“Happier there?”
“Better view.” Her disobedient gaze landed on his muscular arms as he put the boat in gear, eased it into the middle of the thin river, and took the thing along at a goodly pace. Yep, much better.
“So, feel like a date yet?” he asked, and her insides gave a hearty little wobble.
“This is textbook. In New York a date isn’t really a date if there aren’t wild animals involved.”
And just like that she and Jonah North were officially on a date. And she was okay. Not deeper than her limits. Just...about...right. Feeling unusually content about her world and everything in it, Avery propped her feet on the dash; the wind whipping at her hair, the sun beating down on her nose, the deep rumble of the engine lulling her into a most relaxed state. Till the hum, and the heat, and eau de Jonah had her deep in memories of the night before.
“I hate to think what you’re conjuring up over there, Ms Shaw.”
She nearly leapt out of her skin. “Nothing. Just soaking it all in. Thinking.”
“Dare I ask what about?”
To say it out loud would be pornographic. “I really liked your shack.”
A surprised smile kicked up the corner of his mouth. “It’s hardly the Waldorf.”
“Why would you want it to be? It’s unique. And cool. It suits you.”
After a few beats, Jonah added, “It was my father’s house.”
“Were you brought up there?”
He nodded. “Never lived anywhere else.” He frowned. “Not true. I spent three months in Sydney a few years back.”
“You? In Sydney?” She was already laughing at the idea by the time she noticed the twitch in his jaw and the sense that the air temperature had slipped several degrees towards arctic. Okay... “Was it for work? Play? Sea change...in reverse?”
“My ex-fiancée lived there.”
Well, she’d had to go and ask!
A deep swirly discomfort filled her up and she struggled to decipher if her reaction was shock at the fact a woman had managed to put up with him for any length of time, or that she’d been wrong about his lone-wolfdom. There was a woman out there that this man had at one time been prepared to marry. A fiancée. Ex-fiancée, her subconscious shot quickly back.
“I’m assuming things didn’t turn out so well,” she said, her daze evident in her hoarse whisper.
But he was clearly caught up in thoughts of his own. She jumped a little when after some time he answered.
“She came here on holidays and stayed. Then she left. I followed. Got a position with a shipping company to manage their freight in and out of the harbour. Told myself water was water.”
Clearly it hadn’t been, as here he was. Mr Not Quite So Thoroughly Unattainable After All.
On a date.
With her.
“Wow,” she croaked, “Sydney.” Yep, she was focusing on the easier of the two shocks. “Try as I might I can’t picture you living in the big smoke.”
Storm clouds gathered in his eyes, his jaw so tight he looked liable to crack a tooth.
“Jonah—”
“Don’t sweat it, Avery. You’re not the first woman to think me provincial.”
And that came from so far out of left-field Avery flinched. “Hold on there, partner, that’s not what I meant at all. I’m sure you made a huge splash in Sydney.”
“I didn’t, in fact.” He took the boat down a gear so that the change in engine swept his words clean away.
“Rubbish,” she scoffed, imagining the looks on her friends’ faces if she’d ever turned up with this guy on her arm. Those Manhattan blue bloods would take one look at those delicious eye crinkles, those big shoulders, and drop their jaws like a row of cartoon characters. And it wasn’t just the way the guy looked—it was in his bearing, how obviously he lived his life to as high a standard as any man ever had. “I don’t believe that for a second.”
Jonah glanced up, the storm clouds parting just enough for a spark to gleam from within. A spark that met its twin in her belly.
“What I meant,” she said, now choosing her words with care, “about me not being able to imagine you in Sydney, is that you seem like you were made for this place—the scorching sun, the squalling sea, the immense sky. Sydney would be a big grey blur in comparison. Which sounds ridiculous now I’ve put it into words—”
“No,” Jonah said, frowning and smiling at the same time. “No.”
“Okay.” Avery hugged her arms around her belly to contain the tumbly feelings as they softened down to a constant hum. “So what happened with you and—”
“Rach? Real life.”
“It has a way of getting in the way of things.”
“You ever come close?” Jonah asked. “Marriage. Kids. The whole calamity.”
“Me? No. Not unless you include Luke, of course, and he wasn’t even aware of our impending plans.”
Jonah laughed. An honest laugh. Confident, this man. Why wouldn’t he be, though? Look at him. One hand resting casually on the wheel, a shoe nudged against the foot of the helm, eyes crinkling in the sunshine as he eased the boat around the reeded bends of the river.
This was a man who knew where he belonged.
The boat hit a wider stretch and Jonah slowed the engine to a throaty hum.
Maybe she still had to figure out where she really belonged. Not here. A ride on a dilapidated old boat at the top of Australia was probably a bit of a stretch considering where she’d come from. But here, so far away, made her realise how much of her life she spent trying to sort out her parents’ lives. And the seed was now sown; to find her place. It would be hard. It would mean unravelling a decade’s worth of ties before weaving them into something new. Something better.
Later, she thought as her throat began to constrict with the thought of it. Right now, the summer was hers. All hers. Nobody else’s. And she no longer had any doubts about how she wanted to spend the time she had left.
Avery slipped off her stool and slipped under Jonah’s arm, finding a perfect spot for herself between his knees. She rested a hand on his chest; the other took the cap from his head. His slow intake of breath and the darkening of his eyes created pools of heat low in her belly.
“So, Jonah North, what do you say we put all that behind us and just have some damn fun? No promises. No regrets. Do you want to be the man who makes my summer holiday one to remember?”
A muscle ticced in his jaw a moment before he grabbed her by the waist and drew her into him, covering her mouth with his. No finesse this time, no interminable teasing, just pure unleashed desire.
Lust rushed through her, unfettered, thick and fast, and she kissed him back, the heat of his mouth, the slide of his tongue driving every thought from her head but more, now, yes!
She threw his hat away—the man was hot but kissing a Sox fan would be sacrilege—and tucked her hands under his T-shirt, revelling in the warm skin, the rasp of hair, the sheer size of him. He was so big and hot and so much man he made her feel so light, like a breath of fresh air. As if nothing else mattered but here, now, this.
He tugged her closer, the ridge of his desire pressed against her belly, and her head fell back as anticipation shivered through her with the surety of what was to come.