CHAPTER NINETEEN — RESCUED FROM EVAN
They arrived home on Wednesday. Evan Greerson phoned twice that afternoon, and once again on Thursday morning. Time wasting calls, because when Sammie asked if he wanted to speak with Nick, suddenly there was no urgency, no worry, no need to disturb him.
Yeah, right. And the architect’s plans showed the answers you needed anyway.
But, hoping not to rock the boat, she kept her cool, answered pleasantly, tried not to let his unwelcome voice rattle her.
“I suspect you’re right about your builder,” she said to Nick as she massaged him in her apartment during their Thursday lunch break. “He thinks he’s God’s gift, doesn’t he.”
“Has he been bothering you?”
She loved the way his voice hardened, his expression sharpened, as though he’d become instantly ready to spring to her defense.
Not likely when he lay face up on a couple of towels, glistening with oil and looking more ready to ravage her than chase off any competition. Not much hope of getting back to BodyWork in her allotted hour!
“No, not really,” she said, crouching between his knees and kneading the long powerful muscles of his thighs. She slid her thumbs right up into his groin and teased around his balls, which brought a growl of frustrated pleasure.
“Down, boy,” she said, enjoying his reaction. “But Evan sometimes rings and asks things he doesn’t need to. Maybe it’s just an excuse to talk to someone besides Brendan.”
“Maybe it’s just an excuse to talk to you.”
“Well I’m prettier than Brendan.”
“Damn right.” He smoothed his hands over her shoulders and drew her down until he could use his mouth on her breasts. “Brendan doesn’t have any of these.”
Sammie sighed as his tongue ran over and around her nipples between deep suckles and tender little nips. How could she leave him? How could she go traveling now she’d found someone so wonderful?
And...how could she desert her parents’ dream for an affair with a workaholic flirt? He’d admitted he was driven and ambitious, planning to sprint up the business ladder for at least another eight years. ‘Work like the devil until I’m thirty-eight or so’—that’s what he’d said in Sydney. The words had clanged around in her brain ever since.
He was there for the short haul as far as women were concerned. As far as she was concerned. Tyler had warned her, and she’d seen it for herself from the first day she’d met him.
She inhaled a deep shuddering breath, partly enjoying the almond-scented massage oil, partly distracted by the decision she’d soon have to make.
“Come back to me,” Nick murmured. “What’s the problem?”
She looked down into his black eyes. “You, of course.”
“But?”
“Yeah, big but.” She pressed her thumbs into his hard torso, sliding either side of the line of soft hair that ran past his belly button right up to his chest.
“And?”
“No answer yet. Still thinking.” She spread her fingers and dug them into his pecs, massaging deep and hard until his eyelids drooped.
His contented exhalation was almost a purr. “You could do this for money.”
Which was enough to make her grab her favorite handful of him and give it a long, slow oily squeeze, right from the base of his shaft to the sensitive tip.
Nick gulped a fast breath and his eyes shot wide open, finding and holding hers again.
“Just in case your attention had wandered,” she teased, bending to stroke her tongue over the same almond-fragrant path. “Wouldn’t want you dozing off.”
After a few seconds’ silence he said, “Stay.”
So he’d guessed what she’d been thinking? But what was he really offering? Sammie swallowed, wondering if she dared ask. She used the time to drip out more oil and smooth it over his shoulders. “Why?”
“We’re good. We’re great.”
“But for how long?”
He shrugged. A faint twitch of the same beautiful shoulders under her palms. “No guarantees. You know that.”
“And even less with you.” She ripped her eyes from his and resumed the massage.
Nick’s euphoric mood slowly ebbed away. Damn it to hell, he’d been almost ready to beg. Almost ready to admit she lit up his whole life. Who else was on his side as wonderfully as Sammie?
He’d never felt close to Brian and Gaynor, and for the past fortnight he’d known why. Never been a comfortable older brother to Hal and Tony—and finally knew the reasons behind that, too. He had dozens of friends, but none of the long-termers had ever been female—unless they were the wife of a mate, and therefore out of bounds.
No girl shared his bed for longer than a few days...weeks at most. Because then the clinging and cajoling started. The games that deflected his energy away from BodyWork. And BodyWork was his life, his baby, his dream.
For a boy who’d started with very little, he’d been determined to become a man with plenty. And was well on his way to achieving it.
But Sammie didn’t want to stick around and be part of his plan, part of his success.
Didn’t trust him to care for her well enough or long enough.
As her hands continued to knead and slide on his flesh, his gut began to churn in bitter spirals, and he started to lose the warm relaxed mood her massage had produced. How could he get her to stay?
“Come home to dinner tomorrow?” he asked. “Bonnie’s a great cook, and you can meet Mike properly, too.”
