by Andrews, Amy
The Hero
A Hot Aussie Hero Novella
Amy Andrews
The Hero
Copyright © 2015 Amy Andrews
Kindle Edition
The Tule Publishing Group, LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-942240-30-3
Dedication
To Margareta, Madeline and Victoria.
Thanks so much for the fun and laughter as we consulted and cheered each other along on this journey. You guys rock.
And (again) to Kelly Hunter for being awesome.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Dear Reader
The Day Before
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
The Day After
The Hot Aussie Heroes Series
About the Author
Dear Reader,
When I was approached to write one of the Hot Aussie Hero novellas I was thrilled. I do love me a good road trip and there’s nothing quite like a long, tall steak of Aussie man to get the (literary) juices flowing.
I was even more excited to write the story when my cover image was chosen before I even started. It sat as my screen saver for a while as I wrote something else so by the time I got to Edwina and Justin’s story I felt I knew them and that scene in the back of the car really, really well.
The Hero combines two of my favourite storylines – road trip and reunions. I loved that I could write a story with scenery that was so familiar to me. I’ve pretty much driven the length and breadth of Australia and lived both in the bush (as we say here) and in the city so it was very much a nostalgic journey for me to recreate the essence of what is the great Australian outdoors. I also loved giving two people meant for each other but cursed with bad timing, their HEA. I love the deliciousness of secret cravings and heartfelt yearning and I love it when everything finally falls away and they finally see each other and know they were meant to be together.
Happy sigh.
I hope Edwina and Justin give you a big happy sigh as well as a few tingles along the way :)
Love,
Amy
The Day Before
‡
Edwina Calloway stared at the long, tall streak of sex-on-a-stick striding towards her through the harsh sunshine and swirling dust and knew she still had it bad for Justin Wilde.
The man had been on the other side of the freaking planet for two years but he obviously still had her ovaries in his back pocket.
How she was going to drive from the Victorian Highlands to Byron Bay – five whole days trapped in a car with him – and not tear all his clothes off she had no idea.
How she was going to smile and politely kiss his cheek in front of all these television cameras and telephoto lenses and not grab his face and stick her tongue down his throat was a more immediate concern.
He stopped to shake a couple of hands, air-kiss some faces, share a joke or two along the way, but Edwina was aware, in the same way she’d always been, that she was his sole focus.
That wasn’t ego, it was just fact.
His intense, blue gaze had sought and locked with hers through the windscreen as he’d driven into the dry paddock of Barcoo Creek Bush Resort strewn with fancy cars and even fancier people. From the second he’d climbed out of his spearmint-green, classic 1975 Holden Monaro, she’d known she was in his sights, that she was his end goal.
They should have just gotten naked and done the wilde thing years ago, gotten the crazy urge that besieged them whenever they were in close proximity out of their systems. Maybe there wouldn’t still be this feeling of unfinished business between them.
But yeah… her being rather inconveniently married and all had put the kibosh on that.
Neither of them had crossed that line. Not outside of work anyway. In front of a camera, sure, she’d kissed him a hundred times, been about as naked as was possible without actually being naked on a couple of dozen occasions.
But that didn’t count. That was acting. It was fake. It was their job.
His eyes were back on her again as he broke away from his last well-wisher. Everybody’s eyes, not just the clutch of media, it seemed were on her.
On them.
Edwina was used to being stared at by cameras and fans, but not by these people. They were her tribe. Her peeps. Her friends and colleagues. Fellow actors, industry people, network representatives who were used to famous faces and understood the toll of public scrutiny.
But today they were clearly as curious as the public about this much vaunted reunion.
Edwina held her ground on the veranda, despite alternating between wanting to run away and wanting to throw up.
She did neither. But it was a close call.
The cameras are watching, Eddie. That’s what Dale would have said, had he been here. Smile, flirt, pretend. Give them what they want.
Why it had taken her so long to divorce his ass, she had no idea.
Another voice whispered instructions in her head – Aiden Farley one of the show’s producers. Play nice with Justin. See if he’ll come back for a couple of guest spots. The ratings could really do with some GrOwen magic.
Ugh! She hated that term coined by the show’s fans.
Yes, Grace and Owen’s on-screen chemistry had been off the charts and had kept the fans coming back for more but that intense fandom had put a lot of pressure on Edwina and Justin.
Edwina watched as he drew closer, his designer blue jeans casually scruffy like he’d just rolled out from tinkering under his car. They clung to his hips and moved interestingly against the long, lean muscles of his thighs. A slight breeze blew his plain, loose-fitting, dark grey t-shirt against spectacular abs. Abs she knew intimately, from their sculptured hardness to the light dusting of hair.
Justin had always worn clothes well, but now he wore them with all the panache and sexiness of the bone fide Hollywood screen god he was.
