Driving Her Crazy

by Amy Andrews

  He was desperate to put as much distance as possible between him and her damn robe belt that was loosening and flashing glimpses of her cleavage. It made him want to throw her on the bed, which was not conducive to walking away.

  To ending it.

  Whatever it was.

  Sadie turned and watched him limp away. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

  He opened the door. ‘Out.’

  And then there was just Sadie left looking at a closing door, her heart beating wildly. She sank onto the end of the bed, her brain trying to catch up. Twenty minutes ago she’d had a screaming orgasm in the shower. Now Kent was gone and there was a heavy feeling in her chest and a growing urge to cry.

  She stood. She would not cry. She’d cried over her father and cried over Leo.

  She would not cry over a man she’d known for five days.

  She walked on shaky legs to the telephone, ignoring the open laptop taunting her.

  If only she’d shut the lid!

  Maybe instead of scaring him off she and Kent would be talking right now about seeing each other some more. Because she hadn’t been ready to say goodbye just yet and she was pretty damn sure, after that shower, he wasn’t either.

  She dialled the airport and changed her flight.

  Six months later...

  ‘C’mon.’ Leila banged on the bathroom door. ‘It’s opening night and the gallery will be crowded.’

  Sadie looked at herself one last time in the mirror. Why she was fussing she didn’t know. He never went to gallery events, he’d told her that.

  In fact she wouldn’t normally be going either. Now she was a full-time student again she couldn’t afford the big ticket price—she’d even had to take on a flatmate, Leila, to make the rent. But when two tickets had mysteriously turned up and Leila, a photography major, had spied them, Sadie hadn’t had the heart to deny her.

  And, truth be told, she was curious.

  Sadie had already seen some of it, of course. The dozen photographs printed with her Leonard Pinto feature had been magnificent. But this exhibition, Centre Attraction, was the complete outback series and, being Kent’s first exhibition of new work, had garnered a true buzz in the art scene.

  It had been billed as the show to see.

  ‘How do I look?’ she asked Leila as she opened the door, her fingers absently stroking down the front of her retro fire-engine red dress. It dipped at the cleavage, nipped at the waist, clung to the hips and flared around the calves in an elegant fishtail.

  ‘Woohoo, baby,’ Leila crowed. ‘I’d do you.’

  Sadie laughed, the stress bunching her neck muscles instantly easing. Leila was out and proud and very much in a couple but her flattery was just what Sadie needed tonight. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Let’s do this thing.’

  Kent almost choked on his beer when he spotted Sadie sashay into the gallery. He hadn’t been sure she’d come even with the tickets he’d sent her. And he certainly hadn’t expected her to make such an entrance. The eyes of every straight man with a pulse tracked her path from the door to the bar area.

  She’d come a long way since awful power suits and baggy T-shirts.

  The gallery was crowded and he was stuck in a corner with some of Tabitha’s cronies, but he watched her as she did the rounds of the displays. She chatted to the woman she’d arrived with and seemed to make polite conversation with other patrons who were admiring the exhibits as well.

  None of them shone as she did.

  Watching her felt like coming out of a fog and he realised he’d missed her even more than he’d thought. He’d wanted to see her, to show her his work that she’d been so much a part of. Particularly the centrepiece. He was proud of it and wanted her to be proud of it too.

  But he hadn’t expected everything to finally make sense by just looking at her.

  Yes, he’d thought about her every day. Missed her every day. But this was more. So much more.

  She was two exhibits away when he politely excused himself from the group of people he’d been barely paying attention to anyway.

  Sadie stood in front of a photo of emus mid-dash across a western sky. The bounce of their soft feathers and the dust kicking up around their powerful legs gave the photograph a sense of motion and urgency. She remembered him taking the pictures. Telling her about his grandfather.

  She studied it for a while as she waited for the crowd to clear from around the next piece. She’d been surreptitiously looking for him but he’d obviously been true to his word.

  ‘Oh, my God.’

  Sadie turned at the urgent tug on her arm administered by Leila. She wasn’t too concerned though—Leila had been goggle-eyed all night, each photograph seemingly more fantastical through her rose-coloured glasses than the last.

  ‘Sadie, is that you?’

  Sadie frowned at her friend’s face, then looked up at the photograph that had everyone’s interest. It took a few seconds to compute what she was looking at and then everything inside her seemed to crash to a halt.

  Her brain synapses. Her cellular metabolism.

  The beat of her heart, the breath in her lungs.

  It was the one he’d taken of her the night of the campfire. Where she’d stood and he’d called her name and she had looked back over her shoulder at him. It was a stunningly visual shot. Her face in shadow, her semi-naked body silhouetted in soft yellow light against a starry sky.

  The caption read—Sadie In The Sky With Diamonds.

  Beside it, enlarged and framed, was her sketch. The byline proclaiming her as the artist.

  When she’d got home from Darwin she’d realised she’d left her sketch book in his car but hadn’t bothered to contact him about it. A part of her had wanted him to have it, to have a tangible reminder of what they’d shared—emotionally, not physically.

  Sadie could feel heat rising in her cheeks as she looked at it now. How could he share something so personal? How could he?

