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‘So how long have you been friends?’ he asked, picking at the corner of his beer label with a short, blunt fingernail.
He hoped that his question would distract them from further Screaming Orgasm humour—especially since, A. He hadn’t had one recently, and B. He’d just decided to stay for another beer, another half-hour.
‘Eight, nearly nine years—with far too many lost years in between,’ Willa replied.
Seeing the confusion on his face, she placed her hand on his bare forearm and—whoa! What the hell …? Lust and attraction shot up his arm and exploded in his brain. He went stock-still and tried to work through his reaction. He’d never, since the time he’d found out that girls had fun things he liked to play with, had such a rocketing blood from his head reaction to the simple touch of fingers on his skin.
He looked at her again and realised that she wasn’t just pretty—she was damn sexy. High cheekbones, a pouty mouth and those amazing siren eyes. He allowed his own eyes the pleasure of skimming over smooth shoulders, smallish breasts and that too thin but utterly feminine body.
He tipped his head slightly to the side and saw that her sage-green sleeveless dress disappeared under the table. He needed to see more. On the pretext of bending sideways to scratch his foot, he looked under the table. The dress ended mid-thigh and, holy Moses, those legs were long and toned. Since one nude heel had dropped off a slim foot, he saw that her toes were tipped in tropical orange polish.
Hot, hot.
‘… and then Amy left the Whitsundays—’
Rob blinked as he lifted his head and came back to the conversation. He was both amused and irritated with himself. He never went on mental walkabouts—and especially not over women.
‘You’re going to have to back up, Wills. Rob didn’t hear a damn thing,’ Amy drawled, lifting her beer bottle to her lips and raising a knowing eyebrow in his direction.
Rob felt an urge to pull out his tongue at her, which he manfully suppressed. He quickly rewound and took a stab in the dark. ‘So, have you kept in contact with your other mates from those days?’
‘Well, I talk to Luke my brother all the time. He was the resort manager.’
Amy sat up straighter and leaned forward. Hmm, Rob thought, interesting reaction to the mention of his name. Something churning there.
‘We barely talk nowadays, but I have all their e-mail addresses, and I’m friends with them on social media,’ Willa answered, her lips around a purple straw.
Rob, forcing the mental picture of what he’d really like to see those lips wrapped around from his mind, thought that there was no way he could go so long without connecting with his own tight circle of friends.
‘You all should get together some time—catch up.’
Amy clapped her hands together with delight. ‘That’s such a fantastic idea. We should do that, Wills. We can invite them for a barbie … it’ll be a Whitsundays reunion,’ Amy gushed.
‘Let’s do it! When?’ Willa asked, eyes sparkling.
‘The sooner the better … Tomorrow is Sunday! A perfect day for a barbie by the pool … beers, bikinis … We can have a seafood Barbie,’ Amy babbled. ‘Invite them, Willa! Now! I betcha they will all come.’
Willa reached for her bag, her enthusiasm elevated by those Screaming Orgasms. She pulled out the latest smartphone and Rob raised his eyes as her fingers flew over the touchscreen. ‘Okay, I’ve tagged Scott and Brodie and Chantal. Luke is in Singapore, the jerk. Who else?’
‘The bartenders—Matt and Phil. Invite them! They were fun … Tell them to bring booze for cocktails.’ Amy leaned forward. ‘And Jane and Gwen who were part of the entertainment crew.’ Amy looked at Rob. ‘We were quite sure that they provided extra “entertainment” to the guests, but they were such a riot.’
‘And the lifeguards—I hope they’re still hot! Tagged them … Come on, Ames, there were at least twenty of us who ran wild … I’ve tagged the girls who helped me entertain the rug rats.’
‘The rug rats?’ Rob asked.
‘I looked after the kids at the resort … I kept them entertained so that their parents could have a break. And afternoon sex,’ Willa explained without looking up from her smartphone. ‘Come on, Amy—think!’
Amy rattled off a few more names and Willa bobbed her head in excitement. ‘Okay, anyone else?’
‘Nah. I think that’s it.’
Amy leaned back in her chair and looked over to her flatmate. She let out a loud whistle that felt like an ice pick in Rob’s brain, but it had the desired effect and Jessica turned around.
‘Hey, Jess, want to go to a barbie with me and Willa?’
‘Sure,’ Jessica replied, turning to Willa. ‘When?’
