Princes of the Outback Bundle (18 page)

She paused below his waist and told him she’d wondered.

“About what?”

“What you put on.” From hip to hip, she traced the wide black band at the top of his fitted boxers. “When you came out of the shower.”

“Would you like me to take them off?”

“No.” She dipped her hand into the waistband. “I would like to take them off.”

He helped her by lifting his hips. She didn’t help him by scraping her nails down his thighs. Or by dipping down and pressing her lips to the satiny tip of his erection. Then she eased back and took him in her hand.

“I was thinking about this, all the time you were in that shower.”

“So was I.” His voice was a low, hoarse rip of breath.

“I wanted to touch you, here—” she slowly stroked the full slick length “—and here.”

She moved lower and cupped his heavy weight, squeezed gently until he groaned in a mixture of pleasure and protest.

“And not only with my hand.”

His eyes flashed with dark heat. “No.”

“You don’t want me to make love to you?” She shifted closer, until her hair settled in a dark cloud over his tight
belly, then she turned her head and rubbed her cheek against him, a soft sensual caress that filled her with a shivery tension.

She touched him with her tongue and his stomach muscles clenched as he sucked in quick air. And when she took him into her mouth and tasted him with slow, moist pressure he swore softly and profoundly and it wasn’t in protest. His hands fisted in her hair, stroked her face, touched her lips where they touched him, and his whole body jolted.

“Not like this,” he said, as tight and hard and strained as his body. “Inside you.”

Fingers fisted in her satin slip, he dragged her up to his mouth and kissed her deep, fierce, long. In the whisper of a moment he stripped her bare, but when he started to ease her onto her back Angie resisted.

“Not like that.” Hands planted on his shoulders, she forced him back down. “This time, I’m making love to you.”

When she came up on her knees and straddled him, hot hands spanned her waist and stroked around and over her bottom. In a hard roll of flexed muscles, he rose up from his waist to lick across her nipples, one after the over. To draw at her breasts until she cried out with a greedy need for more, for now, for him in her body.

“Now?” Raw, guttural, hot. “Here?”

And he parted her, stroked her there, found her wet and wanting. His eyes burned with the same blue fire that lit her blood as she lowered her hips and took him inside, and her heart all but exploded with the immensity of joyful hope.

This was different. This wasn’t a quick, purposeful joining in the dark. This wasn’t about making babies.

In this position there was no hiding. Their eyes locked and held with a connection more intimate than the slow,
luscious slide of her body on his. More intense than the fire that licked at her control as he lifted and thrust hard. Fiercer than the heat whirling and spiraling through her blood as she rode him harder and faster until the climax exploded in a searing incandescent flash.

And tonight he wasn’t leaving afterward. Angie collapsed in his arms and listened to the strong race of his heartbeat against her cheek until sleep claimed her.

Angie woke alone, but that didn’t dim her memory of the night or of sleeping in her lover’s arms. Her lover, her man, her love. A goofy big smile spread across her face as she smoothed a hand over the tangled sheets. Cool, but that didn’t faze her blissful state.

Tomas always woke early, Sunday or not. Usually he rode, although some days he spent the early hours in his office. Today he’d been awake before dawn, when she’d needed the bathroom. Awake but not yet up, and when she’d returned to the bed he’d drawn her into his body, spoonlike, and cradled her belly with a protective tenderness that had twined her heart even faster to his.

Her hand crept now to that same spot, and a thrill of nervous excitement shivered through her body. She had to be pregnant. She felt too changed to be anything but. Not different physically—she palmed the rounded curve that was her normal shape—but different as a woman. Hormonally, she thought, and she smiled even wider, amused with herself.

Could she really recognize the different mix of hormones at play? Could she know without knowing?

Slowly she turned her head on the pillow and her eyes fastened on the bag sitting by the bathroom door. The bag she’d hastily packed with what she might need overnight and what she didn’t want visitors to unwittingly find in her
room. Things such as the half-dozen pregnancy test kits she’d brought with her from Sydney.

