by Andrews, Amy
And he lowered his head to the taut, tight point of her nipple, sucking it deep into his mouth, his tongue flaying its erect tip over and over.
Edwina cried out, arching her back, thrusting more of herself at his mouth. “I want this,” she muttered, not thinking now, just feeling, giving the carnal imperative free reign as she reached for his dick and wrapped her hand around it, needing to feel it, to know it.
It was his turn to cry out. Releasing her nipple, his head fell back as he thrust into her hand. “Yes,” he groaned. “God, yes. I need to be inside you.”
Edwina nodded. She understood. She needed him to be inside her. To feel all that hardness pounding into her. And she needed it quick and hard and fast.
After waiting all these years, she needed him to fuck her standing up against his car. Just like this.
She grabbed for the tie on his boardies as his fingers breached the leg band of her swimmers and swept inside. She whimpered and grabbed hold of his smooth shoulder as he probed the slickness, instantly finding just the right spot.
Her long, low gasp of satisfaction was drowned out by the sudden roar of a lion puncturing the night air.
Holy crap.
They both stilled instantly. Edwina’s heart beat wildly in her chest like an African jungle drum.
They’d been warned that sound travels at night and wild animal noises were common on the zoo grounds, but damn if that lion didn’t sound like it was on the other side of the car.
And like it was really hungry.
The irony was, a freaking brass band could have started up beside them and Edwina doubted they’d have noticed, but a roaring lion? That was primal. That was cave man stuff.
The roar came again and Justin let her go this time, turning so she was at his back, his arms out, caging her behind him.
Edwina would have laughed had fright not already stolen her breath away.
After a few moments, when it didn’t come again, she relaxed a little. “I think its fine,” she whispered. “It’s just carrying on the night air.”
Justin nodded. “Bloody hell,” he said, raking a hand through his hair as he turned. “Talk about an instant soft-on.”
Edwina did laugh this time – she couldn’t help herself. “Saved by the lion,” she said as she pulled her one-piece back into place.
“A lion with lousy timing,” he said, hands on hips, watching her tuck herself away. His jaw was tense and for a moment Edwina thought he was going to step right back in and pick up where they left off, but he relaxed suddenly on a sigh.
He must know, as she did, that the moment had passed and it was time for common sense to reign? For crying out loud, no matter how secluded their current position, they were in a public car park. And they weren’t just two anonymous people getting their horny on.
He bent over and scooped up the towel and the iPad that had also fallen to the ground and handed them over.
“Thank you,” she said, stepping around him so he could shut the car and lock it.
Another roar rent the warm, dark night. “Stay close to me,” he said.
Edwina didn’t need to be told twice.
Day Three
‡
The next night Justin was sitting on stage at the TRECC in Tamworth, the country music capital of Australia, excruciatingly conscious of Edwina sitting beside him. Ruth Anderson from Dear Ruth, channel five’s popular talk show, was interviewing them from the very stage where the Golden Guitar awards were handed out every year.
Dear Ruth was an extended show tonight due to the huge celebrity line up, including musical interludes from some of Australia’s biggest country music stars, who were generously donating their time to the cause. The Tamworth locals sure appreciated it, even if Justin was only tolerating it because of the cause.
Frankly, it was a relief to be anywhere but the damn Monaro. Even on stage, answering a bunch of questions he didn’t want to answer, sitting next to Edwina in that dress.
Ruth had started interviewing him by himself, a couple of comfy couches set up on the stage, just like freaking Oprah, with a Dear Ruth backdrop behind. And she’d pumped him for all the gossip about his movies and his glamourous Hollywood life and all those women in all those pictures. It was irritating but Justin sucked it up – he knew the fans would love this stuff and would probably be donating like crazy right now and the cause was the most important thing.
So he did what he always did in such interviews, he ducked and weaved, and smiled and worked his charming off and Ruth seemed satisfied enough. But he didn’t think for a moment the audience were there for him and his story anyway. Not when Edwina was about to give her first interview since the accident. She was breaking her silence after a year tonight and the room had buzzed with anticipation as Ruth introduced her.
Justin had stood and clapped with the rest of the audience as Edwina’s heels tapped against the stage and then she was there right in front of him, kissing him on the cheek, her blonde hair falling in long loose curls around her face and down her back.
She’d kissed Ruth and sat beside him on the couch, crossing her incredibly long, silky smooth legs, barely covered by a teeny, tiny white dress that sat wide on her shoulders – just hanging on by the looks of it – and scooped down to sit just low enough for a hint of what he’d suspected was a braless cleavage.
It was made of some kind of clingy, bubbly fabric. Or maybe it was ruched. Or something. Who knew?
Whatever the fabric was, the whole damn world should be wrapped in it.
When he’d seen her backstage earlier she’d been wearing another pair of those aggravating Capris – pastel this time – and her hair had been up in a ponytail. Where the dress had come from he had no idea, but he liked it.
A lot.
It made him forget all about ignoring their kiss last night. All about concentrating his energies on getting this trip over with. It made him forget everything, except putting his head right between those long, tanned thighs.
