Australian Escape

“Come on,” he growled, pressing a hand to her back as he shielded her from a group of oblivious teenagers taking up the whole path as they headed towards the Punch Bowl.

Jonah kept his hand at her back as they continued along the now-secluded path. And she let him.

When they reached a fork in the path—one way headed straight to the beach, the other hooking back to the rear entrance to the Tropicana Nights—she turned towards him, and his hand slid naturally to her waist.

Wrong, he told himself, on so many levels. And yet it felt so right. His hand in the dip of her waist. Her scent curling beneath his nose. Her mismatched eyes picking up the earthy colours around her.

Her voice was breathless as she said, “Thanks for lunch. It was nice to have company.”

Streaks of sunlight shot through the palm leaves above and shone in her pale hair and the pulse that beat in her throat. Through the thin dress he felt the give of her warm flesh beneath his rough palm. She leaned into his touch without even knowing it.

It finally drove him over the edge.

“Even if it wasn’t the company you wanted?”

Her eyes flashed. Her cheeks flushed pink. Before she could move away, his second hand joined his first at her waist. And he pressed an inch closer. Two. Till their hips met. Her breath shot from her lungs in a whoosh and her top teeth came down over her bottom lip.

He lifted a hand to run his thumb over the spot, tugging the pink skin, leaving the pad of his thumb moist. “Luke is a fool,” Jonah said, his voice so rough his throat hurt.

Her eyes widened, but she didn’t deny it. Then they widened even more as she lifted her hands to press against his chest. “Is that why you had lunch with me? He couldn’t come and sent you to soften the blow?”

“Hell, no,” Jonah barked. “I’m nobody’s flunky. And Luke’s a stand-up guy. Doesn’t mean that sometimes he doesn’t know a good thing when it’s right under his nose.”

What the hell was he doing? Trying to talk her into the guy’s arms? No. He was making sure she was sure. Because he was beyond sure that he wanted to kiss her. Taste her. Hell, he wanted to throw her over his shoulder and take her back to his cave and get it on till she cried out his name.

“He’s your friend,” she said, her fingers drifting to lie flat against his chest. Jonah’s heart rocked against his ribs.

“Which gives me the right to call him out. And if the guy thought any place was better than being right here, right now, with a woman like you, who feels like you feel, and smells as good as you smell, and is into team sports as much as you—”

She laughed at that one, a dreamy gleam in her darkening eyes.

“He’s worse than a fool,” Jonah finished. “He’s too late.”

Avery’s hands curled against his chest. He held his breath as he waited for her to take them away. Instead they gripped his polo shirt, her fingernails scraping cotton against skin, sending shards of heat straight to his groin. And he pressed back until she bumped against the white stuccoed wall beneath the palms.

Then, hauling Avery against him, with an expulsion of breath and self-control, Jonah laid his lips on hers.

He’d expected sweetness and experience—a woman couldn’t be that gorgeous and not make the most of it.

What he didn’t expect was the complete assault on his senses. Or the searing thread of need that wrapped tight about him, following the path of her hands as they slid up into his hair, deepening where her body arched against his, throbbing at every pulse point on his body.

Not a pause, or a breath, her lips simply melted under his, soft and delicious. And he drank her in as if it had been coming for days, eons, forever. He had no idea how long that kiss kept him in its thrall before he eased back, the cling of their lips parting on a sigh.

Slowly the rest of the world came back online until Jonah felt the warmth of the sunlight dappling through the trees, and the sound of the nearby waves lapping gently against the sand, and Avery, soft and trembling in his arms.

Then she looked up at him, shell-shocked. As if she’d never been kissed that way in her life. It was such an ego surge, it took everything in him not to wrap his arms around her, rest his forehead against hers, and just live in the moment. To forget about anything else. Anyone.

Hell, he thought, reality hitting like a Mack truck.

How readily he’d just caved. And kissed her. Avery Shaw. Claude’s friend. Luke’s...who the hell knew what? And until that point pain in his proverbial ass.

He dug deep to find whatever ruthlessness he’d once upon a time dredged up to take a dilapidated old lobster boat and turn it into an empire, and used it to put enough physical distance between himself and Avery that she wrapped her arms about her as if she was suddenly cold.

