“God, you Belles’ drive a hard bargain.”
I shrug. “He learned from the best.”
“I have no doubt.”
“Alright, you find me my dollar and I’ll give you this shiny ten dollar note.”
“Are you serious?” I baulk. “For ten bucks, I’ll go and find your dollar.”
“Uh, uh, uh!” He gently pushes my shoulders back to get me to stay put.
“Sammy, I’ll throw in ten, too.”
“Alright, I’ll do it,” Sammy says and hightails it outside.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you had experience blackmailing small children, Cade. You don’t have one of your own stashed away somewhere, do you?”
Elijah’s still watching Sammy’s hasty retreat, but I swear I see pain mar his features before he turns his warm chocolate eyes back on me. “Nah, not exactly father material.”
It occurs to me then that, despite all the time we’ve spent together lately, I still know nothing about him or his past. And there’s a million and one things I’ve wanted to ask him from day one, but I haven’t, at the risk of sounding like some overenthusiastic creeper. Like, where he grew up? What do his parents do? Does he have any brothers and sisters? Is he close to them? And then there’s the most nagging question of all—why does he have the name Lilly tattooed over his heart? It’s not like it’s emblazoned across his chest in neon pink or anything, it’s very cleverly and very artfully worked in amongst black and grey thorns and what looks like a gothic graveyard scene, but the fact that another girl’s name is permanently inked on his skin still makes my insides churn in that oh-my-god-what-if-he’s-still-in-love-with-someone-else kinda way.
Still, it’s not like I can ask him outright. Not only would it make me seem totally insecure—which I am by the way, I’m aware of my downfalls and I’m completely okay with this—but it’d just be so insensitive to come out with, “Hey, Elijah, that girl’s name tattooed on your chest along with a graveyard? Is it because she’s actually buried in the ground, or is she just figuratively dead to you?”
No. I definitely can’t ask him. Not yet, anyway, although at this rate, we’ll both be buried in the ground before I even pluck up the courage to ask him his favourite colour.
Elijah’s snaps me out of my mini meltdown by saying, “By the way, what’s this about me being a big kinky giant?”
“Urgh! Holly doesn’t know how to keep her big mouth shut around my little brother. She’s pounding me for information.”
“As long as I’m the only one pounding you for … other things. Actually, scratch that. Two hot chicks pounding into one another is a sight I’d like to see.”
I pull away from his embrace to stare him down. “You think my best friend is hot?”
“I think your best friend is psychotic, but come on, you can’t say something like ‘she’s pounding me’—” His voice goes all high-pitched and, what I assume is supposed to be girly, but really makes him sound like a baby- voiced nymphomaniac, which is just wrong on so many levels. “—and not have a man go to his happy place.”
“Hey, for your information, I do not sound like a sexed-up Teletubbie.”
“Okay, so you don’t sound like that, but baby girl, when you come, there isn’t a sound in the world to rival it,” he whispers in my ear before pressing his lips into my neck. “It’s pure fucking magic. Making me hard just thinking about it.”
“You’re always hard.” I playfully shove at his chest and he slides my hips closer to the edge of the bench so that I can feel just how true that statement really is.
“Exactly,” he says, and nips my ear lobe. “How long you think we have before Sammy finds—”
The sound of whooping comes from the courtyard and Sammy races in shouting, “Eat it thuckerth, you owe me twenty buckth.”
“Hey Sammy?” Elijah says. “I’ll give you twenty more if you leave us alone for ten minutes.”
“For real?”
“For real, brother.” Elijah takes out his wallet and hands Sammy a twenty. He slaps another on the bench and says, “That bad boy is all yours, once you’ve served your time.”
“Cool.” He’s out the door quicker than I’ve ever seen him move and Elijah wastes no time in pulling me to him.
“Just ten minutes, huh?”
“Baby girl, there’s a whole lot of orgasms you can fit into ten minutes.”
And what do you know? He was right.
Chapter Twelve
Ana
“Where the hell are we going?” I scream, though I know it’s likely he won’t hear me, given that we’re going 110 km on the highway and in the process of overtaking a Mack truck.
I feel Elijah’s waist shudder beneath my fingers and realise he’s laughing at me. He’s not going to tell me. I knew that much before opening my mouth. I’ve been pestering him since he busted into my room this morning and demanded I get dressed because he was kidnapping me for the day, and he still hasn’t budged. Then he’d started rifling through my underwear drawer, picked up a pair of frilly pink knickers and inspected them, as if they held the answers to all life’s questions.
“Okay, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but I really don’t think those are your size, Cade,” I’d mumbled as I’d tried to tame my bedhead without appearing obvious.
“Why haven’t I seen these on you yet?”
“The day’s still early,” I remarked caustically and he waggled his eyebrows at me and tucked them into his back pocket.
“You own a swimsuit?”
“I live in subtropical climate. Of course I own swimmers.”
“One-piece? Or bikini?”
“Are you going somewhere with this?”
“Where is it?”
“Top drawer on the left.”
He yanked open the drawer and rifled through until he found what he was looking for. Producing my yellow string bikini he held it up in front of him and whistled. “Holy shit! I knew this was gonna be a good day.”
Then he’d shoved me out of bed by dumping half my wardrobe on me and promising me ice cream if I got dressed and came quietly.
The downfall of riding bikes is that, even on a warm summer day, you still have to factor in wind chill. It makes dressing for days like this difficult, because Australian summers are merciless and jeans and leather are the last things I felt like putting on my body in 40 °C heat. I’d just prayed he was taking me somewhere cool enough that string bikinis were considered acceptable attire.
Elijah slows the bike and turns off the highway. It’s quieter now, but instead of pestering him again about where he’s taking me, I tuck my head in against his back and watch the trees fly by in a haze of brilliant greens. Another ten minutes sees him pull the bike over at a tiny shoulder in the road marked out with bollards. There is room enough for three cars, but we’re the only ones inhabiting the space.
“Admit it, you brought me to the woods to off me.” I ease off the bike and begin working on my chin strap. All around us is bushland, but the ground beneath my feet is mostly made up of grass and sand, and I can hear the gentle lull of the ocean nearby. In front of us lies a small winding track surrounded by more trees. “Aww, and you haven’t even had the chance to see my bikini yet.”
“Ah, but this way I’ll have the chance to do both. They don’t call this place Shark Bay for no reason.”
Elijah was already off the bike and taking out the ammo cases that he stored his belongings in while he was on the road. He’d quite cleverly crafted his own way to carry his belongings through the use of a custom made
