Australian Escape: Her Hottest Summer Yet / The Heat of the Night

Without preamble he swung her out to the end of one arm before hauling her back. She grabbed him tight, breathless with laughter, her fingers gripping his upper arms. And then with a grace she couldn’t have hoped for he calmed them into a perfect sway.

She glanced over his shoulder to find Jonah watching her, his white shirt doing its best to cage all that well-earned muscle, the collar slightly askew as if he’d torn the top button open in a hurry, his eyes dark and shadowed in the low lighting. Her stomach sparked, her skin tightening. When he lifted his drink in salute, she knew she’d been staring.

Luke felt...nice, safe. He smelled...clean. He danced...really well. The tiki torches about the edges of her vision wavered and gleamed, catching on jewellery, on sparkles in women’s clothes. It would have been such a nice story to one day tell their grandchildren...if only she didn’t find it easier to wax lyrical about her surroundings than the man in her arms.

Luke started, and turned them both to find Jonah behind him, a finger raised to tap Luke’s shoulder. Yet the interloper’s deep grey eyes were only on Avery’s as he said, “May I cut in?”

Eyebrows raised, a not-so-surprised smile on his face, Luke turned back to Avery for an answer. “What do you think?” he asked. “Should I release you into the clutches of this ragamuffin?”

Should he? Avery felt as if her world were tipping on its axis. But when her eyes slid back to Jonah’s and she felt her entire body fill to the brim with sparks, she knew with a finality that tightened her stomach into a fist that nice and safe weren’t in her near future.

She must have nodded, or maybe she simply drifted into Jonah’s arms. Either way, she didn’t even feel Luke slip away, just that Jonah was there. She had one hand in his, his other hand burning a palm-print into her lower back—her whole body melted.

On the edge of her consciousness, the song came to an end. But they didn’t stop swaying. Her eyes didn’t leave Jonah’s. And his didn’t leave hers.

He pulled her closer still, till—without either of them breaking any indecency laws—every bit of her that could touch every bit of him did. When he lowered his hand so that his little finger dipped below the waistline of her pants, her breath hitched in her throat.

“Avery,” he said, his voice rough and low.

“I know,” she said, and as his arms folded around her she leant her head on his chest, the deep thundering of his heart more than a match for hers.

* * *

Whether it was the cocktails Claude was knocking back or Avery’s sudden rose-tinted view of the world, she couldn’t say—but the rest of the night Luke and Claude seemed to get along without sniping at one another. Which was nice. Or it would have been if Jonah hadn’t kept finding ways to touch Avery. The slide of his foot against hers, resting his hand on her knee, drifting a finger over her shoulder. At that point nice was no longer in her vocabulary.

When the last dessert plate was cleared, and the bill had been paid, Claude sat back with a hand over her stomach. “Who’s going to roll me back to my big beautiful home that I adore so very much?” She glanced at Avery before her gaze slid to Jonah. “Forget that. I’ll be just fine on my own.”

With a sigh, Luke pushed back his chair before collecting Claude with a hand under her elbow. She whipped her elbow away as if burned. But Luke took her hand and threaded it through his elbow and locked it there tight. “Come on, sunshine. Let’s get back to our crumbling white elephant before it falls into the sea.”

“She’s not crumbling. She has...elegant patina.”

Luke shot Avery a smile, Jonah a told-you-so look, then, with Claude babbling about fresh paint and passion, they disappeared through the door.

Jonah stood and held out a hand. This time there was no hesitation as Avery put her hand in his.

Outside the air was still and sweet, the road back from the beach devoid of crowds, the moon raining its brilliant light over the world. And as soon as Avery’s eyes met Jonah’s they were in one another’s arms.

The moment their lips met, she felt parts of herself implode on impact. Heat sluiced through the gaps, her nerves went into total meltdown until she was a trembling mass of need, and want, and unhinged desire.

The sweet clinging kiss of the day before was a mere memory as Jonah plundered her senses with his touch, with the insistent seduction of his lips, the intimate rhapsody of his tongue.

Desperation riding them both, Avery’s back slammed against a wall, the rough brick catching on her top, her hair, her skin. But she didn’t care. She merely tilted and shifted until the kiss was as deep as it could be.

