Australian Outback Kings / The Cattle King's Mistress / The Playboy King's Wife / The Pleasure King's Bride (23 page)

“Do you know this rose in your hair is right in line with my mouth?” he softly mused. “I have the most extraordinary urge to pluck it out with my teeth and sweep you into a wild tango.”

“Don't!”

Jolted into tilting her head to look up at him, she lost the train of protest, any further words dying in her throat. His face was perilously close to hers, the smooth clear-cut line of his jaw that invited stroking, the mouth perfectly shaped for kissing, a nose that seemed to embody a flare of passion, dark eyes dancing with wickedness and fringed with thick long lashes that were sinfully seductive, eyebrows slanting into a diabolical kick and the springy black curls that made him look so dangerously rakish.

“Such appealing eyes,” he murmured. “Why have I never seen them appealing to me before, Samantha?”

Her heart was in her mouth. She couldn't answer.

“I would always have answered an appeal from you,” he went on. “As I will now. Your rose is safe…until you want to match me in wanting to let your hair down and…”

“Tommy!”

The sharp call of his name broke the intimate weave of his words around her heart. It was a woman's voice, claiming his attention. Sam's head jerked towards it and her stomach contracted as she saw who the woman was…Janice Findlay, Tommy's most recent flame, and flaming she was in the look she gave Sam, a scorching dismissal that left her burning.

Before today, Sam would have instantly disengaged herself and left Tommy to his playmate. Never would she have contested any woman for his attention. But it seemed to her his words had given her the right to stay at his side and how he handled this situation would tell her more of where she stood with him than anything else.

“Ah, Janice,” he addressed her coolly, his arm hugging Sam more tightly, apparently determined on preventing her from moving away. “Enjoying the wedding?” he casually added, as though Janice Findlay was no more than another guest to him.

Her auburn hair came out of a bottle, Sam decided, noting the darker roots at the side parting. So much for Tommy's taste for a
fiery combination
. Nevertheless, Janice was certainly aiming to heat up the opposite sex, the low V-neckline of her slinky black dress putting her prominent breasts on a provocative display.

“It's quite unique, darling…the setting, the Outback touch with the didgeridoos…my parents thought it marvellous,” she drawled in a sexy voice. “Absolutely honoured to have been invited.”

“I'm glad they're having a good time.” A strictly polite reply.

Undeterred, Janice offered him a smile that reeked of provocative promise. “I notice drink waiters are circulating with glasses of champers. Come and have some bubbly with me, darling. You must be dying of thirst.”

“Janice, I'm sure you can find someone else to share your fondness for champagne.” There was a steely note driven through the smooth suggestion, and it emphasised his stance as he added, “As you can see…I'm busy.”

Even Sam caught her breath at the direct and unmistakable rejection. As much as she wanted to be put first, it seemed a cruel set-down to a woman who probably had every right to expect him to keep fancying her.

Janice's smile twisted into bitter irony. “Off with the old, on with the new, Tommy?”

“The old ended some time ago, as well you know,” he retorted quietly. “Making a scene won't win you anything, Janice.”

“Won't it?” Her chin tilted up belligerently, her eyes flashing fiery venom, shot straight at him, then targeting Sam. “Well, just don't think you're sitting pretty, Samantha Connelly,” she drawled derisively. “You won't win anything, either.”

With a scornful toss of her hair, she turned her back on them and headed straight for one of the drink waiters. She snatched a glass of champagne off his tray, held his arm to stay his progress through the milling crowd, threw the drink down her throat, replaced the empty glass and grabbed another full one.

“At that rate she'll be under a table before the reception dinner begins,” Tommy muttered in dark vexation.

“You were…rather cutting,” Sam commented, feeling a twinge of sympathy for the woman he'd cast aside. She knew all too well the frustration of wanting Tommy King, and not being able to reach into him.

“She was unforgiveably rude in her self-serving attempt to cut you out,” he stated tersely.

“Perhaps she felt she had just cause.”