  She’d believed him when he’d told her how very much he hadn’t wanted Mortality to be shared. Had he not thought she’d feel the same way about this?

  ‘You like?’

  Sadie started at the oh-so-familiar tone. She turned to find him standing behind her, his mouth, beautiful as ever, so very, very close.

  Her heart started again at the sight of him. It had been so long and he looked so good. Just as she remembered from the last long six months of thinking about him. Of sketching him.

  Only better.

  The dark suit blunted his he-man edge to a different kind of sexy and her belly clenched.

  But it didn’t change what he’d done or the sudden block of emotion welling in her chest. Her heart pounded in her ears as she shook her head. ‘How could you?’ she whispered, then pushed past him.

  Away, she had to get away.

  It was much harder for Kent to make his escape from the gallery than it had been for Sadie. He’d just caught a glimpse of her climbing into a taxi before someone blocked his view and it had been another twenty minutes before he’d managed to get away.

  He guessed running out on your own exhibition was pretty poor form, but he’d only been there tonight hoping she’d show up.

  And now she was gone, he didn’t want to be there either.

  He just wanted to be with her.

  Luckily he knew the way to her flat and by the time he’d parked an hour had elapsed since she’d run from him.

  ‘Sadie,’ he called, knocking on her door. ‘I know you’re in there. Open up!’

  Sadie, sitting in her daggy track pants and shirt, jumped at the harsh command. Her hand shook as she raised the glass of red wine to her lips.

  Kent belted louder this time. ‘I’m going to knock all night if I have to, Sadie!’

  Sadie glared at the door. It was tempting to let him go for it. Mrs Arbuthnot from next door called the police if a cat meowed too loudly outside her door at night.

  But she was pretty mad at him. And she did need to talk to him abo
ut pulling the photo from the exhibition. She stormed over to the door and pulled it open. ‘You’ve got a bloody nerve,’ she said, turning on her heel and stomping back into the lounge room, leaving him standing on the doorstep.

  Kent shut the door after him and followed her at a more sedate pace, finding her waiting for him, arms crossed, grey eyes stormy, spoiling for a fight.

  ‘I want it pulled,’ she said straight up.

  ‘Sadie—’

  ‘No. You were supposed to delete those pictures. I did not give you my permission to use a half-naked picture of me in an exhibition that thousands of people will see.’

  Kent undid his jacket buttons and thrust his hands on his hips. ‘But a fully naked portrait is perfectly fine?’

  ‘What other ones have you used?’ she demanded, ignoring his jibe. The portraits were consensual and he knew it. ‘Have you uploaded them somewhere? Damn it, Kent, they’re private and I want them back.’ The words were familiar and a thought suddenly hit her. ‘Oh, my God, that’s what this is about, isn’t it? This is payback for that stuff I wrote. For the last time, Kent, it was not a story!’

  ‘Sadie,’ Kent said, holding up a placating hand, trying not to be turned on by how gorgeous she was all het up, her hair flying around her head, her eyes burning, her chest rising and falling in an agitated rhythm.

  ‘They’re burned to a disc. I kept meaning to send them to you but I couldn’t bring myself to part with them. I wouldn’t share them with anyone.’

  Sadie snorted. ‘Just half of Sydney!’

  ‘It’s one photo, Sadie. No one knows it’s you.’

  ‘I know it’s me!’ she snapped. ‘And let’s not even mention the fact that you reproduced and displayed my artwork, without my permission!’

  ‘The two pieces belong together.’

  Sadie gaped. He didn’t even look a little contrite, standing in her lounge room oozing sex and confidence in his important artist suit. She hadn’t really expected to see him tonight and she resented how damn good he looked.

  And how her traitorous body didn’t seem to care that he’d just exposed something between them that had been intimate and private. He might as well have stripped her naked in front of everyone at the gallery.

  ‘Why?’ she demanded.

  ‘Because it’s a stunning image. The pick of all the photos I took on our road trip. Maybe one of the best of my career. And to apologise.’

  Sadie blinked. ‘Apologise?’

  ‘For being such a prat in Darwin.’

  ‘By being an even bigger prat now?’ She gaped.

  Kent saw the two spots of colour up high on her cheekbones and wanted to drag her into his arms so badly he had to grind his feet into the floor to stop himself from following through.

  Sadie didn’t look as if she was quite there yet.

  He took a steadying breath. ‘If you don’t like it I’ll have it withdrawn.’

  Sadie sat down and took a gulp of her wine. She needed fortification. ‘It’s got nothing to do with not liking it,’ she said slowly through clenched teeth.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, hands still on his hips as he looked down at her. ‘Explain it to me. It’s not like you haven’t posed nude before, Sadie.’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with that.’ She glared up at him. ‘That picture represents a very personal moment you and I shared. And I know you’re Mr I-don’t-need-anybody and no doubt he-men pander to women with poor self-image every day, but it means something to me. I feel about it the way you feel about Mortality. That photo is an intensely private moment. Not for public viewing. It’s not my body I want to protect. It’s the moment.’

  Kent sat down on the coffee table behind him, his legs stretching out, almost touching hers. He was encouraged when she didn’t attempt to move away. ‘I’ll have it withdrawn first thing tomorrow,’ he murmured.