Her voice was soft as she said, “That was...unexpected.”

Not to him. She’d been dragging him back to his old self—when he’d been wild, unfocused, all that mattered was following the sun—for days. Not that he was about to tell her so.

He looked at her sideways. “What was I supposed to do with you looking up at me like that?”

She blinked. “Like what?”

“Like Bambi when his mother died.”

Her eyes opened as wide as they could go. “You kissed me to...cheer me up?”

“Did it work?”

Snapping back to factory settings, her hands jerked to her hips and her eyes narrowed to dark slits. “What do you think, smart guy? Do I appear cheerful?”

She appeared even more kissable now, her hair a little dishevelled, her lips swollen, and all those waves of emotion coursing his way. She also looked confused. And a little hurt.

Not so much it stopped him from saying, “I don’t know you well enough to rightly say.”

She reared back as if slapped. “Wow,” she said. “I knew you were a stubborn son of a bitch, Jonah. But until right now I had no idea you were a coward.”

And without once looking back she stormed away.

Rubbing a hand up the back of his head, he dragged his eyes from her retreating back to find trusty Hull sitting at his feet, looking adoring as ever. No judgment there.

“She’s partly right,” he said. “I am a son of a bitch.”

But he wasn’t a coward. Not that he was about to chase her to point that out. In fact, considering that kiss, he considered himself pretty frickin’ heroic for walking away. Until that point he’d been thinking all about him; why he should stay the hell away from her. Not once had it occurred to him she ought to stay away from him. Not until he’d felt her trembling in his arms.

While he’d made the decision to remain cemented in Crescent Cove for the rest of his natural life, emotionally he would always be a nomad. It was in his blood. Passed down from his flighty mother. His voyager father. To all intents and purposes he’d been on his own since before he was even a teen. Walked himself to school. Lived off what he could cook. Skating. Surfing. Nothing tying him to anything, or any place, except choice.

When Rach had sashayed into town he’d been twenty-three, living like a big kid in his father’s house on the bluff, life insurance on the verge of gone. She’d been this sophisticated outsider, come from Sydney for a week, and he’d done everything in his power to win her over. The life might not have been enough for his mum, but if this woman could stay, to him it was incontrovertible proof that his was the best life on earth.

She’d moved in with him after three days, and stayed for near a year.

Inevitably, she’d grown bored.

And when she left he’d been left completely untethered. Banging about inside the old house like a bird with broken wings.

After his disastrous move to Sydney with its noise, and smog, and crush of people—he’d taken control of his life. Delivering on the promise of his father’s hard work.

He might not have time to connect with the better parts of his old life—with the sun, and the sea, and the big blue—but he felt otherwise fulfilled. Better, he felt redeemed.

And he wasn’t willing to risk that feeling for anything or anyone. No matter how kissable.

* * *

Avery was in such a red-hot haze she couldn’t remember how she made it back to the resort. But soon the white steps were loud beneath her high heels as she made her way into the lobby.

Mere days before she’d been delighting in her ability to say no to the guy, as if it were some kind of sign that with a little R and R under her belt she might have the wherewithal to say the same to her folks one of these days. But no. One touch, one deep dark look, and she’d practically devoured him.

She lifted fingers to lips that felt bruised and tender, knowing that not being able to say no and wanting to say yes were two wholly different things, but it was hard to think straight while she could still feel those big strong arms wrap tight about her, his heart thundering beneath her chest, his mouth on hers.

Suddenly feeling a mite woozy, she slowed, found a column and banged her forehead against the cool faux marble. It felt so good she did it again.

“Avery.”

Avery looked up, rubbing at the spot on her head as she turned to find Luke Hargreaves striding towards her in his lovely suit with his lovely face and that lovely way he had about him that didn’t make her feel as if she were being whipped about inside a tornado.

Her invitation to lunch had been casual. An honest-to-goodness catch-up. Nothing more. As picture-perfect as he appeared she’d struggled to whip up the kind of enthusiasm required to campaign for more. Yet maybe this whole thing had been a sign. That she needed to up her game.

“Luke!” she said, leaning in for an air kiss.

“Don’t you look a million bucks.” He looked her up and down, making her feel...neat. If Jonah had done the same she’d have felt stripped bare. “Don’t tell me today was meant to be our lunch date.”

