Yep, he supposed it did. ‘You done with the questions?’
‘Not even close.’ She offered a small smile. ‘What about us?’
Now that was the question he’d been expecting right at the start. He smiled grimly. ‘What about us?’
‘You kissed me.’
‘And?’
She didn’t answer, just left her station at the post, walked around it to stand leaning against it on the other side. Close to him. Just rested that way while he worked. And he remembered, it had been this way between them. He’d never felt a need to fill the silence and neither had she. Sometimes they’d spent whole days barely exchanging a handful of words.
‘I missed you, you know.’ It came out simple and genuine, as if the eight-year old Lily was speaking.
The words reached out and squeezed his heart. Then he got a grip. Sentimentality. That’s all it was. She’d missed him? Yeah right. She’d missed having a little slave who devoted himself to her every time she came to visit. Who lived through the rest of the year for those magical six weeks when she was back.
He hadn’t missed her—in all the ways that counted, she’d never bloody left him.
She ducked her head, stared at her bright blue boots, one crossed over the other, embarrassed maybe by her candour or by his lack of response. Or so he thought. When she raised her head and looked directly at him, he could see that he’d got it wrong. She’d been gathering her strength.
‘We need to talk,’ she said, quiet but determined.
‘No, we don’t,’ he replied firmly. He knew where she was headed, and although he was no longer resolved to avoid her for the month, there was no way he was having that conversation with her. Purely physical. That’s all he wanted from her, and that’s all she was getting from him. Revisiting the past was not part of his strategy.
Time to start handling it. Step-by-step, little-by-little, working her out of his system.
He dropped the wire and his tools gently on the ground, and walked over to stand in front of her. She straightened at his approach, her eyes a little wide and her lips slighted parted, but he wasn’t about to stop and discuss his intentions. He just leaned in, cupped her nape and covered her mouth with his. She was stiff at first, unyielding, but he persisted, pressing lips softly to hers, caressing his thumb across her jaw, aiming to seduce her. He knew he had her when she let out a soft sweet breath against his mouth and her body softened against his. She twined her arms around his neck, drew him closer and her mouth opened to his. Fingers spearing into his hair, she returned his kisses like her life depended on it.
He was supposed to be the one seducing her, but he felt something in him loosen, unknot, and a rush of sweet warmth flooded through his bones. God, it was so good to be close to her again. How had he made it through the past couple of days, knowing she was just a five-minute walk away?
His heart was thundering, pumping furiously, and he wasn’t sure if the problem was too much or too little blood to his brain, but whichever it was, it was short-circuiting his ability to think. He was straight back where he’d been at the café, beyond thought, beyond reason. All heady, driving need. He just wanted her too goddamn much. Things were in danger of going the way they’d gone before, when he hadn’t had a rational thought left. Needing to pull back, he broke the kiss. ‘Hands on the post.’
‘What?’ she asked, dazed.
‘Hands on the post, Lily.’
She looked at him uncertainly so he took her hands from where they curled at his nape and placed them on the post behind her. Better. So long as he was the only one doing the touching, he should be able to manage. Before she could protest, he returned to kissing her, sliding his tongue in to stroke against hers. Pushed his hands under her incredibly soft jumper, he met the even softer hot silk of her skin underneath. When his hands travelled higher and his thumbs unexpectedly swept across the undercurve of her breasts, he stilled.
‘No bra.’
‘Don’t exactly need one,’ she said on a shaky outbreath.
He cupped one breast in each hand. ‘Convenient.’
He rubbed his thumbs over her nipples, and she made a little sound deep in her throat and arched into his hands. Enchanted, he did it again, this time catching her cry with his mouth. Holy hell. Her response ratcheted his up about a thousand times over. Not that he needed the help. He dropped his head down to kiss her again, hands still covering her breasts, fingers gently rolling her nipples.
‘Josh?’ It came out on a breathless whimper, asking for something, and he knew exactly how she felt. More.
