“No. Superman is a superhero. His alpha-ego is a reporter,” Drew said.
“Got it. His alter-ego, Clark Kent.”
Drew frowned but nodded.
“When I was a boy, I wanted to be a reporter just like Super—Clark Kent. One time, my dad had to go away to a country called Bangladesh for three weeks—”
“Did you miss him?”
Nate crouched so he could look into the boy’s eyes. “Like crazy.”
“I don’t miss my daddy; he was mean.” Drew’s gaze was steady and unflinching.
“I’m sorry.”
Drew shrugged one skinny shoulder, a gesture that nearly shattered the remnants of Nate’s composure. He took a deep breath and ran his thumb along the tattered edge of the cover.
“So before my dad went away, he gave me this.” He showed Drew the plastic sleeve and bootlace. “He told me it was my very own reporter’s press pass, and when I wore it, I could have lots of adventures, and I’d remember he was close to me even if he wasn’t around.”
Nate draped the bootlace lanyard over Drew’s head. “This is yours now. While I’m gone, you need to be brave like Superman, have lots of adventures, and look out for your mum. Okay?”
Nate doubted the kid knew what the ancient scrap of card meant. How he’d carried it around with him for years, a talisman of his father’s love. And how, for the first time, his hardened resolve had cracked enough for him to want to pass that talisman on.
Drew wrapped a small fist around the plastic sleeve and paralyzed Nate with a patented, older-than-his-years stare.
“Are you going to be my new dad?”
A sucker punch, delivered straight to the heart. Nate stood, ruffled Drew’s hair and tried a laugh, which came out a frog-ish croak. “Ah, I think I make a better mate to you, kid, than I would a dad.”
“Can’t you be both?” The wistfulness in Drew’s tone had Nate slamming shut his camera case and closing the car door.
“Tell you what. How about I find my cooler and pick up some of that special ice cream you’ve been dying to try?” His voice sounded like a drowning man clutching at a pile of twigs.
Drew immediately brightened. “Cookie dough with chocolate chunks?”
“That’s the one. I’ll grab a big tub on the way back, and we’ll eat like men until we puke—how does that sound?”
“Awesome!” The kid vibrated with excitement and bolted toward Lauren. “Muuum! Nate says we’re gonna eat ice cream ‘til we puke!”
The urge to flee the emotions churning through Nate overpowered his pride. He had to get this property done and dusted before he completely lost his mind.
“I’m on a deadline, you know,” he muttered to God-knows-who and stomped back to his house.
He needed to get away from here. Away from Lauren and the boy he’d already started to see as his.
***
Nate studied the half-ripped crowd at The Sea Witch with jaded eyes. How had he become the sullen dude perched at the end of a bar, nursing a beer? He’d spent the afternoon skulking around the touristy but scenic Paihia in the Bay of Islands, with his camera at the ready to catch the mood of the people gathering for tomorrow’s protest. What little enthusiasm he’d started with had quickly frayed.
Indigo walls and modern art, which looked to him like a child’s tantrum caught on canvas, were the only interesting things to stare at while he sipped his beer. He adjusted the camera hanging around his neck and closed his eyes against some perky, remade pop song, which was so loud it made his teeth hurt.
After Steve died—not in his arms, exactly, as the ornery bugger waited until Nate left on a bathroom break to take his final breath—Nate had lost his taste for bar crawls and all-nighters. He didn’t want to spend the evening with a bunch of strangers. He wanted to be tucked up on Lauren’s couch with Drew snoring on one side and Lauren snuggled against his hip on the other.
He shoved the beer aside and slid off the stool, weaving through the crowd until he hit the sidewalk of Paihia’s million-dollar-view foreshore. Striding back to his hotel room, Nate punched Lauren’s number into his phone.
“I got a mini-suite with a separate bedroom—why don’t you both come over for the night?” he said when she answered.
“Oh, Nate. Well…”
It cost him a large chunk of his pride to say, “I know I should’ve asked before I even left Bounty Bay, but I didn’t think. I miss you, Lauren. I miss you both already.”
