
‘Think about something tragic,’ she suggested. ‘That should fix it.’
She waited a minute but if anything it got harder and more rambunctious.