LOLA HAD NOT long succumbed to sleep on the couch when the door opened and her eyelids pinged open. Between the hurricane-like roar of the fan overhead and the fact that she’d dropped like a stone into the deepest depths of unconsciousness, she was amazed she’d heard a thing.
She must have really been attuned to the key in the lock!
Squinting at the time on the television display—it was almost ten—she swung her legs to the floor. ‘Hamish?’
‘Sorry,’ he said from somewhere behind her. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you. I thought you’d be in bed. What are you doing out here?’
Lola’s thoughts floated in a thick soup of disorientation. What was she doing out here? ‘I’m...waiting for you to come home.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t realise. Debrief went on for ever.’
He appeared in front of her, lowering himself down on the end of the coffee table and setting his backpack on the floor. There were a few feet separating them but, as always, she felt the tug of him.
‘You didn’t have to wait up.’
Lola shrugged. Did he think she’d just go to bed after the things he’d seen last night without checking in with him first? Just because she didn’t think they should get intimately involved, it didn’t mean they still couldn’t care for each other, have empathy for each other.
‘It’s fine,’ she dismissed, suddenly realising that he was in shorts and T-shirt instead of his uniform and that his russet hair was damp and curling at his nape. ‘You had a shower at work?’ He didn’t usually.
‘Yeah. Everything stank of smoke, even my hair.’
He ran his palms down his thighs, drawing her gaze to the gold-blond hairs on his legs and the state of his knees. They were criss-crossed with tiny livid cuts and areas that had been rubbed raw.
‘Do they hurt?’
‘A little.’ He shrugged as if it was just a mild inconvenience. ‘How’s Wesley?’
Lola had been waiting for the question, knowing it would come. She wished she had better news to tell Hamish, even though she knew he knew full well the severity of Wesley’s injuries. ‘He’d not long come back from CT when I left.’
He nodded slowly. ‘Bad?’
‘Diffuse brain injury with severe cerebral swelling. They were prepping him for Theatre.’
‘Right.’ He nodded and rose from the table, heading to the kitchen. She heard the fridge door open and he called, ‘You want a beer?’
‘No.’ Lola didn’t think twice at Hamish consuming a beer at ten in the morning. Quite a few of her colleagues had a drink or two before going to sleep after night duty. They swore it was better than sleeping tablets, which many shift workers resorted to.
He reappeared in the kitchen doorway, leaning against the jamb as he took a few deep swallows. The hem of his T-shirt lifted slightly, flashing a strip of tanned abs.
‘They’re saying on television that the bomb was set off by some guy who’s a disgruntled ex-employee,’ she said.
‘Yeah, I heard. Death toll’s risen to thirty-four too.’ He wandered closer as if he was going to resume his seat on the table but changed course, heading for the balcony, stopping short to just stare out the door she’d opened earlier.
Lola didn’t say anything, waiting for him to say more. If he wanted to. When he didn’t, she filled the silence. ‘You want to talk about it?’
He shook his head. ‘Nope.’ But within a few seconds he was turning around, his eyes seeking hers, searching hers. ‘I’ve been trying to wrap my head around how that guy justified this to himself.’ He took a swig of his beer. ‘I mean, you got sacked, dude. I get it. That sucks.’ He shrugged. ‘Rant at your boss or your wife, go home and kick the wall. But why would anyone think it’s okay to seek revenge like this? To kill so many innocent people?’
Lola shook her head. ‘I...don’t know.’ She wished she did. She wished she had the answers he sought.
He was obviously still in the thick of the action inside his head. Probably second-guessing his every move, wishing he’d done something differently. That stuff took time to fully tease out. Took a lot of reflection before a person came to the conclusion that they’d done the best they could.
‘I don’t know why some people do terrible things, Hamish, but thank goodness for people like you.’ She smiled at him because he looked so lonely all the way over there by himself. ‘For those who charge in to help when everyone else is running away. There’d be a lot more fatalities from last night without people like you around.’
He nodded. ‘Yeah.’ Tipping his head back, he drained his beer, staring at the bottle in his hands for a moment or two before he glanced at her and said, ‘Think I’ll hit the sack now.’
‘You should. You look dead on your feet.’ He was swaying and his eyes were bloodshot. She’d bet her last cent they were as gritty as hers. There were tiny lines around his eyes that she’d never noticed before and his impossibly square jaw was as tight as a steel trap.
‘Says the woman with a cushion mark on her face and scary hair.’
Lola gaped for a moment before his lips spread into a smile and a low chuckle slipped from his mouth. She pushed her hands through her fuzzy mane to tame the knotty, blonde ringlets but there was no nope for them. She probably looked like she’d been pulled through a hedge backwards, while he looked good enough to eat.
Even exhausted, the man wore sexy better than any man had a right to.