Kissing her last night had been like uncorking the bottle.
This dress was like pouring the goddamn champagne all over them in wild abandon.
Ruth and Edwina had made small talk about the rally and the people she’d met along the way, and the hot weather, and Justin did not tune in again until Ruth was saying how fantastic Edwina was looking and what a fabulous dress.
Yep. Now she had his full attention. Or the dress did anyway. Edwina had great legs and he’d never thought twice about her showing them off, but tonight, with the dress sitting high on her thighs, he wanted to cover them up, keep them for his eyes only.
“You certainly seem to have caught Justin’s attention,” Ruth joked.
He felt Edwina tense beside him as the audience laughed and he smiled his most charming smile and said, “What can I say, Ruth, I’ve always been a leg man.”
Ruth and the audience laughed again and it was to his immense relief when Ruth decided to move the questioning on to the incident that had been the catalyst for the rally.
“I’d like to talk about the accident now, if that’s okay, Edwina?”
It was Justin’s turn to tense. He hadn’t known she was going to talk about this tonight until half an hour ago.
“You don’t have to do this you know,” he’d said to her.
“I know,” she’d nodded. “But I want to. I think I need to. It’s time.”
And now he wanted to put his arm around her and pull her in close. He wanted to slide his hand onto her leg and give it a squeeze, but given how he’d already been caught perving by Ruth, he didn’t think that was a good move.
Their hands sat between them on the couch, close but not touching, so he settled for stroking his little finger lightly against her little finger. She tensed again at the contact, but slowly relaxed as he kept up the gentle caress.
Ruth took Edwina through all the events of that day and the auditorium was quiet enough to hear the proverbial pin drop as they hung on Edwina’s every word, giving th
eir full undivided attention to her painful journey.
“Did you think you were going to die?” Ruth asked after all the grizzly details had been dissected and discussed.
Edwina took her time answering and Justin started to wonder if it had been a question too far. “I thought I… might,” she said, eventually, her voice hesitant. “That I could. That it was… possible, you know?”
A swift low punch landed in Justin’s gut at the thought of it. Edwina gone. Listening to her story, he realised how touch and go it had been that day.
Why hadn’t he just dropped everything and come home? Why had he let propriety and the prospect of Dale fucking Winslow stop him?
“Did it make you examine your own mortality? Did it make you determined to live your life fuller? Freer?”
Edwina glanced at him briefly and Justin’s heart picked up tempo. She looked back to Ruth. “You know what… no. I think it made me live my life safer.”
The audience laughed. So did Justin.
“But maybe you’re right,” Edwina said, her finger brushing against his this time. He looked down at their hands so close together – had it been an accident or deliberate? “Maybe it should have made me freer. I was determined to get back to work, to not be a burden to the show or the producers, so I didn’t really stop to think how easily it could have been over for me.”
“So, that’s a regret?”
Edwina seemed to think about it for a bit. “It is now.” She smiled at their hostess. “Thanks for that, Ruth.”
Ruth laughed good-naturedly, along with the audience then when the laughter faded, she slid a glance at Justin. “Any more regrets?” she asked, returning her attention to Edwina.
“Oh, yes. A few.” This time there was a very definite stroke of her finger against his and Justin’s belly tied itself into a knot. “Don’t we all, Ruth?”
Ruth smiled but Justin could tell she wanted to push Edwina on that a little more. Wanted to ask Edwina if he was one of them. But Edwina had been adamant with the Dear Ruth producers that the subject of their relationship was off limits.
Ruth turned her attention to him. “Justin, when you heard the news, didn’t your inner Doctor Owen Chandler want to swoop in to her rescue?”
The audience laughed. “Well, given that he’s a transplant surgeon, I’m not sure what help the man would have been, had he been real, of course.” He shot Ruth his best dazzling smile. “So thank goodness for the Flying Doctors.”
“Oh, yes,” Ruth agreed, taking the bait and running with it.
Two minutes later, the interview was done, people were clapping and cheering, getting to their feet, and they were walking off the stage, his hand firmly planted into the small of her back, her hips swaying enticingly in the short, clingy, evil dress. The back was scooped low enough to expose tanned shoulders blades, and he concentrated on the exposed notches of her spine rather than the erotic rub of the puckered fabric against his palm.
People greeted them as they walked backstage, smiled and patted them as they passed, and Justin could hear the audience still going nuts for Edwina. Meanwhile, inside his pants, there was another type of standing ovation going on.
But Justin could feel her quivering against his hand and she seemed to crumple, get smaller, the further from the stage she travelled. She’d been so cool and collected in front of the cameras. Funny and honest and vulnerable all at once. He’d been sitting right beside her and he’d known he was witnessing television gold.
So had Ruth.
But it had obviously taken a lot out of her as she stumbled.
“Hey,” he said, his arm shooting out to steady her then pulling gently until she was leaning back into him. Her heels put their heads close together, her hair brushing his face. He could feel the pound of her heart reverberating right through her body.
Or maybe that was his.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Yes. Just… mentally exhausted.”
