Australia: Wicked Mistresses

CHAPTER TWO

STARING into the wicked eyes of a beast, Nina kept still and swallowed hard.

There she’d been, wondering if she could possibly get out of that fix alive, then pow! So broad through the chest, so capable and infuriatingly confident, this superhero type showed up out of nowhere.

But she was confused. Where did he fit on her character chart? Was this man exceptionally good, or primarily perfectly bad?

Anyone with half a brain and a pair of scales must see he couldn’t carry her all the way back to the resort. Nevertheless, he hadn’t merely dismissed her suggestions. He’d gone so far as to pin her body beneath his to get his point across.

She was trapped. She should be fuming!

Instead her nerve-endings simmered with indisputable awareness, and her fuzzy brain kept wondering how well his lips might fit closed over hers.

“You’re quiet,” he noted, his mouth a hair’s breadth from hers.

Wondering if he might manacle her wrists next—and not wholly against the idea—she squirmed. “I’m thinking.”

“About behaving, I hope.”

His voice was rough, dangerously deep, and the whisper of his breath against her lips felt far less invasive than it ought to.

“Do I need to point out,” she said, “that I’m not the one behaving badly?”

“Won’t make a difference. If I let you have your way, you could do yourself another injury.” Wet dark hair flopped over his brow when he cocked his head. “Or would you rather I ignore the fact you might have concussion?”

“I’d rather you quit with the caveman mentality.”

He growled and leaned a smidge closer. “You’re only alive because that caveman mentality got me to you before the sharks tucked in for dinner.”

She held her breath while her heart thumped high in her chest.

Oh, crap. She hated to admit it, but his brutish logic made sense. He would never convince her he could carry her all the way back to the resort, but her head did feel light. If she stood up now, tried to walk, she might very well fall over. Maybe even knock herself out a second time. Like it or not, in a roughish kind of way, he was still rescuing her—protecting her—this time from herself.

She issued a reluctant nod and, fire fading from his eyes, he curled away.

As he repositioned himself beside her, the sinking sun fell behind his head, bathing his splendid form in a golden-rose halo. Nina squeezed her eyes shut, then looked again. He wasn’t an angel. She was certain of that now. And yet his presence, this scene, everything about this time here with him seemed surreal. Make-believe.

Maybe she was still unconscious? Maybe her lungs were filled with water and she’d hallucinated all this while succumbing to the final phase of drowning? Was she experiencing some incredible dream on her way to the hereafter? That wasn’t so unlikely. She’d heard stories before.

Was any of this real?

Determined to find out, she reached and touched his pec, an inch above that small flat nipple. Her fingertip sizzled like creamy butter on a hotplate, at the same time as her centre glowed and blood tingled with fresh life. As her fingers fanned over the black, crisp hair, bolts of crackling electricity ripped through her veins. His flesh was so firm, so masculine and—

She stopped.

Inched her gaze up.

He was looking down his aquiline nose at her fingers—which were kneading the warm cushioned steel as if they belonged there.

Tilting his cleft chin, he raised a dark brow and his entrancing eyes met hers.

“Let me know when it’s my turn.”

She snatched her hand away. Her breathing was all over the place again and her face was flaming. Simply put, she wanted to die.

“I was just … er … just making sure they were—I mean, that you were—” Embarrassed beyond words, she spat out the rest. “I was making sure you were real.”

“Oh, is that what you were doing?”

His lopsided grin drew a crease down one side of that highly kissable mouth. And his eyes …

They were so clear and bright and laughing.

Laughing at her.

She understood why. She was acting like a loon. A suspicious, ungrateful, concussed, groping loon.

But then his gaze sharpened and his expression changed.

“Are you cold?” he asked, edging close again.

“I don’t think so.” But that noise … Were her teeth chattering? Checking out the clouds building to black overhead, she shivered and instinctively hugged herself. “I am kind of shaky.”

A line cut between his brows and he cupped her chin, turned her head gently one way then the next. His gaze intensified, and for a giddy moment Nina imagined she’d fallen head-first into those amazing ice-blue eyes. When he checked her pulse against his platinum Omega, she relented and played compliant patient. After six weeks of serving other people’s every whim, there was part of her that needed this one-on-one attention, mandatory though the attention might be.

“What’s the verdict, Doc?” Did he want her to open her mouth and say ah?

Her answer came when he rolled his shoulders back and peeled off his shirt. Her eyes popped out of her head. Mamma mia. What a specimen.

“You need to be kept warm,” he told her, stripping a sleeve off one dynamite arm and then the other.

“Thanks,” she managed to wheeze, “but I don’t think a wet shirt will cut it.”

“Body heat will.”

“Y-you’re going to hold me?”

He blindly tossed the shirt on a bush, then loomed over her, the chiselled planes of his face unforgivably close. “Any objection?”