Her heart thumped hard in her chest. Too early? Maybe, maybe not. The instructions said the test was accurate from the time of a missed period, but was she missing a period yet? Maybe, maybe not.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and slowly padded toward the bag.

T
omas’s early morning ride wasn’t an easy lope to check water or the recently weaned herd, but a testing session with his young colt. Ace was ready to step up his training and as for Tomas—well, he needed an activity that required concentration, something to ground him in his world, to settle the niggling sense that giving in to Angie last night had changed everything.

It hadn’t. A weak moment and consensual sex without promises altered nothing. If anything had changed, then it was down to his visits to her bed two weeks before.

If.

The little word wormed its disturbing way into his composure as he strode back to the homestead. If she was pregnant. If she decided she wanted to stay. If he couldn’t convince her he had nothing more than his body to give.

He circled around the back, avoiding the living area
where the overnight guests would be gathering for breakfast. He would do his duty and join them, but first he needed to shower and change. Outside his bedroom door he hesitated a moment. His pulse hiked, and he hated that uncontrolled response as much as he hated his indecisiveness.

And all for nothing, because he opened the door to an empty room. The bed was made, her overnight bag gone, and he fought an illogical sense of letdown. He’d dreaded this morning meeting and what she would say, what she might expect of him, the questions she hadn’t asked in the night that he knew she wouldn’t let lie.

God, had he really told her he’d only ever been with one woman, his wife?

Shaking his head, he crossed toward the bathroom, undoing his shirt as he went. He’d started to reach for the doorknob when he heard a sound beyond and stopped short.

The door opened and Angie made a soft noise of surprise and took a quick step back. She looked caught-out, and that made no sense at all. Nor did her husky-voiced apology.

Tomas frowned. “Sorry for what?”

“For…” Her brows drew together and her hand came up to fidget with her chain.
A for anxious.
“Because I’m still here. Using your bathroom.”

“You asked if you could use it last night.”

“And I should have been gone by now, with the guests and breakfast and all.”

She was dressed, clinging to her bag with a white-knuckled grip, not quite meeting his eyes. There was something wrong—completely wrong—with this picture. He glanced beyond her for clues, and it struck him with sudden clarity.

The bathroom.

“Have you got your period?”

Her eyes widened and, to his horror, filled with moisture. Damn, but he’d rather face a ton of enraged cleanskin bull than a woman in tears. Especially a woman like Angie, whose tears always meant something.

Out of his depth, floundering with what to do, what to say, he took the bag from her hand and put it down outside the door. “Hey,” he said gently, awkwardly. “It’s okay.”

“Don’t.” She sucked in a shaky breath, thick with those brimming tears. “You’re only making it worse.”

“Making what worse?”

“This. Tears. Bloody hormones.” She made a low growly sound in her throat, a sound of struggle and exasperation that kicked him hard in the gut like that ton of cleanskin bull. And when he reached for her, when his hands closed over her shoulders, she walked into his chest and buried her face under his chin.

Being Angie, she didn’t just let go and cry. Her breath rasped hard as she struggled for control. Her shoulders were stiff with her inner battle and he smoothed his hands over them, rubbed her back, stroked her hair and shifted his feet because he was uncomfortable in too many ways. She sniffed a wet apology, then rubbed at the moisture with the flat of her hand.

“If that’s supposed to be a mop up,” he murmured, “it’s not helping.”

“A shirt would have helped.”

With one hand he shrugged out of his undone shirt and shoved it into her hand. “There you go.”

A laugh hiccupped through her tears, but she took it and used it to mop at his chest. For too long. His body’s response was completely inappropriate, entirely male, irrationally intense. And the only way he could deal with it was by remembering what had started this.

“You ready to answer my question yet?”

Her gaze snapped to his, wide-eyed and still bright from the tear-storm. She swallowed, moistened her lips, but then answered with a quick shake of her head.

“No, you’re not ready or no, you haven’t?”

Her gaze fell away, down to where her fingers clutched tightly at the balled-up shirt in her hands. Probably answer enough, but Tomas needed to be sure. With a finger under her chin, he tipped her face back up.

“Tell me, Angie.”