He nodded. Of course she was. They were supposed to stay, mingle with the audience afterwards, but screw that. She needed to get out of here. Ruth, the nation, Edwina had all had their catharsis, now she needed some peace and quiet to reflect on everything.
“You want to get out of here?”
She nodded, her hair silky against the roughness of his jawline. “Can I drive?”
“Absolutely.”
*
Justin didn’t say anything until they’d been in the car for ten minutes. They’d already passed the big golden guitar statue outside the tourist information building, where they’d taken selfies earlier on, and seemed to be driving around aimlessly.
Not that he was complaining. The windows were rolled down, the music on the radio was halfway decent, and the warm air whipped Edwina’s hair up and out the window in long blonde streaks. The further she drove, the more she relaxed, so he shut his mouth and let her drive.
Of course with that dress barely covering the juncture of her thighs, he was far from relaxed.
“Where are we going?” he asked eventually.
“Somewhere there aren’t any people.”
Fair enough. Two recognisable faces in a spearmint-green V8 Monaro made it difficult to go anywhere there might be people. But it was Tamworth on a Wednesday night. The streets were pretty much deserted. And it was a nice night for a drive.
Justin glanced at her legs. He couldn’t help it with so much of them exposed. “You know that dress is totally evil, right?”
She smiled. “I thought you’d like it.”
“Oh, I think like is far too mild a word. I think I nearly stroked out when you walked on stage.”
“Thought I’d switch it up a bit.”
Justin chuckled at the understatement. “And me and the rest of the straight male population of Tamworth thanks you for that. Maybe give me some warning next time though, okay?”
She laughed and it sounded almost as evil as the dress. “And take all the fun out of it?”
They drove around for another fifteen minutes, Edwina finally pulling into a car park of a deserted looking industrial estate, full of large concrete warehouses. She drove around the complex choosing a park behind the main buildings, out of the glare of the large lights. She switched off the engine and unclipped her seatbelt. He followed suit.
“Well,” he said eventually, as she just sat and stared out the windscreen at a row of garage doors. “This is romantic.”
She rolled her head to face him. “She was right, you know.”
It was dark inside the car, but there was enough ambient light and her white dress was like a beacon. “Who?” Justin frowned. “Ruth?”
“Yes. I could have died. I could be dead. We could get in this car tomorrow and we could hit a giant roo or a… truck could flatten us and we could both die.”
Justin nodded. It was a fairly morbid topic of conversation, but understandable given Ruth’s line of questioning earlier. And ultimately Edwina was right – there were no certainties in life. “Yes. But for what it’s worth, I plan on getting you to Byron Bay very much alive.”
A slight smiled hovered on her cute bow mouth before she rolled her head back to stare out the windscreen again.
“Life’s short,” she murmured.
“Yes.”
More silence followed. “If I’d split with Dale back when we were on the show together, would you have… would there have been…”
Justin’s belly tightened in anticipation at her question, even if she was grappling with how to articulate it. “Would I have been up for it?” he prompted. “Would there have been a chance for us? I think you know the answer to both those questions, Ed.”
“I was stupid.”
“No.” Justin shook his head. “You were trying to do the right thing. The honourable thing. You were married, Ed. I admired the hell out of you for it.”
She rolled her head to the side again. “Really, Jus? You didn’t want me to just say screw you Dale and go to your apartment in nothing but a
long, black coat and beg you to fuck me? God…” she shook her head, looking away again. “You have no idea how often I fantasised about that.”
A hot hand clamped around his intestines and squeezed, scattering spot fires everywhere. The thought of Edwina turning up on his doorstep like that, begging…
Man.
Would he have been able to resist? Would he have turned her away?
Probably not.
The truth was, their self-denial – their self-control – had been a joint effort. He had a feeling had either of them cracked, it would have been all over red rover for both.
Justin cleared his throat. “Of course I did. Which is why I admired you even more for not.”
“You don’t think I was unfaithful to Dale?”
Justin frowned, his pulse leaping. What was she trying to tell him? “Were you?”
“You don’t think me thinking about you while having sex with him is infidelity?”
He snorted. “I think if thinking about people other than the one your with during sex was infidelity, then a lot of people would be guilty of it.”
“You don’t think I was emotionally unfaithful?”
Justin’s jaw tightened. “I think you did what you had to do to keep your marriage going, because it was important to you and you believed in the vows you’d taken, even though Dale was unworthy of them.”
“You know I’ve always wondered why you two split,” she said. “I mean, despite his other faults, he’s a good agent.”
“You could have asked.”
She nodded. “I think I was afraid of the answer.”
Justin hesitated. He’d never said anything before, about what he’d accidentally witnessed in Dale’s office, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to now. Dale’s infidelities had hurt her in the past – he’d seen that first hand, no matter how hard she’d striven to hold her head up. What was the point of hurting her anymore with the grisly details?
“We… never really saw eye to eye, Ed.”
“Was it because of his… affairs?”
Her voice sounded small in the quiet and Justin wanted to punch Dale in the face all over again. “There were a lot of reasons, not the least being how he disrespected you.”