Читать книгу Summer Beach Reads - Natalie Anderson - Страница 15

CHAPTER SIX

‘IT’S supposed to be summer.’ Stupidly forlorn, Ellie stared out of the window at the grey-blanketed land. The steady drizzle had drenched all her plans for the day. How were they going to get out and see the set remnants in this? How was she going to get through another hour under the same roof as Ruben and not jump him—even a roof as huge as this? She had to get out of there.

‘It’s not so bad.’

She turned. He was jeans-clad again. And it was worse than bad.

‘Come and eat something.’ He took her trembling for hunger of the food kind.

‘We can still ride if you don’t mind getting wet,’ he commented, not quite idly, once she’d filled her cereal bowl.

Okay, maybe he knew exactly how much his mere presence tormented her. But she wasn’t ever admitting how wet she already was.

‘I’m not riding with you.’ She glared at him, her spoon halfway to her mouth. She was a frustrated wreck who hadn’t managed to get nearly enough sleep and infuriated with her inability to restrain her attraction to him.

‘If you won’t go on a horse, then it’s the quad bike. It’s too far to walk and it’s rough country, especially in this weather.’ He shrugged. ‘But lots of your tourists would like quad biking, right?’

Quad biking would mean her straddling the seat behind him, her arms around his waist. He was determined to breach her personal space again, wasn’t he? And she was melting already. She shoved the loaded spoon into her mouth and chomped.

‘I can ride one myself,’ she declared once she’d swallowed. She was not cuddling him from behind.

‘Of course.’ He acted as if there’d been no other option anyway. ‘Finish your breakfast. I’ll go get the bikes ready.’

She was glad to see him go—truly glad: his back view didn’t ever worsen any. Not with the casual jeans and clinging tee and, oh, so confident way he had of walking.

So he can walk—she winced at her fan-girly brainlessness—many men can. She returned her focus to the cereal and consumed the lot. If one type of hunger wasn’t going to be sated, another would. At least her legs would lose the cotton-wool feeling.

But twenty minutes later she was astride a powerful machine, with her thighs vibrating. She’d never stand again at this rate. Oh, it was not good. She could not be getting turned on by a hulking great piece of metal. Of course she wasn’t, she was already on.

‘Which way?’ she shouted breathlessly as he paused for her to come alongside his bike.

He just jerked his thumb in answer.

For almost an hour and a half they rode, stopping lots as he pointed out where filming had occurred. Then they powered out and let the machines roar. And she loved every damn second of it. Even in the drizzly, greyed-out day, the landscape was so majestic and ancient, it put all those pesky little things like unquenched lust into perspective—blowing away the sleepless bad temper and leaving exhilaration in its wake.

He, too, had the red-cheeked, bright-eyed excitement. ‘Come on, we can go further up the valley.’

‘The weather doesn’t worry you?’

‘No, are you okay?’

‘I’m good.’ Whether the scenery had been another character in a globally massive movie franchise or not, it was simply stunning. And she wanted more of this wild open air—with him. No matter that her jeans were mud splattered, that the drizzle had gone right through the light coat she was wearing over her jeans so her tee shirt was soaking. As the rain tumbled faster and heavier she was steaming up inside.

She followed his lead across the short tussocky track, down to the vast shingle riverbed. They were about two miles along that when the rain really began to fall. Their wheels churned up large globs of mud. She blinked rapidly to maintain clear vision but ahead of her Ruben’s engine roared angrily as he pushed it. His bike jerked forward and Ellie winced, barely able to watch through half-screwed lids. Despite knowing what was about to happen, she was unable to do anything to help except shout. But even as she did Ruben jumped. His machine tipped, two wheels disappearing into a muddy bank. A half second later, Ruben rolled to his feet in total stuntman style.

‘Hello, Mud-man,’ she teased, hiding the relief that he wasn’t injured. Thankfully they hadn’t been going fast enough for a serious accident.

He was laughing, his eyes alight as he yanked off his helmet and surveyed the damage. ‘I’m going to need a truck to get the bike out of there.’

