by Valerie Parv
The instant he touched her, her senses ran riot. Although her breathing became fast and shallow, she willed her muscles to relax. Stiffening at his touch was far too betraying. “You seem to know more about my plans than I do.”
“I know you aren’t going to work for Angus,” he said bluntly.
Keeping herself from tensing made her muscles ache. “I’m not?”
“You don’t have the killer instinct for it. And besides, you’re going to stay here with me.”
What was he getting at? “Naturally, I’ll help with the babies until Stella finds alternative places for them all.” She longed to collapse against him and agree to stay forever if he wanted, but after seeing him with the children tonight she knew she couldn’t ask it of him. Deliberately she moved out of the warm circle of his embrace. “Can we talk about this in the morning? I mean, later?” It was already morning. The first fingers of dawn were already staining the sky with gold. “Right now I can’t think beyond a shower and a long rest.”
He straightened and caught her hand. “I have a better idea. Come with me.”
His fingers closing around hers triggered a mixture of alarm and excitement. She had no idea what he had in mind, and it was risky to go anywhere with him, feeling the way she did. The safest place she could possibly go was to bed—alone.
“We’re both exhausted,” she tried, “can’t it wait until later?”
“No, it can’t.” He sounded boyishly enthusiastic as he towed her off the veranda and down to his four-wheel-drive. It was unlocked, and he helped her into the passenger seat. She regarded him with increasing concern. “Where are we going?” They were both grimy and soot streaked from the fire. She even had cinders in her hair.
He ignored her protests and started the car. “You’ll find out Hang on, the road gets rough from here.”
It couldn’t get much rougher than the one she was on with him, she reflected as he steered the vehicle along a narrow track through paddocks toward a thick stand of eucalypt forest. Every time they hit a bump in the road she was thrown against him, the contact sending electric arcs of awareness through her body.
Warmth flooded through her in spite of the predawn coolness. She tried to pull in deep breaths, tell herself she could do this, admire whatever view he wanted to show her, without giving her true feelings away.
It didn’t help that every time their bodies collided she endured a wave of sensual longing so powerful that she had to clench her hands together to stop them from shaking. “Have we far to go?” she asked, hoping he would blame the tremor in her voice on the jarring of the Jeep on the corrugated track.
“Almost there.” He made it sound like a message, although, for the life of her, she couldn’t decipher what it was.
She distracted herself by focusing on the ghostly outlines of gum trees, acacias and tea trees. Graceful wallabies bounded between the trees, which were alive with birds at this hour—pink-streaked galahs, flame robins and chattering finches. In spite of her exhaustion, it felt oddly exhilarating to be awake and about at dawn, and she knew that part of the feeling came from the man at her side.
The track dipped toward a river and emerged into a clearing where a perfect pool steamed in the early-morning light, the rising sun burnishing the surface with gold. Their arrival disturbed the finches and native birds drinking at the water’s edge, and they lifted in clouds overhead. She caught her breath and turned moist eyes to Nicholas. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.” He couldn’t know it, but she recognized the pool as a fittingly glorious place in which to end their association.
He stopped the car and they walked to the water’s edge. “It’s warm,” she discovered, dipping her hand into the shallows. “The pool must be fed from an underground hot spring.”
He nodded, his silken look sliding over her. “Better than a shower.”
Panic roiled through her. “I can’t swim here. I didn’t bring a suit.” Given the way she felt about him, anything else didn’t bear thinking about.
He dismissed the argument. “I can’t speak for yours but the women’s underwear I’ve seen in shop windows lately is more modest than most swimwear. But as you wish. I’m going in.”
With economical movements he stripped off his sootstreaked trousers and shirt. She averted her eyes as his hands went to the black briefs underneath, but he was only hitching them up. Although it was hardly progress, the action emphasized his overwhelming masculinity.
She felt giddy with the urge to run her hands over his sculpted chest and draw him close to feel his hardness melding with her softness. The misty glade was a Garden of Eden, and she felt as wanton as Eve with the apple in her hand.
Maybe a swim was a good idea after all. She took refuge behind a stunted acacia bush to shed her skirt and blouse, which were as grimy as his clothes. Her coffee-colored bra and panties were more decent than some bikinis, but she still felt exposed as she padded along the bank to a crescent of beach leading into the water. It didn’t help to have him watching every movement, and she was glad when the water closed around her.
He stroked lazily over to her, turning onto his back to float. “Told you it feels good. Reviving and relaxing all at once.”
The water felt good, but she was anything but relaxed as she swam lengths of slow breaststroke. She wished she dared try floating in the tepid water, but she felt more protected with the water safely up to her neck. The night’s events were swiftly catching up, and she was tired to the bone, not least because everything she was giving up was right beside her. If she stretched out her hand...
She headed for the shore. “I’m clean enough. If I stay in here much longer the heat will put me to sleep.” Or wake up feelings that were better left dormant for good.
Water streamed off his muscular form as he followed her back to the car. There he produced towels, which she used to soak up most of the moisture before wrapping hers sarong-style around herself. She shivered, but more with reaction to him than with cold.
