He laughed and brought the pan over to the worktop, dished the pasta into two shallow bowls, added some salad, slid a piece of warmed bread onto the side, and pushed it over to her.
“Thought we might eat in the living room,” he said. “Have you seen Chef’s Table?”
She slid off the stool and picked up her bowl. “No. What’s that?”
“A series about head chefs around the world. It’s really good.” He led the way in to where he’d already placed a couple of glasses of wine on the coffee table. He took the right-hand side of the sofa, and Fred sat on his left. The program had already started, so they began eating while they watched the story of the famous Italian chef unfold.
Mac felt an unusual flood of happiness. His dog lay to his right, while Fred sat only inches away from him, curled up on the sofa. She smelled heavenly, of lavender and mint. Her hair was a little damp around the nape of her neck, and he could imagine her sliding down into the hot water, almost into the bubbles. She looked all soft and curvy in the pajamas, and he was pretty certain she wasn’t wearing any underwear. If he were to slide his hands beneath the top, he’d find bare skin, and her breasts would be loose and unrestrained in his hands.
He sighed happily, content to daydream. It was lovely just having someone to watch TV with, to eat with. Fred was easy company—she didn’t talk all the time, and she wasn’t always asking him what he was thinking or feeling. She didn’t goad him or argue with him just for the hell of it, which was something he’d experienced with other women, and disliked intensely. When she did speak, she asked pertinent questions and offered interesting opinions. It was like she spoke his language, and he could count the times he’d been able to say that on the fingers of one hand.
He risked a glance at her, and was surprised to find her looking at him.
“What?” he said.
She shrugged. “Ginger and Sandi have gone out tonight. They asked me if I wanted to go, and I nearly did. I was just thinking that I’m glad I didn’t. This is nice. Sitting here, eating dinner, watching TV. With you.” Her hazel eyes were bright, clear.
“Like an old married couple,” he murmured.
Her lips curved up. “Yeah.” She returned her gaze to the bowl in her hands and ate another forkful of pasta. “The sauce is lovely. What’s in it?”
“The usual—tomatoes, basil, red wine of course.”
“Of course. Have you ever been to Italy?”
“Yes, I went on my OE—that’s what the Kiwis call their overseas experience—when I finished uni. I went to England, Spain, France, Italy, and Germany. I already knew then that I wanted to be a viticulturist, so I spent a lot of time at vineyards, discovering how they did things over there. Learnt a lot.”
“I haven’t travelled much.” She watched the views of the Italian countryside on the TV, looking envious. “I’ve done so little with my life.”
It was so unusual for her to say something personal that his eyebrows rose. “I don’t think you can say that. Looking after a sick parent can hardly be categorized as having done nothing.”
“You know what I mean. My view of the world consists of this.” She drew a circle in the air around herself. “I feel very... parochial. I try not to be. I’ve always read widely, and I try not to be narrow minded, but I’m aware that my experiences are limited.”
“You don’t strike me that way,” he said honestly. “You’re like a balloon seller in a city, who occasionally lets go of a balloon and watches it rise into the sky until he can’t see it anymore.”
She stared at him, and he watched her cheeks slowly turn blush pink. “What an odd thing to say.”
“Sorry.”
“No... I like it. It’s just... nobody’s ever said anything like that about me before.”
He put his plate on the coffee table, picked up his wine, and turned a little on the sofa toward her. “You’ve had previous relationships though, right?”
“Yes.” She pushed a piece of pasta around the bowl with her fork, then placed the bowl next to his and picked up her wine glass. “A couple. Neither lasted very long, though. I don’t know if that was their fault or mine. I knew I’d never be able to leave my mother, and I suppose because of that any effort I put into the relationship was halfhearted. Or maybe it was just because I didn’t like them that much.” Her lips quirked up, and she sipped her wine.
“You’ve never been in love?” he asked.
She wiped a mark from the side of the glass. “No.” She touched her thumb to her tongue, then scrubbed again. “Have you?”
