Blaze

by Willa Fox

  Blaze

  Summer Down Under Four

  Willa Fox

  WARNING: Adult content. Explicit sex and language. Not intended for readers under eighteen.

  Text Copyright © 2019 by Willa Fox

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, (electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher of this book. For more information visit www.willafox.com.

  All names, characters, groups and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and all opinions expressed by the characters, whose preferences and attitudes are entirely their own. Any similarities to real persons or groups, living or dead are coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Contents

  1. Nate

  2. Tammy

  3. Nate

  4. Tammy

  5. Nate

  6. Tammy

  7. Nate

  8. Tammy

  9. Nate

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  1

  Nate

  Sometimes I wonder if any of this is worth it. I flick my eyes over the plans in front of me and can’t help feeling a sense of dread. I know why there are red flags going off in my mind. It’s because what we’re proposing to build in place of that park is soulless. My old man doesn’t seem to have the same issues as he drones on and on about how much money the company is going to make.

  Alastair’s salt and pepper brows crease. I’m going to have to do some damage control again. As I suspect, he follows me back to my office after the briefing. “This isn’t what I agreed to,” Alastair says. “The council and residents are going to be up in arms.”

  “I know,” I tell him, trying hard not to let my anger show. “He blindsided me with the new dimensions as well. But he does have a point. If we’re going to build we might as well make it profitable.”

  Alastair’s jaw flexes. Part of the deal he cut with us when he sold us the Caretaker’s Lodge and the surrounding parkland was that he be consulted in every aspect of the planned development. This is a seaside town and the residents are vocal about keeping its character. My old man seems to think otherwise and he’s an expert at greasing the council’s wheels. The permit has already been approved because the parkland is technically not Heritage listed. There’s nothing stopping us from building except public scrutiny.

  The intercom on my phone buzzes. “Nathaniel,” Susie says, “There’s a Tamara Baker out here who wishes to speak to you.”

  The name makes my hackles rise. This woman has been calling and writing to us mercilessly since the planning sign post has been put up on the land. Alastair’s mouth flat lines. “She doesn’t have an appointment,” I tell Susie.

  “I know,” she fires back. “I’ve been trying to impress that on her but she won’t –”

  “This is ridiculous,” I hear a soft, feminine voice say.

  “Wait!” Susie calls out. Next thing I know my office door is being shoved open. The creature who races in isn’t anything like I’d pictured her to be. In my head she’s some rumpled hippy in sandals who stinks of day old sweat. What I get is a blue-eyed young woman with legs for days and curves that make my cock stand up to attention.

  Instead of addressing me, she throws Alastair a glare. “I can’t believe you’re agreeing to this,” she says.

  The man who was grilling me earlier seems to shrink. He turns into a doting old man. “You know I don’t have much of a choice, Tammy.”

  She literally stamps her foot. “Don’t sell.”

  I clear my throat, not at all liking that she’s ignoring me. “I’m afraid it’s too late for that. The sale is pretty much in the bag. If it helps we’re compensating Alastair well for it.”

  Alastair cringes. The look she gives me could strip paint.

  “That’s all this is to you isn’t it?” she says. Taking a step closer, she skewers me with those eyes that sparkle like jewels. “Just more money in your already bloated bank account. Never mind that those apartments are an eyesore and it’ll ruin the ecology of the dunes.”

  I know I should be concentrating on what she’s saying but my focus is on the pout of her lower lip. Her mouth is perfect. Soft, pink and plump. I can’t help imagining what it would feel like wrapped around my cock. My gaze drops to her lush tits that are practically heaving from her dash into my office.

  Susie clears her throat from the doorway. “I’ll call security if you want, Mr. Hunter.” My head jerks up. It’s so jarring to hear her call me that. I don’t like it. That’s what she calls my old man and the connotations are too similar.

  “It’s fine,” I say, waving her off. She gives me a nod and leaves.

  “Would you mind giving us some privacy, Alistair?” I ask. He glances from me to Tamara and I can see he’s going to refuse. It’s not surprising that they know each other. The locals around here are tight. What does catch me off guard is how raw I feel about it. Something scraps at my skin at the idea of this woman knowing anyone more intimately than me. Which is ludicrous, but I can’t seem to reign in my feelings.

  “It’s fine, Al,” Tamara says. The jealous beast inside me flares up. Her eyes widen for a second. Alistair looks back at us when he reaches the door but he leaves us in peace.

  “You know I can have you arrested for trespassing,” I say, allowing the smile to tip the corners of my mouth.

  She snorts. “I went to school with half of the officers in this precinct,” she says. “Go ahead and call the cops.” While she speaks, her eyes scan the plans that I still have open on my desk. Too late I swipe them away.

