The Collector's Edition Volume 1 (51 page)

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Authors: Emma Darcy

BOOK: The Collector's Edition Volume 1
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Yet to go was a defeat, too. She had to face this out. Seize some initiative herself. “I’m going to talk to him, Aunty Em,” she said decisively, and pushed her feet into action.
He was heading for his Porsche. He had a sheaf of papers in his hand, a contract for the sale, no doubt. Beth’s heart pumped overtime as the distance closed between them. He halted first, letting her come to him, his eyes running down her outfit to her sensible walking shoes and up again, a sardonic little smile playing on his mouth, making him look infinitely dangerous.
- Payback time, Beth thought, gritting her teeth, determined not to reveal the physical effect he had on her. She stopped a good metre from him, acutely conscious of the need to keep space between them. She didn’t trust Jim Neilson not to take some sneaky advantage.
“Are you pleased with your new acquisition?” she asked.
“I hope it will serve its purpose,” he answered noncommittally.
“It was a high price to pay.”
He shrugged. “Irrelevant to me.”
“It must be nice not to have to count the cost of what you want.”
“Oh, I count it, Beth. I always count everything. That’s how I got to be where I am.”
He was fencing, and she was getting nowhere. “Aunty Em has the idea that you took over the bidding for me,” she stated bluntly.
“Well, she could be right.” He was enjoying teasing her. “What do you think?”
It incensed her into snapping, “Why don’t you tell me and get it over with?”
The teasing sparkle hardened to a ruthless glitter. “Perhaps I don’t want to get it over with. Is it such a hardship to talk to me, Beth? We were once friends, remember? And might have been again if you’d approached me openly. Honestly.”
“We’ve moved beyond friendship. You decided that many years ago, Jim Neilson. You can’t play that game with me.”
He saw the cutting edge in her eyes and shifted ground. “You want this farm.”
“You know I do.”
“For your father.”
“Yes.”
“Then travel to Sydney with me and we’ll talk about it.”
It sounded so innocuous, yet Beth’s skin prickled with the sense of danger. In his car. In his power. On the other hand, what else could he do but talk if he was driving? And if she could strike some acceptable bargain with him, wasn’t it worth a bit of heartburn on her part to give her father back the life he yearned for?
Jim Neilson watched her consider his offer, his eyes mocking her caution. It goaded Beth into asking, “What do you think you’re buying with me?”
“Time,” he answered blandly.
She knew she wouldn’t get any more out of him at this juncture. As far as she could see, she had nothing of any importance to lose by going with him, and everything to gain.
“All right. Please excuse me while I fix it with Aunty Em.”
Beth felt his gaze burning into her back with every step she took away from him. Was he stripping her again, remembering how she had looked, standing at his window last night? What did he want from her now?
There was only one certainty in Beth’s mind.
Jim Neilson wanted something from her, and he intended to use the time he’d won to get it.
J
IM wanted to kill her.
He wanted to smash her cool control into irretrievable pieces.
He wanted to hurl her to the ground and use her as she’d used him to get this worthless piece of land.
He hated her for being the kind of woman she was, instead of... But that Beth didn’t exist, he savagely reminded himself, and he shouldn’t be letting this bitch of a woman needle him. Why the hell hadn’t he just slapped the papers in her hand, then got in his car and driven away?
Dragging it on was stupid!
He wrenched his gaze away from her, locked the papers in the car and set off for the creek, needing to walk off the violent feelings she stirred. He was still burning from the way she’d looked at him when he’d arrived, like a stud who’d serviced her and could now be discarded.
Well, she could damned well wait for what she wanted!
He was nobody’s sucker.
Though she’d done one favour for him.
She’d killed off the dream of Beth once and for all.
It wouldn’t haunt him any more.
T
IME!
Beth seethed over the loophole she had not foreseen in Jim Neilson’s seemingly harmless request for her to accompany him to Sydney. He intended taking more time than that. He was doing it already, deliberately making her wait, knowing she had no means to change her mind about the agreement now that Aunty Em had gone.
It infuriated her even more that he was lounging on the creek bank, underneath the old red gum that designated the best swimming hole. She didn’t believe for one moment he was entertaining memories of the fun times they’d had there as children. It was a tactic to draw her to him and have as much
time
as he wanted with her.
Beth stayed by the Porsche. He’d locked the doors, so she couldn’t sit in it. The sale papers from the auction lay on the driver’s seat, a tantalising reminder of why she was here. Jim Neilson certainly knew how to turn the screw. But she would not play his game. He could whistle for her to join him on the creek bank as much as he liked. She would not go.
The pick-up truck carrying the auction furniture zoomed off down the road. She watched the rest of the cars leave one by one, each departure increasing her tension. The idea of being isolated with Jim Neilson had no appeal.
Not that she was afraid of him. It simply made her feel more vulnerable than she liked to be. She couldn’t deny there was a strong attraction, and it disturbed her that he had the power to push physical buttons she’d prefer to ignore. When the last car disappeared around the bend to the gateway, Beth had to fight a sense of oppression. The Porsche sat alone. She stood alone. And Jim Neilson was stretched out on the grass, hands behind his head, totally at ease with himself.
