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Amy clung to her stomach, willing it not to swoop again. She didn’t want that unwelcome feeling to reach her eyes as it threatened to do each time. She wouldn’t cry. She’d never cry over that. Not again.
‘Eight years. Wow. And still looking over our shoulders, ruining all our fun.’ Amy smiled, hoping he’d take her words as she’d meant them—teasingly.
‘And by the looks of it you two haven’t changed much either. Still giggling over boys and drinking too many cocktails.’
Something resembling a smile lifted the corner of his mouth and he flicked his suit jacket back to push his hands into his pockets. He got it. He got her. He always did.
‘You just wish we were giggling over you.’ Amy smiled again. She couldn’t help it.
She’d always liked to tease Luke. She’d always pushed and pushed till the grim look on his face cracked into a smile. It was a game she’d enjoyed playing when she was eighteen and had had her whole life in front of her. Now, at twenty-six, she should be more cautious. She should have learned a few lessons. But it seemed with Luke she was still clueless. Because flirting with him felt good. Still.
‘I’m sure you are.’
He leaned in and Amy caught his scent. The same fresh, oceany goodness that she remembered. His lips brushed her cheek just lightly. As if he was afraid to go near her.
Amy was grateful. It was important to keep her distance. Especially with Luke. There was no doubt she’d been looking forward to seeing him again. She’d thought about it often since rekindling her friendship with Willa. She’d asked Willa about him a few times. Subtly. Without letting on to her friend how she felt.
Not that she was sure how she felt. Luke was someone from her past. Her very long ago past. And even then he hadn’t been anything to her…just a crush. And she hadn’t been anything to him. Just his sister’s silly little friend. An idiot who’d needed rescuing.
Amy clutched at her stomach and turned back to the bar, where Dave was now racking up the drinks. She smiled, she flirted, she paid all her attention to Dave. So much so that she could see him blushing underneath his beard. Her stomach settled. Her heart returned to normal. She wouldn’t think of that night. She wasn’t sure why she kept thinking of it—she’d learned to block it out years ago.
Maybe it was because Luke was here. And he smelled the same. She still remembered breathing him in as he carried her out to the Jeep and took her to the hospital. She remembered clinging to him shamelessly as he laid her in the back seat.
‘Don’t leave me.’
‘I’m not. I’m right here. But I have to drive.’
‘No!’ The tears from her eyes had met her still wet cheeks. ‘Please. Just hold me.’
She’d been irrational. She’d known that at the time. But she hadn’t been able to help it. For those three minutes the fact that his arms were around her had been the only thing stopping her from collapsing, and she’d been convinced she’d stop breathing if he let her go.
He’d reached for her hair, stroked it back off her forehead. Then with one finger he’d traced the cut in her lip. She hadn’t winced. His touch had soothed the pain. She’d clung to his hand.
‘No one is going to hurt you again, Amy. I promise you.’
‘But…’
‘Amy—look at me.’
That was when she’d seen his eyes so violently green.
‘I promise you.’
She’d believed him. She’d looked into his eyes and into his soul and seen her protector. She’d let him go then and sat silently until they’d reached the resort hospital.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_d240aa05-6ce6-5d70-ad08-c18056cdaba6)
‘I THINK YOU may have sufficiently embarrassed the barman, Lollipop.’
Amy’s face broke out into an uncontrollable grin and she turned back to where the voice behind her was coming from.
‘Don’t call me that.’
‘What’s wrong, Lollipop?’ He smiled. The slow, lazy smile that he specialised in. ‘Lost your sense of humour?’
‘No…’ Amy grinned. ‘But I have lost my tolerance for your teasing. And if you haven’t noticed…’ Amy put one hand on a hip and pushed it out ‘…I’m not as skinny as I used to be.’
Yeah, he’d noticed. Luke beat down the heat pumping through his veins. Amy wasn’t the skinny teenager of eight years ago. She’d changed. Filled out. His eyes slipped to her chest. Really filled out. And although he’d always considered her a pretty girl, she’d always been just that—a girl. But she wasn’t a girl any more. She was a woman. And, by the looks of the body she was showing off in a tight white skirt and tan silky blouse, she was all woman.
