Heartbreak Hero

by Frances Housden

His gaze burned where it touched, at lips, breasts and belly. It made her mouth quiver, her breasts swell, rubbing her nipples against her T-shirt like a come-hither sign, and turned up the heat at the junction of her thighs, leaving her fully aware he didn’t see her as a child.

  “You see any speed-limit signs on the way into Punakaiki? This is just a bump in the road. A truck comes round that corner, it’s not going to stop till it hits the other end of the strip. I’d rather escort you across the highway than clean up the mess.”

  “Crudely put, but succinct. I’ll wait outside.”

  “You do that.”

  By the time they’d crossed the highway, he’d come to the conclusion that Ngaire had earned the right to bitch at him. He’d bombed out at entertaining dinner conversation, leaving all the work to her. Hell, he’d known from the moment they were shown to a table that this day wouldn’t be remembered for his sparkling conversation. Talk about acting like a kid. He’d felt sorry for himself, and there hadn’t been enough wine to drown the blues. Blues and red wine, someone had probably written a song about them.

  If he was ever going to get back on side with Ngaire he’d better stop dragging his ass and work at lifting his mood.

  “Take a look at the sign. You won’t see many places that don’t charge for a view like this. And from the height of the sun we timed it just right.”

  It made him feel like a cur to see her smile. He’d done nothing to deserve it. Not one damn thing. Even now, he couldn’t help notice how her breasts swayed against the front of her T-shirt as she moved closer to read the sign, or the way her neat little butt reminded him of how it felt against his palms as he brought her up against him. He was hard again, getting close to breaking point.

  He could read the signs as easily as the one in front of her.

  The walk through the bush to the boardwalk was gloomy in comparison to the glimpses of flame-red sky flickering beyond the trees between them and the Pancake Rocks.

  Seemed as though the worst moments of his life happened on cliff tops, but tonight Milo Jellic was far from his thoughts. In his mind’s eye, it was Ngaire he saw sail over the rail at Muriwai. It slowed his steps as his gut twisted in a replay of his reaction, when he’d believed she wouldn’t survive the fall.

  Back in the present, a very much alive Ngaire flashed him a grin. Would she always be as willing to forgive him, when he knew it was unlikely he’d forgive himself once this was over?

  “C’mon.” Her hand signaled her eagerness. “Let’s see if the tide is high enough to see the blowhole in action.”

  “There’s only one way to find out.” He caught up and reached for her hand, as if he kept her beside him she’d be safe. Fingers locked with hers, he led them into a tunnel formed by branches.

  She’d never understand Kel, not in a million years. One moment so moody, the next caring, protective, even. It was a new sensation, but wouldn’t last if he knew her better. Maybe it was as well their association was on a deadline.

  Deadline! A misused concept but appropriate in her case. If, God forbid, her shot at breaking the tapu turned out to be a nonevent, she’d have a margin of five weeks, three days and twelve hours to remember this. She wanted them to be happy memories.

  Slowly, she let her gaze travel from their linked hands to his face. So big, so strong, a man to rely on in times of trouble.

  He caught her eyes on him and smiled. “What?”

  She shook her head and looked away. How could she tell him history had repeated itself? Tell him of that magic rush of recognition the moment she first saw him. Broad as his shoulders were, she couldn’t lay the responsibility for her life on them. Oh, she’d been tempted this morning after she’d been attacked in the mist, but it wouldn’t be fair. She needed to take charge of her own happiness. Besides, the recognition might not have been mutual, the way it had been for her grandparents.

  Kel gained her attention by brushing the backs of her fingers against his thigh. With the other hand he gestured toward the earth and sky. “Now, this is what I call something for nothing.”

  The sunset was as good as any she’d seen at the end of a movie. Holding hands, they walked into it together.

  “I had thought it would be bigger.” In all the photos Kel had seen of the Pancake Rocks they’d appeared as giant monolithic stacks ready for a pour of syrup, or melt of butter. Kids’ stuff.