“There was a girl I met while I was working in Blenheim. Claire. We went out for a few months, then got a place together. It was her idea, and I was twenty-five, twenty-six, I thought it was what I should do, about time I should settle down, you know. I was fond of her. I suppose I loved her.”
“What went wrong?”
He shook his head, still puzzled. “I don’t know. I guess we drifted apart. She said I wasn’t willing to work at the relationship, that I didn’t put enough effort in. To this day, I’m not sure what she meant by that. I bought her flowers, took her out to dinner. I didn’t leave my socks on the floor. I didn’t take her for granted—at least, I didn’t think I did. Maybe I did. I don’t know.”
“Perhaps she meant emotionally,” Fred suggested. “She could probably sense that you weren’t a hundred percent invested.”
“Maybe.” He ran a hand through his hair. “She called me a cold fish.” Sam had said the same about Fred, he remembered. That made him smile. “She could be right. I know I’m no James Bond—I’m not the kind of guy girls dream about.”
Fred’s gaze settled on him, holding warmth and... something else he couldn’t quite decipher. “How do you know? Not all girls dream about a man who’s flamboyant and dynamic. That kind of guy would scare the hell out of me. Some girls like men who are quiet, resourceful, hardworking.”
“That makes me sound incredibly dull.”
Her eyes met his. “I don’t find you dull.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. Neither did Fred, judging by the way she dropped her gaze.
She put down her wine and picked up the two bowls. “I’ll just wash these.”
He watched her get up, then rose and followed her out to the kitchen.
She ran some hot water, added the washing up liquid, and began to clean the bowls and the tools he’d used for cooking. Mac would have put them in the dishwasher, but if it meant she was staying for a bit longer, he was happy to let her do it.
He stood next to her, taking the items as she washed them, and drying them with a tea towel. The last rays of the evening sun slanted in through the window across the kitchen. It was growing dark, and he should put the lights on really, but he liked the way the room had turned a deep orange, the new peach-colored walls glowing, the chrome and stainless steel reflecting the sun, as if it was on fire.
The red highlights in Fred’s chestnut hair stood out in this light, and he knew that if he released it from its clip and spread it around her shoulders, it would look like beaten copper.
The material of her pajama top gaped a little when she leant forward, treating Mac to an expanse of pale skin and the slight swell of the top of her breasts. It was rude to stare, and he tried to tear his gaze away, but he couldn’t. The curve of her neck, the rounded blush of her cheeks, the shell of her ear, they all fascinated him, and he had to fight not to bend his head and press his lips to them.
He felt as if the passion and fire of his youth had subsided into barely glowing embers over the last few years, and he’d been content to let the glow fade, conscious that he would never set the world alight, and happy enough to exist in his corner of the world. But when Fred had arrived, it was as if she’d fanned those embers, causing the fire in his belly to leap into life again. He hadn’t felt this slow burn, this ache deep inside him, for a long time, and it had taken him by surprise. He wanted this woman, wanted her badly, and he didn’t know how he was going to c
ope with being around her, with seeing her every day, if he wasn’t able to touch her.
Fred was holding the saucepan he’d cooked the pasta in, but she lowered it into the water and stood there for a second, looking at it. He paused in the act of drying a bowl, wondering what was wrong. She lifted her hands out of the water, holding them up and examining how the suds had turned orange in the evening light, sparkling and shimmering, like fish scales.
She turned toward him and looked up. Her lips parted. And then she lifted her arms around his neck, leaned against him, and pressed her lips to his.
Mac was so shocked that for a second he just stood there. Her wet, warm hands splayed into his hair, and her soft body molded to his. Was this really happening? His brain refused to work—he was afraid he’d misread the signs, that she was just saying thank you or something, and that if he touched her, she’d pull back with a start.
Then she moved her head back a few inches, and looked into his eyes. Her own were half-lidded and sultry, her lips bare and dry.