Yeah, buddy, it was. “Not to worry! I bumped into Jonah.” Argh! “So he sat with me, and we ate. Steak.” Oh, just shut up now.

“Was it any good?”

“I’m sorry?” she squeaked.

“The steak.”

“Oh, the steak was excellent. Tender. Tasty.” Please shoot me now. “If you get the chance to eat there, try it.”

Nodding as if he just might, Luke ran a hand through his hair leaving tracks that settled in attractively dishevelled waves. Even that didn’t have her hankering to run her fingers in their wake. Yet every time she saw a certain head full of tight dark curls it was a physical struggle not to reach out and touch.

“You know what? What are you doing right now?” he asked.

Trying not to make it obvious that my knees aren’t yet fully functional after your friend kissed me senseless. You?

He glanced at his watch, frowned some more. “Miraculously I have nothing on my plate right this second, if you’d like to grab a coffee.”

“No,” she said, rather more sternly than she’d intended. But Avery was a Shaw. And Shaws didn’t know the meaning of giving in. Look at her mother! She softened it with a smile. Then said, “Dinner. Tomorrow night. A proper catch-up.” A proper setting to see if something nice can be forged.

“Perfect.” He smiled. “Catch you then.” It was a perfectly lovely smile. Her blood didn’t come close to rushing; in fact it didn’t give a flying hoot.

Avery made to give him a quick peck on the cheek, but instead found herself patting him chummily on the arm. Then he headed off, always with purpose in his stride that one. Unlike Jonah who, even as he got things done, had this air about him as if he had all the time in the world.

With a sigh Avery didn’t much want to pick apart, she looked up and caught the eye of young Isis behind the reception desk. The girl waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

If only, Avery thought. Even Pollyanna gave a little yawn. By the time Avery slipped back to her room she collapsed on her bed and had the first nap she’d had since she was a kid. All it took to finally find the limit to her exhaustion was making a date with one man while the kiss of another still lingered on her lips.

SIX

Jonah sat at the small backstreet pub the tourists always seemed to miss—probably because it wasn’t suffocated by a surfeit of palm trees and Beach Boys music. Self-flagellation being a skill he’d honed during the long months spent in Sydney, he’d invited Luke to join him.

“Thanks for filling in at lunch with Avery today, mate,” Luke said.

And there went Jonah’s hopes for a quiet beer.

Frosty bottle an inch from his mouth, Luke added, “I bumped into her in the lobby after I finally extricated myself from one of Claudia’s presentations. All cardboard signs and permanent markers. She has a dislike for PowerPoint I’ll never understand.” His eyes shifted Jonah’s way. “So how was lunch?”

“They do a good steak,” Jonah rumbled, then chugged a third of his beer in one hit.

“So I heard.”

He and Luke might only see one another once every couple of years these days, but they’d been mates long enough for Jonah to know he’d been made. Dammit.

He held his ground, counting the bottles of spirits lining the shelves behind the bar. Luke shifted on his chair to face Jonah. Until, thumb swishing over the face of his phone, Luke said, “In fact we have dinner plans for tomorrow night. Avery and I.”

Jonah gripped his beer, even as he felt his cheek twitch in a masochistic grin. He tipped his beer in Luke’s direction as he caught his old friend’s gaze. “You’re going, right?”

Luke pushed his phone aside, a huge smile creasing his face. “Any reason I shouldn’t?”

“You stood her up once before.”

Luke’s smile fell. “Hardly. She’d told me she was having lunch at the Punch if I was around.”

“Luke. Man. Come on. She thought it was a date.”

“I don’t think so, mate. You’ve got your wires crossed somewhere.”

When had his old mate morphed from his wingman into this blinkered, workaholic monkey with a phone permanently attached to his palm? In fairness, it was probably about the time his ex-wife took his heart out with a fork.

Luke watched him a few long seconds before slowly leaning back in the leather chair. “Should be a fun night, though. Those legs. That smile. And that accent? It just kills me.”

Jonah tried to sit still, remain calm, and yet he could feel the steam pouring from his ears. Luke clearly noticed, as suddenly he laughed as if he’d never seen anything so funny.