Sammie looked understandably confused by his sudden invitation. “Bonnie your landlady?”
“More like an auntie these days. She’s been throwing out hints she’d like to meet you.”
“Why?”
God, why did women have to ask so many questions?
He tried to school his face into an unreadable expression. Best not to give too much away. “I might have mentioned you.”
Sammie sent him a skeptical query just by lifting one brow a fraction. “You’ve barely been back at her place to do that.”
“Maybe that’s why she’s curious. Just come, okay?”
“But I thought you were going fishing with your mates for the weekend?”
Why was she objecting? Trying to avoid him? That made no sense when her hands were still all over him.
“Not until crack of dawn on Saturday. Josh can’t get away until then.”
She trailed her fingers back over his chest, down his belly, and rested her weight on his thighs.
“Please?” he asked, pushing her harder than he’d intended. Suddenly it felt important she accepted. That she saw him as part of a ‘family’—because she was a family kind of girl. Parents she’d loved, a brother whose home she stayed in, a grandfather she’d cared for.
“Are you sure she won’t mind cooking for a stranger?”
“You’re not a stranger. You’re my...friend.”
Her green eyes sparked with sudden derision.
He grinned. “Girlfriend then?”
“I work for you.”
Sudden fury hit him hard and he reacted too fast. “You’re a damn sight more,” he lashed. “Can’t you see that by now? You’re a friend from the past, Sammie. A lover who I’d really like to stick around. Don’t give me this ‘I work for you’ business.”
“But I do. I’m your P.A.—and only a temporary fill-in P.A. at that.”
“Then make it permanent.”
“What? No!”
As her derision turned to outright refusal, Nick’s previously relaxed mood evaporated completely. “Not how I imagined this little scene ending,” he muttered, glancing down at her hands as they caressed his thighs. He was still hard as hell—really wanted to work off his fury. And those busy fingers weren’t helping. “Will a condom stay on after the oil?”
She glared at him, but gave his cock a couple of quick swipes with the end of a towel and sheathed him. So she still wanted him, too?
“It damn well better,” she snapped as she str
addled him. “The last thing I need is to find myself pregnant on the other side of the world.”
She lowered herself over him, but he grabbed her around the waist and prevented her from moving. “Like my bitch of a mother, you mean?”
Her eyes shot to his, and her slight gasp reinforced her next comment. “No Nicky—sorry—I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean anything like her at all.”
She tried to struggle away from him, but, using his superior strength, he held her immobile and thrust up with his hips, skewering into her honeyed heat. Far enough to establish who was boss. Never so far as to hurt her.
They stayed frozen, green eyes on black, until he allowed her to slide down by slow delicious degrees.
“Nothing like her at all,” Sammie whispered once he was wedged deep.
“Then come to dinner. Meet Bonnie and Mike. He’s one of the other guys coming on the fishing trip.” He reached up and cupped her face. Groaned as he drew her close and took her lips in a deep searching kiss.
How could she not know she was special to him?
That he wanted her to stay? And let him love her?
“BodyWork Fitness, Samantha speaking.” She adjusted her position in the formerly comfortable chair, wincing at the slight aches and twinges from their lunchtime lust before transferring the caller.
The massage session had escalated into a war where neither of them held back. Nick’s attempts to dominate had made her fiercely determined he’d lose his control before she gave up hers.
Now there were long savage scratches on his back and shoulders.
Love-bites on her breasts.
Whisker-burn all over her belly.
In their intense and desperate grappling, she’d opened herself to every emotion—had thrilled at the depth of passion they’d shared, at the trust she’d dared to give him, at the care he’d taken of her in return.
Never, never, had she allowed herself to indulge so totally. And from the shocked expression on Nick’s face, she wondered if it was the same for him, too.
She had to commit to leaving before it was too late, before she was trapped.
Her fingers danced over the keyboard as she Googled round-the-world airfares yet again, and she bit her bottom lip as she scanned all the different options. Should she confirm her whole itinerary—or maybe only the first flight out of New Zealand? To Sydney again as a starting point? She’d loved it there. Wanted more time than the rushed couple of days she’d shared with Nick. If she made this first booking, her fate would be sealed. She’d stay one more week with him and that was all. She navigated to the Air New Zealand site, and with a heavy heart, booked a seat for the following Saturday.
The phone buzzed again.
“BodyWork Fitness, Samantha speaking.”
“Just the girl I wanted,” Evan Greerson’s unwelcome voice rasped.
Sammie screwed up her nose with distaste. Music screamed in the background, drowning the sound of the sea.
“Sorry to bother you, darl, but young Brendan’s done something stupid. Can you bring us out another copy of the plans today—the silly kid’s let several of ours fly over the cliff in the wind.”