A hush fell over the crowd as he prowled towards her, his laser-blue eyes locked on hers, still as mesmerising as always.
His feet landed on the veranda of the rough-hewn mountain hut and Edwina’s pulse spiked. She’d forgotten how overwhelmingly male he was. In two of his effortlessly long strides he was reaching for her.
“Ed.”
Edwina would have like to have resisted, to have stuck her hand out to be shaken, halting his trajectory. But she’d never been that strong around him and she was supposed to be playing nice, playing it up for the cameras.
“Hello Jus,” she murmured as she slipped into his open arms.
And it felt good. So damn good. Just like old times. Resting her cheek on his chest just above where his heart beat a steady tattoo. Leaning on him. Breathing him in. Wanting him.
The familiar, low twist in her belly that craved something more did its usual thing.
“You look good,” he said, pulling back slightly, lifting his hand to push an errant blonde lock back from her face.
Edwina was conscious of his thighs, warm and powerful against hers and of the cameras clicking, recording, as she smiled back at him. His fingers brushed against her temple causing a localis
ed flutter and a systemic tsunami at the same time.
“So do you,” she said, her voice husky.
He’d changed but he hadn’t. Like her, he was only thirty-two, but there was some grey in the close-cropped back and sides of his light brown hair and there were some crinkle lines around his eyes. But there was no salt in the pepper of his perpetually scratchy jaw and his blue eyes still sat atop two perfectly chiselled cheekbones.
He twisted a long, blonde curl of hers around his finger. “I’m so sorry to hear about you and Dale,” he murmured, his voice low.
Edwina found that hard to believe. Justin despised Dale more than all of Dale’s other haters combined, and there was a long queue of those. Being a top agent earned a person a lot of friends. Being a bastard didn’t.
She quirked an eyebrow. “Really?”
He grinned as he dropped her curl. “No. He’s an asshole and you always deserved better.”
Then he dropped his mouth and kissed her. It was only brief but it was hard, and for a few seconds there was a thick reckless edge to it. His tongue swiped at her bottom lip and tangled with hers momentarily, before it was gone again and he pulled back, leaving her breathless.
Leaving her wanting more.
So much for a kiss on the cheek.
Edwina’s hands curled into his t-shirt for support as the world shifted a little.
“I hear there are rumours you’re reconciling?” he said, continuing on as if he hadn’t just kissed her and caused a ripple of anticipation through the transfixed gathering and whipped every television news crew into a ratings orgasm.
The startling question was like a bucket of cold water to her muddled senses. “They’re not true,” Edwina denied.
It was his turn for an eyebrow quirk. “I saw a very cosy picture of you two.”
The hair on the back of Edwina’s neck prickled. That damn photo. Dale was such a dick. “Since when did you start believing what was in the media? I’ve seen several very cosy pictures of you and about a dozen different women. Am I to believe that you’re seeing all of them at once?”
Because that was certainly what the magazine articles had implied.
“Speaking of which,” he murmured, nodding his head towards the little band of onlookers. “Do you think we’ve given them enough to talk about? Shall we head inside?”
The neat little sidestep didn’t go unnoticed by Edwina, but she was grateful to grasp any return to normality. Standing here like this with Justin, nothing between them but four years of propriety, which didn’t matter a single damn jot anymore, was not good for her sanity. Her physical attraction to him couldn’t bear this kind of test and god knew it was going to be tested sorely enough in the next few days.
“Yes,” she said, pushing against his chest as she took a step back, grateful when he released her.
Grateful to be herded inside, away from prying eyes, even if the press of Justin’s hand into the small of her back made her want more than just a show for the cameras.
*
“That was bloody brilliant,” a voice enthused as soon as Justin had shut the door on the click and flash of cameras.
Justin nodded as he greeted Aiden with a handshake, the rough slab hut exterior yielding to an interior of complete luxury. “Convincing enough for you?”
“Absolutely. The fans are going to love it.”
The producer had been on the phone to Justin almost the second he’d touched down at Melbourne international airport the day before. He’d asked Justin to play up the on-screen chemistry he and Ed had shared to ensure the success of the charity car rally.
The fundraiser, almost six months in the planning, was exceedingly important to the network in terms of exposure and they wanted it to be a huge success. Channel five had vowed to raise a million dollars over the course of the week for the Royal Flying Doctor Service to thank them for their rapid response that day a year ago when a freak accident on location in the Red Centre had seen Edwina requiring their medical services.
Channel five had called on all its stars to get on board and they were dutifully gathered outside, ready and raring to go.
It had even called on its ex stars.
When Aiden had rung him in LA about doing the car rally a few months ago, Justin knew his schedule would be clear by then so he’d agreed. But only because it was the Flying Doctors. And Ed. If it hadn’t been for that plane in the outback that day, evacuating Edwina, she might have died.
So of course he’d been in.
