More real than he did amongst his political peers.
Buckling himself in, he replaced his glasses with his sunglasses and let his grin stretch wide. “Then I guess the first stop is the refuelling station, yes?”
Ryan smirked as he fired up the helicopter’s engine. “Done.”
The flight back to Wallaby Ridge passed far more quickly than Jeremy would have liked. He and Ryan talked the whole way, neither raising the issue of his poorly disguised come-on that morning. Instead, they stuck to topics such as movies, sports and, to Jeremy’s great delight, art and music. For a man who’d grown up in the Outback, Ryan knew a lot about fine art and music, his tastes veering towards an eclectic mix of country and soul.
“Mum was a music teacher,” he shared with a warm smile when Jeremy commented on the mix. “I grew up listening to Nat King Cole, Barbara Streisand, AC/DC and Slim Dusty. The first live concert I ever saw was Nick Blackthorne and my first autograph was Garth Brooks.”
Jeremy couldn’t help but laugh.
That joy, that contented glow of enjoyable conversation and company, stayed with Jeremy for the rest of the flight back into Wallaby Ridge. So much so that when Ryan touched down on the town’s small airport helipad, Jeremy was tempted to ask him to come along to the Royal Flying Doctors visit.
He bit back the invitation before it could form on his lips.
Just.
There was no reason for Ryan to say yes. Nor any reason for Jeremy to invite him along to an official appearance.
Unbuckling his seatbelt, he cleared his throat, steadfastly keeping his stare on the flat horizon cutting the distance in two. “I’ve got an hour to kill between my visit to the Royal Flying Doctors Service and afternoon tea with the Mutawintji Winds Gallery director. Would you…” He cleared his throat again. Adjusted his glasses. Did everything he could to not fidget on his seat. “Is there somewhere we could get a drink together?”
Prickling heat washed up his neck and over his scalp. He cleared his throat again. Damn, who would have thought asking a man out could be so hard?
Ryan’s low chuckle played with his sanity. “Reckon there is. How’s the Outback Skies pub sound?”
A ragged breath burst from Jeremy before he could stop it, relieved and frustrated at once. He turned to face Ryan, his smile wry. “Very public, yes?”
Ryan nodded, that hint of a dimple flashing. “Very.”
With his own chuckle, Jeremy returned Ryan’s nod. “The Outback Skies pub it is. See you there in—” He checked his watch. Just as his mobile vibrated in his pocket.
Shifting on his seat, he withdrew his phone from his pocket and checked the received text message.
It was from Linda.
Jeremy’s pulse thumped fast and hard.
His assistant’s answer to the question of whether Ryan was discreet was just one word.
“Very.”
His mouth went dry. His chest grew heavy. Tight. So did his groin. More so.
Oh boy.
“Jeremy?”
At Ryan’s murmur of his name, he jerked his head up, snapping his stare from the message on his phone to the man’s rugged, handsome face.
“I’ll see you at the Outback Skies pub in ninety minutes,” he said. “The first shout’s on you.”
Ryan grinned. The glint of white teeth behind his lips sent a lick of raw lust straight to Jeremy’s cock. “I’ll be waiting for you,” he said.
There was no way Jeremy could miss the heat in the man’s voice.
Frozen on his seat, he took in every inch of Ryan’s sun-kissed face. Every seam. Every inch of stubble. Every crinkle.
He ached to reach out and touch that face. Ached to feel its weathered strength beneath his palm.
He moved his stare to Ryan’s eyes. Found them ablaze with undeniable desire and want.
His stomach clenched.
With a slow intake of breath, his nostrils flaring, Ryan turned and looked out the windscreen. “I think you need to get out of the chopper now, Minister.” A strangled huskiness filled his voice. “Before I do something to you not suitable for public viewing.”
Jeremy groaned. His cock throbbed. “Ryan…”
Ryan moved, faster than any man Jeremy had ever met. One second he was staring out at the Wallaby Ridge’s empty runway, the next he was fisting his hand in the hair at the back of Jeremy’s head, his lips taking utter possession of Jeremy’s, his tongue doing the same with equal greed.
And then he wasn’t.