‘Your sense of humour’s pretty tired too, I see.’
‘Yep.’ He grinned. ‘We’re both kinda beat.’
‘At least you only have one more night. I have three.’ Lola didn’t mind night shift but when the unit was busy for a sustained period of time like it had been, a run of night shifts could really take it out of her.
‘Some days off would be good,’ Hamish said, cutting into her thoughts.
Yeah. He could no doubt use some mental time-out after last night. But, more than anything, right now he needed to sleep.
They both did.
‘Okay, well, I’m taking my scary hair to bed.’ It didn’t seem like he was going to make the first move towards the bedrooms so she did it for him. ‘Night-night.’
She didn’t look at him as she turned away in case she did something crazy like offer to rock him to sleep. She just kept walking until she pulled her door shut, placing temptation firmly on the other side.
* * *
Hamish woke at two in the afternoon for about the tenth time. His room was on the side of the apartment that copped full sunlight for most of the day, and the curtains at the big window wouldn’t block out candlelight, let alone the December sun in Sydney. It hadn’t ever bothered him before and he could usually sleep like the dead after night shift.
But he hadn’t just been through a normal night shift.
He was coming off an adrenaline high that had left him wrung out and edgy, his brain grappling with the images of the kids he’d helped and all those bodies under sheets. When he did manage to drift off, his dreams were haunted by a woman in a purple dress.
Just like he’d known they would be.
And now he was awake again. Exhausted, but too chicken to close his eyes, plus it was too hot to fall asleep, anyway. There was sweat on his chest and in the small of his back. The fan going at full speed did nothing but push the stifling air around.
He had to sleep. He needed to sleep. He had to operate a vehicle in six hours and be thinking clearly. He wouldn’t be any help to anyone if he went to work even more exhausted than he’d left it.
Hamish rolled on his side, forced himself to shut his eyes, to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth. To do it again and again until he started to drift. And then a flutter of purple fabric splattered in blood billowed through his mind and his eyes flicked open.
Grabbing his pillows, he plonked them on top of his head, shoved his face into them and let out a giant yawp!
‘Hamish?’
Startled, he ripped the pillows off his head to find Lola striding into his room, her short gown covering her from neck to knee but hugging everything in between. He was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing much of anything underneath.
Great.
‘Lola?’
‘Are you okay?’ She stood at the end of the bed, her forehead creased, her arms folded tight against her chest.
‘Yes.’ Hamish flopped onto his back and stared at the ceiling. It was that or ogle her. ‘Just...can’t sleep. Have you been skulking outside my door?’
‘No.’ He smiled at the affront in her voice. ‘I was just passing to get a drink of water and I heard a noise. I thought you were...upset or something.’
He gave a harsh laugh, air huffing from his lungs. Great. Lola thought he was lying in bed, crying. It’d be emasculating if he wasn’t currently sporting an erection the size of the Opera House.
He thanked God for his decision to keep his underwear on today and for the sheet that was bunched over his crotch.
‘I’m frustrated,’ he told the ceiling. In more ways than one. ‘I need to sleep but my brain is ticking over and the fan is totally useless in this heat.’ He raised his head again. ‘We even have air-con in the country, Lola, what gives?’
‘Grace and I moved into the apartment in the middle of winter. And there were fans...they’re usually enough.’
‘How do you sleep after nights on days like this?’
‘Well, my room is quite a bit cooler than yours. Grace said I should take it because she didn’t work nights on her job. But I have been known to get up and walk through a cold shower then flop on the bed wringing wet and let the fan air-dry me. That’s almost as good as air-con.’
Hamish shut his eyes and suppressed a rising groan as his head fell back against the pillow. That image was not helping the situation in his underwear. Not one little bit.
‘Are you dreaming about it?’
About her being wet and naked on her bed? He sure as hell would be now. But he knew that wasn’t what she was talking about. He sighed. ‘Yes.’
‘You want to talk about it?’
‘No.’ What he wanted was to drag her down on the bed, rip that gown off her, roll her under him and sink inside her, and just forget about it all for a while. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t even want to think about it. What I want right now is to just forget it so I can get to sleep. I need to sleep. I want it to not be forty degrees in this room so I can just go to sleep.’
She didn’t say anything for a long time and a weird kind of tension built in his abdomen. Hamish lifted his head and immediately wished he hadn’t. The way she was looking at him shot sparks right up his spine.
‘What?’ His voice was annoyingly raspy and he cleared it as her gaze roved over his body.
She nodded then, as if to herself, before saying, ‘I can help you with that.’
Hamish swore he could feel his heart skip a beat. Where the hell was she going with this? Was she going to fix him a long cool drink or was she offering something else? ‘What do you suggest?’