He draped his towel around her shoulders and began to rub, sending fresh coils of sensual heat through her until she wanted to beg him to stop—or to keep going and never to stop. Neither made much sense anymore.
He knotted a towel around his waist and rummaged in the car. “I brought breakfast, too.”
“You thought of everything.”
He regarded her dryly. “Almost everything. I forgot the jug of wine.”
That left a loaf of bread and him beside her in the wilderness. She was glad he hadn’t brought wine. Resisting temptation was hard enough without the added complication of alcohol. “Wine would put me to sleep,” she said, although the opposite was probably true.
He produced some of Kylie’s fresh blueberry muffins and a flask of milk. “Yarrawong vintage—” he consulted his watch “—yesterday evening.”
“Yesterday was a good day for milk,” she said, joining in the joke. After the swim, the cold milk and muffins tasted wonderful, although the company had a lot to do with her enjoyment. She would probably never eat muffins or drink milk again without remembering this moment, she thought, as her gaze was repeatedly drawn back to him. Morning sunlight glinted off his lightly tanned skin. The knotted towel gave him a rakish air, like a latter-day Tarzan in an antipodean jungle. If only they could stay like this for always, keeping the real world and its problems at bay.
His finger skimmed her upper lip, shattering the dream and sending heat spearing all the way to the center of her being. “You would look good with a mustache.” His tone was teasing, but there was no mistaking the glint of desire in his eyes.
The reality was a million times more poignant than any fantasy. She swabbed the milk off her mouth and turned away, hardly able to bear the torrent of feelings his touch invoked. “I’ll get my clothes.”
“What’s your hurry?” His arms came around her, and he pulled her against his damp, hard-muscled chest.
She was hot from the mineral springs. Or was it from finding herself in his ar
ms? It was the only place in the world she wanted to be—and the last place she should be. She opened her mouth to tell him how wrong this was, but he silenced her with a kiss that made a mockery of her vow to keep her distance.
He was keeping no such thing, as his lips paid homage to her features, the hollow of her throat and her shoulders, which were bare except for the narrow satin straps of her bra. She should probably end this now but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Only Nicholas could make her feel so sensual, so special...so worshipped.
The car door stood open, and he eased her gently back against the rear seat, the leather cool against her heated skin. Her towel fell away, and his rasped against her legs as he knelt on the seat beside her, all the while caressing her with his eyes.
Now. Tell her you know her secret now, Nicholas’s inner voice urged. Tell her it’s all right, that nothing matters as long as you can be with her. But as she looked up at him from under half-closed lids, drugged with the passion of his caresses, he couldn’t bring himself to break the spell. What if the baby thing wasn’t the reason she wanted to leave him? What if she didn’t love him as much as he loved her? He didn’t think he could stand it if he bared his soul to her and she still insisted she wanted to go.
So he kept quiet and tried to let his touch say what was in his heart. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever known. Not just beautiful on the outside, although he couldn’t fault that, but with an inner beauty that years would never fade.
As he knelt beside her, he was enveloped in her womanly scent, which was innocent of cosmetics or perfume yet had a headier effect on him than the costliest fragrance. Cleansed by the mineral lake, her skin felt satiny and still held a glow from the water’s warmth. He ran his palm down her side and felt her shudder with pleasure.
Stroking her had ignited fires deep inside him, but he resisted taking her mouth again, wanting to prolong the anticipation for both of them as much as he could. By the time he allowed himself to drink from her lips, he felt like a thirsty man in a desert. She gasped and arched her back, clasping her arms around his neck and murmuring his name against his mouth.
He slid his hands down her back until his fingers brushed the fastening of her bra. Such a flimsy covering for such treasure. It would take no more than a touch to release it, then he could give her as much pleasure as she was giving him and more. It was so tempting that he ground his teeth with the effort of resisting.
This wasn’t the way. He cared too much for Bethany to let their first time together take place on the back seat of a Jeep. For her he wanted moonlight, roses, champagne, soft music, candlelight and satin sheets. He wanted to give her the sun and the moon and the stars, take her to heaven and back. And he wanted it “till death did them part.”
He still had a few issues to sort out with her, but this wasn’t the time and place. They would be resolved as soon as they got back to the homestead. Then when he was certain there was nothing else to come between them, forever could start.
Nevertheless, it took all the self-control he could muster to say, “It’s time we were getting back. Your night nurse will need a hand getting her precious charges ready to face the day in their new surroundings.”
The timely reminder rocketed Bethany back to earth. She had been perilously close to giving herself to Nicholas, and the abrupt return to reality felt like being showered with icy water. As she looked at him with passion-dulled eyes, she tried to be glad of his strength of will. She wasn’t sure she would have been strong enough to end this before it went any further. And it would have been the greatest mistake of her life. This was a fantasy setting; the real world waited for them. Nothing had changed, she thought to herself as she dressed. She was still the wrong woman for him.
But she didn’t feel glad. Knowing this was the last time she would feel his strong arms around her and give herself up to the pleasures of his kisses, she felt a dull ache grip her. She was thankful the jolting of the car on the drive home gave her an excuse to wrap her arms protectively around herself. This particular ache would take a long time to heal.