Then he tried to lighten the desperation in his voice by adding, “It’ll be like a sleepover. You and Drew take the queen bed, and I’ll sleep on the couch. Tomorrow Drew’ll have a blast in the hotel’s swimming pool—it’s got a waterslide and everything.”
Another pause hissed down the line.
“Todd and Kathy have taken Drew for a couple of nights,” she said. “They’ve gone to stay with one of Todd’s friends.”
She was alone? Nate’s pulse accelerated, and he licked suddenly dry lips, pressing the phone hard against his ear as if it would somehow bring her closer.
“Come and stay with me, baby. Just the two of us, no distractions. Let me hold you all night instead of having to leave your bed by morning.”
Her soft gasp punched a hot, fistful of lust low into his gut. Right then, he knew if she said no, he’d dump the assignment and drive back.
“I can be there in three hours.”
Her breathier-than-normal voice made him grin like a man who’d just won the lottery.
“I’ll be waiting.” He rattled off the hotel’s address and said goodbye.
Three hours until he could see her smile, taste the softness of her mouth. Two nights to spend making love to her.
As he crossed the road to his hotel, Nate told himself it was enough. That two nights with Lauren would get him through the endless nights alone once he hit the international airport with his camera and backpack.
Chapter 10
After driving for hours, nerves a jittering accompaniment to the blast of the stereo, Lauren parked the station wagon and crossed the parking lot to Nate’s hotel. The small carry bag in her hand felt too light without the kid paraphernalia that usually accompanied her everywhere. Meeting her lover for a weekend in his hotel room—she’d never done that before. Why had she agreed? And what were the unwritten rules in this situation?
She glanced at her shorts and sandals and shivered in the cool night air. Maybe she should’ve dressed up—or at least swiped on some makeup instead of racing out of the house after he’d called, desperate to be with him.
The ride up to his room took forever, the piped-in music scouring away the last of her composure as she exited the elevator and followed the room numbers. Outside his door, she was seconds away from turning tail and making a run back to her car. Then the door opened to Nate, hipshot and bare-chested, dressed only in cargo shorts.
Total yum. Even from the hallway, she caught the scent of shampoo and delicious, clean male. Would it be rude to shove him backward and pounce? Now she really was acting crazy—swinging from nerves to thigh-squeezing desire and back again.
“Good timing.”
He pulled the door open farther, and she stepped inside, the hairs on her arms standing to attention.
Offering him a wan smile, she scanned the room. The switched-on table lamps provided a gentle glow against the darkness pressed up against the outside windows. No champagne bottles on ice, no over-the-top bouquets, and as she followed him through the small living area to the bedroom, no rose petals strewn across the bed’s white comforter. Thank goodness.
Nate took the overnight bag from her hand and tossed it onto a chair.
“Come with me.” He towed her into the gleaming, white-tiled bathroom, the rough calluses on his fingers sending an erotic thrill through her. “I ran you a bath.”
Strawberry-scented white bubbles foamed in a large corner bathtub. The foamy puffs hissing softly as tiny bubbles burst drew some of the tension out of her muscles. “Oh, that’s s
o sweet.”
Clapping a hand to the back of his neck, Nate slanted her a glance. “I knew you’d be tired after that drive, and I didn’t want you to think I’d planned to jump you the minute you walked in.”
His phrasing sent a flush of heat through her. Would she have complained if he had? She smoothed her car-wrinkled clothes with a grimace. “I kind of wondered if I should’ve worn a cocktail dress. I feel underdressed for the occasion.”
He chuckled and looked down at his shorts. “Uh-oh. Should I have gone for the tuxedo and caviar?”
Pressing her lips together to stop a smile, Lauren shook her head. “But you’d be a total fox in a tuxedo.”
“You’re not the champagne and tuxedo type. I know this, because I know you.” His voice caressed her as he reached out and twisted a lock of her hair around his finger. “Now take your bath before it gets cold.”
Nate left her alone, and Lauren stripped, feeling more naked than she had at any other time during their weeks of lovemaking. It’d been easier to avoid real intimacy when they were forced to work around Drew, easier to keep her vulnerable parts hidden away. Because falling in love with Nate left her heart raw and exposed, wide open to fresh scars that he wouldn’t even realize he’d created.
