Outback Boss, City Bride

she was going to say. And there was no doubt it would be easier in the dark than in the harsh fluorescent light of the kitchen.

I want you? Too bald.

Kiss me? Too presumptuous.

I’ve been thinking and…oh, God, no, she would dither on for hours if she started on that track.

She still hadn’t decided by the time Hal came out, kicking open the screen door as he had a mug in each hand.

‘It’s quiet without the kids,’ he said as he sat down in the chair next to hers.

‘Yes, the house feels a bit empty.’ She swallowed. ‘It’s just us now.’

‘Just us,’ Hal agreed.

In the dim light, Meredith could see his fingers curled around the mug and she let her eyes drift up his shirt to where it was open at the neck. She had left her own mug untouched, knowing that her hands were trembling too much to hold it properly, and her fingers tingled with the need to reach out and touch him, to lay her hand on his thigh, perhaps, or on his wrist where his sleeve was rolled casually back to reveal strong forearms with fine dark hairs. She knew suddenly that if she didn’t say something right now, she was going to explode.

‘Do you remember that day at the water hole?’

He turned to look at her, that almost-smile denting the corner of his mouth. ‘When I told you I wanted you?’

‘Yes,’ she said, the breath leaking out of her.

‘You said that it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to sleep together when Emma and Mickey were around,’ Hal reminded her, and then paused. ‘Emma and Mickey aren’t around any more,’ he pointed out softly.

‘No.’ Meredith’s throat was so dry that she could hardly speak, and the word came out as little more than a croak. ‘No.’

Hal put down his coffee very carefully. ‘Do you still think it’s a bad idea?’

‘Probably,’ said Meredith. ‘It’s probably not very sensible, but I don’t want to be sensible. I’ve had enough of being sensible.’

‘Good.’ A real smile curled Hal’s mouth at last. ‘So what do you want, Meredith?’

‘I want you,’ she said, as baldly as he had said it at the water hole. ‘Not for ever,’ she added quickly before he could object. ‘Just for now.’

His smile deepened. ‘Sounds good to me.’

There was a pause while they looked at each other. Meredith hadn’t thought this far. She had assumed that once she’d got the message across that she’d changed her mind, Hal would take over.

‘So,’ she said nervously.

‘So,’ said Hal. ‘What do you want to do with me?’

‘Do with you?’ she echoed with a blank look.

‘You said you wanted me, and I’m all yours. Stop being careful and sensible, Meredith. Do what you want for once.’

So Meredith got up and made to slide on to his lap, only to hesitate at the last moment. ‘I’ll be too heavy for you,’ she worried.

‘No, you won’t…come here.’ Hal pulled her down so that she fell against him, but he dropped his hands almost immediately to show that she was in control.

‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Now, do what you like!’

It felt scarily wonderful and thrilling and curiously right to be so close to him. Meredith stopped worrying about whether he had pins and needles in his leg from her weight. She stopped thinking about anything other than the fact that he was there, and she could do what she had been dreaming about for so long.

So she pressed her mouth to his throat, where she had watched the pulse beating below his ear, then slowly, slowly, she kissed her way along his jaw, revelling in the feel of his rough skin beneath her lips, tantalising, taking her time…

‘Is it OK if I do this?’ she whispered.

‘It’s very OK.’ Hal’s voice was ragged with the effort of self-control as Meredith kissed her way onwards, a blizzard of light kisses, until she reached his mouth. She could feel its corner curling into a smile and she smiled back, her lips on his.

At last-at last!-his hands came up to secure her against him, putting an end to the teasing as they kissed-a long, deep, hungry kiss that went on and on until Meredith thought that she would shatter with the sheer pleasure of it.

She sank into the rush of warmth and sweetness, into the absolute certainty that her lips had been made to kiss his mouth. It was slightly worrying, that, she thought hazily. It shouldn’t feel this good, shouldn’t feel this right, but the brief tug of practicality was swamped beneath a gathering excitement as his hand slid up her thigh, warm and insistent, rucking up her skirt.

‘You don’t know how much I’ve wanted to do this,’ he murmured. ‘Every time you put on one of your skirts, I wanted to do this.’

‘I thought my skirts were impractical?’ she said, breathless beneath the wickedly pleasurable onslaught of his hands and his mouth.

‘Not for this,’ said Hal, and they laughed shakily before they were both submerged in the swirl of spinning, shivery sensation.

Meredith’s fingers were fumbling at the buttons of his shirt when Hal tipped her off his lap and stood up without losing hold of her hand. ‘I think it’s time we moved somewhere more comfortable, don’t you?’

Her head cleared slightly as he took her down to his room, so much so that she hung back at the door, suddenly losing her nerve. Was she really doing the right thing?

‘You’re not turning sensible on me, are you, Meredith?’

Meredith looked at him and she had a sudden image of herself leaping off the rock, of the sheer joy of that moment. ‘No,’ she said, and she smiled as he drew her into his bedroom and closed the door. ‘I don’t feel like being sensible now.’

CHAPTER NINE

‘HOW does it feel?’ Hal asked, much, much later when they were lying entangled with the sheet, his hand smoothing lazily over the dips and curves of her body.

Meredith smiled. She felt utterly replete and relaxed. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t the slender beauty she had always longed to be. She wasn’t dumpy and plain any more. Hal had made her feel beautiful and desirable, and she was glowing with the knowledge of her own gorgeousness.

She turned on her side to run her own hand over his lean flank. ‘It feels wonderful,’ she said.

‘I meant not being sensible,’ he said with mock severity.

‘That too.’

That leap into the bright air above the water hole had been nothing compared to the tumbling, glittery rush of making love, of Hal’s lips on her skin, of the sureness of his hands, of the taste of him and the hard possession of his body.

They had been sensible enough to take some precautions, Meredith remembered, but otherwise, no, she hadn’t been at all sensible and it had been glorious.

‘I think I could get used to not being sensible,’ she said, stretching luxuriously and looking around her for the first time.

Hal’s room was as plain and masculine as she would have expected, with little furniture apart from the bed, a chair and a solid chest of drawers. Tucked into the mirror that sat on top of it was the photograph Meredith had found. She was glad to see that he had kept it, but it was a timely reminder too of just how determined Hal was to avoid anything more than a temporary relationship.

‘Never,’ Hal was saying. ‘I know you. You’ll be back to practical, sensible Meredith soon. Aha!’ he said, seeing