Ellie refused to notice how his hair had spiked in places, making him look more of a carefree rogue than ever. She hated to think what her own hair looked like now she’d removed her helmet too. More horrendous was the fact they were stuck miles from the lodge and had to share the one bike to get back.

‘You did this deliberately, didn’t you?’ she accused, her adrenalin finding a vent in anger.

‘I’m capable of many great things, but controlling the weather isn’t one of them.’ His laughter became more rueful. ‘This part was more boggy than I expected. And if you must know, the rain bothers me more than it does you.’

‘And why’s that?’ She didn’t believe him.

‘I had plans for today.’

Still astride her bike, she put her hands on her hips. ‘Nefarious ones?’

‘Utterly,’ he admitted shamelessly. ‘Now they’re ruined.’

‘So what are you going to do about it?’

‘Oh, I always have a Plan B.’ He chuckled.

Yeah, the guy was so confident in his ability to turn even the worst situation to something favourable. His plan involved charming the pants off her, no doubt. But while he was incredibly focused in his attention on her, somehow he made it impossible to get past his front. It wasn’t that he wasn’t genuine—unlike Nathan, she knew Ruben was honest in his desire to be with her. But while he answered her questions, he wouldn’t let her past a certain point in his reserve. He closed conversation down or switched focus. But Ellie was both curious and determined not to let him have it all his own way.

‘Don’t think I’m handing over my bike to you,’ she said, remaining firmly astride her vehicle. ‘You’re too reckless.’

He walked right in her path, leaning forward to put his hands over hers on the handlebars. ‘You’re going to make me walk back?’

‘I’ll drive, you give directions.’

‘You do like to be in control of the situation, don’t you?’ he muttered.

In less than ten seconds she knew she’d made a mistake. He’d come round and climbed behind her and was now way too close with his hands too firm around her waist. If she’d been the one to take the rear position she could have made it less intimate.

‘You don’t have to hold so tight, you know,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m not going to drive that fast.’

All she felt then was the laughter vibrating in his chest. She wanted to lean back and absorb it some more. Instead, she put the engine on full throttle.

‘Wow, you really know what you’re doing,’ he commented after she rode them out of the roughest part of the riverbed at high speed. ‘You could go on one of those extreme environment survivor shows. Wild Mountain Woman or something.’

‘Don’t get too carried away.’ She slowed down to hear him better. ‘It’s not like I’m going to rappel down a rock face using a rope I’ve plaited out of dental floss,’ she scoffed. ‘I know my own limitations.’

‘Really? What’s your limit?’

She ignored the innuendo and answered honestly. ‘I still get a bit scared of heights.’

‘Still?’

‘I get a bit funny in the tummy but most of the time I can manage to control it.’ She eased back more as she came to a badly bogged bit. ‘My dad is really into rock-climbing and mountaineering and stuff. He’d be in his element here.’

‘You go climbing with him?’

‘When I was younger I did,’ she said briefly. ‘If I wanted to spend time with him, he was usually somewhere precarious so I had to suck it up.’

‘And you wanted to spend time with him?’

‘Sure.’ He was her dad. All her life she’d wanted his attention and approval—until she’d grown up enough to accept it wasn’t ever going to be forthcoming. ‘I’ve never really understood his need to conquer nature, though. I mean, yes, appreciate the beauty, respect the elements, come and enjoy it. But why does he have to beat it? Where’s the rush in risking life and limb? Man versus nature? Nature is always going to win.’

‘Hmm.’ Ruben grunted a kind of agreement. ‘Where does he live?’

‘He has an outdoor equipment store in one of those ski towns not too far up the road from here.’

‘Oh.’ A pause. ‘Did you want to see him while you’re down here?’

‘No.’

Another slight pause. ‘What about your mum? She’s into the outdoors too?’

‘No, she’s the total opposite. While Dad’s all mountain man, she’s city-queen. She lives in Sydney.’

‘They’re divorced?’

‘Have been for nearly twenty years.’