  Reality was pretty good, though. This evening’s sunset silhouetted some ridged towers black, painting others a bloodred that seeped into the waves of surf threatening to smash the rocks to pieces, and never quite succeeding.

  A feeling he knew well. For the first time since joining GDE, he saw it as a thankless job with more lows than highs. If kiss-and-tell’s formula got through, he and others like him would be no more use than those waves, pounding on the drug cartel but barely putting a dent in their thick hides.

  Ngaire tilted her head to look straight into his eyes, a habit she had that made it seem she’d nothing to conceal. “Bigger isn’t always better.”

  The wind spun her hair into a dark clinging web. She brushed it back, not quick enough to stop him winding it round his hand. Heat spiked. It owed nothing to the sunset. Narrowing his gaze didn’t diminish her appeal. Nor did the sudden feeling of inevitability as he made up his mind. A decision made in hell. What the hey? Between father and wife, he was an honorary member of the deceivers club.

  He would take Chaly’s advice and sleep with the enemy, stay with her twenty-four/seven until he found where she’d hidden the formula.

  Getting into the role, he kidded, “Are you casting aspersions on my equipment?”

  “Who, me?” Her gaze dropped from his eyes to his size twelves, resting a fraction too long below his belt, sending a rush of blood to his groin. Her shoulders shook as she laughed.

  So he said, “You had your fill, doll?”

  “Hmm, from what little I remember it’s all in proportion.”

  “You trying to tell me I didn’t make a big impression?”

  “It’s kind of hazy, between the steam and the wine, though I do recall you being very masterful.”

  Her eyes softened as he raised her palm to his lips for a kiss. They widened in surprise as his next move placed it over his zip. “Damned by faint praise, or what, doll?”

  Then he covered her mouth, slanting across her parted lips to gain deeper possession. Her impudent tongue challenged his to a duel he wanted to win. Supporting her hips, he pulled her against him, trapping her fingers, only to feel them slide between his thighs, cupping him. Hunger drove him to groan out a challenge. “I want a chance to remedy your first impression.”

  “Done. Your room or mine?”

  “Yours,” he said, turning as he heard a titter and saw a family almost level. Still holding her close, he slid Ngaire down as the father growled at the teenage girls to “Hush up.”

  Kel watched the mother’s eyes fill with memories; the father just stared. Ngaire sighed and said, “Guess we remind her of a romantic movie, with the sun, wind and rocks.”

  “Yeah, and he wants some of what I’m having.” If only they knew they’d happened upon a spy thriller, not a romance.

  They tumbled, breathless, into Ngaire’s room with the last flames of sunset still licking the windowpane. She’d made them run all the way, made a childish game of it, laughing for him to hurry while they could still see where they were going down the country highway. Her cheerful nonsense tested his resolve to just do the damn thing and think of duty and country, to remember it wasn’t a game. He needed to stop grappling for the answer to Ngaire. To wonder why someone like her worked for the most vicious, greedy souls on God’s earth.

  “I need to go next door and get some condoms.” And do something about removing the gun and holster inside his boot.

  “No worries, I have a whole box.” She dropped her very ordinary day pack on the bed. He found himself staring. How could Chaly have failed to find the formula?

  Ngaire dashed a
cross the room to the luggage stand. The red monstrosity was starting to look the worse for wear with all the handling. She came back with a prettily wrapped package, shredded remnants of blue ribbon hanging from it. “Planning a party?”

  “Leena gave it to me at the airport.”

  “And it’s still unopened.”

  A frown marred her expression. “Of course it’s unopened, I’m not promiscuous, no matter how this looks. Leena just hoped I’d have a good time, but keep safe. I never met anyone I wanted…”

  She left the rest unsaid. The load on his shoulders just got heavier. He didn’t need to know the powerful fascination he felt was reciprocated. Didn’t want to know that in another time, under different circumstances, they might even have loved. Didn’t want to know what real love might have been like.

  “Well, doll, don’t stand there wasting time. Open the box.”

  She threw it to him. “You open it. I want to brush and floss.”

  Suddenly the urgency faded. It became academic; they were going to get into bed together and have sex. It suited him just fine, gave his mind time to take a step back from the proceedings and view it from a distance.