In the split second it took Jeremy’s body and brain to register the sheer savagery and perfection of Ryan’s kiss, it was over.
“I’ll see you in ninety minutes,” Ryan growled, his jaw bunching, his chest heaving. “Outback Skies pub.”
He swung open the chopper’s door and climbed out before Jeremy could reply.
The thudding jar of the door slamming shut shuddered through Jeremy’s body. He sat in the passenger seat, watching Ryan stride across the runway and disappear into the small building that was the town’s airport terminal.
His lips still tingled from Ryan’s abrupt kiss. His balls throbbed with denied need and hunger.
He couldn’t move. All he could do was sit and replay the last few moments over and over again.
The invitation for a drink, the need for public appearances, the open lust in Ryan’s gaze, the kiss…
Dropping his stare to his iPhone still in his hand, he activated the messaging app and stabbed out a text to Linda. “Be ready.”
“For what?” Came back the reply not even a second after he’d hit send.
He drew in a long, deep breath, studying those two words. For what indeed?
Without responding, he shoved his mobile back into his pocket and climbed out of Ryan’s helicopter.
“G’day, Minister,” Matt Corvin, the doctor who was taking him on the tour of the Royal Flying Doctors Service called from the edge of the runway, just as Jeremy’s feet hit the red-dirt coated tarmac. “Ready for the next part of your visit to the Ridge?”
Jeremy found himself snorting.
God, if only he was.
“Why—” Charlie Baynard dropped into the seat opposite Ryan and folded his arms over his sizeable chest, his unwavering stare locked on Ryan’s face, “—do I get the feeling you’re hiding something from me?”
Ryan didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he returned his focus to his beer—now lukewarm and most likely flat—and remained silent.
Jesus, he’d kissed the minister for the arts and culture out in public. He’d kissed a man who was still completely in the closet. He’d kissed a man who was never going to come out of the closet. Not without destroying his political career.
“Oi.” Charlie nudged his foot under the table. “What’s going on, mate?”
“Tell me something, Baynard,” Ryan said without looking up from his beer. “You’re not just a cop, are you?”
The silence that greeted his declaration raised his stare.
Charlie, his friend of five years, studied him with a look that revealed nothing. Nothing.
With an almost imperceptible coiling of his muscles, Charlie arched an eyebrow. “Why do you say that?”
Ryan snorted. “You’ve got that whole menacing, mysterious vibe going on. And you seem to know…stuff you shouldn’t.”
Charlie’s biceps flexed beneath the sleeve of his uniform. His stare didn’t waver from Ryan’s.
Ryan laughed, the sound dry. “Figured as much. Whatever you are, I don’t really care. What I want to know is what are odds of Jeremy Craig ever being elected prime minister?”
Charlie’s eyebrows shot up his face. The tension left his body. He laughed. “Bloody hell, mate. How many of those have you had to drink already?”
Ryan didn’t laugh in return. “This is my first of the day.”
Charlie flicked Ryan’s untouched beer a look before giving him a frown. “Okay, I think I’m missing something. What’s going on? Are you planning on making some kind of political statement? Going to abduct the minister for the arts and culture?”
Ryan shook his head. “Forget it,” he answered. What had he been thinking? That Charlie—who did seem to have a finger on the pulse of the world in ways no normal Outback cop should—would be able to tell him Jeremy Craig was a mere week away from outing himself? Was Ryan that bamboozled by lust for the man that common sense and rational thought had abandoned him? “It’s nothing.”
Once again, silence stretched across the table. Charlie studied him, the inspection intense. Contemplative.
Perceptive.
“Do you want to fuck him?”
The question, uttered with calm curiosity, sent Ryan’s heart smashing up into his throat. He sucked in a breath, his stare locked on his friend’s. “What?” He tried for a mocking laugh. “Are you crazy? I don’t want to…”
He stopped. Swiped at his mouth.
There was no point in lying to Charlie. Only idiots thought they could bullshit the man.
The tension fell back over Charlie. “Does he know?”
A humourless grunt tore from Ryan.
Apparently, that was the only answer Charlie needed. Letting out a soft chuckle, he relaxed back in his seat. “Ah, mate. You really know how to make life tough on yourself, you know that, right?”