It wasn’t deep enough.

All those clothes in the way. She tugged his shirt from his jeans and tore the thing open, her eyes drinking in the sight of him as her hand slid up his torso, through the tight whorls of hair, palming the scorching-hot skin, loving the harsh suck of his breath and the way the hard ridges of muscle jumped under her touch.

With a growl he lifted her bodily, till she wrapped her legs around him, her head rolling back as his mouth went to her neck, to her shoulder, the sweet spot behind her ear.

When he tugged her top down an inch, his nails scraping her soft skin, his tongue finding the edge of her nipple, she froze, the tiniest thread of sense coming back to her from somewhere deep down inside. It might be near midnight, but they were in a public place, her legs around his waist, one arm cradling his head, the other beneath his shirt and riding the length of his back.

“Jonah,” she said, her voice a whisper on the still night air.

She felt him tense, then relax, just a fraction, but enough that he lifted his head to rest it against her collarbone, his deep breaths warming her bone deep.

Avery opened her eyes to the sky.

When Jonah had asked her to dance Luke hadn’t been surprised. He’d been waiting for it. Which meant it hadn’t been spur of the moment. Hadn’t been some kind of He-Has-Girl-So-I-Want-Girl reaction.

This big, beautiful, difficult, taciturn, hard-to-crack man had staked his claim.

And scary as the feelings tumbling about inside of her at that knowledge were, the brilliance of them won out.

“Take me home, Jonah.”

He held his breath, his chest pressing hard into hers so that she could feel the steady thump of his big strong heart.

“You sure?”

She slid a hand into the back of his hair, the tight curls ensnaring her fingers.

He growled, and she trapped the sound with her kiss as she strove to make the best mistake of her life.

SEVEN

Avery’s first glimpse inside Jonah’s place—a shack tucked away in the hills behind the cove—held no surprises; the place was a total man cave.

Surfboards and a kayak lined up on hooks in the entrance hall. Battered running shoes lay discarded on a small pile of sand under a top-of-the-range road bike. A slew of mismatched barstools shoved under an island bench in the utilitarian kitchen the only dining option, and along with a big dark sprawling lounge were a recycled timber coffee table covered in boating magazines and mug rings and a projector screen taller than she was.

Avery glanced back towards the front door; but as the last time she’d checked there was still no sign yet of the man himself.

Right in the middle of a pretty full-on make-out session on his porch, Hull had let out a gut-curdling yowl before taking off into the forest. And if Avery’s heart hadn’t already been racing like the Kentucky Derby from that kiss, the sight of big brawny Jonah staring in distress after his dog—sorry, not his dog—had made her heart flip twice and go splat.

She’d given him a shove. “Go.”

After a brief thank-you kiss he’d gone, leaping off the porch, grabbing a man-sized torch from his big black muscle car, and run off into the forest like some kind of superhero.

No telling how long he’ll be, she thought as she distracted her nerves by scoping out the rest of his home. Down the solitary hall was one seriously cool bathroom with a fantastic sunburst mosaic covering an entire wall and an old brass tub—the kind you sat in with your knees up to your chin. Leaning against the doorjamb of his small office, with its big wooden desk, a wall of shelves filled with books and knick-knacks, another covered in old maps, star charts, pictures of boats, she admitted that, while the house might be a total bachelor pad, with not a feminine touch in sight, it was seriously appealing. Simple and raw, woodsy and warm. Lived in.

It was Jonah.

Pushing herself away from the wall, she walked unthinkingly through the last door to find herself standing in a bedroom.

Jonah’s bedroom.

Her next breath in was choppy, her palms growing uncommonly warm as her eyes skittered over the chair in the corner covered in man clothes. The bedside table—singular—had at one time been a beer barrel, and now boasted a lamp with a naked bulb, a book—pages curled, face down—and a handful of loose change. No curtains shielded the windows, which were recycled portholes looking out over what would no doubt be a spectacular Pacific view.

Her heart beat wildly as her eyes finally settled on the biggest thing in the room: Jonah’s bed. It was big. Huge. And unmade, the white sheets a shambles. It wasn’t hard to imagine his long brown limbs twisted up in the bedding.