“No, I haven’t,” she said, and something uncoiled deep in his gut. He didn’t want to call it relief, didn’t want to call it anything but concern for her and whatever had caused this outburst of emotion. “Then what was all this about?”

“I did a test this morning.” She straightened her shoulders and met his eyes. “It was negative.”

“Isn’t it too early to be accurate?”

“I should have left it a couple more days, to be sure, but I couldn’t.”

“Impatient as ever?”

“I wanted to know.”

Yeah, he could see that in her glistening eyes. He could hear it in the wobble in her voice. She wanted to know and she wanted the result to be positive.

Looking at her face now, he remembered in the night when she’d placed his hand on her belly, remembered the sensations roaring through his body, too many, too fast, too intense. Remembered fighting his way out of that drowning sensation and his relief when she’d reached out and touched him. When his responses turned primal, sexual, elemental. That he could understand and deal with, but not the undertow of emotion he saw in her eyes now. Reach
ing out, dragging him down to a place he never wanted to go again.

“I so wanted—”

He touched her mouth with his thumb. “Be patient, Angie. You said yourself it might be too early. Do you have another test kit?”

“Several.”

“But you’ll wait two days before you do another?”

She sighed softly. “Two days. Okay. I will.”

When Tomas had to leave the next day on an overnight trip to his western-most station, he almost invited Angie along. A distraction, he’d thought, so she wouldn’t run through those several test kits one after the other. He thought about her traveling beside him in the plane, thought about her sharing his bed, thought about her company and the interest she was taking in his business.

Thought about being with her when she read that test result, when her eyes looked up at his, all dark and luminous with—

No.
He shut the gate on that thought-track with brutal speed. And he flew west alone, the way he was used to, the way he liked it, the way it would always be.

Thirty-six hours later he returned the same way.

By now she would know. He didn’t let himself imagine one outcome or the other, didn’t allow himself anything other than an urgency to find her and to know the result. By the time he tracked her down at the waterhole, his edginess had escalated to an acute tension that held his backbone and shoulder muscles rigidly straight.

“Mau said I’d find you here.” A fitting location, the waterhole, seeing as this is where it all started. Where she’d looked him in the eye and said she would have his baby.
Today, however, her eyes were fixed on the surface of the water that glistened gold in the late-afternoon sun.

“Did she tell you about Rafe?”

“Getting married? Yup.” He hadn’t wanted to talk about his brother’s out-of-nowhere Vegas wedding with Mau, and he sure as hell didn’t want to discuss it now.

He squatted down beside her, intent on telling her so until she slanted him a guarded look across her shoulder. “The pressure’s off then. With Alex’s wedding next week and now Rafe doing his bit.”

Tomas went completely still. “What are you saying, Angie? Yes or no?”

“I don’t know. I still don’t have my period, but the second test was negative.” Tomas swore softly, and she huffed out a breath. “My sentiment exactly.”

“Are these home tests reliable?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never had cause to use one before.”

He stared at her a moment, unsure what to make of her frame of mind. “What now?” he asked.

“I suppose I’ll have to see a doctor.”

“You don’t sound very happy about the prospect.” In fact she sounded downright reluctant, and that rubbed the rough edges of his mood. “What if there’s something wrong? You said yourself your cycle is regular—” his eyes narrowed “—or was that a stretch of the truth?”

“Is that what you think?”

“No.” He let his breath go on a relenting sigh. “No, I don’t. You sounded so…reluctant.”

And he sounded so worried that Angie’s umbrage turned to instant mush. “I’m fine. Really, I am.”

“Is there a doctor in Sydney you’d prefer to see?” he asked, obviously unconvinced.

“Not really, but—”

“I’ll ring Alex tonight. He’ll know someone.”

“You think Alex sees a gyno?”

Not the right time for making jokes, Angie decided as she watched his mouth set in a tight line. But she’d felt the need to grasp at something, anything—including bad humor—before the decision about her immediate future and everything she longed for slipped away.

Okay. No more jokes, no more evading. Moment of truth, sister.

