“Leave?” she finished his ludicrous statement for him. “Is that what you were going to say? ‘Jenna, you need to go away and let me be alone and shut away from any chance of any one actually seeing me or getting close to me or accepting me for who I am?’”
He turned his back to her. “I just gave you what you wanted. Three times, in fact. Now it’s time for you to give me what I want—to be left alone.”
Jenna’s blood ran cold. Her mouth fell open. She blinked. Shook her head. Searched for words, found none and shook her head again. “I can’t believe you.”
A low snarl cut the air a heartbeat before he spun to face her. “You don’t know me, Jenna. You’re obsessed with the memory of a man who didn’t even exist six years ago, let alone now.”
Unable to stop herself, she crossed to where he stood and shoved him. Hard. On the chest.
He staggered back a step, eyes wide with stunned disbelief.
“Are you really this scared to let anyone in, Evan?” she asked, grabbing at the loose front panels of her shirt to tug them over her breasts before folding her arms over her chest. It was a defensive position. A closed-off position. She knew that. Years at university studying communications had made her a body-language expert. In her line of work, she used that knowledge during interviews to hone in on moments when her interviewee was unsettled or guarded, or when it became obvious to her their answers weren’t as truthful as their words suggested. She also knew how to use her own body language to her advantage, to hide the way she was feeling from those around her. But there was no way she could hide the hurt slicing through her now.
The sense of betrayal.
Of loss.
An unreadable emotion flared in his eyes. Then he clenched his jaw, stretching the scarred flesh on the left side of his face tighter. He drew a slow breath, his shoulders squaring as he straightened completely. “Tell me truthfully, Jenna. When we first met on Bondi Beach all those years ago, what was the first thing that ran through your mind?”
A tight lump filled Jenna’s throat. She gazed at him, knowing the answer to his question. Knowing the truth would damn her, but knowing she would not lie to him all the same.
He held her stare, unblinking, unwavering. “The very first thing.”
Stomaching rolling, she swallowed. “I thought you were the hottest guy I’d ever seen in my entire life.”
The ambiguous emotion in his eyes flickered. His nostrils grew white. He slowly stepped back from her. Slowly turned his head until all she could see was his left profile. Slowly shucked his jacket from his shoulders. He tossed it aside and then, all without looking at her, hooked his fingers under the hem of his long-sleeve shirt and pulled it up his torso. Up his ribcage. Over his shoulders and head.
Until he stood before her dressed only in his jeans.
“And now?” he asked, motionless. “What do you think now?”
She stared at what he’d revealed to her.
The left side of his torso, from his neck down to his hipbone, was a tangled web of damaged flesh. His left arm was the same, only his left hand seemed minimally touched by the scars. Twisted, stretched white skin covered his left pectoral muscle. His nipple was no longer formed. It was now just a dark blotch of uneven skin on his chest, lost to the wounds. The scars continued down over his abs, growing thicker over the left side of his stomach. His navel was a shallow hollow, the right half perfectly formed, the left little but scarred white flesh that continued beneath the waistband of his jeans.
Jenna’s stomach churned. How had he survived? Not just the fire, but the pain? How had he not gone mad with the agony of it?
He drew in a slow breath, his chest rising and falling as he did so. The movement drew her attention to his upper body again, and once more, she found herself wondering how he’d managed to keep his sanity. The right side of his chest, his torso was untouched by scars. The skin was smooth and perfect, like it had been when she’d first met him. She’d spent many nights fantasizing about running her fingers over that skin, experiencing its satiny warmth against her own. Wondering what it would be like to lick. Yearning to feel it sliding against hers as he moved inside her. And yet his left side…
She swallowed, her throat thick, and ran her stare over the scarred mess that was the left side of his upper body again.
Her brain couldn’t process it. Couldn’t connect the two. “Oh God, Evan. It must have hurt so much. I wish I’d known. I wish… I wish I could have…”
“Could have what? Taken my pain away?”