Never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined that she’d be in such a position with a man like Jonah North. A man who made her twitch. And scramble. And think twice. And want. The want she felt around him was crazy, wild, and corrupting.

A man who couldn’t even commit to a dog...

Insides twisting, Avery knew the smart thing to do would be to walk away, before the want became something else, something more. She could already feel it happening, encroaching. Heartbreak loomed with this one. Way better to find herself that cabana boy and piña colada and spend the rest of the summer in blissed-out inactivity.

Too late, she thought as warmth skittered over her skin. Jonah was back.

She turned to find him standing in the bedroom doorway, his broad shoulders blocking out the light from the hall. He’d ditched his shoes, and his shirt, and his eyes were as dark as coals.

Any doubts she might have harboured about what she was doing there went up in a puff of smoke. “Everything okay?” she asked, her voice so husky it was barely intelligible.

“All sorted.”

“No baby birds to check on? Stray cats to nurture? Just saying I could go watch a DVD or something till you’re...ready.”

Jonah’s smile was swift. Sexy as hell. And predatory.

And Avery was done thinking. The sound of a zipper rent the air; and when Avery’s bustier sank forward into her arms she let it dangle from two fingers before dropping it to the floor.

Jonah’s smile disappeared. And Avery’s stomach quivered as his dark gaze raked her from head to toe.

When her hand went to the side zip of her floaty pants, Jonah shook his head. Just once, but it was enough for her fingers to fall away.

All man, this one. Never asked permission—not to rescue her, not to kiss her. The only time he’d asked was when he’d wanted to dance. As if he’d known that her acceptance was as significant as kicking down a brick wall.

When Jonah took a step her way, her breath caught in her throat, and in the low light his mouth hitched into a grin. She scowled back, which only made him laugh; that deep masculine huh-huh-huh that near took her knees out from under her. Lucky for her, suddenly he was there, an arm at her back, his nose rubbing gently against hers.

Then with a nudge he tilted her chin and captured her mouth with all the ease and honeyed smoothness of a man who’d done so a million times before.

Sparks flittered prettily at the edges of her vision before morphing into a deep delicious warmth that curled down her back and into her limbs. And without another thought Avery’s hungry hands roved over all that smooth bare skin. The man was beyond beautiful. He was pure, raw, masculine heat, as if he’d trapped thirty years’ worth of sun beneath his skin, till the heat of it pulsed inside him.

She moved, just a fraction, sliding her belly against the erection burning between them, breathless with expectation that she’d be thrown back onto the bed and ravished senseless. Then whimpered when Jonah pulled back. Not entirely, just enough to add air between them, allow breath to escape. Till she was left hyper-aware of the smallest touch, every erratic change to the beat of her pulse.

Then his lips were on her neck, and gone.

On her collarbone, then gone.

On the edge of her mouth, coaxing, teasing, then gone.

All the while his hands didn’t stop touching, sliding over her back, his rough, calloused thumbs riding the curve of her waist, slipping under the edge of her bra, heading south...

Just when she thought she might melt into a puddle of tormented lust, Jonah took advantage. Completely. His tongue dipping into her sighing mouth to slide along hers, one warm hand cupping her backside pitching her closer, the other delving deep into her hair, capturing her until she was in his complete thrall.

Then his thumbs dipped into the waistband of her pants, finding a heretofore unknown sweet spot at the edge of her hipbones until she curled away from him, gasping. Leaving him all the room he needed to lick his way down her neck, her collarbone, his teeth grabbing the edge of her bra and tearing it away so that he could take her breast in his mouth.

She slipped a bare foot around his calf, keeping him hooked; she dug her hands into his hair, keeping him there, keeping him from ever leaving—ever—as his tongue and teeth and hot breath drove her wild. Until he pulled the other half of her bra away with his fingers, his rough, warm, sure fingers, and, caressing her as if she were something precious, sent the most intense pleasure looping inside her belly it near lifted her off her feet.

When his mouth once more found hers, he kissed her till she felt on the verge of drowning. And her knees finally gave way from under her and she landed on his bed with a thud and a bounce. She flung an arm over her closed eyes in an effort to find her balance.