‘My room is cooler and sex is not only the best sleeping pill around but I’ve generally found that if it’s good enough it can also induce a temporary kind of amnesia. I can only surmise from the kind of sex we’ve already had together that the amnesia will be significant. What do you think?’
Hamish blinked. What didn’t he think? There was no hope for his erection now.
He should decline. It was all kinds of screwed up and he knew how it’d mess with the boundaries they’d put in place. But he’d be lying if he said he didn’t crave the solace—the oblivion—she was offering.
Didn’t crave the white noise of pleasure, her breathy pants, the way she called his name as she came. Didn’t crave the company of another human being, someone to hold onto in a world that seemed a little less shiny than it had yesterday.
Someone he wanted more than he’d ever wanted anyone. His heart rattled in his chest just thinking about being with Lola again.
‘Please, Hamish.’ She took a step forward, her features earnest. She’d obviously taken his silence as a pending no instead of a considered hell, yes. ‘I know we said we shouldn’t do this and we’ve both been trying to respect that. But...our jobs are... There’s a lot of emotional pressure and sometimes we need an outlet. Let me do this for you. Let me be there for you the way you were there for me that night when I needed comfort and distraction. Unless you’re too tired?’
Hamish gave a half laugh, half snort. ‘Too tired for sex?’
She shrugged. ‘I heard that’s a thing.’
He grabbed the sheet bunched at his hips and threw it back to reveal how not tired he was. ‘It’s not a thing for me.’
Her eyes zeroed in on his underwear, following the ridge of his erection, and Hamish felt it as potently as if it had been her tongue. Her gaze drifted down a little then back up again, finally settling between his legs.
‘So I see.’ She dragged her attention back to his face and held out her hand. ‘What are we waiting for?’
Hamish didn’t have a clue. He vaulted upright, swung his legs out of the bed and rose to his feet, reaching for her hand. His pulse raced now as they headed across the hallway. The last time they’d done this it’d been the middle of the night. It’d been unexpected, spontaneous. There’d been haste, urgency. They’d groped blindly, they’d fumbled.
This was broad daylight, and premeditated.
She opened her door and led him inside where the heavy blinds at the window blocked out the light and the sparseness of the furniture and walls made it feel cave-like. And with the fan on high speed the temperature was several degrees lower. It wasn’t cool exactly but the edge had been taken off the heat.
‘Bloody hell,’ he grumbled. ‘I’ve been sweltering out there in the desert while you’ve been hibernating in a cave.’
She laughed and her hand slipped from his as she moved towards the bed. ‘I thought you country boys could handle the heat.’
‘What can I say? You’ve already made a pampered city slicker out of me.’
‘That I find hard to believe.’
Hamish smiled as he watched her open a bedside drawer and bend over it slightly as she fished around inside. The gown rose nicely up the backs of her thighs and he didn’t even bother to pretend he wasn’t checking out her ass.
She found what she wanted and turned to face him, brandishing a square foil packet in the air for a second before tossing it on the bed. Then, as he watched, she tugged on the tie at her waist holding her gown in place. It fell open, revealing a swathe of skin right down her middle. The two inner swells of her breasts, her stomach, some lacy underwear and upper thighs. His mouth turned as dry as the dust in the cattle yards back home.
She smiled. ‘You want to come a little closer?’
Hamish did, he really did. He strode over, his heart in his mouth as he stopped close enough to slip a hand inside her gown if he wanted. And he wanted. But he wanted to kiss her more. He wanted to kiss her until they both couldn’t breathe.
He placed his hands on her face, cradling her cheeks, his eyes searching hers, looking for pity and finding only the softness of empathy. And a glitter of lust. He brushed a thumb over her lips and she made a noise at the back of her throat as she parted her lips. The breeze from the fan blew a curl from her temple across her face and he hooked it back with his index finger.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ he whispered as he slowly lowered his mouth to hers.
Their lips met and her soft moan was like a hit of adrenaline to his system, tripping through his veins, whooshing through his lungs, taking the kiss from a light touch to a long, drugging exploration that left them both breathless and needy.
When he pulled back her lips were full and wet from his kisses and a deep reddish-pink. She looked like she’d been thoroughly kissed and damn if being the one to put that look on her face wasn’t a huge turn-on. His hands slid to her shoulders, his thumbs hooking into the open lapels of her gown, which he slowly pushed back. The gown skimmed the tops of her shoulders before sliding down her arms, and falling off to pool at her feet.
Hamish sucked in a breath at the roundness of her breasts, at the light pink circle of her areolas and the way the nipples beaded despite the heat. His hands brushed from her neck to the slopes of her breasts, trailing down to the very tips before palming them, filling his hands with their fullness.
‘Hamish.’ Her voice was a breathy whisper and she swayed a little and shut her eyes as he kissed her again. Kissed her as he stroked and kneaded her breasts, kissed her until she was moaning and arching her back, her thighs pressed to his.