Drawing a deep breath, she slowly turned her head and looked into his eyes. Flat, hard, unyielding. Her heart skipped. “I’m not reluctant about seeing a doctor. I do want to know what’s going on. I want to
know.
”

“What is the problem then?”

“I don’t know that I’m ready to leave here.”

“That’s what we agreed, Angie.”

And if she was leaving, if this was over, then why hold back? She had nothing to lose in laying everything bare, everything she’d struggled to hold inside these last weeks. Everything that brimmed in her heart.

“That’s what we agreed—” she said softly “—before we made love the other night.”

Something flared in his eyes for a split second before he set his jaw in that stubborn, uncompromising line. But that minute reaction was enough to set Angie’s resolve to match.
Oh, no, Tomas Carlisle. It’s time to stop hiding. It’s time to find out what you really think.

“At least that’s what I did. I made love to you, with my body and my heart and my soul.” Resistance, strong and hard flattened his expression and she leaned closer, placed her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry if you don’t want to hear this, but I need to tell you. I can’t
not
tell you.”

“I didn’t promise you anything,” he said tightly.

“Oh, I know that. You never promised me anything way back when I fell in love with you, either, but that didn’t stop me.”

“You were a kid.”

“I was eighteen and grown up enough to know what I wanted. That’s never changed, Tomas. I’ve loved you a long time—probably forever—but it really hit hard after you met Brooke.”

That muscle ticked in his jaw again, but now she’d started there was no way she would stop, not until she’d told him everything.

“Even then, I thought it might be an envy thing—my friend getting what I wanted so badly. And then I wondered if it was more about losing you as a friend, because the way I felt I couldn’t talk to you any more. “

“I didn’t ever cut you off, Angie.”

“I know you didn’t, not deliberately, but
I
felt cut off.” Smiling sadly, she shook her head. “You were so besotted and always flying off to the city to see her, and when I did see you together I felt like my heart was being ripped out. I was afraid what I might say to you or Brooke.”

“From memory, you did have your say.”

“Down here? Yeah, I guess I did have a bit to say that night.” She huffed out a breath, remembering. “It was a long time coming, though, because I kept questioning my motivation. What right did I have to caution you about marrying another woman when I wanted you for myself? Not that it stopped me.”

She expected his agreement, some wry comment on her always saying her piece, but instead he looked steadily into her eyes and asked, “Is that why you didn’t come to our wedding?”

“I couldn’t,” she said, and her voice shook with emo
tion. “I couldn’t watch you together. I couldn’t smile and play happy bridesmaid and catch the bouquet and pretend. The way I felt, Lord knows what I might have yelled out when the minister asked if anyone could show just cause.”

Neither of them smiled. The atmosphere felt too intense, too grave, at complete odds with the perfect spring evening with its promise of a magical outback sunset.

“That’s why you went away?” he asked.

She nodded. “And that’s why I stayed away and why I didn’t come home for Brooke’s funeral. I felt too much of a hypocrite. I know that doesn’t say much for me as a person or as a friend, but that’s the truth.”

He didn’t say a word for a long, long while and despite the warmth of the sun, Angie rubbed her hands up and down her arms to ward off the sudden chill of his silence. She didn’t have a clue what he was thinking. He picked up several pebbles from the ground at his feet and ran them through his fingers, and despite the intensity of the moment she couldn’t stop watching the play of his hand, the slow stroke of his thumb.

“I can’t give you what you’re asking for, Angie.” His voice, low and taut, shivered over her skin.

“Because of Brooke?”

“Yes.” He studied the pebbles another second, then tossed them into the water. Angie watched the disturbance of their entry ripple across the water in ever-increasing rings until they disappeared altogether. And when he looked up again, Tomas’s eyes were as mirror flat as that silver-blue surface. “You were right, Angie, what you said down here that night.”

It took a moment for his meaning to gel, it was so un
expected. Angie swallowed hard—she had to in order to speak. “About Brooke fitting in?”

“She tried,” he said after a beat of pause. “But she hated the time I spent away. Hated being alone, the isolation. The lack.”

He didn’t need to elucidate on that. Brooke had been a city girl through and through, slightly spoiled, not used to a lack of anything.