When she opened them it was to find Jonah standing at the end of the bed, half-cocked grin on his gorgeous face. All golden-brown rippling abs. And dark whorling chest hair. Ropey muscle across his shoulders, veins slicing down his smooth brown arms. A deep tan line from his diving watch wrapping about his wrist.

“You are something else, Jonah North,” she said, shaking her head back and forth.

The grin deepened, and his eyes roved over every inch of her. “When you find a name for it, let me know. As I’m totally in the dark about you, Avery Shaw.”

And crazy as it sounded, that felt perfectly all right with her.

She hauled herself up, curled her fingers into his open fly to drag him closer only to discover the tan line at his wrist was matched by another. This one was a perfect horizon that split the dark trail of hair leading into his pants.

She kissed the demarcation, relishing his sharp intake of breath. She kissed a little lower to find his skin there scorching hot. She pulled back and licked her lips as if burnt to find they tasted like sun and salt and sharp sea air. Like him. When she went in for another lick he slid his finger to her chin, lifted it so she’d look him in his smoking-hot eyes, then bent towards her.

It seemed forever before his lips found hers. Enough time for all her compressed want to collide with what felt like years and years of unmet need and rustle up a very real shot of fear. Fear that this was about to be so good she might never recover.

Then he unhooked her bra with a practised flick, and the fear was smothered to death.

“Done that before have we, champ?”

Her hands sank into his springy curls as he smiled against her ear before taking her lobe between his teeth for a nip. “One of my many skills.”

“Many?”

He lifted his head, moonlight through the porthole window slanting shadows across his crooked nose, his hooded eyes, his beautiful mouth. “You asking me to list them?”

“You seem more like a doer than a talker to me.”

She got a grin, a slash of white teeth in his swarthy face, before he lifted an eyebrow in mercurial promise and set to it.

Avery wrapped herself about him as he kissed his way down her belly, his chest hair skimming her bare breasts, then he rid her of her pants and G-string in one smooth yank, and his mouth was on her inner thigh, his teeth grazing her hip, his tongue dipping into her navel.

“Lie still, woman,” he demanded, his deep grey, eloquent eyes boring into hers.

She bit her lip and tried, really she tried. But the deep scraping pleasure was nearly too much to bear. And then she completely lost control—her control anyway; she was clearly helpless under his—as his rough hands skimmed over her sensitised breasts, caressed her flinching waist, dug into that sweet spot at her hips, then easy as you please pressed her thighs as far apart as they would go.

As soon as he broke eye contact her eyes slammed shut, red and black swirls of light and dark beating the backs of her eyelids as his breath fanned over her a split second before his tongue dipped deep inside.

That was where thought was lost to her as her world distorted into beats of purest pleasure. Of breath, touch, taste. The near painful rasp of his stubble on her most sensitive skin, the gentle wash of his warm breath, the glorious graze of his tongue, and her own heat, collapsing in on itself until all sensation balanced on the head of a pin before exploding into shards of light to every corner of her universe.

He gave her a scant few seconds to just enjoy it, to bask in the wonderment of such a bone-melting orgasm; enough time to get naked and sheath himself in protection before he kissed and nipped his way up her belly, her overwhelmed nerves crying out, her tenderised muscles jumping at every touch.

When he positioned himself over her, she had the ambitious thought to flip him over and give him the ride of his life, but he’d rendered her so completely limp all she could do was slink her body against his, to rain a series of soft kisses along the spiky underside of his jaw, and run her hands down his back till she found two handfuls of glorious male backside.

Then, wrapping her legs about him, she nudged her sensitised centre against his remarkable erection, and kissed him long and hard and wet and deep while she took him deep inside.

Her gasp was lost as he kissed her back, taking more, taking everything as he deepened the connection. Deeper, deeper, filling her with sensation so intense, she was absorbed. Lost in him.

When her eyes caught on his, she felt herself swirling, tumbling, drowning. She held him tighter, drew him deeper, his intense gaze her only anchor. As they—

“Oh, God!” she cried as she split apart before she even felt it coming.