She heard his whistle. ‘How’d they manage to meet and marry in the first place?’

‘They were a fling, she got pregnant. They tried to make it work but, really, it was never going to. It would have been easier if they’d ended it sooner.’

‘But they wanted you,’ he said, as if that made it all okay.

Sometimes she thought it would have been better if they’d adopted her out to a couple who’d been desperate to have kids. Yes, she was grateful to them for making the decision to have her, but to raise her themselves? They were too selfish for that. Neither had wanted to give up the things important to them. Ellie had had to fit in—to tag along. But she’d never felt truly wanted, never once felt as if she could make them happy. Just once, just for once, she wanted to be the centre of the universe. Not to have to try to squeeze herself into some contortion to fit into the box of someone else’s life. Every kid wanted her parents’ undivided attention and love. No kid could ever have enough—especially if they’d been starved of it.

‘They did the shared-custody thing, but that was because neither wanted me full time.’

His grip on her waist tightened as he pressed in even closer. ‘What do you mean neither wanted you full time?’

‘I mean exactly that.’ Ellie hesitated—did she really want to go into this? Nothing put a guy off more than a woman who went on about her exes or unhappy home life. Men hated drama. And Ruben had already declared he wasn’t into the whole ‘being there’ deal. Given that, it was probably wise to talk about it. Tell him all the crap to turn his interest off and shore up her own resistance. So she slowed more so he could hear her easily.

‘You know, week about? One week with Mum, one week with Dad,’ she explained. ‘Everybody thinks it’s great. You get double of everything. Different rules, different homes. Supposedly you can get away with stuff because you say the other parent “would let you”. But for me it wasn’t like that. I wouldn’t have minded a few more rules—at least then it might have felt like they cared.’

Some spats between them, some arguments over her welfare might have made things seem more normal. But the arguments had been because both her parents preferred their child-free week. The week they had scheduled with her was the one that hindered them. She’d heard the whispered fury when one had tried to get out of a weekend or a week of responsibility. The annoyance of having to have her—that her presence meant ruined plans. They’d each wanted their time away from her so badly. So instead of doing what she wanted, she’d tried so hard to do whatever it was that they wanted to do. To blend, to be good, to please. The only thing that had been easy was the actual move. Trying to fit into each destination was the exhausting bit. In the end she’d just kept quiet in her room, watching her favourite movies. And when old enough, hanging with some girlfriends, and then finding attention in the arms of guys who wanted what she had to offer, but didn’t want to give what she needed.

‘You’re their only child?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, that’s a good thing given the way they were. But it would have been nice for me to have had company.’

‘So what, you have some Waltons family dream now?’ he teased.

She laughed. ‘I’m realistic enough to know that’s a fantasy.’

‘Hell, yes,’ he said with feeling.

‘How do you know it is a fantasy?’ she couldn’t resist challenging. ‘You’re an only child too.’

‘But I grew up down the road from a number of Waltons-esque families. And let me tell you, they were superficial images. I think it’s better off staying small. Very small.’ As in solitary. But even though he knew the answer, even though he knew this was a hopeless conversation, Ruben couldn’t resist asking her, ‘Are you into kids?’

‘I’m not sure. Probably not.’

‘Really?’ Most girls didn’t mean it when they went all definite denial. But Ellie hadn’t been definite; she seemed more thoughtful.

‘Not unless I meet the right guy, you know?’ she finally expanded. ‘He really has to be the right guy. I need him to be there and I need him to want the kid. It’s not nice not to be wanted. I want any kids of mine to have two parents who want them, who love them, who are there for them. For everything.’

Ruben understood—she wanted her kids to have the kind of parents she hadn’t had. He felt hurt for her, but impressed at the same time with her courage. Now she knew what she wanted and she wasn’t going to settle for less. Not for some guy like him. Because he already knew he couldn’t ‘be’ there. His one significant ex had wanted him to ‘be’ there—and that was just for her, not kids as well. If he couldn’t be there enough for a grown woman, there was no way he could be there for children.