He just hadn’t expected to be sharing his car with her.
And their barely controlled sexual tension.
And be asked to play up their on-screen chemistry to entice more people to join in along the route and to donate from home.
What Aiden didn’t realise was that their on-screen chemistry existed because their off-screen chemistry had bubbled and seethed and nipped at their heels for the entire two years they’d worked on channel five’s premier medical drama The Gift of Life together.
They’d kept it in check, ignored it because Ed had been married, but even now, after two years apart, Justin could feel it, thick and heavy, between them.
And she wasn’t married any longer.
He glanced at her, as Aiden prattled on about ratings and how Twitter was already going off. She was sitting on the bed, the length of her legs emphasised by a pair of white, retro, three-quarter Capri pants. A bright yellow, button-up shirt hugged her breasts and exposed a strip of her tanned, flat abdomen where it failed to meet the low-riding waistband.
She was wearing yellow shoes that had a high cork platform heel. They’d evened up their height earlier and he’d liked it. Liked feeling their hips perfectly aligned.
Justin’s gaze drifted to the long blonde curls that brushed her shoulders, and he remembered how good they felt against his chest. He admired the sweep of her eyelashes and the sweet bow of her mouth that tasted as good as it always had.
Except, better now because he could do it any damn time he wanted to without moral censure.
His gaze lowered to the curves of her breasts. Soft and female. Dale had always wanted her to get a boob job – thank god she’d resisted. They were perfect.
And he was such a dick.
How many times had he seen them naked? Touched them? Kissed them? How many sex scenes had they done in those two years?
Plenty. Too many for his precious sanity sometimes. And plenty graphic enough to have the network slap an MA rating on the show.
But he’d give anything to have one time without a director choreographing their every move. Where he wasn’t forcing himself to hold back the raging need inside him.
She glanced up at him and rolled her eyes, flashing the brilliant peacock blue of them at him, as Aiden said, “They’ve even made a GrOwen hashtag for you, how cute is that?”
Justin nodded vaguely, trying to summon one fuck about Twitter. The things he wanted to do to Ed, since he’d lay eyes on her through his windscreen earlier, were not suitable for any hundred and forty word tweet.
And the hashtag?
#JusdoesEd
He wanted to tell Aiden to fuck off already then push Ed back against that big old luxurious bed, rip off those cutesy Capris, which were driving him crazy with all their innocent 1950’s Gidget charm, and bury his head between her thighs.
He’d fantasised about going down on her so often, he could almost taste her on his tongue.
Justin shifted uncomfortably as a rather inconvenient hard-on made its presence felt. There was something not right about it, with Aiden standing two feet away. But there was nothing he could do. This thing between him and Ed hadn’t gone away, like he’d told himself it would when he’d moved to LA. The relentless drive to have her was still as strong as ever. He’d just been able to ignore it all the way over the other side of the world without her around to constantly feed his craving.
And he could tell from the corresponding flare of heat in her eyes that it hadn’t gone away for her
either.
In fact, he was pretty damn sure she was reading his mind right now, and if the way she just crossed her legs and shoved her hands between them, high up near the juncture of her thighs, was any indication, she was liking what she could see.
“Anyway,” Aiden said, and Justin made an effort to switch his attention to the producer. “The gang’s all outside. And there’s some people I’d like you to meet. Jake Richardson, who owns the property, is particularly keen to say hello. I know the rally doesn’t officially start until tomorrow, but there’s a lot of press to do over the next five days, so we might as well start off by being as visible as possible, right?”
Justin didn’t want to go, but it was leave with Aiden now, or, stay and have everyone outside watching the clock, timing them until they came out, either together or separately. There was a shitload of press outside assigned to cover the rally and at the moment they were bone idle.
There was nothing worse than the media on a slow news day.
When he and Ed finally did get their sexy on – and he had absolutely no doubt they would – he didn’t want half the Australian gossip rags keeping score.
“Sure,” he said.
Aiden glanced over his shoulder. “Edwina?”
Justin could tell by the way his skin stopped prickling that her gaze had shifted to Aiden. “I’ll… follow along in a bit,” she said.
“Okay. After you, Justin,” Aiden said gesturing to the door.
Justin flicked a glance at Ed, her lips pressed together, her hands firmly tucked between those thighs.
Jesus…
*
Edwina answered a light knock on her cabin door at nine that night. She didn’t have to ask who it was. She already knew it was Justin. He’d tried to get her alone all day, and failed, due to her artful dodging. Not that it had been hard. A well-known Aussie actor turned Hollywood heartthrob was an in-demand kind of guy.
Her heart tapped a dance in her chest just thinking about the way he’d looked at her, when Aiden had been talking to them earlier. It had been so freaking dirty, he’d ignited a veritable thunderstorm between her legs. It had been so hot, she’d had to shove her hands there to relieve the burn.