With a shaky sigh, Ryan twisted his beer glass on its coaster. “Seems that way.”
“Give me an hour.”
Ryan’s heart skipped a beat. “What?”
Charlie smiled at him, the expression more sharkish and secretive than any Ryan had seen him give. “Give me an hour to find anything that may be worth knowing about the minister.”
“Are you serious?” Ryan shook his head. “I was being ridiculous when I asked. Even if there was a chance of him…of us…who he is means there’s no… No. I don’t want you to do anything. Jesus, I can’t even believe we’re having this conversation. Just who the fuck are you, Baynard?”
Charlie settled deeper into his seat, his expression enigmatic. “Your friend. That simple.”
Ryan frowned and then removed his hat, scratched at his head and tossed his hat on the table beside his beer. “This time yesterday morning, the world made sense to me. Now, I’m lusting after a man I shouldn’t be and one of my mates may or may not be some kind of…what? Spy? Secret agent?” He narrowed his eyes at Charlie. “Do you work for ASIO or something?”
Charlie threw back his head and laughed. “Yeah. I’m a spy. CIA, in fact. My real name’s Chuck.” A broad American accent replaced his natural Australian one. “And I’m here on a secret mission from the president.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Spy or not, your sense of humour is still woeful.”
Charlie pouted. The expression looked quite ridiculous on a face so obviously created to convey threatening menace. “Oi. That hurt my feelings.”
Ryan laughed, the churning knot of confusion in his gut somewhat eased by his friend’s company. “Yeah, yeah, you’ll get over…”
The word it failed to form on his lips.
Jeremy was walking towards the table.
Smiling at Ryan.
Every fibre, every molecule in Ryan’s body thrummed with a desire so hot the air in his lungs felt seared.
Fuck me, I want him so much.
He couldn’t move. The closer Jeremy drew, the more Ryan realized he was completely imprisoned by his desire for the man. If there was sound in the pub, he couldn’t hear it over the roaring of his blood in his ears.
“Ryan,” Jeremy said when he finally reached the table, a secret in his voice only Ryan heard. “Ready for that drink?”
Ryan stared up at him. His heart thumped against his chest plate like a sledgehammer.
Lips curling with a smile just as secret and evocative as his voice, Jeremy stared back.
It wasn’t until the scraping sound of metal on floorboards filled the silence that Ryan shook himself from Jeremy’s mesmerizing blue gaze. Turning to Charlie, he let out a sheepish laugh. “Charlie, this is the minister for the arts and culture, Jeremy Craig.” He slid his attention back to Jeremy, his heart quickening as their eyes connected once again. “Minister, this is Senior Constable Charlie Baynard, who I’ve only just discovered is also a CIA agent called Chuck.”
Charlie rose to his feet, taking Jeremy’s offered handshake and pumping it once.
“Minister,” Charlie said, the greeting relaxed. Ryan, however, did not miss the way Charlie took in the other man. He’d seen his friend look at tourists to the Ridge who’d indulged in too much alcohol that way—weighing up a potential problem with calm detachment and composed menace.
Jeremy smiled, the expression friendly and highly polished. “Please, Senior Constable, call me Jeremy.”
Charlie chuckled. “In that case, call me Chuck.”
Jeremy’s answering laugh was far more relaxed than his smile. “Chuck.”
For a frozen moment, both men studied each other, faces unreadable, two players of a game sizing each other up. And then Charlie released Jeremy’s hand with another chuckle. “Welcome to the Ridge, Jeremy. Seen anything you like so far?”
Ryan’s gut clenched when Jeremy’s gaze flicked towards him. He had no idea if it was a conscious action or not, but he knew Charlie wouldn’t miss it. And conscious or not, it set a fresh wave of want rolling through his body.
He shifted on his seat, his balls aching, his cock well on its way to an uncomfortably bent pole in his jeans.
“I’m having quite a time of it so far,” Jeremy replied, lowering himself into the seat beside Ryan. “Some definite moments that stole my breath with the unexpected rawness to be found here.”
Ryan bit back a low groan at the innuendo in Jeremy’s words. Jesus, the bloke was going to send him around the twist with lust.
