Princes of the Outback Bundle

by Bronwyn Jameson

  Nine

  When Zara exited the library at four o’clock and found him waiting outside, she pulled up so suddenly that a couple of students following behind plowed right into her. She murmured an apology but her eyes didn’t shift from his and her feet seemed incapable of resuming motion.

  He’d seen her, of course, and as she forced herself to get moving again, as she casually descended the flight of steps to the roadside, he smiled and all those tightly wadded emotions softened to mush. She smiled right back and thought life could only get better if he met her halfway across the wide, pebbled concrete footpath and kissed her.

  He didn’t. He stood still and straight beside a dark vehicle, and something primitive flitted across his expression. It resounded through her body, heavy in her breasts and tight in her chest and rich in her belly. And beneath the hard hum of that instinctual response, she heard the dull clang of a warning bell.

  Caution, Zara. Remember this morning? You only agreed to see him again because he’d promised to take it slow, to make it easy.

  Smile tamped by caution, she stopped in front of him. “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for you.”

  She gave him a well, duh look. “How did you know where to find me?”

  “From your housemate.”

  “Not my boyfriend?” she countered, recalling the first time he’d called her home to finagle information from Tim.

  “Not your boyfriend.” And there, in his eyes, that same territorial darkness as before.

  Zara stiffened her spine, determined to control her female flutter of response. Determined to muster some kind of affront. “You called my home and you asked my housemate about my plans for today?”

  “I needed to know what time you’d be finished,” he said evenly. “Since you left this morning without saying.”

  “What if I’d changed my plans? What if I’d told Tim I would be at the library and then I’d left early?”

  “Then I’d have missed you and you wouldn’t have had the pleasure of my company.”

  As if that answer weren’t enough, he railroaded her with a slow smile and before she could recover, turned and opened the door of his vehicle. A charcoal dark four-wheel drive, probably some luxury model and so up to the minute she could smell the new-car aroma.

  He took her backpack, heavy with books, from her arms but Zara stood her ground. “I can’t go with you, Alex.”

  Half-turned toward the vehicle, he paused. His eyes narrowed a fraction. “You said you would see me tonight.”

  After he’d lifted her onto the cool, wet vanity in the hotel bathroom. After he’d discovered, with devastating effect, that she hadn’t found her panties.

  That knowledge, that memory burned dark in his narrowed eyes and sparked all kinds of embers in Zara. “You didn’t play fair,” she said.

  “All’s fair, sweetheart.” As if to prove that point, he hooked a hand around her neck and drew her into his kiss. Brief, bone-melting, breathtaking. Then he opened the back door and slung her bag inside.

  “I have my bike.”

  “Tim took it home.”

  “Come again?” she said, stiffening. Incipient outrage chased away the shimmery warmth of his kiss. “Are you saying you arranged for my bike to be gone?”

  He didn’t deny it. In fact—smart man—he didn’t say anything. He studied her quietly and then he touched a hand to her hair, threading a loose strand back behind her ear. “I’m sorry.

  “Tim said whenever you needed to borrow his car he would take your bike.” His thumb caressed the curve of her ear, and he shifted his weight, moving close enough that his breath warmed her forehead. “I wouldn’t have made arrangements if I’d thought you would mind.”

  He sounded sincerely apologetic. Between his scent and his touch and the deep, earnest quality to his voice, Zara felt her irritation give and bow. She leaned into his touch and, maybe it was her imagination, but she swore she felt satisfaction in the smile he pressed to her forehead.

  Damn him, he’d gotten his own way again. She was seeing a pattern here.

  Eyes narrowed, she climbed into the car, pulled on her seat belt and waited. Once he’d joined her and angled the big vehicle onto the road, she turned to study him. “You’re very used to arranging things to suit yourself, aren’t you?”

  One brow raised, he cut her a slow look. “You make that sound like a bad thing. What I’m doing is making things easier all around.”

  “For you.”

  “And for you.”

  That was what disturbed her about a relationship with Alex Carlisle. He tempted her to let him take charge. He weakened her resolve with a look, with a kiss, with a smile. He changed her mind as swiftly as a heartbeat, and made her lose control of her logic and her senses.

  Last night she’d gone to dinner firmly resolved not to sleep with him. Then she’d convinced herself she deserved one night in his bed, one night of taking the pleasure and letting it fill the ache of loneliness that had felt more acute in the week since they’d met.

  And then, in the bathroom this morning, he’d had his way again. She’d let him change her mind. She’d let him talk her into another night.

  That weakness of willpower was all kinds of wrong.

  Lost in her unsettling thoughts, she only realized he’d taken a left out of the car park a couple of blocks after the event. “Aren’t we going back to your hotel?”

  “No.” His sideways glance was narrow, assessing. “We’re going out of town.”

  That made her sit up straight, riled again by his high-handedness. “What if I have work tomorrow?”

  “Do you?”

  “I have to study.”

  “You have your books with you.” He tipped his head to indicate her backpack. “Do you need others?”

  “I…” Frowning, she let her breath go with a hiss of exasperation.

  “Remember this morning when I asked you to spend the night with me?”