‘Tomorrow. What time?’ Willa asked Amy.
‘Eleven. Bring your own bottle,’ Amy replied, and Rob watched, amused, as their impromptu party started to take shape.
Whether their guests would appreciate—or accept—an invitation at half-ten at night for a party the next day was another story, but it was fun watching their cocktail-induced excitement. That being said, he knew that they were so going to regret their impulsiveness in the morning, when their heads woke them up, screaming that they had had brain surgery without anaesthetic.
‘Okay, eleven … bring my own bottle … where?’ Jessica asked.
‘Yeah, where? Maybe I should add that.’ Willa squinted at her phone.
‘That would be helpful,’ Rob murmured, but no one heard him.
Amy pretended to think, her eyes dancing. ‘Oh, I don’t know … who do we know who has an empty Sydney waterfront property with a pool?’
Willa shrugged. ‘Who?’
Then the penny dropped with a clang and Willa bounced up and down in her chair like a first-grader.
‘Oooh, I do! Me! Me, me, me, me … me!’
‘Attagirl.’ Amy lifted her bottle in her direction.
Even Rob, stranger that he was to the city, knew that waterfront property in Sydney meant big bucks. Who was this waif? An heiress? A celebrity?
‘Hey, if I’m finally going to host a party of my own then I’m going to invite who I want to invite,’ Willa stated emphatically. ‘Like Kate!’
‘Who’s Kate?’ Amy asked.
Yeah, who is Kate, gorgeous?
‘My lawyer.’
Why would a woman in her mid to late twenties have her own lawyer? Interesting … Then again, the whole package was fascinating … Brains and beauty and those brilliant legs that were made to wrap around a man’s hips …
Okay, slow down there, Hanson.
Willa’s phone beeped and her face fell. ‘Poop. Kate can’t come. Oh, well.’ She looked around for a waiter. ‘I need another drink.’
Some liver pills, a litre of water and a few painkillers wouldn’t hurt either, Rob told her silently.
CHAPTER TWO (#uf1ab7f78-b156-5582-ad56-23420f88d4c9)
SHE WASN’T DRUNK, Willa told herself. Happy, relaxed … slightly buzzed, maybe, but not drunk. And she was having fun, she realised on a happy sigh. Fun … She rolled the word around her tongue. Well … hello, there, stranger.
She was twenty-six years old—jeez, nearly twenty-seven—and she’d played the part of young, gorgeous, thick trophy wife all her adult life because Wayne and what he’d wanted had been important … her, not so much.
She was a great example of why you shouldn’t be in charge of your own destiny when you were too young and too dumb to be making decisions more complicated than how to operate a teaspoon.
Willa pushed her heavy hair back from her face. She’d stopped loving Wayne years and years ago, and now she just wished she could finally be free of him—legally, mentally, comprehensively. And when she was she could fully enjoy men like … Rob.
Willa sneaked a look at that face and swallowed her lusty sigh. He was scruffy in all the right places, she thought. Sable-coloured curls that she longed to touch to see if they felt as soft as they looked, a four-day-old beard, a shirt that skimmed long muscles and tanned skin, giving hints of well-defined pecs, and an impressive six-pack.
Those grey piercing eyes seemed to be shockingly observant and yet basically unreadable.
Rough, rugged, and completely at ease in his skin. She couldn’t help but to compare him to the only other man she’d ever slept with—she was biggest of big girl’s blouses!—and it was like comparing instant coffee to Mountain Blue. Simply an exercise in stupidity.
Wayne was smart Italian suits and hair gel to cover the bald patch on the crown of his head. Cologne, cufflinks and designer labels. Rob was … not. He didn’t need to accessorise—he was excellent just as he was.
Sexy. Masculine. Nuclear-hot.
‘Honey, you keep looking at me like that and I’m going to have to do something about it.’
Willa blinked as his drawling voice pulled her back into the moment and she noticed Amy leaving the table with a tall blond guy. They were heading towards the dance floor in the centre of the club. When had that happened? Maybe while she’d been spending the last five minutes drooling over Nuclear-Hot across the table.
She turned back to Rob and blinked like an owl. ‘Hi …’ she whispered.
‘Hi back. You okay?’
‘Mmm. I’m having fun. I haven’t had fun for a long, long time.’ Willa tapped her fingers on the table in time to the music. ‘Do you dance?’
Rob’s mobile mouth kicked up. ‘If I have to.’