But she was still his little sister’s friend. Her silly, irresponsible friend. The girl who was too pretty for her own good. The girl who made an art form out of flirting. And that hadn’t changed. The barman was still flushing and throwing furtive glances Amy’s way.
‘Some things have changed, but not everything.’
He nodded towards the barman and Amy turned to see the direction of his gaze. The barman smiled shyly before fumbling with a glass and allowing it to drop with a loud smash to the ground.
He leaned in close to Amy’s ear so no one else could hear. ‘Still making men do stupid things.’
As soon as the words had left his mouth he regretted them. He watched her stiffen. He felt her shrink away from him and her cheeks burned an instant red. He hadn’t meant that. Not what she thought.
‘Amy, I…’
She smiled. Wide. Fake. ‘It’s okay.’ She gathered drinks. She hoisted her purse under her arm, flicked her hair and left. Making him feel like the most insensitive man in the country.
He knew what had happened all those years ago wasn’t her fault. She’d been a kid. Sure, she’d been silly, naïve—reckless, even. But who wasn’t at that age? She hadn’t deserve what had happened to her and he’d made sure that the loser who’d attacked her understood how wrong he’d been.
Luke watched her walk back to the table filled with people he hadn’t seen in years. People who had once been closer to him than his family. People who’d made him feel normal. People who’d made him feel as if he belonged somewhere for the first time in his life. For the only time in his life. He’d never felt like that since.
The memory of that summer on Weeping Reef had got him through some tough times in his life. Had it only been a few months they’d all lived together on the island? It had seemed like longer. It had seemed that summer had lasted for years. It was the place where he’d remembered being young. Having fun. Being himself. But that was over. His reality now was work and responsibility and money and more work.
And he liked his life. He didn’t want to go back. He’d grown up so much since then, learned so much. He was different now. Stronger.
But as he watched Amy walk away, clearly angry and upset, he didn’t feel strong. He felt twenty-four again. Inept. Out of his depth and totally unable to decide what to do next. At twenty-four he would have ignored it. Ignored her. Ignored the way she felt and the fact that he’d put his foot into it. He would have sat with the others and said nothing. Carried on as if nothing had happened.
But he wasn’t twenty-four any more. He was turning thirty-two in a month. And over the years he’d learned that the only way to solve a problem was to throw himself into it. Avoiding problems always made them bigger, more bad and harder to solve. Walking away was for sheep, and he wasn’t a sheep. Not any more.
His feet flew across the floor and he had his arm on hers before she even sat down. ‘Amy, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it came out.’
Her eyes shot up to his. The same pretty brown eyes he remembered from all those years ago, but now a little more lined around the edges. From laughing. Or perhaps from crying. Probably both. If her life had been anything like his it would have been filled with both over the last eight years.
There were no tears in her eyes now, but there was something else. A fierce, angry determination he’d never seen before.
‘It doesn’t matter, Luke, that was a long time ago.’
She turned away, but he wasn’t letting her go. She didn’t fool him. There was no way she didn’t still think about what had happened. He did. A lot.
During the last year in particular he had thought about it constantly. Since Koko. Since he had almost been the father of a daughter himself. He’d thought about all the things that could go wrong. All the trouble a girl could get into. He’d braced himself. He’d been as prepared as he could. He’d actually been looking forward to it after the initial shock had worn off.
‘Amy.’ He took the drinks from her hands and placed them on the table before moving a little closer to her. ‘I’m sorry.’ He held her eyes. ‘I meant you’re still an impossible flirt.’
‘Is that what you think of me?’ Her eyes hardened. ‘I’m just a silly flirt who deserves everything she gets?’
She hissed the words and as he held her arm he could feel her shake just a little. Clearly it wasn’t okay. Clearly she still thought about what had happened all those years ago. And clearly he’d put his foot in it big-time.