The contempt in his voice jerked her stare back up to his face. She nodded. “Yes. No one deserves to suffer that kind of pain.”
“No one deserves to suffer the way I did?” An empty bark of a laugh left him and he took a step backward. “Ah, Jenna, you really have no idea who I am, do you?”
She frowned. “Of course I do. You risk your life for others. You save lives. You’re intelligent, funny, brave, selfless—”
The sound of his raucous laugh stopped her. She watched him scrape his fingers through his hair. Watched him stare at the ceiling a moment, jaw bunched, before returning his focus to her.
“Do you really want my story, Jenna? Do you really want to know what kind of selfless man the hero of Wallaby Ridge is? The man who just fucked you with his tongue in the dark? Do you?”
His bitter snarl robbed her of an answer.
He grunted, the utterance as empty as his earlier laugh. “Fine. I’ll give you my story. But first, I want you to do something for me, okay? I want you to use that journalist’s mind of yours and imagine you’re an aviation firefighter just doing your job like any other day with a man who’s meant to know how to do his own. I want you to imagine putting your life into that man’s hands. Now imagine that man’s ego, that man’s arrogance, plunging the helicopter you’re both in into a firestorm hotter than any on record. A bushfire inferno fed not just by the scorching summer heat and wind, but by a dense forest of eucalyptus trees drier than they’ve ever been thanks to a summer drought the likes of which Australia hasn’t seen in over a century. Are you there with me, Jenna? Are you in that fire? Are you surrounded by it?
“Imagine telling that man, the one you trust, that he’s being reckless. Imagine telling him it’s too dangerous to fly into the gulf, no matter how well he thinks he can keep the chopper steady against the buffeting winds. Imagine doing your job, trying to direct that man to a safer area, one that needs the water in the guts of the chopper just as much. Imagine him ignoring you because he can already see the headlines proclaiming his courage and prowess in the following day’s newspapers, because he can already feel his wife’s mouth on his cock as she gives him a blowjob for being such a brave, fearless hero.”
Contempt dripped from his words. Jenna could only stare at him.
“Imagine shouting at him to pull up,” he went on. “To get out of the gulf as his ego refuses to acknowledge the winds are too wild to fight. Imagine screaming as an upwards gust slams into the chopper, sending it spiraling out of control just as a massive eucalyptus tree explodes beneath it. Image the chopper engulfed in flames. Imagine it smashing through the burning trees until it hits the burning ground.
“Now imagine being trapped in the wreckage of the chopper while your skin first blisters and then melts. While the lining of your throat and lungs burn with every breath you pull. While your eyeballs rupture from the heat.
“And now imagine the man who put you there getting away. Being rescued as you burn to death. Imagine that man surviving when you didn’t. Sure, almost forty percent of his body is covered with third-degree burns, but he’s alive. Imagine that man returning to his wife that night when your wife and your children will never get to hold you again. Can you imagine that, Jenna? Can you?”
She didn’t answer. Once again, the rawness of Evan’s emotions stole her words. As did the wretched self-hate and torment an
d guilt in his face.
He lowered his attention to the floor. Shook his head. Let out a muttered curse she barely heard before raising his head again to fix a blank stare on a spot behind her. “I’ve lived with that reality for five years. My actions killed Franco. My ego. And then Tracey left me because she couldn’t stand to look at me.”
“No, Evan.” Jenna stepped closer to him, her heart thumping in her throat. “Tracey left because she was a shallow, superficial person who never thought of anyone but herself. She was sexting with my boyfriend before the Blue Mountain fire. She didn’t deserve you.”
He slid his gaze to her face. His Adam’s apple jerked up and down his throat. “You’ve put me on a pedestal I don’t deserve to be on.”