Her gaze zeroed in on his mouth, on the dusky pink of his full bottom lip, and her pelvic floor muscles squeezed.

She’d tried to refuse him before and her opposition had got her nowhere. If anything, being obstinate had made matters worse. An air of entitlement, albeit tempered by GQ looks and bad-boy charm, was a quality that stuck in her craw. She’d kow-towed to similar sorts too often these past weeks … people who would once have classed her as their equal.

All that aside, this guy was no idiot. If he said she needed to be held—hell, he was probably right. And if she must be gathered up against some unknown body … heck, it might as well be his.

When she mustered a haughty look and shrugged one shoulder, he scooped an arm beneath her neck.

“Tell me if I hurt you,” he said, careful of her bump and her foot as he lay beside her.

He drew her close until her ear rested on the plateau of flesh and muscle below his collarbone. Despite her irritation, she almost sighed when one iron-warm palm splayed over the small of her back, pressing her deftly against his powerhouse length.

His breath brushed her ear. “How’s that?”

She could be smarmy, could fib and say she was uncomfortable; she was in a way—only because he had, indeed, been right. It seemed those remarkable arms gathering her near were exactly what her traumatised body had needed.

Comfort … a masculine mountain of it.

She buried her nose in his chest and mumbled, “Better.”

She imagined his grin. “Good.”

He was damp but hot, as if a furnace were blazing away beneath the skin, and when she closed her eyes everything but the impression of security and strength faded from mind. His earthy scent, mixed with a lingering hint of aftershave or soap, burrowed into her pores and played havoc with her rag-taggle reason.

This felt nice. He felt nice. Nice and strong and not-so-plain-or-simple sexy.

She inwardly sighed.

Oh, why not admit it? The throb in the base of her belly wasn’t a consequence of relief or gratitude, or even exasperation. It was desire—the forbidden, molten lava kind that blocked out other stimuli, heightened each sense and alerted every fibre. It was the kind of intense physical attraction that had her half convinced she needed to dissolve into this man right here, right now, or simply cease to be.

Crazy.

Clearly the knock on her head had bumped the arousal lever in her brain up to high. Every synapse seemed to have direct dial to the pulse ticking merrily away between her thighs. Every nerve-ending was wired to zap the burning tips of her breasts. All of which made her horribly nervous.

And terribly curious.

They were strangers, brought together by near tragedy. She was a level-headed woman who, admittedly, hadn’t had a man in a while. A good while. And certainly never one like this. But her urge to gaze up, look into those incredible eyes and offer him her lips …

It was wrong. Totally off beam.

Wasn’t it?

A moment ago his bedraggled kitten had wanted to know if this was real. Now Gabriel wondered too. He hadn’t peeled off his shirt and drawn her close for any reason other than her shaking. She needed to be kept warm.

Sure, he was benefiting too. Lying on this cushiony spread of sandy grass and listening to the rhythmic wash of waves gave him a chance to recuperate. His system needed a break. Only …

He didn’t feel all that relaxed.

His body was a simmering mass of anticipation. His heartbeat was a booming bass beat in his ears. Those symptoms weren’t a consequence of exertion any more than the ambitious tightening in his groin, or the groan of awareness building like thermal movement deep in his chest.

He was a man who lived well—the finest food and accommodation, state-of-the-art high-powered cars. But holding a beautiful woman was on a shelf all its own. She seemed to be on a shelf all her own.

He was no stranger to sex. Slow sex, hot sex—wild sex even better. But, no matter how stimulating the company, he’d never needed to worry about maintaining a certain level of control. He never truly lost himself in the moment. And yet the desire rippling through his veins now was distinct. Unique.

Disturbing.

It had to be the setting, the extraordinary circumstances, but it was all he could do not to tug this woman’s supple curves closer, coax her shapely hips nearer, tilt her chin higher and kiss her.

Hard.

Normally he knew when a woman was interested too. A lidded look. An arched brow. A sensual smile when she caught his gaze and held it. That kind of nonverbal communication had been perfected by nature over eons to ensure the survival of the species. I’m available. Me too. No genius there.

But, lying beneath this palm tree with Miz Crusoe nestled alongside him, he was stumped. She’d been grateful, stubborn, teasing, and finally accepting. It couldn’t be his imagination that she was enjoying this contact as much as he was.

So where did pumped-up high-stakes drama end, and good old-fashioned foreplay with an attractive, might-as-well-be-naked woman begin? If he rolled more towards her, how would she react? With outrage, as she’d done earlier, before he’d flattened her against the ground to make sure she wouldn’t hurt herself? Or would her gaze become heavy with an I-feel-it-too glow?

When she gave a violent shiver, the choice was made for him. Before she trembled a second time Gabriel held her more firmly, grazing a warming palm up and down her chilled arm.

After a moment she looked up, and her full lips twitched. “You must think I’m horrible.”