After piling her clothes in the corner of the room, she sank into the bathtub with a groan. She wouldn’t think any more about that tonight. He didn’t love her, he wouldn’t stay and he’d undoubtedly break her heart. But tonight, he’d cared enough to run her a bath and—
Nate walked back into the bathroom with a steaming mug and said, “Chamomile tea?”
And he cared enough to make her tea.
“Put the tea down and come here.”
Nate placed the mug on the counter and sat on the edge of the bath, wiggling his eyebrows. “Want me to wash your back, pretty lady?”
“Not just yet.”
Running a toe over his hand gripping the bath edge, Lauren arched her back so her breasts bobbed up through drifts of white froth. A sharp intake of breath from Nate as his eyes hooded in sensual appreciation. She lifted her foot from his hand and curled her toes into the ridges of his abs. The man was far too dry, far too smug, and she hadn’t forgotten his accusation at the beach that she didn’t have enough fun.
When he stroked his palm down the underside of her calf to the sensitive spot behind her knee, Lauren surged upright, grabbed his wrist and tugged. With a startled yelp, Nate slipped into the bathtub.
Who knew one man could displace so much soapy water? Who knew she could rocket from mildly aroused to turned-on-and-needing-him-right-now in a matter of moments?
His skin slick against hers in a tangle of limbs, Nate pulled her into his lap. “No back scrub for you.”
She laughed and smoothed puffs of white bubbles off his face. “That’s okay. I’ve got you exactly where I want you now.”
He squeezed her bottom, and she squirmed up his thighs until his erection wedged against her hip. As he grinned down at her, the desire darkening his eyes made Lauren’s heart thump wildly into her ribs.
“I think you’ve lost control of this situation, Laur.” Nate ran his lips down her temple before one soap-covered hand gently gripped her jaw and tilted her mouth to his.
Warm breath teased her, and she couldn’t pull her gaze from the siren-call of his eyes. And like a siren that shipwrecked sailors of old, he drew all resistance from her, promising heaven if she’d cast herself adrift in his arms.
Sealing his mouth to hers, he took her under. The chance to pull back and steer toward safer shores vanished like the delicate froth of bubbles around them. Roughened hands slid on wet skin, up over her hips, tracing along her waist and skimming the underside of her breasts. Her nipples ached as he brushed his fingers over the puckered tips then delicately rolled the sensitized buds between his thumb and forefinger. Too many sensations cascaded through her body at once.
Lauren gasped into his kiss, lacing her fingers in the damp hair at his nape. Held on tight before the feel of his hands on her breasts blew the top of her head right off.
His tongue danced with hers then he pulled back, moving those super-sexy lips down to the column of her throat. “You’re so beautiful; you drive me crazy.”
A sharp jerk of his hips made it clear he told the truth. Releasing his hair, she ran a fingernail over the bunched muscles of his shoulder, down the planes of his chest and circled his nipple. Another hip twitch.
“And you’ve got too many clothes on.” Lauren wriggled off his lap to her knees. She tugged off his shorts, dropped them over the side of the bathtub. “Much better.”
Sensual electricity snapped between them, her fingers acting like mini-conductors as she turned and skimmed them over his slippery-wet skin. “I love the way you make me feel.”
She loved him, period.
But she couldn’t shape the words on her tongue, so she straddled his thighs and kissed him, deep and hot and slow, so he wouldn’t see it written all over her face. Tilting her hips forward, she ground against him, his hardness the perfect counterpart to her swollen softness. His big hands spanned her waist as he rocked up, pressing his length so intimately into her body that for a moment, sheer hunger blurred her vision.
“We need to get out of the bath.”
His growled words penetrated the haze, and Lauren blinked slowly at him.
He cupped her chin, kissing her once more before he lifted her off his lap and got to his feet. He extended a hand. “There are things I want to do with you—to you—that I can’t do thrashing around in bubbles.”