With a tip of his beer bottle towards Jonah, Luke said, “So, you and Miss Manhattan, eh?”

“There is no me and Miss Manhattan.”

Luke grinned like a shark as he parroted back, “Jonah. Man. Come on.”

Jonah settled his hands around his beer and stared hard into the bubbles. “I’m right there with you on the legs. And the smile. And the accent.” And the eyes. He’d had dreams about those eyes, locked onto his, turning dark with pleasure as she fell apart in his arms. “But she’s my worst nightmare.”

The raised eyebrow of his old friend told him he didn’t believe it for a second. “From what Claude tells me, she’s from money. So high maintenance, maybe.”

“It’s not that. She’s...” Stunning, sexy, yet despite the big-city sophistication still somehow compellingly naive. She could swipe his legs out from under him if he wasn’t careful. “A pain in the ass.”

Luke thought on it a moment. “Then again, aren’t they all?”

Jonah tapped the neck of Luke’s beer bottle with his own.

“I’ve been around the block a few times now,” Jonah went on. “I’ve made mistakes. I’d like to think I’ve learned when to trust my gut about such things.”

“Since You Know Who?”

Jonah raised an eyebrow in assent. “And yet, I can’t seem to...not.”

“Then lucky for you the man she clearly wants is me.”

At that, whatever morbid little tunnel Jonah had been staring down blinked out of existence. He leant back in his chair, and smiled at his friend. “Not as much as she thinks she does.”

“Now what makes you think my charms aren’t all-encompassing?”

“I have it on good knowledge that she’s...in flux.”

Luke’s laughter rang through the bar. He sat forward. All ears. And, thankfully, not a lick of rivalry in his gaze. “I’ve been out of circulation too long. Since when does ‘steak’ stand for something else?”

“Calm down. Steak meant steak,” Jonah rumbled.

“But something happened.”

When Jonah didn’t answer, Luke slammed the table so hard their beers bounced. “Jonah North, pillar of the Crescent Cove community, made out with my dinner date who is also apparently his worst nightmare. Was this before or after she asked me to dinner?”

Jonah’s cheek twitched and his head suddenly hurt so much he couldn’t see straight. “Hell.”

Luke’s laughter was so loud it echoed through the small bar till the walls shook. “Man, you have no idea how much I’m enjoying this. The number of times girls came up to me only to ask if the dude with the palm-tree surfboard was single... And then along comes a sophisticated out-of-towner, not instantly bowled over by your—to my mind—deeply hidden charms, and—”

Luke’s words came to an abrupt halt as the parallel with the last great—not so great—relationship of Jonah’s life came to light. Luke slapped Jonah hard on the back. “Walk away. Walk away now and do not look back.”

“Sounds fine in theory.”

“Yet far better in practice. Trust me,” Luke said with the bitter edge of first-hand knowledge.

Jonah nodded. The other outsider had shaken up his whole life until it had never been remotely the same again.

But he’d been a different man back then. Barely a man at all. Alone for so long, with nothing tethering him to his life, that he’d mistaken lust for intimacy. Company for partnership. The presence of another body in his house for it finally feeling like a home again.

His foundations were stronger now. He was embedded in his life. There was no way he’d make the same mistake twice. If something happened between Avery and him, he’d be just fine. Which meant the decision was now up to her.

“You haven’t heard a word I said, have you?” Luke grumbled.

“About what?”

“Battening down the hatches. And several other good boating analogies.”

“What the hell do you know about boats? Or women, for that matter.”

Luke stared into the middle distance a moment before grinding out an, “Amen.”

* * *

Avery stood outside the elegant Botch-A-Me restaurant Luke had picked for their date, and took a moment to check her reflection in the window. Her hair was twisted into a sleek sophisticated up-do. Her platinum-toned bustier was elegant and sexy, her wide-legged black pants floaty and sensual. Her favourite teardrop diamond earrings glinted in the light of the tiki torches lighting the restaurant with a warm golden glow.

The man didn’t stand a chance.

Pity then that as her focus shifted as she looked through the window, she imagined for a second she’d seen a head of darkly curled hair.

Seriously? After the way Jonah had acted as if that kiss was some kind of consolation prize. Forget him. It was why she was here tonight after all. Only her damn heart wouldn’t give up on him. Pathetic little thing couldn’t think past the kiss at all.