He was supposed to be taking it slow, but he needed more as much as she did. He withdrew his hands. ‘Arms up.’
He drew the jumper over her head, tossed it on the ground beside them, then picked her up and deposited her on top of the fence post. Which brought her breasts right into line with his eyes. And his mouth. Perfect.
Did she have any idea of how beautiful she was? Her breasts might not be big, but they were full and tipped with rosy-brown nipples. A brisk breeze sent a wave of goosebumps over her, and he moved in closer, between her legs, wrapping his arms around her lower back, warming her from one side at least.
He shifted his gaze up to meet her hot dark eyes. Without breaking eye contact, he drew a slow circle around one nipple with his tongue. She cupped his jaw, then slid her hands to the back of his neck, holding him firmly at her breast. He loved the feeling of her hands on him. Loved it too much. That feeling of being overwhelmed was starting again. ‘Nope. Back on the post.’
‘Josh.’ A mix of outrage and puzzlement.
‘Or I stop.’
She looked down at him, a beautiful dishevelled siren, hair and eyes wild, chest rising and falling with her rapid intakes of breath. Her eyes narrowed in assessment, and he waited. Before too long, she put her hands slowly behind her.
Thank God. Despite the tough words, he had no idea what he would have done if she hadn’t.
The other advantage of having her arms behind her was that it thrust her breasts out towards him. Nothing to complain about there. He went back to work, tongue and teeth and mouth all over her. Her head dropped back, the ends of her hair brushing against his hands at her lower back, and her core was pressed in hard against his abdomen. He could feel the heat emanating off her. She definitely wasn’t feeling the cold anymore.
Her thighs, tight around his ribs, were squeezing convulsively and those little sounds she was making, hitches and hiccups of desire, were driving him crazy. He worked to rein in the wave of hot lust that coursed through him, but that squeezing, the way she was rubbing against him, was threatening to send him over the edge. He wanted closer, wanted in. When he realised one of his hands was headed for the zip on her pants, that he wanted those pants off so he could move his mouth further south, he forced himself to stop.
Enough. Enough or he wouldn’t be able to stop.
Beating back his need, he rested his forehead against her sternum for just a moment, the only sound their heavy breathing. Pretending a calm much greater than he felt, he picked her up and deposited her back on the ground.
He could feel her eyes on him but he busied himself retrieving her jumper from the ground nearby. He had to avoid those eyes, or he’d be lost. He pulled it back down over her head, waited while she shoved her arms through, and gave her one final light kiss on her lips.
Then he turned away, picked up his tools, and cut another length of wire.
‘That’s it.’ Disbelief.
‘That’s it.’ Hardest words he’d ever said. He kept his eyes firmly on the half-complete fence in front on him, kept his hands busy with his wire and his metal tools.
Because he so didn’t want to end it right there. He was so aroused he could pass the fence wire right through his hand and barely notice it. All he wanted was Lily on the ground beneath him, to cover her whole body with his and bury himself within her. But that wasn’t part of the plan.
‘Josh.’
‘I want to
get this fence finished today.’
He could see her, out of the corner of his eye, shake her head slightly as she exhaled deeply, but she didn’t argue. ‘So … See you round, I suppose,’ she said lightly.
He didn’t answer, didn’t trust what might come out of his mouth. Eventually she turned and made her way back across the paddock. He watched her amble through the knee-high tussocky grass, her dreamy gait suggesting she was totally lost in some other world. Which of course, she was. At the last moment, framed by massive pines, she turned and looked back, all long hair and long legs. Then she disappeared amongst the conifers.
He rested on his haunches a moment, considering. All up, he should be pleased with how that’d gone. She’d been pliant, squirmy and needy. No doubting she’d been into it. No doubting she wanted more. God, she’d been so responsive. So open.
And he hadn’t lost control. He’d kept his head the whole time. It’d been good, unbelievably hot, incredibly sweet, but he hadn’t lost control.
One month, and he was sure he could work her out of his system.