“And you haven’t given me enough credit,” she countered. “I’m a journalist, remember? And I’m a good one. A thorough one. I’m not just a pretty face who regurgitates words written for me by someone else and fed into an earpiece. I seek out the truth of any story I’m sent to cover. I spent the last twelve hours talking to everyone I could in this town about you. Not because you kissed me back on the helipad, but because it’s my job. My job is to unearth the truth. And you know what truth I discovered?”
He studied her, jaw clenched, stare unwavering.
“That Evan Alexander of Wallaby Ridge is a quiet man who keeps to himself,” she continued, voice soft. “But one respected by all that know him. Whose friends speak of him with warmth and loyalty. In fact, I got the distinct impression after talking to three of those friends, that my life wouldn’t be worth living if I caused you any pain. The doctor, Matt, suggested he has a case of Propofol—whatever that is—that would find its way into my blood system if I did wrong by you. The guy that musters stock in his helicopter…he went so far as to point out the Outback is a very easy place for a city girl like me to go missing. And truthfully, I don’t even want to contemplate what the police officer was thinking he’d do if I so much as considered doing anything to hurt you.”
Evan’s nostrils flared. Apart from that, his expression didn’t change.
Jenna let out a shaky sigh. “I talked to a lot of people in this town, and all of them spoke of your quiet strength and courage and community spirit. Of your rare smiles and rarer laughter. None of them spoke of your scars. None of them. That’s the truth of Evan Alexander. The man you are now. And that man may not deserve to be put on a pedestal, but he does deserve to think more of himself than he does.”
She stepped closer to him, reached out her hand and brushed her fingertips over the scars on his chest.
He sucked in a sharp breath. Remained motionless.
“I can see you’re not the cocky guy I first met, Evan,” she said, holding his stare as she feathered her fingers down his scarred ribcage. “But I can also see you’re not the hideous monster underserving of love or desire you think you are. And to be honest, I like the truth of the Evan you are now even more.”
“Jenna…” Her name fell from his lips on a husky rasp. His eyes fluttered closed. A frown etched his forehead and pulled at his eyebrows.
Drawing her own steadying breath, she removed the space between them. She skimmed her fingers up the twisted flesh of his left side, over the scarred curve of his left pec.
A shudder rocked through him as she brushed her fingers over the stretch of dark skin that had once been his left nipple. A strangled groan vibrated low in his throat. His Adam’s apple jerked up and down his throat again.
Heart racing, chest tight, her blood roaring in her ears, she trailed her fingers up his throat, to his jaw, and brushed her lips over his.
Another groan tore from him.
She didn’t linger at his mouth. Instead, she moved her lips over his chin and down the column of his neck, exploring the scarred skin with a path of gentle kisses.
“Jenna…” he rasped again, rolling his head back and to the side. She wondered if he was aware of what he was doing, that he was granting her lips greater access to his scars.
A joyous warmth throbbed through her. She raised her hands, smoothing her palms up his chest, her left hand on his unmarred flesh, her right moving over the uneven surface of his left pec.
He moaned, swaying towards her as he slid his hands over her hips.
She continued her exploration of his throat, across the broad expanse of his chest, up to the muscular curve of his left shoulder. The uneven texture of his skin felt foreign beneath her lips, and yet her mind and her body didn’t rebel or recoil.
Instead, a sense of rightness bloomed within her heart, a feeling of excitement and anticipation. She could spend the rest of forever exploring Evan’s skin with her lips and tongue and fingers. She could spend the rest of her life doing everything she could to erase the painful memories of those scars with moments of love.
Love.
The single syllable word caressed her heart.
She wasn’t in love with him. Not yet, but she suspected it wouldn’t take long before she was.
She had no problem with that at all.
With one final tiny step, she destroyed the minute space between them, returning her lips to his as she pressed her body against the hard warmth of his.
A soft noise—a groan of pleasure—vibrated low in his chest as she crushed her bare breasts to his chest. It radiated through his body into hers, along with the rapid pounding of his heart. The sensation of his skin sliding against her nipples filled her with a wave of giddy delight. She teased his tongue with her own, rolling her hips a little as she feathered her fingertips up the side of his torso.