Tommy swung her around to face him, anger blazing from his eyes. “Why do you always assume the worst of me?”

Did she? Maybe she did, in some kind of perverse bid to make him less desirable so she wouldn't want him so much. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to,” she rushed out in guilty agitation. “I just don't know where you're coming from, Tommy, and faced with Janice like that…”

“My involvement with Janice ended the night she did a striptease at a party, then fell on her face, dead drunk,” he bit out in very clear distaste. “For me it was a complete turn-off. I saw her home safely but that was it. And I told her so. She has no excuse for slighting you and no cause to malign me.”

To Sam's intense relief, his expression changed, the anger swallowed up as his eyes gathered a commanding intensity. He lifted a hand and laid its palm gently on her cheek. “Please…don't let her spoil this.”

Sam could not tear her eyes away from his though the passionate wanting they were communicating made her head swim. She snatched at her belief that Tommy was fundamentally decent, which surely meant he wasn't playing some deceitful game with her. He was speaking the truth. She just didn't know what
this
was to him.

“Give me credit, Samantha,” he demanded, a harsh note creeping into his voice. “I will not be robbed of respect today.”

Respect
…the word sliced through the whirling doubts with all the force of Elizabeth's earlier reading of the problem she had created with Tommy, her failure to comprehend his need for respect or even what it meant to him.

Panicked at the thought of doing more wrong, she instinctively lifted her hand and covered his in a gesture of appeasement, as well as desperately seeking a sense of togetherness with him. “I believe you,” she blurted out, taking the leap of faith he asked of her.

The tension eased from his face. He smiled—a brilliant, dazzling smile—and Sam felt bathed in an exhilarating radiance. Her heart lightened. Her taut nerves relaxed into a melting sense of pleasure. Her mind was filled with the sunrise of a day she had yearned for. This was it…she and Tommy…with a clean slate between them.

CHAPTER FIVE

Y
ES
!

A fierce elation burst through Tommy. She'd given in to him. For once in her life she hadn't suspected his word, flouted it, mocked it, or walked away from it. And placing her hand on top of his was more than acceptance. Much more. It was a voluntary move towards him.

“Thank you,” he breathed, revelling in the appeal to him in her eyes, the appeal of a woman who didn't want to fight, a woman who was looking—hoping—for something else from him, feeling her way tentatively towards it.

“I may not have said it, but I do admire all you've achieved, Tommy,” she said earnestly. “The success you've made of the air charter business and the wilderness resort. They were great ideas and you've proved how timely they were with Outback tourism gathering more and more business.”

The admission was surprisingly sweet. He was beyond needing anyone's approval or admiration for his pursuit of ventures he'd believed in. His own satisfaction in making them profitable was enough. But coming from his most nagging critic…

“I never meant to sound as though I always thought the worst of you,” she rushed on apologetically. “I do respect your…your judgment on these things.”

Now
that
was pure grovel and he didn't believe it for a second. She'd used him as a whipping boy far too often, invariably casting him in the worst possible light. On the other hand, the attempt at conciliation was intriguing. What did
Samantha
want today?

Her earlier tart responses had denied any desire for him and she'd been tense and uncomfortable with every physical contact he'd made. But just before Janice's intrusion, he'd definitely been on a promising roll. Keep it wild, he thought, out of the ordinary.

“Shall we start over?” he suggested whimsically.

She looked confused.

He moved his hand to capture hers and carry it to his lips. “I truly am charmed to meet you, Samantha Connelly,” he declared, brushing a kiss across the back of her fingers. “And I look forward to forging a closer acquaintance with you.”

She laughed—surprised, relieved, delighted and slightly embarrassed by his show of gallantry. “I think you are too forward, sir,” she replied in kind, revealing her eagerness to play this game of turning a new page, to be written on as they pleased.

He gave her a wounded look. “You would forbid me your hand?”

She responded with arch chiding. “If I give you an inch you may take a mile.”

He grinned. “And then some.”

She shook her head at him. “A dangerous man.”