Determinedly gathering some purpose of her own, Beth set off for the house. It had taken on its abandoned air again. She skirted it, looking at it from every angle, visualising it as it had once been, as it could be again with enough work and care and love. Yet was it too big a project for her father? Would it depress him further, or as Aunty Em said, bring out his fighting spirit? She could be on a fool’s errand with Jim Neilson, achieving nothing whichever way it went.
At least the concrete water tanks were intact. She washed her hands under the outside tap and splashed water on her face to make her feel fresher. It had been a long, wearisome day. And was getting longer.
Having trekked around the house, she sat on the front steps and tried to relax. Two could play at the waiting game. She was not going to stand by the Porsche, looking as though she was fretting over Jim Neilson’s inactivity. Eventually he would have to move, and she would meet him at the car.
Time dragged on. Beth began to wonder if he’d dozed off in the lingering warmth of the afternoon and the peaceful silence of the country. They hadn’t slept much last night. She winced at the memory of how they had filled those hours, neither of them calling a halt. Several times they had drifted into a languorous sleep... until one or the other of them moved, and the compulsion to reach out came again and again.
Beth heaved a sigh to relieve the tightness in her chest. Jim Neilson’s hands were no longer under his head. His arms were sprawled at his sides. He didn’t look at all dangerous, flat on his back like that. Perhaps she had done him an injustice, thinking he was playing some devious tactic. He might simply have needed to close his eyes for a while before facing the drive to Sydney. Fatigue could be a killer on the road.
She checked her watch. It was over an hour since everyone had gone. Her bottom was stiff from sitting on the hard, wooden step. She decided it wouldn’t be weak on her part to wander down to the creek bank. In fact, it was perfectly reasonable to wake him up if he’d fallen asleep. The sun was beginning to set. He could hardly expect her to wait around for hours, especially with twilight coming soon.
He didn’t so much as twitch as she approached. Fast asleep. She watched him for a while, tracing Jamie in his adult face, feeling a strange mixture of emotions. An intimate stranger, she thought, wishing there was some way to recapture the rapport they had once shared. Or had she somehow exaggerated that in her memory? Whatever... it was gone.
He’d rolled up his sleeves. On sheer impulse, Beth leaned down, snapped off a stalk of paspalum and brushed its head along the inner side of his outstretched arm, smiling at the childish action. It should tease him into stirring. She could drop the stalk before his eyes opened and he wouldn’t know what had set his nerves tingling.
He moved so quickly, so unexpectedly, Beth was caught hopelessly off balance. A yank on her foot and she was toppling. Somehow he directed her fall so she landed on top of him, and before she could take any action, his arms were around her and they were rolling, her long, voluminous skirt winding around them, pinning them together as she landed on her back with Jim Neilson’s face hovering above hers.
‘Mmm...I remember this,’ he said in a low, throaty purr, slumberous eyes simmering briefly at her before his mouth descended on hers, stifling any shocked protest she might have made.
Instinctively bracing herself against a storming invasion, Beth clamped her teeth together, denying him entry. But he didn’t try to kiss her like that. His lips beguiled hers with seductive little nibbles, his tongue sliding over the inner tissues, arousing electric tingles that dizzied her outrage at his trickery. Or perhaps it was lack of oxygen draining her of the fury she should feel. His weight had knocked the breath out of her.
She tried to fight the confusing signals in her mind. He had to be stopped from taking these liberties with her. His chest was squashing her breasts, making them extremely sensitive to the muscular wall pressing down on them. Her hands were pinned between their bodies, too close to his groin to attempt wriggling them. She was far too conscious of that part of his anatomy as it was. Impossible to move her legs. Her skirt was wrapped around them like a straitjacket. With his mouth teasing hers, waiting for her to open it, she couldn’t risk speaking.
“I’ve been wanting to taste you again all day,” he murmured, momentarily relinquishing his advantage.
“Get off me!” she said angrily.
He grinned at her, his dark eyes dancing with sheer wickedness. “You’re much softer than the ground, Beth. If you didn’t want this, you shouldn’t have woken me with a caress.”
She tried to lick away the tingle on her lips, fiercely resenting the physical effect he had on her. It was a mistake. His gaze dropped to her mouth again. In an instant his tongue was riding hers, taking free passage and infiltrating her defensive system in one fell swoop. The sensory attack was so fast it fused Beth’s mind with a power overload. A primitive response kicked in, her mouth returning the oral assault with passionate fury, her whole body bucking in violent need to assert herself as an equally potent force.
He rolled to put her astride him. For a moment she exulted in the release from his embrace, the sense of freedom. But as she tugged at her skirt, trying to hitch it out of its entanglement with her legs, his hands opened her shirt and swept it off her shoulders. He hooked his thumbs into her bra straps and dragged them down her arms, as well.
“Damn you! Why can’t you let me be?” she yelled at him, grabbing his wrists too late as he scooped her breasts out of the loosened cups of lace.