  He ripped the paper from the box, walking away from Ngaire’s day pack. It lay on the red silky bedspread, taunting him to take a look inside.

  She’d given him breathing space, time to get his act together. And that’s what she would get, an act, with only his body engaged and his heart and mind somewhere else.

  Quickly, before she returned, he put the open box on the nightstand and heeled off his boots. His Smith & Wesson went in one and the holster in the other, before he stripped off his socks and pushed them on top. He’d slipped them under the bed, stripped off his shirt and was unsnapping the waist of his khakis when the ensuite door reopened.

  Damned if she wasn’t wearing the white Chinese silk nightdress that he’d stripped from her body night after night in his dreams. Minuscule white panties broke up the expanse of pale bronze, shimmering through sheer translucent folds. Her breasts swayed against it as she crossed the room. It smacked too much of brides and happily ever after for comfort. Yet as his body grew harder, his mind urged it on. So much for being academic.

  The long silky hair he’d imagined caressing his skin flowed through his waiting hands like water as she fitted between the spread of his knees. “Cat got your tongue?” she taunted, well aware of his reaction as the strain on his zipper increased.

  She’d been unsure as she left the room with the mood they’d brought back from the park lying in tatters on the floor. Now Kel stared as if seeing her for the first time, his jaw square and eyes serious. “You’re beautiful, and you know it. Do you really need to hear it from me?”

  “It couldn’t hurt.”

  He leaned forward, grazing his teeth along the taut skin covering her collarbone. His breath dampened the edge of silk lace above her breast. She almost swooned like a silent film starlet when he sucked a beaded nipple into his mouth, silk and all, teasing it with both tongue and teeth.

  Kel lifted his mouth, staring at how the damp nightdress clung to her breast. The wet fabric uncovered a nipple several shades darker than her skin. Tonight, there was no steam, no electronic distance to spoil the view, only a layer of silk he wanted gone.

  “You’re the most beautiful woman I know. And if you don’t get out of that scrap of material ASAP, I’m gonna have to rip it off and bare your skin. That what you wanted to hear?”

  His question came out like whiskey flowing over gravel, and made her shiver inside. “Something along those lines.”

  She navigated her nightdress up to her shoulders as Kel released her hair. Free of his hands, it flowed down her back, brushing the top of her hips, softer treatment than she expected to get from him after last night in the pool. Wasn’t that just what she wanted? A man she couldn’t intimidate?

  Turning her back, she said, “Hold up my hair till I slip out of this. It’s too good to let you rip, as exciting as that sounds.”

  Standing, he held her hair until she said, “Let go now.”

  “Not yet, I’m not done looking.” A quick sleight of hand separated nightdress and hair. He studied her back as though mesmerized. He’d had a yen for her breasts since catching a glimpse at Papeete. But her back? How to describe it? Held straight, it was a masterpiece of line and fluidity, from her shoulders to the roundness of her sweet little derriere separated by a thin strip that disappeared between her buttocks. She was curved, not soft, a lightly muscled, well-taken-care-of look.

  Thoughtfully, gently, he ran a fingertip down her spine, watching the play of her muscles as it passed. He gathered her up against him and turned to face their reflections in glass, mirroring a wine-dark sea and sky, his larger, paler reflection framing hers. Something shifted painfully in his chest.

  “I take it all this perfection is due to working at a gym?”

  Ngaire licked her lips, her body quivering with tension. “What perfection?” she asked, needing to hear him say the words.

  Her hair swept down between them as he demonstrated, cupping both breasts. “These, they fit perfectly in my hands.”

  She shivered, breasts mourning the loss of his hands as they slid lower, caressing her ribs, molding her waist and hips. His thumbs hooked through the narrow elastic holding her panties, loosening them till they pooled at her feet. She stepped out of them.

  Her breath hitched as his fingers forked through the hair at the junction of her thighs with an impatience that made her tingle all over. Dipping lower, he tested her readiness.

  Air left her mouth in a fevered moan.