Suddenly the dark curls moved and Luke’s face came into view, and Avery’s stomach sank. She wasn’t imagining things. Jonah was there. With Luke. And they were clearly a couple of drinks down. Avery’s stomach trembled even as it fell to her knees.

“Hey, kiddo! Sorry I’m late.”

Avery turned to find Claudia beside her, peering through the window, her wispy blonde hair caught back in a pretty silver clip, and—for once out of uniform—looking effortlessly lovely in an aqua maxi-dress that made her blue eyes pop.

“Late for what?”

“Ah, dinner? I begged Luke to use the Grand Cayman back at the Tropicana—the new chef I just hired is fantasmagorical. But he insisted we need to check out the competition. Everything okay? You look a little unwell.”

“No. Everything’s fine,” Avery said, while the truth was she now shared Claude’s urge to slap Luke across the back of the head. As for Jonah? Knees and soft body parts came to mind. All four of them at the same table was going to be a disaster.

Her usual MO would be to bounce about, create some cheery diversion to keep every faction distracted before it escalated into something she couldn’t control. It was what she’d do back home.

Or she could face the music.

Taking a deep breath, Avery slipped a hand into the crook of Claudia’s elbow and dragged her inside. Avery motioned to the host so that she could see her dining party and made a beeline for the table near the edge of the room, her heart beating so hard she could hear the swoosh of it behind her ears.

Luke saw her coming first, and gave her an honest-to-goodness smile that started in his mouth before landing in his lovely brown eyes. She might have forgiven him if not for the fact that she knew the moment his companion noticed it too. Jonah’s buff brown forearm with white shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows moved to slide across the back of his chair, as his head turned and his eyes found hers.

Nothing like a polite smile there. In fact, Jonah was scowling at her as if the fact that he’d trapped her into a kiss gave him some kind of right to be upset with her for making a date with another man.

Gripping her sparkly purse so he couldn’t see her trembling, Avery dragged her eyes from his and found Luke standing. Such a gentleman, unlike certain others who were giving her a once-over that made her feel as if her sophistication had been peeled all the way back to skin.

“Lovely to see you, Luke,” she said.

“Evening, Avery. Don’t you look stunning?”

“Thank you. As do you.”

Jonah coughed beside her.

With a smile she leant into Luke for a kiss. With a light hand on her hip, he pressed his lips to her cheek. Nice lips, she thought. Firm. The hand on her hip brief but sure. And he smelled great. When he pulled away she waited for that lovely feeling of bereftness that came when a lover was no longer close enough to touch.

And realised with a sense of impending doom she’d be waiting forever.

“Good evening, Avery,” said a deep voice to her left.

Avery looked into the deep grey eyes of Jonah North. He’d stood. Belatedly. And yet she had to knock her knees together to hold back the tide of heat that swept over her at the mere sight of him.

“Jonah,” she managed.

All she got for her effort was a flicker of an eyebrow, and a slow smile. She leant in for a perfunctory kiss, trying not to remember with quite so much clarity the other kiss. Failing spectacularly as his hand landed on her hip like a brand. The touch of his stubble against her cheek was a delicious rasp that she felt at the backs of her knees. And when he pulled away she felt not so much bereft as bulldozed.

She blinked. And when a smile finally reached his eyes, making them crinkle, making them gleam, she realised that she probably looked exactly like she felt.

“Claude,” said Luke, “looking just as lovely.”

Claudia stood behind her chair at that, her lips tightening as if she was waiting for the “but.” But when it didn’t come she gave Luke a quick nod. His eyes darkened, before, with a tilt of his lips, he returned the nod.

Then, Mr Oblivious proceeded to help Claudia into her chair. Meaning Avery had to put up with Jonah doing the same for her, leaving her feeling every inch of exposed skin in her shimmery strapless top.

Then Luke sat on one side of Avery looking intently at the menu, Jonah sat on the other staring her down, while Claudia’s eyes smiled in relief over the top of a cocktail she must have ordered before she’d ever arrived.

Oh, well. She’d admit romantic defeat where it came to the estimable Luke Hargreaves, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have a very nice catch-up with the boy she’d once known.