Exhausted by the emotional strain and the demands of the endless night, she let her head drop back against the headrest. She would only close her eyes for a minute....
Chapter Twelve
Bethany was amazed to open her eyes and find Kylie bending over her, a cup of tea in her hand. “Good afternoon.”
Disoriented, Bethany sat up. “Afternoon? What time is it?”
“It’s lunchtime. It was after six this morning when you and Nicholas got back. You must have been exhausted. You didn’t wake up even when he carried you inside.”
“Carried me?” The thought of Nicholas carrying her anywhere was enough to set her heart racing. The night’s events rushed back—the fire, bringing the babies to Yarrawong and settling them in, the dawn swim at the hot springs and Nicholas taking her into his arms. Her skin flushed as she remembered this last. She had been on fire with wanting him, but he hadn’t wanted her.
It was the right decision, although she fought against accepting it. Worn-out with nervous strain, she must have fallen asleep in the car on the way back to the homestead.
Her former room had been taken over as one of the nurseries for the babies, so where was she? The rustle of satin as she moved confirmed her worst fears. She was in Nicholas’s own bed, swathed in the black satin sheets that had stirred a host of outrageously erotic fantasies the day she arrived.
“I’ve brought you some of my clothes, since you had no chance to bring anything with you,” Kylie volunteered “We’re about the same size, although I’d give a lot to have your shape.”
Kylie had a wonderful figure. The main difference was in Bethany’s more generous hips and cleavage. “There’s nothing wrong with your shape,” Bethany assured her. “It’s kind of you to lend me your things.”
Kylie shrugged off the thanks. “This is the country. People help each other in a crisis.”
“All the same I appreciate it,” Bethany repeated. She looked away. “It was good of Nicholas to lend me his room, too.” Please let him not have spent the night here, she found herself praying. It was bad enough to be told she had slept through being carried to his bed, without discovering she’d shared it with him, as well.
Kylie grinned, anticipating her concern. “He told me to tell you he slept on the couch in the living room. He’s a real gentleman, isn’t he?”
“Yes.” She couldn’t deny it. On the previous occasion when they’d shared a room at the hotel, he had never tried to take advantage of the situation. Maybe he wasn’t tempted, she told herself wryly. Just because she became a quivering wreck every time he touched her didn’t mean he felt the same way. From his behavior at the hot springs it seemed possible. It was probably just as well, but she couldn’t make herself believe it.
She thrust aside the sensuous sheets to find she had slept in her shirt and underwear. Her skirt was folded on a chair near the bed. Had Nicholas...she couldn’t bring herself to ask. The thought of him undressing her and putting her to bed invoked such an image of intimacy that her hands shook as she reached for the clothes Kylie had placed on the end of the bed.
At the door Kylie turned. “Nicholas also said to warn you that a couple of reporters are coming to interview you both about the fire. It seems you’re quite a heroine.”
“Nicholas was the real hero,” Bethany insisted. “All I did was follow his lead.”
“Its not what the press seem to think. They should be here by the time you finish showering and dressing.”
The last thing she wanted to discuss was last night, she thought as she showered, then donned Kylie’s peach, short-sleeved T-shirt and checked skirt. The skirt was shorter than she normally wore and the T-shirt felt snug over her fuller shape. But she had little choice. Her own clothes smelled like smoke.
Nicholas’s inspection was appreciative when she joined him in the living room. A woman with a notebook balanced on her knee and a man with a camera were
already there. The chairs were occupied, so Nicholas made room for her on the couch. She was uncomfortably aware of his knee almost touching hers, the short skirt hitching up to her thighs when she sat down.
“I gather your fiancé was a hero last night,” the journalist commented to her.
Bethany shot Nicholas a confused look. But he merely smiled. “Bethany was the real hero. If she hadn’t broken the window of the office, the director of the shelter might have died from smoke inhalation.”
A lot of things were wrong with his explanation, but the only one that impacted on her befuddled senses was the part about him being her fiancé. She could understand the journalist making such a mistake, but Nicholas seemed in no hurry to correct them.
“I think there’s a misunderstanding here,” she said.
Nicholas slid his arm around her shoulder. “Don’t let my fiancée tell you she isn’t a hero or, even more foolishly, try and give me all the credit. She’s like that, aren’t you, darling?”
Fiancée? Darling? Maybe she was still asleep and dreaming. The journalist beamed at the photographer. “This is a great story. True love and true heroism in one package.”
Frustration gnawed at Bethany. “But it isn’t...”
“Isn’t public knowledge, I know, darling,” Nicholas interrupted again. He smiled at the journalist. “Actually our engagement isn’t official yet. No one else knows.”
He got that right. Bethany felt herself flushing, especially when the journalist added, “Then let us be the first to congratulate you both. I understand you were about to celebrate your engagement when the fire started?”
“Something of the sort,” Nicholas agreed. “We were having dinner at a restaurant near the children’s shelter when we heard the fire engines and went to see if we could help.”
Thankfully the conversation moved on to the fire itself and the details of Stella’s rescue. Again Nicholas insisted on giving Bethany an undue amount of credit, but she was too bemused to argue, even though she had done little enough. He was the one who had risked his life to rescue Stella.