“I’ve heard a man can discover a lot about himself after just one day in the Outback,” Charlie answered as he dropped back into his own seat, watching Jeremy with seemingly casual interest.
Jeremy inclined his head in a single nod. “I can see that. I’ve definitely been moved more than once since arriving. I wasn’t quite prepared for the impact it’s had on me.”
Ryan’s head spun. His balls continued to throb, now as hard and swollen as his cock.
Charlie arched an eyebrow. He studied Jeremy with a relaxed smile, the kind Ryan knew meant he was far from relaxed. The kind that normally preceded him kicking some idiot’s arse. Or throwing someone in lockup. “You going to be able to leave the Ridge the same man as you were when you arrived?”
Jeremy’s answering laugh—as relaxed as Charlie’s and just as telling—played hell with Ryan’s senses. “Ask me again in four days, Chuck.”
Whatever Charlie was looking for, searching for, he apparently got it. In a heartbeat, the composed menace radiating from him vanished. “Will do. So what’s on your agenda today? I take it you don’t require any police protection, given I haven’t heard from your assistant in the last twelve hours?”
Jeremy chuckled. “Ah, I see Linda has been her usual efficient self?”
“She has.” Charlie waved over the barkeeper, ordered them all a round of beers and then grinned at Jeremy. “Now there’s a CIA agent if ever there was one. Do you know she told me about the potential security issues a federal minister might face here, including the possible harassment from the property owners who still feel betrayed by the deputy prime minister’s decision to allow coal gas seam mining here. And she was very specific about what contact you would have with the family of the man who burned down Broken Downs. Which is none, by the way. That was an order that didn’t just come from her, but the PM himself.”
If Jeremy was unsettled b
y Charlie’s mention of the politically motivated arson attack on the deputy prime minister’s homestead last year, he didn’t show it. Instead, he snagged a peanut and shelled it. “So, Charlie, tell me what I need to know about my pilot here.”
Ryan cocked an eyebrow. “Pretty certain I’ll tell you anything you want to know, Minister.” He reached for a peanut himself, shelled it and popped it into his mouth. “All you’ve got to do is ask.”
If Jeremy had a response, the arrival of the barkeeper with their beers stopped him.
Instead, Charlie filled the silence with a ribald laugh. “What if he asks you about the night you spent in lockup last month?”
Ryan rolled his eyes, lips twitching. “Jesus, Baynard, you would bring that up.”
Jeremy turned an expectant smile on Ryan. “A night in lockup? You mean I’m flying all over the Outback with a criminal?”
“Yep.” Charlie sniggered, shooting Ryan a pointed look. “You want to tell him why or shall I?”
With a melodramatic sigh, Ryan shook his head. “I still insist I did nothing wrong.”
“Nothing wrong my arse,” Charlie replied with a grin.
Jeremy reached for his beer, his smile wide. “The suspense is killing me.”
“Hey—” Ryan shelled another peanut, “—if a man can’t run naked down the main street in this country to prove he’s got nothing to be ashamed of, I say the laws of the country need to be reassessed.”
Jeremy’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. Behind his lenses, his gaze flicked in the direction of Ryan’s groin for a heartbeat. “I’m sorry?” Laughter danced on his words. “You did what to prove what?”
Charlie smirked. “Taylor and Matt Corvin, the doc you met just a while ago at the Royal Flying Doctors Service HQ, were arguing over who had the biggest balls last month after…err…let’s say one too many drinks in this fine establishment. Both were adamant they were the proud owner of the biggest set.”
“We’re not talking actual size here,” Ryan cut in, feeling the need to defend the moment. Inside, a warm glow of delight spread through him at Jeremy’s reaction to the tale—genuine joy and good humour. “We’re talking courage. Bravery. The doc insisted his were bigger, given he’d been shot at by Somali militants and spent a good part of the previous year in a life-threatening coma in a Sudan hospital. I insisted mine were bigger because I’d spent just about every weekend of my teenage years and well into my early twenties riding crazy bulls hell-bent on killing me in the national amateur rodeo circuit.”
Bare for You: Outback Skies, Book 3 Page 5