He grinned. “Worse than Godzilla and the giant Powder Puff man combined.”

Her perfect smile fanned wider before she sobered. “While I can’t condone all your tactics, I truly am grateful. For everything. You’re right. I’d have been fish food if you hadn’t come along when you did.”

“I’m glad I was able to help.” More than she’d ever know. “How’s your foot?”

Her leg moved and she flinched. “Hurts a little.”

“We ought to get moving before the pain gets worse.”

She hummed out an affirmation, but then only laid her cheek back upon his chest.

He gauged the sun’s heavy position in the sky, the storm clouds meshing together overhead, then closed his eyes and concentrated on the feel of her hand on his ribs.

Ah, what the hell? A few more minutes wouldn’t hurt.

His palm trailed her arm again, up over the slender shoulder, down to her elbow. Seagulls wheeled and squawked above while time wrapped around them like a promise-filled cocoon. If anyone had happened along they’d have mistaken them for lovers.

“Guess we really should get going,” she murmured. “You’ve probably got someone waiting.”

He nailed the quality in her voice: overly blasé. People came to Diamond Shores to fulfil their island fantasy while soaking up every laid-back luxury. Make the rates exorbitant, and it was a licence to print money. It added up that kitten here was looking to be indulged too. But in what way? And to what extent?

Time for a test line.

“There’s nobody waiting in the way you’re implying,” he said.

“What way is that?”

“How many ways are there?”

“Let’s see. You could be here on a reckless weekend with a bud.”

“Nope.”

“Could be showing a client a good time, hoping to tie the bow on a multi-million-dollar deal.”

“Good guess, but no banana.”

“You’re here with your girl?”

“Don’t have one.”

Two beats of silence, then her breath brushed his chest again. “Maybe you’re here to find one?”

“Is that an invitation?”

She gave a humourless laugh, but didn’t search out his gaze. “Believe me, I’m not your type.”

“What type are you?”

“I should start with clumsy.”

“So this kind of incident isn’t a one-off?”

“Yesterday I spilled a drink in the lap of an Arab prince.”

He cringed. “Bet he offered to buy you another one.”

When she groaned, the vibration blew a pleasant tingling rash down one side of his body. “Hardly.”

“International model types weren’t the Prince’s thing?”

She lifted her head to give him a pull-the-other-one look. “Models are super tall and thin.”

“So, not a model?” he conjectured. “More athlete, then. You compete in the European show-jump circuit?”

“Horses make me sneeze. And I’m clumsy, remember? I’d break my neck, and the poor horse’s too.”

“Okay. Your father’s one of the country’s leading barristers and you’re fresh out of law school, ready to fry your first bad guy’s butt,” he surmised, and she laughed.

“I like your imagination,” she said, “but …”

“I’m off track?”

“Way off.”

“A hint would be good.”

“But not as fun as hearing what you come up with next.”

Her eyes were dancing now, and a stream of hair had fallen down the centre of her forehead, criss-crossing her slim straight nose. He scooped the hair behind her ear and his blood heated more.

“Got it.” He lowered his hand. “You’re a misunderstood heiress running from the press.”

“Not this year.”

He chuckled, so she did too, but then she winced and touched her head.

His stomach muscles crunched and welts stung for the first time as he sat up. “How’s the lump?”

“Only hurts when I laugh.”

He mock-frowned. “I can be serious.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I want to hold you closer.”

Her hand drifted away from her bump. “You want to do what?”

“Hold you closer.”

Her eyes rounded to saucers.

“That’s not a command, by the way,” he added. “More a suggestion.”

“If I say no?”

“We head off to the resort.”

“If I say yes?”

“Then I’ll add another wish to my list.”

She blinked several times, as if she were having trouble taking it all in, but she didn’t try to wriggle away. In fact she leaned nearer. “Tell me.”

He craned his neck to graze his lips over the satin and grit of her brow, and the contact made the skin tighten over his flesh. “I’d do this.”

He heard her intake of air, felt her slight tremble as he grazed again.

Her hand bunched slowly on his chest, sending positive signals to regions below.

“And then?” she asked.

He cupped her nape, his thumb circling the base of her neck before his hand slid around to her chin. His lips skied down the slope where a moment ago he’d brushed her hair away.

“I’d tip your chin higher.” With a knuckle, he angled her mouth towards his. “Like this.”

Her lips parted as she inhaled, silent but deep, and her heavy gaze sparkled into his.

“Then what?”

Smiling softly, he moved closer.

“Then this.”

CHAPTER THREE

THE touch of his kiss was faint, yet the intensity of sensation was all-consuming. The promise of what was to come gave Nina a heady rush and goosebumps down to her toes. Today she’d nearly lost her life, but this—dear heaven—was almost worth dying for.