  One night and already she was addicted to him, to his touch.

  A touch that immediately drew a response, jolting through the tiny nerve endings connected to the nipple he slowly rolled between finger and thumb. She’d thought he couldn’t be gentle, thought he only wanted to dominate, and he did, but with the lightest of caresses. She groaned her pleasure as her insides quickened, and closed her eyes at the wonder of every sensation he created with his skillful hands.

  “Don’t close your eyes, look at your reflection.”

  Wild-eyed with shock, she stared at the sensual image portrayed in the glass. His lighter gold skin outlined pale bronze as he played her body like a finely tuned instrument. The melody raced faster and faster, until her nerves coalesced in a top note so pure, she almost screamed. She fell back, her body lax, satiated and unnerved, against his chest.

  Not giving her time to recover, Kel lifted her in his arms and laid her on the bed. Eyes still blurred from an overdose of sensation, she blinked up at him. “I could be wrong, but only one of us is naked and that doesn’t make sense.”

  He laughed, a dry, ironic sound he had no control over, and removed his khakis and shorts in one swift movement, betraying his eagerness. It might not be moral, it certainly wasn’t ethical, but he was out of control where Ngaire was concerned.

  He wanted her, couldn’t wait to slide inside her body.

  She reached for him and he dodged her hand. “No, you don’t. When I climax, I’m going to be so far inside you that if we die tonight, they won’t be able to tell where you start and I end.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed and prepared himself, surprised to see his hands shaking. He felt her hand on his back, hot, firm, impatient as she told him, “I might have known the romantic stuff wouldn’t last long.”

  He leapt on to the bed, straddling her with his thighs. She looked small and vulnerable, but he couldn’t let it get to him. “What would you rather have? Me, or the romantic phrases?”

  She rolled up off the pillow to meet his mouth, locking her hands round his neck, and said against his lips, “You, only you,” until her words were lost in the kiss.

  Chapter 13

  “A re we here at last?” The bus climbed the hill to a hotel overlooking Lake Wakatipu, and Ngaire for one couldn’t await to arrive. Queenstown lay at the end of a long day, where she’d lost count of souvenir sh
ops, glaciers and waterfalls, after a long night of interrupted sleep. The man was insatiable.

  The town might be the adventure capital of New Zealand, but she couldn’t think of anything she wanted more than dinner, a hot shower and sleep, except maybe Kel.

  Definitely Kel. She’d turned to him in the night just as eager to make love as he was. A brush of his hand on her skin was enough to set her pulse racing, and tired as she was, the heat of desire still burned.

  With rooms assigned to both McKay and Johnman, they crossed to the hotel rooms overlooking the lake with Kel toting the luggage instead of waiting for a porter. She’d been on the point of suggesting getting just one room when he’d said, “Might as well get both rooms since they’re paid for. I wouldn’t like to confuse the staff by upsetting their arrangements.”

  The scratch on the back of her calf felt hot against the inside of her mended jeans. She couldn’t wait to get out of them. And into something lighter, like her skin.

  Kel must have noticed her hesitation as they reached her door and he put down her case. “Just chuck your gear inside and check out the facilities. Five minutes and we’re out of here before the restaurant gets too crowded.”

  “I’m not that hungry,” she said, realizing that suddenly the shower was more inviting.

  Then he said, “You have to eat, they’re going to keep us busy all day tomorrow. Only three more of them and the tour’s over.”

  She was another day closer to her birthday, and maybe her demise. Blinking, she realized despair had come out of tiredness. As if sensitive to her thoughts, she felt a comforting pulse from the mere inside her day pack.

  Kel, too, seemed to have picked up the vibes, though his courtesy made her feel more pampered than comforted. “You do look sort of shattered. What say we compromise and get room service?”

  “I’d say that sounds like a plan. Five minutes to dump your stuff and get back here.”

  “I thought I’d shower first. You can order if you like. I’m not choosey.” Pushing away from her door he slung his suit carrier over his shoulder, straightening his large body. After last night she knew it as well as her own. That was all it took to make her body hum in anticipation. “We could shower together.”