  “That’s even more of a monstrosity than the original plans,” she snarls. There’s so much fire in her voice that I’m surprised she doesn’t set my office ablaze. I can’t help imagining what it would feel like for all that passion to be redirected elsewhere. She slams her hand down on the table when my gaze dips to the spot between her legs. She crosses them, making her thick thighs rub together. I think for a second she’s trying to kill me. My cock is so hard at this point I can feel it pushing against my pants.

  “What is it you expect me to do, Ms. Baker?”

  “Tammy,” she says.

  I turn my head to the side. “Tammy.” Her name is pleasant on my tongue. I want to whisper it in her ear as I shove into her from behind.

  “I expect someone in this stupid company to have some decency,” she ploughs on without knowing all the dirty things I want to do to her. “And since it’s not your father, I was hoping you might be more reasonable.”

  Something she says strikes me. “My father? You spoke to him?”

  She nods. The face she makes is adorable. Hers isn’t a face that should be marred by dislike. “He actually laughed at me. I did not appreciate it.”

  I can just imagine. What I can’t fathom is the kind of conviction it takes to go head to head with my old man. I’ve seen him make grown men cry. And here’s this woman with no money to back her up and she’s willing to take him on.

  “So?” she says, and I realise I haven’t been listening to her as I contemplate having her on her back.

  “So?” I repeat.

  She grits her jaw. “Are you going to help me or not?”

  “That depends on whether you’ll have dinner with me or not.” I’ve lost my mind. My old man is going to have a fit if he finds out I’m even entertaining her. But I don’t give a shit. All I can think about is finding a way to keep
her around.

  “Beg your pardon?” She sounds anything but polite. Her voice goes up an octave.

  I finally stand and walk out from around the table, well aware that the bulge in my pants is on display. Her golden lashes lower as she notices I’m hard and it makes me even hotter. When she glances up again, her cheeks have coloured. It makes me think she’s actually younger than she lets on. I draw up inches away from her and brush the back of my hand over her cheek. She blinks but doesn’t flinch.

  “I don’t have time right now but if you have dinner with me on Friday night we can discuss it then.”

  I can see the scepticism on her face. Then she swallows hard. My male ego latches onto that involuntary movement. She might not want me like I want her yet but she’s interested enough to consider my proposal. Even if it’s completely out of self-interest. That’s all I need.

  After another beat, she nods. I grin and reach over the table to grab my phone. I punch in the number she gives me and her address as well. “I’ll pick you up at seven,” I say.

  “Okay,” she says. “I get to choose what we do.”

  The alarms in my mind are definitely going off but I shut them down. If she wants to dance barefoot through a pit of burning coals, I’ll agree. Five seconds after she’s gone my old man comes barging into my office wanting to know what happened. As I recount what happened and he goes into stuffy meltdown mode, it occurs to me that for the first time ever, I just don’t give a shit what he thinks.

  2

  Tammy

  I stand in front of the floor length mirror in my bedroom and groan. “What the hell was I thinking?” I whine to my cousin Anna who is sitting cross legged on the bed.

  “Beats me,” she says. “You’re literally going out on a date with the devil.”

  “It’s not a date.”

  She raises a brow at me. “Right. And you haven’t tried on about twenty outfits in the last hour.”

  I stare at the pile of discarded clothing choices and pace to the bed. Half of them don’t even fit anymore. Between work, night school and keeping up with all stuff happening on the foreshore, eating right hasn’t exactly been on the agenda. My sixteen-year-old lifeguard self was turning in her grave.

  I throw myself down next to Anna. She moved in with her boyfriend Bastian a couple of weeks ago but she’s still here a lot while he’s at work. I am always grateful for the company.

  “Why did I agree to this?” I ask.

  She taps something into her phone and then shoves it in front of my face. “Because he looks like this,” she says. The picture in the local paper doesn’t do him justice. It’s like a blurry version of him. None of that mattered while I was cursing his family and hoping for their untimely demise. But when I opened his office door and came to a stop in the middle of the room, his presence hit me like a wave to the shore. Soulless developers are meant to be spindly and pale. Not built like iron men with smiles that make your panties melt off.

  I place my hands over my face and groan. Anna pats my shoulder. “Do you seriously think there’s a chance he might listen to your proposal?” she asks. I bite the inside of my cheek.

  “I don’t know. He’s hard to read.” He wasn’t really. Not about one thing. I still feel heat crawl up my neck when I think about his hard on when he stepped around his desk to speak to me. Urgh. I cannot be attracted to him. “His dad was a piece of work.”

  “We knew that already. The Hunters have been carving up the foreshore piece by piece for years.”

  She’s right about that. The Hunters are real estate royalty around these parts. They’ve practically got the council in their back pockets. I haven’t had much to do with them besides the odd protest but when I found out that Alistair was selling the Lodge and the park to them, I almost blew my stack.

  Anna takes me hand in hers, knowing where my thoughts are focused. My parents used to take us to stay at the Lodge every summer. The year before I started university they were involved in a hit and run. And now the place where I had my happiest memories with them is going to be torn down to make way for blocks of apartments.