He lowered her hand to cover his heart. “It's true that only the strong dare tread my path with me.”

She cocked her head consideringly. “Perhaps a risk must be taken for a gain to be made.”

“In meeting a challenge, much can be won,” he assured her.

“If you will lead, I
may
follow.”

“I trust you are open to persuasion.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “That depends on how convincing the persuasion is.”

“I shall put my mind to it.”

“Your heart, as well, sir, or I shall take my hand back.”

He laughed, exhilarated at her matching his flirtatious badinage. But then she always had matched him, before topping the matching with the last word. Not this time, he promised himself. The last word would be his this time.

With slow deliberation he raised her hand to his mouth again, then turned it over and pressed a long, sensuous kiss onto her palm. He saw her eyes widen, heard a gasp escape her lips, and knew the sexual current running through him was just as electric in her.

“Too late. Your hand is mine now,” he declared, interlacing his fingers with hers.

She scooped in a quick breath, and with colour high in her cheeks, asked, “Is it safe in your keeping?”

He instantly shot the challenge back at her. “As safe as you want it to be, Samantha.”

There was no answer to that. Tommy knew it was unanswerable because it left the decisions to her. Except he now knew she wanted what he did, knew she actively wanted to satisfy herself with him, and he'd give her every chance, every encouragement, every persuasion to pursue that desire. He was well and truly primed to meet her more than halfway.

Right now, he'd pressed far enough. He lowered her hand, adopting a less aggressively possessive grip to let her feel
safe
, then nodded towards the bridal couple. “I suspect it's time to rejoin the company. The photographer is going into herding mode.”

She left her hand in his as he walked her back to the gazebo, a friendly companionable link which his mother immediately noticed.

“Ah, there you are!” she said, satisfaction in her voice and pleasure in her eyes. “I'm just about to collect the children for some photographs by the gate. The pergola and bougainvillea will make a lovely frame.”

“Picture perfect,” Tommy drawled, referring to the image he was presenting with Samantha, mocking any triumph his mother felt at the current outcome of her interference. What was happening between himself and
the scourge of his life
bore no relation whatsoever to the extracted promise. This wasn't peace. It was war of a different kind…a war shifted onto more delicate ground…an engagement that was very much in the balance, not yet won.

“I think so,” his mother returned, unperturbed. “If you'll all go on down…Miranda, Nathan, Jared…” She called them to attention. “…the photographer wants us at the lattice gate.”

Jared extracted himself from a group which Tommy recognised as the pearling contingent from Broome. The gap he left revealed a spectacular woman on the other side of it. A mass of black wavy hair sprang away from a centre parting. Her oval face had an exotic cast, almond-shaped eyes, prominent cheekbones, a longish nose, a wide full-lipped mouth. Big jewellery—dangling earrings and heavy necklace in copper, evoking an Aztec design. Her dress shimmered in shades of orange, red, morone, purple—dramatic and daring.

She gave him a curious, assessing look. On some other day he might have followed up that indication of interest, but he had what he wanted right in his hand, and nothing was going to distract him from seeing where it could lead.

“Sam…” Jared spoke her name in that tone of affectionate appreciation that always grated down Tommy's spine, then topped that by spreading his arms wide in a gesture of beholding a vision of beauty. “…you
did
carry it off as superbly as you look.”

Tension seethed through Tommy. If Samantha broke free of his handhold and hurtled into his brother's embrace, as she usually did with Jared, he'd pay her back by heading straight for the exotic woman. She'd already snubbed his touch once today, whipping away from it to throw herself into hugging Nathan. All these years, favouring his brothers, throwing them up to him…if she didn't show good faith now, if she was simply testing her desirability out on him…

Her fingers squeezed
his!
Then she turned her gaze up to
him
, sparkling blue eyes inviting more flirtatious fun as she said, “Oh, I just kept telling myself I mustn't fall at Tommy's feet.”

“That definitely isn't where I want you,” he replied with feeling, delighted when she blushed again, even more delighted with her choice to stay linked to him.