Her eyes darted from one of his to the other. Challenging. Hard. No fear, just distrust. That made his gut clamp hard. He didn’t want her to feel that way about him. For some reason that was important. He didn’t want her to feel she couldn’t rely on him.
‘No, Amy. That’s not what I think. I like how you flirt with everyone you meet. You’re friendly and sweet…if a little naïve. But I like that about you. I always did.’
He didn’t move his hand from her arm or his eyes from hers. He couldn’t let her go. Not until she realised that he had her. He wasn’t going to hurt her. Something inside him burned to let her know that.
‘I was just teasing you.’
She stayed silent but didn’t move. The noise of the bar whooped around them but right then Luke couldn’t concentrate on anything but her and his need to make her understand what he meant.
‘What happened to your freckles, Lollipop?’
Her brow furrowed and her eyes lost that angry gaze. ‘What?’
‘Your freckles…across your nose.’ He softly grazed the top of her nose with the tip of his finger. ‘They’ve disappeared.’
A smile involuntarily moved his mouth. That summer they’d spent most of their time in the sun. Amy had worked on Reception but she had often gone out ‘delivering a message’ or ‘taking a parcel’. He’d known what she was up to. She’d skipped out as much as possible to enjoy the sun and find his sister to get into mischief.
As the resort manager he should have hauled her into his office, gave her a warning—told her off, at least. But Amy had had a way about her. Cute, cheeky, sweet with just a whiff of sexy. He’d never been able to do anything more than give her slap on the wrist. And she known it. And she’d taken advantage of it. Batting her eyelashes and flashing her magnetic smile whenever she wanted something.
His eyes moved from her nose to her eyes. They weren’t batting their lashes at him now. They were still. And hot. He saw something. Something that hadn’t been there eight years ago. A sudden curious hunger that he knew he was transmitting right back to her.
No, no, no. This wasn’t right. He stepped back a little, letting go of her arm. He couldn’t feel that. Not with Amy. Not with little, scrawny, troublemaking Amy. His sister’s best friend. His little sister’s best friend.
But she wasn’t that little any more. She didn’t seem young at all. She looked…His eyes landed on her lips. Full and soft, they were covered in hot pink lipstick. She looked…delicious. His tongue darted out to wet his own bottom lip. Everything in his body stirred. She was right—she was no lollipop any more. The pretty little nymph had blossomed into a gorgeous woman, and she was looking at him now as if she was thinking exactly what he was. Sin.
‘There are a lot of things about me that have changed, Luke.’ Her voice had changed. It was deeper, with a hint of husk. ‘And one of them is that now I know when to flirt harmlessly…’ She moved closer, her breasts brushing his arm. He looked down and watched them—tanned and bouncing slightly as she moved. ‘And when to flirt with intent.’
‘And what are you doing right now?’
‘Oh, I think you know exactly what I’m doing.’
His eyes moved up quickly and checked hers. ‘Well, I hope you know what you’re doing. You don’t want to find yourself in more trouble than you can handle.’
She moved even closer and the stirring in his body started to roar. Quietly, slowly, but persistently. This wasn’t little lollipop Amy any more. This was a woman well aware of her power.
‘You think I can’t handle you, Luke?’
Luke’s mouth dried up. The idea of her handling him was doing violent things to his body. Things were springing to life. He had to calm this down.
‘I think you might have enough to handle with all the booze being passed around this table.’ He nodded towards the table full of glasses. Some shots of tequila had arrived and were being scattered amongst the others.
She looked away quickly, then back at him. Hard. Hot. He held steady.
‘Not scared, are you, Luke?’
‘Scared? Of what?’
She smiled. A magnetic bright white that glowed in the dark bar. She shrugged a little. ‘You tell me.’
Luke’s heart beat steady but hard. She’d pegged him. He was scared. Scared that he actually wanted to take little lollipop Amy home, get her naked and kiss her entire body. And that he’d enjoy it. And he’d want to do it again and again.
But he wasn’t going to do that. Not with her. She was too close. She wasn’t someone he wanted to hurt. And hurt her he would, if he let himself go there.