  Sadie looked into the multi-hues of brown that made up his eyes. ‘Thank you.’

  Kent nodded, his heart thudding as her gaze locked with his. ‘It’s good to see you, Sadie Bliss.’

  She shook her head. ‘Don’t.’

  He half smiled. ‘Don’t what?’

  ‘I’m not going to fall into bed with you because you turn up on my doorstep all sexy and apologetic. I’m still mad.’

  He chuckled then. ‘I missed you.’

  Sadie sipped at her wine, determined not to give him an inch. ‘Yeh, well, I haven’t missed you,’ she lied.

  ‘I’ve thought about you every day, Sadie. And I’ve pretended that’s a lot of things—fond memories, lust, friendship—but I saw you tonight and I knew it was more than that.’ He dropped his gaze to her full mouth that had parted as she listened. He wanted to kiss her so badly he could almost taste her. ‘You’re under my skin, Sadie Bliss.’

  Sadie’s internal muscles undulated deep down inside her at his words and his sudden intense look. It would be so easy to just throw caution to the wind and hurl herself at him, but after six months apart she knew two things.

  She was head first in love with him. And the Kent she knew couldn’t handle that.

  ‘I’m back at art school,’ she said as his gaze returned to her face. ‘I’m loving it. For the first time in my life I really know what I want to do. I’m actually my own person. I love you, Kent. I think I have from the moment you let me drive the Land Rover.’

  She paused. Her pulse was beating triple time but the admission had been surprisingly easy to make.

  ‘But I can’t take on your stuff. I need to be in a relationship where I can talk with the other person, where no subject is off limits, no words are left unsaid. Where I can talk whenever I want to. I have a lot to say.’ She smiled at her own joke. ‘I’m prepared to do some hard yards but I need to know that you’re going to meet me halfway.’

  Kent knew what she was saying was true. ‘How did you get to be so wise so young?’ he asked.

  Sadie smiled around her wine glass. ‘Misspent youth.’

  Kent placed his hands on his knees. ‘I’ve been seeing a psychologist for the last four months. It’s been...hard at times. But it’s helped. I’ve started to write a memoir about the time I was embedded. I even went on a commercial flight just recently. The dream doesn’t come so much any more.’

  He paused. Smiled at her. ‘Now all I usually dream about is you.’ She smiled back at him and he felt encouraged. ‘I can’t promise I’m going to be happiness and light twenty-four seven but my life didn’t make sense for a long time and then you came along and, briefly, it did. I don’t know how our future is going to pan out, Sadie—I’m so happy that you’re pursuing your art dream and at some stage I’m going to want to take another overseas assignment—but I know that whatever happens I want you in it. I love you, Sadie.’

  Sadie considered him over the rim of the glass, her heart beating frantically at words that were like music to her ears. The man who had taught her to embrace who she was, to glory in it, was telling her he loved her.

  ‘That’s all I need,’ she murmured.

  Kent held her gaze. He wasn’t sure what that meant. Or whose move it was.

  Sadie sat forward, placing her wine glass on the table beside him. ‘So,’ she said, resting her bent elbow on her knee and propping her chin on her palm, ‘these dreams? Do I have my clothes on?’

  Okay, Sadie’s move. He grinned. ‘Not often.’

  ‘Are they...graphic?’

  Kent nodded. ‘Usually.’

  She reached for his tie and started to untie the knot. ‘I think you’re going to have to demonstrate,’ she murmured.

  Kent nuzzled her temple, her ear, her neck. ‘I’m good at demonstrating.’

  Sadie slid the tie out from the collar with a loud zip. She stood, his tie dangling from her finger. ‘Well come on then, let’s get started.’

  She held out her hand and he took it.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from The Taming of a Wild Child by Kimberly Lang.

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  ONE

  The only thing worse than waking up naked in a strange bed was realizing there was someone else sleeping in the bed, too.

  Someone male.

  The bright light on the other side of her eyelids sent pain streaking through Lorelei LaBlanc’s head as she tried to piece together exactly what the hell was going on...and who she’d just spent the night with.

  She forced herself to lie still; jumping right up might wake her companion, and she didn’t want to get straight into a confrontation before she had a handle on things.

  Think, Lorelei, think.

  She had a hangover that would slay a mule, and it hurt to think. How much champagne had she consumed in the end?

  Connor and Vivi’s wedding had gone off without a hitch; all of the four hundred guests had had a fabulous time. The church had never looked better, and the hotel had outdone itself with both the decor and the food. She’d been at the head table for dinner, but once the dancing had begun and the champagne had really started flowing... Well, that was where things began to get a little fuzzy. She remembered having a small, good-natured disagreement with Donovan St. James over...

  Her eyes flew open.

  Oh. My. God.

  Bits and pieces of the night before came rushing at her with distressing speed and clarity.

  Carefully, so as not to aggravate her hangover, she rolled slowly to her other side. Sure enough, Donovan lay there on his back, bare-chested, with only a sheet covering his hips and one leg. His hands were stacked behind his head as he stared at the ceiling.