  How could she not remember? Stunned after another shattering orgasm, from the tenderness in his face as he carried her into the shower, by the deep gravity of his voice when he asked.

  “I remember,” she said, her voice laced with those memories.

  “You said you weren’t that comfortable with five-star hotel suites. I decided we should spend tonight somewhere you would be comfortable.” He kept his focus on the road and the city traffic as he switched lanes. “Do you want to go home to change? To get some more things?”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  A suppressed smile twitched at his mouth. “That’s a surprise.”

  “You can’t just pick me up and cart me off to God-knows-where,” she said, trying for offended but sounding more intrigued than anything. Her heartbeat thickened. Where did he think she would be comfortable? How well did he think he knew her?

  “I’m not abducting you.”

  “No?”

  “Although I did think about it.” His tone was conversational. The look he cast her wasn’t. “Blindfolding you, taking a few wrong turns to throw your sense of direction off.”

  “No handcuffs? No tying me up?”

  “We can still manage that…if you ask nicely.”

  Whew. His voice turned silky and the picture he painted rippled through her, dark with erotic promise. Zara’s nipples tightened sharply, and when she shifted in her seat, trying to ease the restless prowl of arousal, her camisole rasped against those hard points. She rolled her shoulders forward to ease the pressure. Saw him looking. Knew he knew he’d turned her on.

  “No need to look so smug.”

  He laughed, a soft, dark sound that wasn’t smug at all. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I turned myself on, too.”

  Okay, so that comment was just begging for her attention. Giving up on hiding her own reaction, she turned in her seat. Enough for her gaze to slide over him, touching the freshly shaven contours of his face and neck. The smoky-blue polo shirt, designer issue, natch. The hand he dropped from
the wheel to rest lightly on his thigh, blocking her view of his lap.

  Except then she got completely caught up in the slight tension in that hand, in the smattering of dark hair and the curve of muscle in his forearm. In the spread of his thighs against the car seat and the memory of them naked, thick and achingly male as they slid between hers, urging them apart, opening her to his first powerful thrust.

  Omigod. She had to stop thinking about sex. She had to stop herself before she demanded he pull over, before she gave in to the wanton urge to reach out and touch the hard line she imagined inside those soft denim pants.

  Before she caused a damn traffic accident.

  Staring sightlessly through the windscreen, she breathed deeply until she’d centered herself. Her fingers, she noticed now, were curled tightly into the heels of her hands. Lucky she didn’t have nails worth a razoo or she might have done herself an injury!

  An awkwardness stretched in the silence, or maybe just through her still-jangling hormones, and she felt she had to say something. The first thing that came to mind was, naturally, situated below his waist. “You’re wearing jeans.”

  “Is this a problem?”

  “No…just unexpected.”

  “I grew up wearing jeans.”

  In the outback. She kept forgetting that, blinded by the man in the suit or the exclusive designer casuals of last night. Even naked—and that’s how she’d been picturing him a lot today—his first-class body was framed in sheets so soft, so fine, so exquisite, she’d been afraid they would melt under the heat of their joined bodies.

  She’d forgotten last weekend and all the layers uncovered at the cabin.

  Clarity snapped in her brain. That was it. How slow could she be in putting the clues together? His jeans. The four-wheel drive. A place he knew she enjoyed.

  She whipped around, leaning into the center console. “You’re taking me back to the cabin, aren’t you?”

  “Is that okay?” Their gazes met for a brief moment before his returned to the road. “You said it was your favorite place.”

  Wow. Yes. She probably had. But what stole her breath, tightening her chest and creeping beneath her defenses, was that he’d remembered. That he could have taken her anywhere—could have put her on his private jet and flown her anywhere in the world, most likely—but he’d chosen the simple. Her perfect place. That disturbed and delighted her in equal measures.

  “I’m gobsmacked.”

  “Is that good?” he asked, and she might have imagined the hesitancy. The hint of uncertainty in his smoky gaze before it switched back to the front. “I thought you’d appreciate the quiet to study.”

  “What about you?”

  “I can fish.”

  She probably gaped at him like an aquarium guppy. Luckily he was watching the road and didn’t see. Quite simply, she couldn’t picture him doing anything so restful. Despite the hidden layers. She remembered his pacing, prowling, unable to sit still for more than a few minutes that night at the cabin. “You fish?”

  “Not in a long while,” he admitted.

  “I bet you haven’t had a weekend off in a long while.”

  When he didn’t answer, Zara knew she was right.

  “Did you bring work with you?” she teased, turning to peer into the back. Her attention snagged, not on a computer case or a briefcase, but on several boxes of camping supplies. Bedding. What looked like a stereo.

  “Wow. You’ve come prepared.”

  “Impressed?”

  No, she refused to be impressed by what he’d probably asked the hotel concierge to organize. “Are you trying to impress me?”

  “Isn’t that what first dates are all about?”

  Is that what this was? A first date? Zara narrowed her eyes at him. “What was last night, then?”

  He smiled, and the sideways look he cast smoked with meaning. Yet, somehow, despite that look of pure sex, he managed to keep his voice completely even, completely innocent, when he said, “That was just a meal. Remember?”

