Chapter Fifteen

Olivia clamped her fingers around the Land Cruiser’s steering wheel and stared into the cone of light thrown into the darkness by the ute’s spotlights. She and Jarrah had left the Grand close to half an hour ago, and her lungs still burned, her heart still hammered, and her hands continued trembling. And it had nothing to do with the fight they’d narrowly avoided.

Her father’s paranoia and training had prepared her for assholes. Endless emergency room nightshifts had desensitized her against the side effects of adrenaline, but nothing had prepared her for the man sitting stone still beside her.

Even in the aftermath of their run-in, he’d barely looked at her let alone spoken while ushering her into the driver’s seat like a bodyguard and handing her the keys. Now he sat silently beside her and stared out the bug-spattered windshield as if searching the desert for the same answers she sought.

The Wishing Tree emerged out of the darkness like a giant ghost and taunted her with visions of a cocky stockman galloping toward her across the desert.

She tried convincing herself the dryness in her throat and the tightness in her chest were just the downsides of the adrenaline rush she’d ridden. Yet even as she ordered herself to keep driving, her foot lifted off the accelerator and her arms steered them off the road and into the scrub as if they had a mind of their own.

He didn’t say a word. Not one word as she guided the ute between boulders, over rocks, through scrub, and pulled up in the mottled shadows cast by the Wishing Tree’s canopy. She keyed off the ignition, switched off the lights, and removed her seat belt while the cool night air drifted through the open windows and the silence consumed them.

The click from his buckle and the slow drag of his seat belt sliding home had her tightening her grip on the wheel. While the quiet crushed her chest, she searched the moonlight for answers to the questions she’d sought for days. Questions that had kept her tossing throughout the night since she’d stared into his eyes and seen herself peering back.

Tick. Tick. Tick. With every tick from the cooling engine, the electricity tingling between them grew until it crackled across her skin and ignited something inside her. Twisting in her seat, she latched onto his face and dragged his mouth to hers before claiming him with her tongue. Driving deeper, she scrambled over the shifter and clambered on top of him.

His guttural groans became hers as he buried his fingers in her hair and trapped her face to his.

The hand brake gouged her thigh, the dash scraped her back, the roof crushed her head, and she didn’t care. She wanted this man, wanted him beneath her, on top of her, and inside her.

…

Jarrah tore his trembling hand free of Olivia’s hair and fumbled for the door handle. Yanking it open, he half carried and half dragged her from the cabin and pulled her into his arms. He’d chased women, wanted them, lusted after them; but he’d never needed a woman before.

Her arms and legs wrapped around him as he crushed her to his chest and explored the mouth he’d been secretly admiring the entire night. Her desperate moans and frantic gasps for breath silenced the sirens screaming in his head. This, her, them, it had been inevitable, and whatever lurked beyond the horizon could fuck itself.

With a growl, she wrenched her lips from his and tore at his shirt. Buttons popped and cotton tore as she tugged his shirt free and attacked his buckle. She’d worked loose his belt and unbuttoned him before her boots had even touched the ground.

He claimed her mouth and yanked open her jeans before hooking his fingers into the waistband and dragging the denim and whatever the hell she wore beneath over her hips and down her thighs. He’d dreamed of skimpy thongs barely covering her sex and disappearing between her magnificent arse, but she could’ve worn Y-fronts and still been the sexiest woman he’d ever seen.

His cock buckled against his zipper as she staggered back and kicked off her boots. Long, slender curves sheathed in creamy skin shimmered in the moonlight as he froze before her, caught between the desperate need to see all of her and an insatiable hunger to be inside her.

He tore off what remained of his shirt and fanned it out across the ute’s tray before tackling her. His hands fumbled over her superheated flesh. His impatience to touch every delicious valley and swell had him struggling to breathe.

She deserved better. She deserved a romantic candlelit dinner, French champagne, soft music, and an even softer bed. All he had was a shirt to protect her delicate skin from the ute’s dusty tray, the gentle rustle of the leaves above their heads, and a billion stars shining down on them.

Her mouth fell on his before she sucked her way along his jaw as her fingers clawed at his back and shredded his self-control. With a curse and silent promise to give her everything she deserved and more, he cupped her naked butt and hoisted her onto his shirt. He wanted to savor her, caress her, taste her, he wanted to make love to her for days, but he’d be lucky to free his hard-on from his jeans before embarrassing himself. And she wasn’t helping.