With his thumb guiding her jaw, he steered her chin higher and kissed her again, this time with his mouth slanted at a different, more exacting angle.

Nina sighed.

He felt like magic … omnipotent, skilled, sultry. This caress was barely there, yet somehow it lifted her to another plane, where warm hands understood how to stroke and leisurely lips knew how to thrill. If there was an advanced school of kissing, this guy had graduated top of the class.

As his mouth reluctantly drew away, the tip of his nose brushed hers. She opened her eyes, and when he opened his, they were a dark, stormy blue-grey, and filled with a latent hunger Nina’s surging blood recognised too.

This man was every woman’s dream. Masterful, challenging, sexy to a fault. She’d never met anyone like him. She wanted him to kiss her a second time, and then she wanted him to do it again.

One problem.

Did she tell him before or after she wasn’t who or what he thought? Not an heiress fleeing from the paparazzi, not the genius daughter of a world-famous barrister, but a rather average, stressed-out waitress, struggling to get through a difficult time.

Good thing he had track shoes on. He might want to run a mile.

“I have to say,” he murmured in a rich, drugging voice that spoke directly to her G spot, “that felt good.”

Despite her concerns, she couldn’t help but smile back. “I second that.”

His absorbed gaze dropped to devour her lips. “I vote we get more inventive.”

“Which entails …?”

“For you … simply lie back and enjoy.”

“Oh, I have to enjoy it?” she teased.

He nipped her bottom lip. “That’s the idea.”

At the notion of total surrender—arms draped over her head, taking every wonderful delight he had to offer—syrupy warmth condensed at the heart of her. The idea of making love with a thoroughly gorgeous man she barely knew was not only reckless, it was irresistible. Who said she wasn’t allowed to forget her problems for an hour or two? Wrapping herself in his silver lining sounded pretty good about now.

With a cooling breeze blowing over her skin, teasing her nipples, she wet her lips.

“What about you? Do you get to enjoy it too?”

He shifted up, so that one side of his impressive chest hovered over hers. His arm curled possessively above her head.

“Ask me a hard question.”

He kissed her in earnest then, his warmth flashing heat-lightning through her blood, his mouth irrevocably claiming hers. But not in a gulping, feverish fashion. More with the finesse of a man who knew what women liked. What this woman needed.

His slightly roughened palm trailed down her neck. His thumb rested in the hollow of her beating throat before his touch skimmed down her décolletage, then slid to encircle her upper arm, coaxing her up and in. The suggestion of ownership in the gesture was unmistakable, as well as enthralling—all the more so given the way his mouth worked unhurriedly yet intently with hers.

Her arms coiled around his neck and she pulled herself up, offering more, as delectable desire built and bubbled away—a steaming kettle ready to boil. She was physically, helplessly drawn to him, like a tide to the moon or a bird to blue sky. When his tongue probed deeper Nina whimpered with mind-tingling longing, and a strange sense of belonging seeped through her.

This embrace wasn’t merely great, it was fated. In this thin slice of time she wasn’t Jill’s sister or little Codie’s aunt. She wasn’t the pampered princess who’d once had everything, or the twenty-year-old who’d slogged her guts out to ace her journalism class. She wasn’t a magazine editor who’d found herself at a crossroads.

At this moment she was pure woman, hovering at the pinnacle of creation’s best ever kiss. She felt so fired up she could barely breathe—but, unlike during her near drowning moments ago, she didn’t want to come up for air. She’d much rather relinquish herself to her mystery man’s caress until she expired from exhaustion and sheer joy.

When his thumb brushed the outside of her breast she groaned. The sensitive peak tightened and her leg instinctively moved in. But the scratches on her ankle rubbed and, wincing, she jerked back an inch. When he pulled back too, the set of his jaw and refocusing eyes said he’d remembered where they were.

Oh, but this couldn’t end now. What were a couple of scratches compared to the chance to truly escape and float on cloud nine?

Her arm still around his neck, she tugged. “I’m perfectly fine—honest.”

His chin kicked up a notch. “You don’t know how much I’d like to believe that.”

Her fingers filed up through the back of his hair. “Believe it.”

He set his forehead upon hers. “I’m afraid this, my dear, is not the time.”

She pouted. “Really?”

“Really, really.”

Sorry. She couldn’t accept it. Her hand snaked down and she drew a suggestive circle around his right nipple, smiling when the disc hardened beneath her touch.

Folding her hand up in his, he pressed his warm lips to the palm. “Doctor first. Advanced introductions later.”

“Maybe one more quick hello?”

He laughed, a gorgeous black velvet sound she would never tire of hearing. This guy had it all. Looks, charm, Herculean strength. Sure, he was a little overconfident, but, given the circumstances, after that kiss, she could find it in her heart to forgive him.

“Later,” he confirmed, and cocked an enquiring brow. “Maybe over dinner?”