Just the truth. So...’
He paused then and took a deep breath and fought for the strength to say what had to be said. Because it was unwise and shouldn’t be said at all but how could he not?
‘So?’ she whispered and somehow he found himself answering. Still telling it like it was.
‘So we need to go in now because if we stay out here one moment longer I’ll be forced to kiss you.’
And there it was, out in the open. This thing...
‘And you don’t want to?’ It was a whisper, so low he thought he’d misheard. But he hadn’t. Her whisper seemed to echo. Even the owls above their head seemed to pause to listen.
This was such a bad idea. This woman was his employee. She was trapped here for the next four days, or longer if she took him up on his offer to extend.
What was he doing? Standing in the dark, talking of kissing a woman? Did he want to?
‘I do want to,’ he said because there was nothing else to say.
‘Then what’s stopping you?’
‘Penny...’
‘Just shut up, Matt Fraser, and kiss me.’
And what could he say to that?
The night held its breath and Matt Fraser took Penny Hindmarsh-Firth into his arms and he kissed her.
* * *
Wow.
Um...
Wow?
This was wrong on so many levels. Firstly, she should still be in mourning for her broken engagement and the betrayal that went with it.
Second, this man was her boss.
Third, she was alone out here, under the gums and the starlight with a man she’d met less than two weeks ago.
The owls above their heads had decided they no longer needed to be wary and were swooping off, dark shadows against the moonlight as they continued their night’s hunt.
Under her feet was a carpet of leaf litter that gave off the scent of eucalypts when she moved. But how could she move?
Matt was tugging her close. Her face was tilting up to his and his mouth met hers.
Matt hadn’t shaved for a couple of days—when would he find time? His clothes were rough, heavy moleskin pants and a thick shirt open at the throat, sleeves rolled back to reveal arms of sheer brawn. His hands were scarred and weathered.
He smelled of the shearing shed. He’d washed and changed before he’d come out to the veranda but the lanolin from the fleeces seemed to have seeped into his pores. He smelled and felt what he was. He owned this land but he stood beside his men. He did the hard yards with them.
He was a man of steel.
He kissed her as if this was the first time for both of them. As if he had all the time in the world. As if he wasn’t sure what it was he’d be tasting but he wasn’t about to rush it.
His hands moved to her hips but he didn’t tug her into him, or if he did it wasn’t hard, and maybe the fact that she was melting against him was an act of her own volition. She could back away at any time.
But oh, the feel of him. The sensation of his lips brushing hers. For now it was just brushing, almost a feather-touch, but it was the most sensual thing she’d ever felt. His hands on the small of her back... The feel of his rough hair as she tentatively lifted her hand and let herself rake it...
Oh, Matt.
Oh, wow.
But he wasn’t pressing. He wasn’t pushing and suddenly she saw it from his point of view.
She was in his terrain, and she was all by herself. He was a man of honour. He was kissing her on terms that said the control was hers. She could pull back.
And with that thought came the most logical next thought.
If she was in control then bring it on. How could she not? This man was gorgeous. The night was gorgeous. She was a twenty-seven-year-old woman out under the stars with a man to die for.
And then, quite deliberately, she let her thoughts dissolve. She raised her hands to his hair so she had his head and she tugged him closer. She stood on tiptoe to get closer still.
She opened her lips and she welcomed him in.
* * *
Penny was melting under his hands and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.
How could he want to do anything about it?
She’d stood on tiptoe and surrendered her mouth to him. Her hands claimed him. Her body said she wanted this kiss as much or more than he did, and he’d better get on with it.
And so he did, and the sensation was enough to do his head in. The warmth, the heat, the fire... The night was dissolving in a mist of desire where nothing existed except this woman in his arms. This woman kissing him as fiercely as he kissed her. This woman whose body language said she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
A moment in time that was indescribable. Inevitable. World-changing?
The moment stretched on, a man and a woman in the moonlight, almost motionless, welded together by the heat from this kiss. From this need.
From this recognition that something was changing for both of them?
And with that thought...trouble.
It was as if his past had suddenly flown back, a cold chill of memory. Of love given and not returned. Of faith and trust blasted. Of the emptiness of loss. The grief...
He felt it almost as a physical jolt and, as if she’d felt it, she was suddenly tugging back. Maybe she’d had the same jolt of uncertainty, the same frisson that their worlds were both under threat by some new order.
And it almost killed him, but he let her go.
‘W...wow,’ she breathed and he thought: Good description. He couldn’t think of a better word himself.
‘You kiss good,’ she managed. She looked dazed. A curl had escaped her ponytail and was coiling down across her eyes. He couldn’t help himself—he lifted it and pushed it back.
But he didn’t take her back into his arms.
‘You’re not so bad yourself,’ he ventured, but the ghosts had been right to tug him back. He had no intention of getting involved with any woman. He would not face that kind of grief again.
But this wasn’t any woman. This was Penny.
‘We...we should be careful.’ She couldn’t quite disguise the quaver in her voice. ‘If we go any further we’ll shock the owls.’
‘Probably