  My hand fists on the bedspread. It just can’t happen. I’ll jump in front of a wrecking ball if I have to. The staunch reminder of why I’m doing this helps me pick an outfit. I settle on a stretchy sky blue skater skirt and a matching blouse. Anna runs out while I dress to pick up the picnic basket I’ve ordered from the artisan bakery and deli on the main street in town. She drops it on the kitchen table and gives me a hug.

  “Don’t forget you’re not alone in this,” she says. “The whole town is chomping at the bit about this happening too.”

  She waves as her phone rings. That’ll be Bastian wanting to know where she is. I’m putting on my sandals when I hear another engine roll up the driveway. My heart kicks in my chest. I swipe my hands on my skirt to get rid of the clamminess. It doesn’t work. It’s too hot to put make up on. I have plans for us to eat outside so I don’t want my face melting. The knock on the door almost makes me jump.

  I grab the basket from the table and open the door. He’s leaning against the frame, his head rested against the brick. Gone is the stuffy shirt and suit. In their place are blue jeans and an eggshell blue shirt. The way he’s standing highlights the definition in his arms. My throat is too dry.

  “Hi,” he says. His gaze sweeps down the length of me and settles where the top cuts off at my midriff. It isn’t supposed to but my tummy has other ideas. I try to pull the material back down. “You look great.”

  “Thanks.” I bite my lip. “So do you.”

  He grins and reaches out to take the basket from me. His brow rises. “So I take it we’re not going to eat out.”

  “I thought we could sit on the dunes.”

  He unlocks his car and opens the passenger door for me. When he brushes past, the woody scent of his aftershave hits me in the gut. I have to dig my nails into my palm to stop the images of him sliding his big body over mine. What would his skin smell like glistening with sweat and…Argh! I must make a noise because he looks at me strangely when he gets into the car after stowing the basket in the back seat.

  “Where to?”

  His lips twist into when I think could be a suppressed smile when I direct him right to the site of the proposed apartment development. “I suppose it’s not too much of a leap to think that you’re not going to let this go?”

  “You have no idea how relentless I can be.” His gaze drops to my mouth. I realise then that my voice has gone husky. Dammit! I open the door and hastily get out. The warm breeze on my face doesn’t really help the way I’m flushing.

  The Lodge is still in business but there’s a sign outside the wooden doors that says it’s for sale. I have to redirect my gaze to the vast lawns around it that slowly turn over into gravel and then rocks and then sand.

  The Lodge is located on the edge of a lesser populated part of the beach. This section is patrolled by the lifeguards. At this time of year, the beach is crawling with people. It’s almost eight in the evening but the sun won’t go down for at least another hour. Nate appears beside me with the picnic basket in his hands.

  He glances sidelong at me. “Where can we go that isn’t crowded with people?” he asks.

  “This is hardly a crowd.” I want to point out that he comes from the city, but now doesn’t seem like the time. He’s eyeing off some guys in their surf gear who are watching us. Without speaking, I start walking down the embankment. On the way I find myself pointing out things of interest. At least they’re interesting to me.

  “That’s where you stand so that you can see the lighthouse on the other side of the peninsula turn on its lights at sundown,” I say. I point to a shallow spot on the beach we pass. “That’s where Jared taught me to swim.”

  “Who’s Jared?” There’s a distinct edge to his voice that makes me shiver.

  “My cousin.”

  My arm does a sweep of the general area where the Surf Life Saving Club rises out of the dun
es in the distance. “When we were younger, we were all lifeguards full time during the summer. Now we just hang out there a lot.”

  “You’re a lifeguard?”

  “Semi-retired.”

  “And what do you do now?”

  “I’m doing my Masters degree in Marine Biology and Ecology. I work for the Council.” Fat lot of good that’s done me though. I don’t tell him I’ve had a run in with my department head already about all the extra-curricular protesting I’ve been doing. We come to a stop in a spot that overlooks the beach but that’s not easy to navigate unless you’re a local. On either side we’re shouldered by boulders that reach almost all the way to the water.

  “Secluded enough for you?” I ask.

  He’s got a strange look on his face when I turn around. I’m not sure what I’ve said that’s made it happen. I don’t know if I really care.

  “It’s perfect,” he says, but he’s looking right at me. I get busy setting up the picnic blanket and food so he doesn’t see that my hands are trembling. This is not supposed to be fun. I’ve dealt with insanely rich, developer guys before. They’re not usually this agreeable.

  “What’s up with that face you’re making?” he says suddenly.

  “What face?”

  He reaches out to tip my head up. Too late I see he’s taken a snap of it using his phone. When he shows me the picture I have to agree that I look sort of constipated. “It’s nothing.”

  “Sure it is.”

  “No it’s not.”

  “Tammy.”

  I take plates of cold cuts and deli goods out of the basket. If we were eating at a table I’d be making a ruckus with how heavily I set everything down. But the sand cushions my banging so that it’s hardly audible.