‘I’m guessing you’re a no-kids man?’ Ellie sounded amused at his silence.

‘I like kids but they wouldn’t fit in my life. I’m not someone who can guarantee to “be there” for them. I’ve got things I want to do and I don’t think it’s fair to have a family when you can’t give them everything they want.’

‘That beck-and-call thing, huh?’ she asked dryly.

She might be all sarcasm, but he meant it. He didn’t want a family holding him back from all he could achieve. He didn’t have the ability or the desire to meet the demands of a long-term relationship. He’d tried it years ago with Sarah and failed miserably. And his father had succeeded in the relationship but failed on the business front. There was no such thing as managing it all. ‘I’m years off being ready for it in terms of my career and I don’t want to be old like my father was. I love him for having me, but I wish he’d done it sooner.’

‘So your mum was quite a bit younger?’

‘Try thirty years,’ he admitted shortly. ‘Hard to have everyone thinking he was your grandfather.’ He chuckled to lighten it the way he always did. ‘And the looks the two of them got when they were walking along the street, hand in hand and smooching like teen lovers. They just didn’t give a damn.’

He felt her stiffen beneath his fingers and felt the old resentment burn in his gut. He hated intolerance.

‘I thought they had an unhappy marriage?’ Ellie had all but stopped the machine. ‘Isn’t that what you meant by his folly of a marriage?’

‘Oh, no.’ Ruben laughed, relieved her tension hadn’t been in judgment of his parents. ‘No, people couldn’t cope with their age gap.’

‘And gave you a rough time over it?’

‘You can imagine the slurs at a small-town school back then.’

‘What’s wrong with two people making each other happy?’ Ellie sounded as if she was frowning. ‘Why can’t people just be pleased for them? Doesn’t everyone want to find a great love like that?’

He smiled at her naïveté—she’d watched too many Hollywood happy endings. ‘People can be unkind when they don’t understand or if it’s something they’ve not been around much.’ He hardly ever discussed it, he’d encountered too much intolerance—even in this supposedly modern world. There was just that inevitable smirk or comment—as if his dad were up there with Hugh Hefner or something. But Ellie’s instant emo defence of them had him explaining more than he usually would. ‘They really were a love match and really in love. Sickening really.’ Sometimes even he’d felt excluded from it. This despite knowing he’d been the much-wanted, much-loved product of their relationship. And he’d been determined not to break their blissful ignorance and had never once told them of the taunts he’d suffered. He’d learned to handle the other kids his own way. When he’d first started school as an undersized six-year-old, with English as a second language, a weird accent in a small town with a father already almost at retirement age and a mother younger and more beautiful than everyone else’s? It had been sink or swim—and Ruben had mastered the stroke. ‘They just saw through each other’s layers to the person within, and they loved what they saw.’ He still felt that mix of happiness for them and frustration with them—because they’d been unable to achieve much else because of that total adoration of each other.

‘Has your mum met anyone else since?’ Ellie asked quietly.

‘No. I kind of wish she would,’ he found himself admitting aloud for the first time in his life. ‘But she’s adamant it isn’t going to happen.’

‘Because she buried her heart with him?’

‘Yeah. I think she’s scared of getting that hurt again.’ He understood that too. The loss had been unbearable. ‘She couldn’t stay in New Zealand. Couldn’t stay any place where she’d been with him.’

‘But what about you? You were so young.’ Ellie’s body had gone taut beneath his fingertips again.

He laughed off her concern—the way he laughed off anything that touched too close to vulnerable aches. ‘I wanted to finish what he’d started. I wanted to do that for him.’

‘But it must have hurt her to leave you?’

Her sweet concern stabbed now and he didn’t want it. ‘Mama knew I was okay. And I was busy.’ He’d made sure she’d thought he was okay. By then he was a master of hiding his hurt—those years of coping with childhood taunts had taught him well. You covered up—no one could grin and bear it like Ruben. He could turn any nightmare around with a comment and a smile, hiding how gutted he might be inside. He’d won them over with the ability to laugh and make others laugh—but he never let them close. Not when he knew too well how much it hurt to lose those you held close.