For a heart-stilling second, she thought he was going to halt her hands. He didn’t.
Whereas every time before he’d stopped her from touching his scarred skin, now he proceeded to knead her backside, letting her caress his ribcage and his pecs with her fingers as he thoroughly worshipped her arse cheeks.
She reveled in his acceptance. Her soul flooded with joy. Her sex flooded with liquid need.
“I want…” she murmured against his lips.
Smoothing her hands back down his torso, she shifted her feet a little, enough to allow her hand to slip between their bellies.
Nipping at his bottom lip with her teeth, she reached for his belt. She tugged at the strip of leather threaded though the buckle at the same time that she lowered the zipper of his fly.
“No!” He jerked away from her. Not just one staggered step this time, but three. Three violent backward steps.
Jenna’s heart smashed into her throat.
He turned his back to her. For the first time, she saw how far around his body the scars reached. Most of the muscular plane of his back was a mess of pinkish-white taut flesh. It extended up to the base of his scalp to disappear beneath his shaggy hair, and down below the waistband of his jeans.
Once again, the reality of the excruciating pain he had endured slammed into her. Her stomach rolled.
“Evan.” His name fell from her in a husky plea. “Please don’t do this to yourself. To us. I don’t care—”
“I do,” he answered without turning. His back and shoulders moved as he pulled a ragged breath. She could hear the torment in the slow intake. “You’ve got your story. Now you can go.”
She stared at his back, at flesh marred by fire and who knows how many skin grafts. Hot tears pricked her eyes. Her blood roared in her head. Her heart thumped in her throat. “My story? The only story I’ve found here is that the hero of Wallaby Ridge is nothing but a broken man afraid to let anyone in to his life. Is that the story you want me to walk away with?”
He didn’t answer.
Her eyes stung. Her vision blurred. A single tear fell to her cheek.
“Is it?” she repeated, although the words were little more than a choked breath.
He turned his head—a fraction—to the right, not even enough for her to see a hint of his
profile. “Please, Jenna. Please go.”
Gut a churning storm, Jenna ran her gaze over his back one more time. Ached for him. Prayed for him to turn and look at her.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he snatched up his shirt from the floor and pulled it over his head and covered his torso once again. Instead, he walked from the kitchen without a backward glance.
Leaving her alone.
“Okay,” she whispered to the empty room. “Okay.”
Hugging her shirt to her breasts, she retrieved her discarded pants and G-string from the floor and then redressed.
Evan didn’t return.
Nor did he reappear as she crossed to the front door.
The only thing that followed her through it was thick silence and a numb certainty she’d never see him again.
Chapter Five
“You’re an idiot.”
Evan raised his eyebrows at Ryan’s blunt statement. “For what? Going back out in the chopper at two a.m. despite the captain telling me to stay put? Should I remind you that you were out there as well? Beating down the last of the flames with a burlap sack, to be precise?”
Ryan snorted, adjusted his cowboy hat farther back onto his head and crossed his arms over his chest. He was covered in soot and dust, the only clean areas of skin on his face the laughter lines on either side of his eyes. Not for the first time since knowing the gay heli-musterer, Evan found himself wondering how many women in the Ridge fantasized about turning Ryan to the other side.
“That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it, Ev,” Ryan murmured, the declaration a gentle rebuff.
Even at this early hour of the morning, with dawn only just breaking, the Outback Skies pub was full. The sounds of its patrons hung on the air around them like a low droning buzz, broken every now and again by cheers or laughter. The Mutawintji National Park fire was officially out, extinguished completely three hours ago. The people of Wallaby Ridge were celebrating, along with the few members of the media who still lingered in the town.
As far as Evan could tell, Jenna and her cameraman weren’t among their number. That was good.
Burn for You: Outback Skies, Book 2 Page 6