His eyes glittered at her, ablaze with raw desire. ‘And miss out on these?’ he asked. “So lusciously full and soft. Incredibly sexy. They’re inviting me to eat them.”
She looked down, distracted by the hard puckering of her nipples. It was the cool air on them, she wildly reasoned, fighting the excitement of his words.
“You want control?” he challenged. “Stay on top. Feed them to me.”
She was tempted. Some pagan streak soared through her blood, pounded through her temples. The image of riding this man as he paid slavish homage to her breasts had a savage appeal. Out in the open, under the sky, grass beneath them, a breeze whispering through the leaves overhead, the setting sun pouring red streaks through the clouds... raw nature. It was as though her senses leapt into another dimension, demanding a satisfaction that was beyond any civilised rule.
She slid her hands down his forearms, her nails lightly clawing his skin, her eyes agleam with the golden vision of making him do her will, burning with the command,
wait for me
. She leaned over him, placing her palms flat on the ground on either side of his head. She felt the swell of his chest as he dragged in a deep breath, but apart from that instinctive need he lay still, watching her, captivated by the swiftly passing expressions on her face, crystallising into a glittering lust for vengeful domination.
“Now, catch me if you can,” she challenged and swung her body from side to side, offering her breasts to his mouth in such fast tandem, he could barely grab one before it was torn away and he was taunted with the other. She laughed at the sheer erotic madness of it, the thrill of the chase and the capture, the pumping excitement that drove her to wild excess.
With a deep, animal growl, he hurled her onto her back, rolling to hold her down, hands on her shoulders to keep her still as he took his time with the flesh she had offered him, pleasuring her so piercingly that she wrapped her hands around his head to encourage more and more frantic activity.
Her legs moved restlessly, knees prodding, feet trying to find purchase. He reared up from her, unfastened his jeans, dragged up her skirt, and she devoured the look on his face, the taut need, the flare of out-of-control wanting, and she moved her body sensuously, invitingly, driving him into fumbling with his protection in his haste to serve his desire.
No patience for undressing. No wish for finesse. Only the craving for a fast fix to compelling need. He pushed her panties aside and plunged himself into the seething cauldron of heat that welcomed him as fiercely as he entered it, the most primal mating of a male and female, the pounding sensation of drumming flesh and hearts in a rhythm that shattered into an ecstatic oblivion, where the external world lost all existence, and through the sudden and complete annihilation of all emotions and desires drifted a passionless peace.
How long she lay suspended in some timeless nirvana Beth didn’t know. Her eyes opened. She gradually focused on the long twisted limb that grew out of the old red gum and stretched across the creek. In the old days her father had hung a rope from it so all the kids could play Tarzan. Or Jane.
It occurred to Beth that Tarzan and Jane could not have been more primitive in their sexual play than the action that had just taken place on the bank of this creek. Though Beth imagined there would have been love and affection in their coupling, not some crazy lust that took possession of them. She felt like a stranger to herself, almost as though she was having an out-of-body experience, except for Jim Neilson lending a hot, heavy, physical weight to it.
He shifted, as though awareness was gradually seeping into the groggy aftermath, of absolute chaos for him, too. Very slowly he lifted himself away to lie beside her. She didn’t look at him. It was too much effort. She didn’t want to, anyway. He might have planned something like this, but she hadn’t. She’d fallen into it. Her mind groped for understanding. What was it in him that called out such a shockingly carnal side of her?
She had excused it last night, telling herself it was a means to an end. Impossible to excuse its emergence today. What prompted such wild lust? Was it some uncontrollable chemistry, only needing the stimulus of sexual attraction to ignite it? She couldn’t deny Jim Neilson’s physical impact on her. But there was something mental, too. Like a snap in her brain, a door springing open to spaces that demanded filling.
But why him?
If it had been Jamie...
He was Jamie.
No, he wasn’t. Not how she remembered him, anyway. Or was she remembering the wrong things, missing the real core?
He’d always had the streak in him to dare, to push everything to its limits. He’d been more exciting to be with than any other kid in the valley. He made things happen, invented them, filled her head with wild fantasies. Around him, everything was fast and intense. Yet he’d been protective, too, watching out for her, caring.
That was what was lacking now, the caring. It was all take. Still exciting, but on the wrong level, making her feel wrong about it once the excitement was over.
He suddenly hoisted himself to his feet and without a word to her walked along the bank a bit to attend to himself and adjust his clothing. Beth hurriedly did the same, needing to somehow maintain equal ground with him. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him turn and stare thoughtfully at her, as though assessing the situation between them. He was too calculating, Beth thought resentfully.
“Ready to go?” he asked when she’d finished buttoning her shirt.
“Whenever you are,” she returned crisply.
He strode to where her handbag had been dropped, picked it up and held it out to her. His mouth tilted into a lopsided grin that was oddly boyish as she took the bag from him.
“You are one hell of a woman, Beth Delaney,” he said with what sounded suspiciously like relish.
She stared directly into his brilliant dark eyes, not cracking so much as a smile. “Do you prefer hell to heaven?”

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