‘It would have hurt her more to stay.’ He dismissed the topic completely, switching to tell her something more about the mountain on their right, and then another anecdote from when Andreas had owned the lodge.

As the big building came into view he directed her to take the bike right up to the main entrance. He’d have it cleaned and put away later. For now it was the two of them who needed hosing down. Indeed, off the bike the first thing Ellie did was glower at his mud-covered clothes and then down at her own.

‘I don’t have any other jeans, you realise.’

Ruben couldn’t contain his amusement. She looked like an earth goddess—a curvy sprite of a woman. Little curls had sprung around her temples, her face damp, her eyes shining. ‘You can borrow some of mine.’

‘Like they’d fit.’

‘They’ll be fine. Now come on, I’m freezing,’ he lied. ‘We don’t want to get a chill.’

He’d taken the cover off the spa pool early this morning and he headed straight for it.

‘I told you I didn’t bring my swimsuit.’ She followed him round the side of the lodge and stared at the pool with an unmistakably longing gleam in her eye.

Yeah, Ellie had a sensualist streak—he wanted her to embrace it.

‘I’ll give you a shirt that’ll do.’ She was going to have to peel off those blue jeans. He’d never appreciated denim as much before and he was a jeans-every-day guy. But hers were wet, hugging her curvy butt and thighs and he wanted to slide his hand down the tight front of them really badly.

He went into the pool house and grabbed a tee, tossing it at her and exiting before he turned into some kind of caveman and went for her mud and all.

He stripped poolside while she was in the change room, and forced himself to go under the outdoor shower—cold—sluicing away the streaks of dirt before quickly getting into the heated water. He badly needed to relax.

‘You can’t resist it, can you?’ she teased as she came out of the pool house, ready to join him. She too had showered. Now his clean shirt was clinging to her wet body beneath.

Ruben pressed the spa bubbles on full to hide how horrifically extreme her effect on him was.

‘Resist what?’ he asked vaguely. Thinking about sex all the time? Hell, he wished he could get her out of his head, or at least get some other woman in. He’d never been unhealthily fixated on one lover like this. He blamed it on the absolute excitement of waking to discover a hot, perfect lover straddling him. Pure fantasy come to life.

Of course he couldn’t help thinking of it and nothing but. Of course he’d had to finagle a way of getting her back in his bed—even just for a weekend. Only it wasn’t proving to be as simple as he’d planned.

‘Seeking out pleasure.’ She shook her head, shivering as she stepped carefully into the steaming water.

‘I work hard so why shouldn’t I enjoy playtime?’ He sent her a sideways look and jeered lightly. ‘Nothing wrong with relaxing and celebrating and enjoying pleasure. We should appreciate it when something feels good.’

‘Don’t think you can get me to yes by glamorising hedonism,’ she answered equally flippantly.

‘But you know how good it was. You told me how good it was.’ And he’d loved hearing it. ‘The best ever.’ And he couldn’t get past it now, not when she was doing the wet-tee-shirt thing in a hot tub.

‘It’s bad form to compare lovers,’ Ellie said primly, sitting on the opposite side of the spa from him and determinedly not looking at his bare chest. She didn’t believe for a second that he actually felt the same way—she hadn’t been his best lover ever as well.

‘I’m not doing that.’ He laughed. ‘I’m merely reminding you that that night with me was the best sex of your life. I can’t understand why you don’t want a repeat of that.’

‘Because it wasn’t real,’ she said simply.

‘It wasn’t real?’ Ruben’s tease vaporised. ‘Wasn’t real?’

In a heartbeat the relaxed, teasing atmosphere snapped to stormy. Ellie’s suddenly feverish temperature couldn’t be blamed on the bubbling water.

‘No, it wasn’t real,’ she insisted.

He stared at her. ‘It was the best sex of your life,’ he declared again, almost defiantly daring her to deny it.