“Want me to stop?” she whispered. She wasn’t just saying thank you. She really wanted him.
Mac’s lips curved up, and joy flooded through him.
He put his hands on her hips and turned her so her butt rested against the sink. Stepping closer, until their bodies were flush, he pressed against her from her breasts to her thighs. He studied her face, thinking how beautiful she was, and how much he loved the way she hadn’t even stopped to dry her hands.
Then he lowered his head and kissed her.
She murmured her approval, clutching her fingers in his hair, and Mac sighed and gave himself over to the kiss. He felt as if he was kissing a piece of autumn, bathed in the evening glow, tasting the apple and pear from the wine she’d had, his nose filling with the smell of lavender and mint. She opened her mouth to his tongue, and he dipped it inside, fireworks going off from the roots of his hair and travelling all the way through his body to his feet. He slid his hands around her waist, still over the top of her pajamas, loving the way she was so soft, with none of the elastic and wire of women’s underwear that constrained and tightened and pushed a woman’s natural figure out of shape.
He skimmed his hands up her ribs, then behind to feel her narrow back and the angles of her shoulder blades, then over her shoulders and down under her arms, until finally he brushed across her breasts. She didn’t complain, just sighed and arched her back a little, so he cupped her breasts and ran his thumbs across her nipples. She was so soft—her breasts felt like ripe fruit in his palms, and he groaned as her nipples tightened and hardened, responding to his touch.
Finally, he moved his hands down her back and beneath the loose elastic of her pajama bottoms, sliding his hands over the muscles of her bottom, and pulled her against him, pressing his erection against her soft mound. God, but he wanted her. He’d take her, right here, right now, if he could, strip her naked here in the kitchen, and let the rays of the late sun pour hot gold over her skin, making love to her until she clenched her hands in his hair and cried out his name.
“Yes,” she whispered, nibbling his bottom lip, and he knew that once again she’d read his mind, had seen what he was thinking, and wanted it too.
“Here?” he mumbled. Surely she deserved to be in a soft bed, to be kissed and touched for hours, to be worshipped.
But she just nodded, grabbed the bottom of his T-shirt, and pulled it up and over his head. His heart swelled. Was there anything as wonderful in the world as being wanted?
Chapter Nineteen
EVERYTHING HAD FLED Fred’s mind except how it felt to have this man kissing her, holding her, looking at her with such desire that it was setting her alight. Nothing else mattered. Not the vineyard, not their fake marriage, not Ginger or Sandi or her father or James MacDonald. She didn’t want to think about the past or the future, or consequences, or the problems this might cause. For once in her life, she wanted to be a slave to her senses, to concentrate only on what her heart wanted, what her body craved.
She dropped Mac’s T-shirt to the floor and rested her palms on his chest. She could tell he wasn’t afraid of hard work—as far as she knew, he didn’t go to the gym, but his muscles were hard and defined, and there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. She’d never been with a man like this. The two guys she’d dated in the past had been boys in comparison, arrogant and eager to screw her body but not caring about her mind, as alien to her as the celebrities she saw in the magazines and on TV.
But this... this was a real man. He smelled of the outdoors, of mown grass, leather, the rich smell of earth, warmed by the sun. The way he described himself made him sound inexperienced and at a loss with women, but she could tell from how he was touching her, the sure slide of his hands over her body, that he knew how to pleasure a girl. This was no fumbling eighteen-year-old, not even a cocky post-grad—this was a man, with a man’s desires, and Fred shivered from the sheer anticipation of making love with him.
She’d sensed that he was inches away from taking her there and then, on the kitchen worktop, and her pulse had raced at the thought. She wanted to get carried away by passion, to be impulsive for once in her life. She didn’t want to think about what she should or ought to do. Just take me, she wanted to beg, and even though she didn’t have the courage to voice the words, she knew that he heard them, because his hands were gentle but firm, his kisses demanding rather than asking.