Willa looked from the dance floor to him and nibbled on the bottom of her lip. The last time she’d danced—really danced, with feeling and heart and soul—had been in the Whitsundays at that dive bar where all the staff employed at the hotels in the area had congregated to hook up, break up, kiss and make up.
She wanted to feel young again—eighteen again—when the nights had been long and had held a myriad of possibilities.
She wanted to dance with Rob …
Maybe it was the cocktails making her feel brave. If it was she’d have another three or four Screaming Os, thank you very much. Then you’d be face-down on the floor, commented doormat Willa.
Willa took a breath and blurted out her question. ‘Will you dance … with me?’
Rob immediately rose to his feet and held out his hand.
Willa took a moment to find her shoe before standing up and placing her hand in his much bigger one. She followed in his wake as he pushed through the packed crowds to the edge of the dance floor. Instead of finding a spot on the edge, Rob pulled her into the centre of the floor, flashed her a grin and started to move.
Willa stared at him in shock as he immediately picked up the beat and moved his hips in a sinuous rhythm that dried up all the moisture in her mouth. Dear Lord, those hips … If he took the same skill to the bedroom he would be declared a lethal sexual weapon in several countries.
‘I thought you said you don’t dance!’ Willa shouted.
Rob flashed her a smile as his shoulders lifted and rolled. ‘I said that I dance if I have to.’
Willa stepped closer to him so that she could speak directly in his ear. ‘You’re pretty good.’
‘Just one of my talents.’
Rob placed his hands on her hips and before she knew it her thigh was between his and they were rocking together. Willa swallowed the lump in her throat as Rob’s hand lifted to encircle her neck, using his thumb to push her jaw up so that their eyes met. Willa wasn’t that out of practice that she couldn’t recognise the attraction in his eyes, the accelerated pulse under the wrists she loosely held.
‘Man … you are seriously gorgeous. And to think that I nearly blew this off,’ Rob muttered, mostly to himself, as his other hand slid around her back and yanked her towards him so that their bodies were pressed flush against each other.
His chest was wider and bigger and harder than hers, Willa thought as she dropped her nose to the V of skin his shirt revealed and inhaled his man smell, his heat. Lust boiled and roiled and her happy place throbbed, echoing the beat of the music. His surprisingly soft chest hair tickled her nose and she felt rather than heard the rumble of a moan in his chest, his throat. One hand splayed across her back, between her shoulder blades, and the other dropped lower onto her ass, holding her firmly in place against him. And that, she could feel, made him very happy indeed.
Somehow he kept them swaying to the beat, pretending to dance.
‘So, twenty questions time?’
Rob’s deep voice in her ear did nothing to assuage the heat between her legs—in fact it sped up her sluggish blood.
Questions? Was he mad? Between him and the cocktails she’d didn’t have an operational brain cell left.
‘Yes … no … I don’t know,’ Willa murmured back.
‘Wrong, wrong and wrong,’ Rob responded with an appreciative grin. ‘Let’s try that again. Why do you have a lawyer?’
She didn’t feel like explaining about Wayne and her imminent divorce. She wasn’t going to see Rob again after tonight, but she still thought it would be tacky to explain about her ex while she was pressed up very close and very personal against him. Besides, she didn’t want memories of Wayne to taint this experience of her first fun night out in for ever. Her ex and her old life were in the past.
Rob was here—now.
Carpe diem, Willa.
‘Pass.’
‘Okay … next one. What do you do that you’re such an expert on the health and fitness market? Stockbroker? Financial analyst?’
She wished—she really, really wished.
‘I read. A lot.’ Even she, novice that she was at this flirting and seduction stuff, knew that he didn’t need to know that reading finance and business magazines was one of her favourite ways to pass some time. Willa squinted at him and pulled a face. ‘These are very boring questions …’
Rob laughed. ‘Okay, then—you hit me with one.’
Willa sucked in her cheeks. There were a million things she wanted to know about him, but the least important flew out of her mouth.
‘Boxers or briefs?’
Bad girl, Willa.
Rob’s laugh brushed over her skin.
‘Why don’t you drop your hands and find out?’ Rob suggested, and her face immediately pinked up. Taking one of her hands from his neck, he guided it around his hips and slapped it on his butt. ‘Feel free to explore.’
Oh, that was a mighty fine ass, she thought as she took him up on his offer. Hard, muscular … male.