When Jonah pushed himself to the hilt, and again, and again, finding sweet spots the likes of which Avery had never known, every ounce of pleasure was wrung from her. Too vast, too much... She found yet another peak as Jonah’s muscles hardened beneath her touch, heat reaching a fever pitch as he came with a roar that shook the walls.

“Hell, Avery,” he said an eon later, his voice muffled in the mess of sheets at her back.

“You’re telling me.”

He laughed, the sound still muffled. While she ran a quick finger under one eye before smoothing a hand down his back, biting her lip to stop any more tears from falling. Pure emotion, exhaustion, the last threads of tension that had built over the past few weeks back home finally finding a way out.

With a manly groan, Jonah rolled away, one arm flung above his head, the other lying between them. After a long moment he moved his arm closer, close enough his pinky finger spun sweet lazy circles at her hip.

Breathing deep, Avery took his hand, lifted it, and kissed the palm till the heat of him sank into her like a brand. And then empty, like a vase just waiting to be filled, and wrapped up in layers of delicious afterglow, she fell deeply asleep.

* * *

Jonah woke slowly, dragging himself out of a deep sleep with the feeling that he’d been in the middle of a really good dream. When he shifted to find the sheets at his hips rather resembled a teepee, he knew; whatever he’d dreamt it would have been nothing on the very real delights of one Avery Shaw.

With a groan that told of muscles well used he rolled over, only to find the other side of his bed wasn’t only empty, it was cold. Meaning she’d been up for a while.

Jonah yawned, scratched his belly, then lifted onto his elbow and listened for sounds of her. Felt with his subconsciousness for a sense of her. That particular snapping heat that sizzled about her like an electric current. But there was nothing.

“Avery!” he called, his voice husky, his legs not quite ready for dry land. “Come back to bed, woman!”

When his voice echoed off the walls and he got no response, the warmth in his limbs started to dissipate.

“Avery?”

In the distance he heard a scratching. Hull at the front door. He’d locked the dog inside the night before, after the odd run for the hills that had worried Jonah something fierce. But that scratching was coming from outside.

Avery. She’d let him out. When she’d left.

Jonah lowered himself back to the bed, laid a forearm over his eyes, slid another to the aching bulge between his legs and swore.

Of course she was gone. What had he expected—to be woken with coffee and bagels? That all it would take was one night to render his flinty little American all sweetness and light?

No. He hadn’t. But he also hadn’t expected her to run for the hills.

The myriad reasons why he’d managed to keep his hands off her till now had meant that instead of going at it like rabbits, they’d got to know one another in the past couple of weeks. While he wouldn’t say they were friends—the word was a little too beige for the kinds of feelings the woman engendered—they knew enough about one another he’d have expected a little respect.

Jonah opened his eyes and stared at the first tinges of gold shifting across the ceiling. It had taken him months to realise Rach hadn’t respected him. That while he’d been imagining a future, she’d seen him as free board and great lay. A man suitable for a season, not forever.

One night together and Avery had skulked out at God knew what time without having the grace to say Thank you and good night.

“Dammit,” he swore, hauling himself upright to run two hands through his hair. And despite himself he couldn’t help going to that place inside himself he’d worked his ass off to leave behind. The part of him that would always be small town, a lobsterman’s son. That knew no matter how many boats he owned, how many homes, how many helicopters or tourism awards or dollars in the bank, to a city girl like Avery Shaw he’d never be enough.

Rachel. A girl like Rachel. He’d lived with her for a year. He’d slept with Avery once. There was no comparison. None at all.

Punching out enough oaths to make a boxer blush, Jonah hit the floor, tore the sheets off the bed, threw them down the hall to be washed. He didn’t want to hit his bed that night and catch her scent, even if it was all he deserved for letting her in. To his head and his home. Thankfully his heart was tough as an old boot.

Still didn’t mean it wasn’t a smart idea to scrub her scent from his skin, her image from his head, and her presence from his heretofore perfectly fine life. If he saw Avery Shaw again in the weeks she spent in town it would be too soon.

* * *

When the cab dropped Avery at the Tropicana, the sun was barely threatening to spread its first golden streaks across the dawn sky.