‘The only thing I’m scared of is that this lot are going to get kicked out if they get any drunker.’
He looked behind him at the group of old friends. Laughing so hard they were falling off their stools. Passing shots of tequila around, talking louder. and getting more animated with every drink. Fun. That was what they were. Fun, easy and carefree. And Luke wanted a little bit of that. He’d just gone through the toughest year of his life and he was back here in Sydney for this. Fun. Not Amy. Not relationships. Tequila. Laughs. Old friends.
He swiped two shots off the table and handed one to Amy.
‘We may as well join them, Lollipop.’ He swept the liquid into his mouth and enjoyed the burn as it travelled down his throat. Get drunk. That was what he was going to do tonight. Then he’d be able to forget and relax and maybe live a little.
What he wasn’t going to do was his little sister’s best friend. He planned on staying right away from that little wasps’ nest, because he sure wasn’t ready to get stung again.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_6f953fe2-2a4b-551f-b0d8-7fdf05461bdf)
THE HOT TEQUILA warmed Amy’s already hot blood. She watched Luke as he necked another shot. What the hell was she doing? Flirting was something she did. With everyone she met. She’d always done it. She’d realised from a young age that she often got what she wanted with a little bit of sugar rather than salt.
From a young age she’d also realised that her flirting could sometimes land her in trouble, so she’d taken great care to tone it down in the past eight years. She only flirted outrageously with people she knew well—like Dave the barman, who happened to be one of her little brother’s mates. But she shouldn’t have flirted so outrageously with Luke. Could she make it any more obvious how she felt about him?
Amy sidled in next to Willa on the red velvet banquette. More partygoers had arrived and the room was filling with hot bodies. Inside her chest the usual thrill of excitement thumped. But tonight there was something else in there. Caution. An unmissable beat.
Calm the hell down. But it was hard to tell her heart to do that with Luke sitting right opposite her, with his big hard body and his come-to-bed eyes that had just locked with hers so hard she’d thought she’d never prise them loose.
‘What the hell happened? That was a pretty heated conversation.’
Amy glanced at Luke as Willa spoke. A couple of vodka sodas and her friend’s whispering hiss echoed like a train in the desert.
‘Shh.’ Amy moved a little closer so she could hiss herself into Willa’s ear. ‘Your brother hasn’t changed at all. He still thinks you and I are two little girls who can’t take care of ourselves.’
‘What did he say?’
He’d said she was still making men do stupid things. As soon as he’d said it she been able to tell he regretted it. She knew he hadn’t meant it as it had come out. She couldn’t remember how many times he’d told her over and over that night that it wasn’t her fault. That just because she’d been friendly it hadn’t given that loser the right to expect anything from her or to do…what he did.
Amy pushed down the swooping, then glanced at Luke. His eyes met hers and her stomach settled. He hadn’t meant that. He’d rushed straight over to her to tell her he hadn’t meant that. But what if he was right? Maybe she was flirting a little too fiercely. Amy hitched at her shirt. Maybe she was exposing too much skin.
No. No! Stop! she scolded herself. What had happened hadn’t been her fault. The way she dressed and the way she spoke to people had nothing to do with what had happened. It had been his fault. This shouldn’t ever have been her problem, her hang-up.
Amy shook herself physically. When she’d come home from Weeping Reef her mother and father and even her little brother had wrapped her up in their little cocoon of a family and helped her recover. That was when she’d met Laurie. Sweet, nice Laurie. Who’d loved her. Who’d made her feel whole again.
She’d hadn’t thought about what had happened in years. It had only been in the last six months, since her old friends from Weeping Reef had come back into her life and their stories had been rehashed, that she’d thought about it again. But she was strong. She was tough. She wasn’t going to let the memories of one bad night make her into a victim.
‘Ames? Was he awful?’
‘No, not at all.’ Amy shook her head and turned back to her friend. ‘Sometimes I’m just too sensitive. And besides, I think I’m still in a little bit of shock that he’s even here. You should have warned me!’