***
Lily caught Helen admiring one of the little centrepieces she’d brought in to surprise Maureen. The wattle was mostly finished, but she’d managed to find a few sprigs. Picking them, along with some gum leaves and other foliage from around Mirabook, she’d made a sweet little posy for each table. A collection of mismatched silver bud vases completed the offering.
Truth was, she’d had a fitful night. Once there was enough light to see by, she’d given up on sleep and gone searching for a way to pass the time.
She’d never had much of a libido and had always thought maybe she just wasn’t that interested in sex, but her lack of sleep proved just how wrong that was. She’d tossed and turned all night.
She didn’t want to turn into one of those women who obsessed over the meaning in everything a guy said or did. She’d never really got it, always been the one sitting there secretly thinking, ‘He’s just not that into you’. Now she was much more sympathetic to all her former friends who’d spent countless hours trying to figure it all out, because Josh was confusing the hell out of her.
Was it her inexperience? She didn’t have a boyfriend in Sydney. She’d never had a boyfriend. It wasn’t that she didn’t want one exactly, she just hadn’t met anyone she found that interesting. It hadn’t really bothered her. Sure, sometimes she wondered and worried that it was never going to happen for her, but mostly she was too busy to dwell on it.
She’d been tempted to ring Saxon again and get his opinion on what was going on. Was it normal to just stop like that? Even if there was a fence to finish? And what was with the hands on the post? She hadn’t rung him. At the end of the day, whatever it was, it was between Josh and her.
Hers to obsess over. Great.
‘These are beautiful, Maureen,’ Helen cooed. Helen, cooing.
‘Courtesy of Lily,’ Maureen replied.
Helen returned the vase to the table without further comment.
How much longer was this going to go on for?
Lily had a plan—to kill the entire committee, each and every one of them, with kindness. Their animosity towards her was all so silly, really. They’d have to see that eventually. If she just managed not to react, no matter what they said or did, eventually, they’d have to realise that she was actually quite a decent person.
Katie and Louise walked in the door together, laughing over some shared joke. They greeted Helen and Maureen. Not her.
Time, she reminded herself. It was just a matter of being patient.
‘Well, ladies, let’s make some magic happen,’ Maureen declared. ‘We need to raise some serious money.’
‘Yes, we do,’ said Louise. ‘The coffers are all but empty.’
‘Empty!’ said Katie and Helen in disbelief.
‘We waived a lot of membership fees last year due to the drought.’
‘We had to,’ Maureen inserted. ‘People are doing it tough.’
‘Of course,’ Louise concurred over the general murmur of agreement from around the table. ‘I don’t disagree, but I went through the finances with Josh last night and the situation is really rather dire.’
Lily’s ears pricked up at the mention of his name. A hot flush spread across her neck and cheeks, turning her skin prickly, and she was glad she was facing the other way. Though given what a good job they all did ignoring her, no one was likely to have noticed anyway.
‘Is he coming today?’ Katie asked Louise.
Gee, keen much, Katie? Lily thought, then immediately felt bad. Josh had explained the situation.
‘We could really do with him here for this,’ Maureen added.
‘He said he’d drop in,’ Louise replied.
Josh was going to be here. Yikes.
She wanted to see him again, really wanted to see him again, but a more private setting would have been nice. Was it going to be obvious that something was going on? Would everyone in the room take one look at them, and know exactly what they’d done yesterday afternoon?
‘I want to talk to you ladies about something,’ Louise continued. ‘He offered again to pay for any shortfall in the cost of rebuilding.’
Josh was obviously doing very well for himself, Lily mused, if he could replace burnt down buildings as well as buy her land. But they shouldn’t agree to it. That wouldn’t be right.
‘I hope you told him no,’ Maureen said, sounding cross.
Good, Maureen agreed with her.
‘Of course I did. He does too much already. It’s not good for him.’
‘And it’s not good for the town,’ Helen added. ‘A community can’t rest entirely on one person.’