‘Okay, I’ll give you that.’ She cleared her throat. ‘But don’t you think that’s because it was such a fantasy? Like a dream?’ Her half-dreaming state had made the memory even better. ‘So good it couldn’t have been real.’

His obsidian gaze narrowed in on her, compelling more explanation from her.

‘I didn’t know you. You didn’t know me.’ She faltered. ‘We can’t ever recreate that scenario.’

‘So you think our being together again would be a disappointment?’ he asked, incredulous.

‘It would have to be,’ she muttered. ‘Don’t you think?’

‘No, I don’t. You’re not curious to know for sure?’

‘I...’ Of course she was curious. It was hard containing that curiosity. But she didn’t want to taint that memory with disappointment, nor did she want to mess up her opportunity at work.

‘You liked fantasy sex.’

‘So did you,’ she defended.

‘Yeah,’ he admitted with a wolfish grin. ‘There are other kinds of fantasy sex.’

She swallowed. ‘I’m not into kink.’

He chuckled. ‘I can come up with many, many simple, sweet fantasies if you like.’

She licked her lips before realising what a revealing piece of body language she’d instinctively performed. She put her hand to her mouth and rubbed—as if she could deny the yearning there.

‘Ellie.’

Oh, help, that had her toes curling, but the rest of her was paralysed. She couldn’t walk, couldn’t run. She just waited as he took the two paces through the water. So close she had to tilt her chin to maintain eye contact—which she was damn well determined to do. So close she could feel his breath, could feel her own muscles weakening as excitement erupted.

He inclined his head, lowering it almost enough. ‘You want fantasy?’ His lips barely moved as he challenged.

Ellie couldn’t breathe at all now, couldn’t hear a thing other than the echo of his words and the amplified thud of her heart. Blood shot to her extremities, her skin suddenly super sensitive. Every cell sensitive. And screaming out. Screaming so loud her reason was muted. So she was the one to tilt her chin that tiny bit further, bringing their lips into contact.

She was lost in that instant. She shut her eyes, only able to focus on the velvet warmth of his kiss. The insistence of his lips, his tongue. Oh, she opened, she let him in. She let him, let him, let him. Because what he demanded was exactly what she wanted—passion and need. So swiftly his touch swept her into that burning vortex where thought and caution were flung away because this ecstasy was all that mattered.

With every lush caress of his mouth, her resistance melted. She melted, her muscles sliding towards his strength, her mouth moving to welcome his demand. But there was a kernel of tension, slowly knotting, growing, sending the message that only his lips touching hers was not enough. Not nearly enough. She craved closer contact, craved for them to meld completely. Chest to breast, thigh to thigh, for their arms to curl and cling and for them to literally be locked in intimacy. Oh, she wanted that, she wanted that now.

She moaned—a song of need, a plea. The pressure of his mouth increased, his tongue flicking in an erotic tease that saw her tremble with it. For her body to move of its own accord—closer, closer, closer. They were inches apart in warm water, she wanted to feel his strong muscles, to press their wet skin together...

‘That fantasy enough for you?’ he asked, his voice rough as he stepped back. The water splashed as he sat down again on the opposite side of the tub.

Ellie couldn’t believe he’d kissed her like that and then let her go. She couldn’t believe the intensity in his expression—in his action—had suddenly vanished. ‘You’re the most awful tease.’

‘Actually I think you’re the one who can claim that crown,’ he argued in that charming rogue way.

‘I’m not teasing at all. You’re the one who keeps crossing the boundaries.’ She swept her sodden hair from her face.

‘You keep tempting me to.’ He shrugged.

‘So it’s all my fault?’

‘Absolutely.’

Unable to help it, despite knowing it was what he wanted, she laughed.

‘You think it’s funny?’

She nodded. ‘You’re so good for a girl’s ego.’

‘Well, that is my raison d’être.’ He inclined his head.

Ellie nodded. Yes, he’d gone back to form—a charming, carefree man made for good humour and good times. Yet she sensed that impenetrable wall only a millimetre beneath his surface.

Damn it, the whole complicated package fascinated her.