She attacked him with the same ferocity she’d unleashed in the car park, and he was powerless against her. Her mouth trailed fire along his jaw before she growled in his ear and sank her teeth into his shoulder as he ground his imprisoned erection into her.

With a curse that sounded more like a whimper, he broke free of her embrace and yanked down his jeans with enough force to almost snap him in half. Pre-come soaked the head of his cock and shocked him out of his trance. Diving into the jeans bunched around his ankles, he grabbed his wallet and yanked out a condom. The wallet slipped from his frantic fingers as he tore open the condom and fumbled the latex over the soaked head of his cock before straightening.

With a gasp that sounded almost as desperate as his own, she gripped the edge of the tray and pulled herself forward. The breasts he’d yet to savor or even see heaved beneath her disheveled shirt as she spread her thighs and revealed the golden strip of hair leading to her glistening sex.

He froze before her and lost himself in the bottomless pools staring back at him. The swollen lips he’d feasted on parted, yet no sound came out before she closed them again and swallowed. The heat radiating from her ignited his skin as he cradled her cheeks in his hand and brushed his lips to hers. Lust and insanity waged war for control of him. But even now, with the head of his cock threatening to explode and his body coiled so tight it could buckle, he couldn’t rush her, push her, hurt her; she was too special. Too perfect.

…

Olivia froze and stared into the darkness consuming her as Jarrah’s hands set fire to her cheeks and ignited a firestorm across her skin. The tension radiating from him rippled through her, yet his touch remained a caress. How could a man so skilled in the art of violence be so gentle?

Even now, with his cock just inches away and his breath coming in ragged gasps, he waited. Waited for her to invite him inside her, waited for her to set them on a path that had no destination other than heartbreak.

With one trembling hand, she brushed the lips she’d mauled, and with the other she gripped him. He jerked upright and hissed in a breath. She grinned and shook her head as she gently squeezed the latex he’d somehow remembered. Thank God his sanity wasn’t hanging from the same thread hers was.

She captured his jaw and drew him closer until they shared breath. She wanted to see him entering her, watch herself exploding over him in his eyes’ reflection, and savor the look on his face when he emptied himself inside her. Pulling him closer, she wiggled forward and engulfed him.

Their shared groans filled the air as he eased inside her. Inch by agonizing inch, he slid and stretched his way home until he’d filled every hidden part of her. She sucked in breath and prepared for his inevitable retreat, but he stilled and touched his lips to hers. The kiss was gentle, sweet, and shredded her sanity.

Her frustrated growl seemed to surprise him as much as it amused him. Clawing her fingers into his back, she tightened her legs around his waist and impaled herself on his cock. With each breathless grunt, with each thrust, the wide-eyed wonder he studied her with transformed into a desperation that had him clenching his jaw and matching each of her awkward bucks with his own.

Sweat beaded across his skin and trickled down his body, coating the arms and legs she’d clamped around him as he quickened his pace. With each thrust, he pushed harder and deeper and drove her toward the precipice she’d teetered on for days. The scent of sweat and sex mingled with the erotic sounds their bodies created as the land beneath her fell away and she tumbled into the abyss.

…

Jarrah watched in awe as the eyes holding him prisoner rolled back and a breathless moan oozed from Olivia’s mouth. She stiffened, arched her back, and shattered around him, over him, and through him. Desperate to feel her clenching around his cock, he tightened his embrace and buried himself inside her.

The arms and legs hanging limp around him stirred as consciousness slowly returned to her eyes. Clamping her hands around his head, she drew him down until their foreheads touched. She bucked against him and dared him to join her.

He gritted his teeth and hung on. Just one more breath, just one more moan, just one more thrust…he fought to prolong the madness. All it took was one more plunge into her eyes and everything he was exploded out of him and into her. His legs buckled and he collapsed against her as wave after wave of blissful agony crashed through him.

He had no idea who clung to whom, and he didn’t care. She was everything he’d dreamed of and so much more. Gentle and strong, soft and hard, calming and terrifying, all wrapped up in a body he couldn’t bring himself to release.

Seconds, minutes…hell, hours could’ve dragged by as he softened inside her and their heartbeats fell into rhythm with the crickets and rustling leaves surrounding them.

“Wh-what the hell do we do now?”

Her hesitant whisper drifted across his neck and ignited a need inside him he feared would never be sated. Leaning just far enough away so he could lose himself in her eyes, he cradled her face in his hands and dropped his forehead to hers. “No fucking idea.”