He lifted her pajama top, and Fred closed her eyes as he pulled it over her head and dropped it to the floor. She stood semi-naked in the kitchen, conscious of the window looking out onto the vineyard and hoping none of the grape pickers had stayed behind hoping for some overtime. She could feel the warmth of the evening sun on her skin, but it didn’t come close to the heat of his gaze.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, and she opened her eyes and looked up at him, holding her breath at his awed desire. He cupped her breast and stroked the tip with his thumb, and she looked down and watched the nipple peak, felt the answering shudder reverberate right through her, like a tuning fork tapped on the side of the piano.
“Mmm.” She tipped back her head, and then she felt his hands on her hair, removing the clip so the braid unfurled down over her shoulder. He pulled out the band at the end, and then his fingers were parting the strands, unravelling them until they tumbled down her body in a sheet of silk.
“I knew it would be soft,” he said hoarsely, lifting a section to his nose and inhaling.
Dropping her hair, he kissed her mouth, then up her cheekbone to her ear. His lips trailed down her neck, along her shoulder, then over her breastbone, and Fred inhaled as he bent and closed his mouth over a nipple.
God, it felt good, and she leaned back on the worktop, arching her back to push the nipple into his mouth. He sucked, just hard enough, and she cried out, her body humming.
His tongue washed over to her other nipple, lips tugging, mouth sucking, and Fred tipped her head right back, feeling her hair coiling on the rimu worktop. Mac leaned on her, his weight pressing into her—she could feel the hard length of his erection even through his jeans, eager for her, desperate to bury itself in her warmth.
Again, she felt his hands at the top of her pajama bottoms, but this time he tugged them down her legs, and she stepped out of them. Standing before him naked, she caught her breath as he raked her with his gaze, skimming down her waist and over her belly before lingering at the top of her thighs.
Fred ached for him. Now she’d made the decision to sleep with him, she couldn’t wait any longer. “Condom?” she asked, hoping beyond hope that he wouldn’t give her a blank look.
His eyebrows rose, then he patted his jeans pockets before looking around, presumably searching for his wallet.
“Coffee table?” she suggested.
He walked into the living room, past Scully, who lay with her nose on her paws, apparently bored with the show, and returned triumphant, opening his wallet. Flipping out a foil wrapper, he tossed the wallet a
side and came back to her.
She lifted herself up on the worktop, parted her knees, and pulled him toward her.
“You’re sure?” he murmured.
She nodded and fumbled at the top of his jeans. He didn’t need telling twice. He unbuttoned them, slid the zipper, and pushed down his boxers.
Fred watched, heart racing, as he rolled on the condom. Her mouth had gone dry. It had been a long time since she’d done this, and he wasn’t a small man.
To her surprise, he slid a finger beneath her chin and lifted it so she looked into his eyes. He smiled, and it was a lazy smile, a lusty one, that told her he knew what he was doing, and he was going to take his time, so all she had to do was enjoy it. She let him kiss her, opening her mouth to him, and at the same time felt his warm hand on her thigh. His thumb slid down, stroking between her legs, parting her folds, and she moaned as it found her clit and circled over it, smoothing her moisture through her swollen skin.
“Mac,” she whispered, trying to stop her hips rocking against the movement of his thumb.
“Mmm.” He dipped down again, retrieving more moisture, and she sighed, dropping back onto her elbows.
Unfortunately, as she did so, she knocked against the tap, and cold water splashed into the sink, throwing a shower of droplets over her naked skin. Before she could lift a hand to turn the tap off, Mac cupped a hand beneath the cool water, scooped it up, and tossed it over her body.
She squealed, and he laughed, then bent and covered her taut nipple with his mouth again. Fred groaned and opened her legs wider, and he caught another handful of water, this time letting it trickle over her belly and down her thighs. The coolness contrasted with the heat of her skin, and she felt her muscles tighten inside, almost coming on the spot.
“Please,” she begged, and he took the hint and guided his erection to her entrance.
As Deep as the Ocean Page 14