‘I just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page, in case he brings it up again this afternoon. The answer is to be a resounding no.’
‘I mean, I don’t want us to take money from Josh,’ Katie began hesitantly, ‘but we might have no choice but to accept some help, if we really don’t have much to start with. You know what they say—you have to spend money to make money. Maybe we should consider borrowing some seed funding for our fundraiser. We’d pay him back, of course.’
No one disputed Katie’s statement, so maybe they all agreed. But it’d be better if they didn’t have to borrow from Josh, Lily mused.
‘We don’t even know what we’re doing yet,’ Maureen responded eventually. ‘Let’s focus on ideas for the fundraiser before we start worrying about paying for it.’
A prolonged period of nothing but tea and coffee sipping. Lily turned her mind to what she’d suggest, given the chance. To be honest, she hadn’t ever had to think of fundraising ideas before. She was the one they hired to bring it to life once those kind of decisions had already been made.
‘Well,’ Katie said after a minute. ‘There’s the usual things—car washes and cake stalls.’
‘It’d take an awful lot of bake sales to raise that kind of money,’ Helen commented morosely.
‘Yes,’ agreed Louise. ‘It would be wonderful to have something big, at least to get us started.’
Realistically, that was what they needed. Lily moved to sweep under the next table.
‘I’ve got it,’ Katie exclaimed. ‘What about a dance-a-thon? You know, people get sponsored to keep dancing for twenty-four hours or something like that.’
‘Which people?’ Helen asked, sounding horrified.
‘Us, for starters.’
‘A dance-a-thon? Katie, really,’ Maureen cut in. ‘How much money could something like that raise? People around here can’t afford to shell out a lot of cash just to see us dance.’
Actually, Lily would pay her last dollar to see Maureen, Louise and Helen strutting their stuff around a dance floor. She fought off a case of the giggles, but her mind kept supplying all sorts of inappropriate details. Fortunately, any noise was covered by the noise of the broom as she swept.
‘It’d be a bit of fun,’ Katie retorted, defensive at Maureen’s blunt dismissal of he
r idea. ‘With the hall gone, there hasn’t been much opportunity for everyone to get together and let off some steam.’
‘It would be fun. It would be a lot of fun,’ Louise the peacemaker put in. ‘But in this case, in terms of fundraising, Maureen is right. If we are expecting to raise a substantial amount of money from within the community, we have to be offering something practical in return. What we need is some way of raising money off things people would have to buy anyway.’
‘Without hurting local business,’ Maureen added.
‘I still think what people really need is a good time,’ Katie said sulkily.
‘What we all need is to replace the hall,’ Maureen threw back sharply.
No one said anything. Was this the time they wouldn’t get past the conflict?
‘Well, couldn’t it be all those things?’ Helen said eventually. ‘What about some sort of charity auction thing? We could ask everyone to donate useful items, or their time and skills, and people can bid on them. That way they’d be paying for things they really want. And if we did it over a dinner or a dance or something, it would be a good social evening. We could sell tickets too. It could raise quite a bit of money.’
Brilliant, Helen. Lily was so excited she almost said it out loud. There was a long silence from around the table as the idea was considered. No one raised any objections and Lily was convinced Helen had come up with a winner. A big-ticket fundraiser which doubled as a great night out was exactly right.
‘Oh, that was silly of me,’ Helen continued, back to her usual melancholy. ‘Without the hall, we don’t have anywhere to host a large-scale function.’
That was a problem. What a shame. Apart from that, the idea had been perfect.
Lily physically started as a thought struck her. She turned, broom in hand, to face the group. ‘You can use Mirabook.’
Heads swung towards her, but no one responded. In four days, she hadn’t so much as said boo. They’d probably forgotten she had a voice. She tried again. ‘Mirabook has a ballroom. A big one. You can use it if you want to.’
Helen stood. ‘This is a meeting of the Yarrow Town and Country Club Committee. Last time I checked, you were not a member.’
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