“Can’t you get them back?” She knew her voice was sharp, but she really didn’t need this spoiling her day.
“Tried that, but the moment he went over the edge after them the wind got up again and took’em right out into the water.”
She sighed with bad grace. “I’ll have to photocopy Nick’s, then.”
“Yeah, I’m on the point of buying more timber and I need to double-check some lengths. Don’t want to spend too much of your boss’s money.”
She just bet he was worried about that! “Forty-five minutes or so, then?”
“Good girl.” The phone went dead.
Why did the man rub her up the wrong way all the time? It was perfectly possible the big sheets of paper had flown away in the updraft off the cliff, but...
Damn Nick for going out at just the wrong time, or he could have taken them and had another look at the building progress. She tried his mobile. Off. Left a text anyway, in case he picked it up in the next few minutes. And went to his office to locate the grey document tube.
Nick cursed as he checked his phone after leaving the law office. GONE 2 SITE W NEW PLANS. Why? When? Her message was timed almost half an hour ago. He punched up her pre-set. No answer. She was already on the road? Snarling, he fired up his car and shot across the city, keeping a close eye out for cops.
There was no sign of her little hatchback along the way. Uneasy with the thought of her and Evan Greerson together, he pushed the speed limit hard when he could, and hit the farm road with a squeal of tires and a cloud of dust. Although desperate to know what was going on, something made him approach the house with stealth. He slid quietly around the bends of the rough road, throttling back when he’d much rather have roared along.
At the far end of the overgrown tunnel, he spotted her car and Evan’s van. No sign of Brendan’s old pick-up truck though. The hairs rose on the back of his neck and a flood of unholy anger surged through every vein. He stopped just before the cattle-stop bars, pulled the brake on, flung his door open, and sprinted for the house. What was going on?
Music pounded all around—an old eighties group at full volume—but he heard no hammering, no power tools or any other kind of construction noise.
His pulse kicked up and adrenaline surged.
Sammie flattened herself against the old front door. Out of sight of the builder’s piercing eyes, her fingers scrabbled for the handle.
Damn, damn, damn. Locked.
Given the house had stood deserted for many years and half the windows were broken, she hadn’t expected that. Thought she could simply slip out and make a run for her car.
A hot tide of nausea sloshed around in her belly. Then the unease crept up her spine and raised the hairs on the back of her neck. Was this what a cat bailed up by a huge slavering dog felt like? Surely, surely, he wasn’t serious?
The music pounded—so loud that if she screamed for help, no-one would hear. She’d passed a couple of the farm staff at least a mile away as she turned in off the main road, so they were way out of reach anyway.
She clenched her teeth and planted her feet more firmly on the timber planking, thankful she’d changed out of her heels and into the old flatties she kept in her car for driving. Even if she’d lost the advantage of height she might now have the bonus of speed. But God, her knees were shaky.
Evan stood, feet in scarred muddy boots, leg muscles tensed, a gloating grin on his ginger-stubbled face. The light from the uncurtained windows showed her exactly how tall and broad and strong his big body was, and lit up his long arms barring her way.
“Kitty, kitty, kitty.”
Saliva pooled under her tongue, and she swallowed, feeling the slimy wetness slide down her throat to join the panic roiling not far below.
Nick bent low and raced past a couple of windows to reach the old back door. It was chocked open with a metal toolbox, and he stepped inside, trying again to listen past the music.
‘Baby you’re the best, the best...’
Dread spiked its sharp teeth into him.
How had Evan persuaded her out here? What the hell was she really doing? And why? He’d been careful to warn her off—didn’t his advice count for anything?
‘Baby I’m a-leaving the rest...’
He navigated through the disgusting old kitchen, now incongruously featuring a battered microwave oven plugged into a trailing construction cable. Past the once-grand dining room, and with caution into the main hallway.
‘Baby you’re my girl, mind is in a whirl...’
To his huge relief he saw Sammie silhouetted against the fancy leadlight panel of the front door, hands flattened against the timber. Light danced and dazzled off the facets of glass.
‘Baby you’re the ever-lovin’ best...’
Evan Greerson faced her, arms extended acr
oss the long passage, dodging and feinting like a basketball player to cut off her exit to the open back door.
Fury lit a trail of fire through Nick’s whole body. The words of the inane old pop-song went away. Sammie was all his brain could register. If the builder had had his hands on her, he’d be dead.
He couldn’t tell if she knew he’d arrived or not. Had to presume she did because she faced in his direction, but against the light, she was just a shape. A small, fragile womanly shape, hopefully not alerting Evan that help was approaching fast.
Unholy anger coursed through him, and he stormed along the ancient floor, mind ice-cold, feet making very little sound over the music. He raised an arm and swung his fist at full force into the side of the builder’s head.