His hands slid lower, skimming her ribs and her hips, using his thumbs once again as a hook to remove her underwear, breaking off the kiss as he slid them down, crouching before her to pull them all the way down her legs. He looked up as she stepped out of them and her hands slid into his hair and he dropped a kiss on the top of each thigh, his nostrils filling with the heady scent of her arousal.
Hamish kissed his way back up, brushing his lips against her hip bone and her belly button and the underside of each breast and the centre of her chest and her neck then back to her mouth, groaning as she slid her arms around his neck and smooshed her naked body along the length of his, grinding her pelvis into him.
‘Mmm...’ he murmured against her mouth, his hands tightening on her ass. ‘That feels good.’
‘It’d feel better if you were naked too,’ she said, her voice husky.
Hamish didn’t need to be told twice and quickly pulled off his own underwear to stand in front of her naked, his erection standing thick and proud between them.
‘Oh, yes,’ she whispered, her hand reaching out to stroke him. ‘Much better.’
Hamish shut his eyes as she petted him, her fingers trailing up and down his shaft, the muscles in his ass tensing uncontrollably, electricity buzzing low in his spine, his heart thumping like a gong in his chest.
Her fingers grew bolder, sliding around him, and he groaned again as he opened his eyes. ‘Enough.’ He grabbed her hand. ‘I’m not sure how long I’m going to last and I want to be inside you.’
‘God... Yes, please.’
Hamish lowered himself onto the bed and pulled her down on top of him, revelling in the easy way she straddled him, in the way his erection slid through the slickness between her legs, in the way she grabbed the condom and sheathed him, in the way her breasts swung and she moaned as he touched them, in the way her blonde curls blew around her head as she looked down at him.
His hands tightened on her hips. She was magnificent on top of him, so comfortable with her nudity and taking charge. She lifted her hips and took him in hand, notching his erection at her entrance, closing her eyes to enjoy the feel of it for a moment.
She took his breath away. ‘You look like a goddess.’
She opened her eyes and smiled. ‘You can call me Aphrodite.’ And she lowered herself onto him.
Hamish groaned, watching her as he sank to the hilt inside her, watching pleasure spread over her face and satisfaction take over as she settled on him, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.
‘Oh, yes,’ she whispered, raising her arms above her head and sinking her hands into her hair, her breasts thrusting, her back arching.
She was gloriously unrestrained and she was his.
‘Now you’re Aphrodite.’
He moved then and she moved with him, her hands still in her hair, rocking her hips, undulating her stomach, riding him like a belly dancer, taking his thrusts, absorbing them, consumed in the rocking and the pounding, building her, building him—building them—to fever point, the frantic whistle of the fan a back note to the wild tango between them.
Hamish’s climax gathered speed and light and momentum, little daggers of pleasure burrowing into his backside, the tension in his stomach and groin starting to unravel, and he could almost reach out and touch the rapture. He slid his fingers between her legs, wanting her there with him, needing her there.
She moaned as he found the hard knot of her clitoris and she gasped as he squeezed it, the sensation jolting like a shock through her body, her internal muscles clamping hard around him.
‘Hamish!’
She sobbed his name as the rapture took her, and he cried out to her too, as it collected him, his fingers digging into her hips as his spine electrified and his seed surged from his body. He pulsed inside her and she pulsed around him, the pleasure sweeping them along, ravaging them, their movements jerky, their dance disorganised, neither of them caring as they rode the rapture right to the very end.
It lifted as dramatically as it had descended, Lola collapsing against him, her curls spilling over his chest as she gasped for breath. She was hot against him but he didn’t care. He was burning up too and moisture slicked between their bodies, but all that mattered was that they were burning up together.
She rolled off him eventually and Hamish groaned as he slid from her body. He turned his head to watch her. She looked utterly sated, a satisfied tilt to her lips. There was a line of sweat on her upper lip as well as on her forehead and her chest and in the hollow at the base of her throat.
‘So that first time wasn’t a fluke, then?’ she said, slurring her words a little, obviously sleepy.
Hamish chuckled. ‘Nope.’
He assumed she knew how special that was. To be so simpatico with another person? To feel as if you fitted together. As if you were their perfect fit. He’d never felt it with another woman.
He shut his eyes, enjoying the thought and the coolness of the air from the fan drying his sweat and the stillness in his head, surrendering for a second or two to the tug of exhaustion, before rousing to dispose of the condom. Lola was already asleep, her body rosy from their contact, her blonde curls frothing around her head, a small smile still touching her mouth.
He crawled back in beside her—it never occurred to him to return to his own bed. Not now. This might only be a one-off but he was going to hold onto it for as long as he could.
He was going to lie down beside her and sleep—wonderful, wonderful sleep—and he was going to worry about the rest later.