She let Nate draw her upward, her legs so buttery with desire they barely kept her upright while he snatched a towel from the rack and passed it to her. The towel’s looped pile tortured her skin, every inch of her body electrified and alive with sensation. Nate quickly dried himself and looked up at her, clutching the towel to her breasts and shivering from wanting him so badly.
“Baby, you’re cold.” He picked her up in his arms and strode into the bedroom.
“Not cold,” she whispered against the strawberry-scented skin of his neck.
Just really, crazily in love with him. She wanted to lick him up like an ice cream sundae.
Nate laid her down on the bed, stretching out next to her on the sheets. Goosebumps popped out on her skin as he lay watching her face with his hypnotic green eyes.
“Nate?”
“Mmm?” The corner of his mouth twitched up.
“Please touch me.”
Nate’s smile widened, and her toes curled, his gaze growing hot and liquid.
“Now would be good,” she added.
Instead of touching her, he bent forward and sucked her nipple deep into the warm depths of his mouth. The firm, circular sweep of his tongue around the sensitive peak had her clutching the sheet and crying out. When she thought she couldn’t take more, he moved between her lax thighs, sinking her into the mattress with his weight. Sliding her knees up his flanks, she locked them around his hips, loving the long, muscled feel of him.
“You taste like strawberries,” he murmured into her mouth, rocking his hips intimately against her core. “Do you taste like strawberries all over?”
Hooded eyes teased hers as he gently disengaged her legs from his back and slid down her body. Prickly stubble left on his chin scraped along her trembling inner thighs and she shivered again. A quick swipe of his tongue and she arched off the bed, the firm grip he had on her hips the only thing holding her in place.
“Better than strawberries. So much better.”
Then he buried his mouth between her folds, and erotic oblivion whiplashed through her, deafening any other sound than that of her own whimpers. Nate drove her relentlessly then pulled back with nibbling kisses over her hipbone. Reaching down, she gripped his hair, tried to tug him upward so she could touch him in return—but he was an unmovable force. He wouldn’t be rushed. And once his mouth returned to her, resistance was futile.
Finally remembering to
breathe, she opened her eyes to see his face poised above, his fingers locking with hers as he pinned her arms above her head. He kissed her, claiming her with the heady taste of her own arousal on his tongue.
“I need to be inside you.” Half plea, half demand, he positioned himself at her slick entrance.
“Yes.”
Her blood hummed, and emptiness clawed in her belly until he shifted forward, the hard length of him pressed up and all around and deep inside, his strokes long and sure. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but melt into him and cry out his name. He let go of her hands, cupped a knee and drew her leg up, angling his body to deepen the connection between them.
Clawing at his back, Lauren twisted beneath him, the pleasure so unbearable it was almost too painful to let him continue. Each time he drove into her, as unstoppable as the ebb and flow of tides, he owned her a little more. He didn’t need to whisper, “You’re mine,” against the damp heat of her skin, because the way her body responded to his, the absence of fear in his complete male dominance, spoke louder than any words.
He took her mouth, the dance of his tongue matching the slow tango of his hips. Tension thrummed and built deep inside her as his lazy rhythm grew faster. His breathing hitched, the broad wall of his chest pressed tight to her breasts. Encouraging his wild thrusts, she met him stroke for stroke until the first lightning-fast tremors spun out from her core. Nate’s eyes, the color of a storm-tossed ocean, grew hazy as he surged into her one last time.
She tumbled into the oncoming waves and let herself be swept away.
***
Due to arrive around midday, the hikoi, or peaceful Maori protest march, had gathered a large number of onlookers on the Waitangi Treaty grounds. Lauren moved through the crowd under the scorching sun, keeping an eye out for Nate amongst the distinctive red, black and white Maori flags fluttering in the light sea breeze.
Police officers strolled alongside civilians, their presence largely ignored as the hikoi seemed to have generated a family carnival feel. Sometimes, complaints against the government exploded into animosity when the official Waitangi Day celebration—still a while away—took place. But today was for cheering on the two hundred people who’d trudged six hours through the summer heat to the intricately carved meeting-house.
Christmas Down Under: Six Sexy New Zealand & Australian Christmas Romances Page 115