  “In which case, I’m really looking forward to what you can do with a real date.”

  His laughter, rich with amusement, hot with promise, rolled over her and for a long minute she let herself tumble with it. Completely turned on. Completely unrepentant about wanting him and wanting to spend the rest of this weekend with him.

  Later she could regret it. Later when, again, she would have to find the words to say goodbye.

  Something in his expression shifted, stilling the laughter and thickening its warm resonance in her body. “What?” she asked, needing to know what that look was about.

  “I was just thinking how beautiful you are.”

  And, yes, when he looked at her like that, she could almost believe him. Yet, instinct cautioned her to shake her head dismissively. He caught the gesture and didn’t let it go.

  “You have a beauty spot on your cheek.” His gaze touched her there. “Another on your neck.” And shifted to that spot, exposed by her open-necked shirt and her hair pulled back in a ponytail. “And then there’s the third…”

  On her breast. She felt his gaze lower, the stroke of heat, the sweet yearning for his hand, his mouth. The magic way he had with his tongue.

  “Three proves it.”

  She shook her head, to clear the sexual heat. To counter with her own show of three. “My nose is too big. My face is too long. My teeth are too big.”

  “You have big teeth? Show me?” She bared them in a fake snarl and he laughed. “Sweetheart, you can bite me anytime.”

  “We can manage that…if you ask nicely.”

  Their eyes met again, a glancing slide of promise and anticipation that made Zara wish for the hotel suite. Any hotel suite. And then to decide that, no, she liked this teasing fore-play. The verbal sparring. The knowledge that she’d found a man—a lover!—with a clever mind and a clear focus.

  A man she couldn’t intimidate.

  A man who’d vowed to protect her. Always.

  “You need the left lane here,” she said quickly, pointing out the sign off the freeway, and for several minutes he concentrated on crossing traffic and finding the road that wound into the Dandenongs. Young gums, as tall and straight and slender as supermodels, edged the road and Zara relaxed a little, imagining their calming eucalyptus scent in her nostrils.

  Oh, yes, he had chosen well. She would enjoy tonight and tomorrow. She closed her eyes and—

  “Tell me about your sister.”

  Damn. A dormant memory awakened suddenly to grab her by the throat. Last night, in bed, she’d murmured something about her sister and then she’d distracted him and distracted herself.

  How could she have forgotten that slip? How could she have imagined that he-of-the-clever-mind would forget?

  “She’s my half sister, actually,” she said. “Four months older than me, although she swears I act like the big sister.”

  “His legitimate daughter?”

  “Yes.” And without mentioning names, she told him how she’d met Susannah and how they’d become friends. How Susannah acknowledged their blood relationship when none of her family wanted to know, and how she’d promised to keep that relationship secret for the sake of her mother. “She’s quite fierce about protecting her mother.”

  “I think I’d like your sister,” he said, and Zara’s heart thumped hard in her chest.

  “I’m sure you would.”

  Hard as she tried, that statement did not come out level and free of irony. Breath held, Zara waited for him to comment, to stop looking at her in that puzzling way. In the end she couldn’t stand the weight of the tension. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Trying to imagine how she could be more beautiful.”

  “Look, I’m not being precious about this beauty thing. I know I stand out in a crowd, but that comes with being an Amazon. People can’t help but notice me.” Frowning, she struggled to explain without even knowing why she needed to explain, why she couldn’t just accept that t
his man found her beautiful and run with the lovely feelings that invoked. “I matured early. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t the tallest in my class, but I wasn’t always this lean, this fit.”

  “You worked hard at that?”

  “I drove myself,” she admitted, “after Mum got sick. I started running as a way of getting out in the open air for a while. Then I started to run to escape. Then I ran until it hurt.”

  “And when that didn’t hurt enough, you took up kickboxing.”

  She smiled tightly, acknowledging his astuteness. “I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t for the right reason.”

  “An aggressive release because your mother was hurting? Because you were hurting? What’s wrong with those reasons? Better than having a breakdown from holding it all inside.”

  He would know, she realized, thinking about his mother. How she’d broken down from grief and the pressure of media hounding. They lapsed into silence for several minutes, several miles, and despite the aching sadness she always felt when remembering her mother’s pain, Zara also felt a measure of comfort in knowing she could share this part of her life, so long held closely guarded, with another person.

  How easy it was to share with him; how unexpected he was.

  “She shouldn’t have suffered so cruelly,” she said softly, the ache of remembered sadness thick in her voice. “No matter how hard I ran or how hard I punched and kicked, that never got any easier to take.”

  Zara woke with a start, surprised she’d relaxed enough to nod off in the passenger seat. Sitting up straight, she stretched the kink in her neck and the arm scrunched against the door handle and looked around.

  They’d stopped. Her heart skipped a beat as she noticed where they had stopped. Her gaze zeroed in on the familiar outpost store and the couple she could see through the large front window. Alex, of course, looking tall and broad and heart-kickingly gorgeous in those jeans. He leaned against the counter watching Carmel, her mouth in nonstop motion, stack supplies into a large box.