thumbs pushing her breasts into perky attention for his favours. Peaks of sensitive supplication and he took advantage until she was writhing, aching for him, helpless against the wall at her back, unable to be silent.
She. Could. Not. Get. Enough.
Rayne lifted his head, heard the moan of a woman enthralled, saw the wildness in her eyes, felt his own need soar to meet hers, dropped his hands to the lace around her hips and slid those wicked panties slowly down her legs, savoured the silk of her skin, the tautness of her thighs under his fingers, and then the scrap of material fell in a ridiculously tiny heap at her feet. There was something so incredibly sinful about that fluttering puddle of fabric, and he’d bet he’d think about it later, many times, as he reached for the condom and dropped his own briefs swiftly.
Then his hands slid back to her buttocks. Those round globes of perfection that fitted his hands perfectly. Felt the weight of her, lifted, supported her body in his hands, and the power of that feeling expanded with the strain in his arms and exultantly, slowly, her back slid up the wall and she rose to meet him.
Rayne slowly and relentlessly pinned her with his body and she wrapped her legs around him the way he had known, instinctively, she would, and it felt as incredible as he’d also known it could be, except it was more. So much more. And they began to dance the ancient dance of well-matched mates.
The rising sun striped the curtains with a golden beam of new light and Maeve awoke in love. Some time in the night it had come to her and it was as indestructible as a glittering diamond in her chest. How had that happened?
Obviously she’d always loved him.
And it was nothing like the feelings she’d had for other men. This was one hundred per cent ‘you light my fire, I know you would cherish me if you loved me back, I want to have babies with you’ love. So it looked like she’d have to pack her bags and follow the man to the States.
At least her mother lived there.
But Rayne was gone from their tumbled bed and someone was talking loudly downstairs.
Maeve sat up amidst the pillows he’d packed around her, realised she was naked and slightly stiff, began to smile and then realised the loud voice downstairs was Simon’s.
A minute later she’d thrown a robe over her nakedness and hurried into Simon’s study, where two burly federal policemen had Rayne in … handcuffs?
The breath jammed in her throat and she leant against the doorframe that had supported her last night. Needed it even more now.
Simon was saying, ‘What the hell? Rayne? This has to be a mistake.’
‘No mistake. Just didn’t get time to explain.’ Rayne glanced across as Maeve entered and shut his eyes for a moment as if seeing her just made everything worse. Not how she wanted to be remembered by him.
Then his thick lashes lifted as he stared. ‘Bye, Maeve,’ looked right through her and then away.
Simon glanced between the two, dawning suspicion followed swiftly by disbelief and then anger. ‘So you knew they’d come and you …’ He couldn’t finish the sentence. Sent Maeve an, ‘I’ll talk to you later’ look, but the federal policemen were already nudging Rayne towards the door.
Simon was still in the clothes he’d left in last night so he hadn’t been home long. Rayne was fully dressed, again in sexy black, and shaved, had his small cabin bag, so it looked like he’d been downstairs, waiting. She would never know if it was for Simon or the police.
She wondered whether the police hadn’t come he would have woken her to say goodbye. The obvious negative left her feeling incredibly cold in the belly after the conflagration they’d shared last night and her epiphany this morning.
He’d said he was going and wouldn’t be back for a while but she’d never imagined this scenario.
Then he really was gone and Simon was shaking his head.
Nine months later.
Looking for Maeve.
RAYNE’S MOTHER DIED of a heroin overdose on the fifteenth of December. He was released from prison the day after, when the posted envelope of papers arrived at the Santa Monica police station, and he put his head in his hands at his inability to save her. The authorities hadn’t been apologetic—he should have proclaimed his innocence, but he’d just refused to speak.
Her last written words to him …
My Rayne
I love you. You are my shining star. I would never have survived in prison but it seems I can’t survive on the outside either with you in there. I’m so sorry it took me so long to fix it.
With the other letter and proof of her guilt she’d kept, the charges on Rayne were dropped and he buried her a week later in Santa Monica. It had been the only place she’d known some happiness, and it was fine to leave her there in peace.
He had detoured to see his old boss, who had been devastated by the charges against him, explained briefly that he’d known she wouldn’t survive in jail, and the man promised to start proceedings for the restoration of his licence to practise. Undo what damage he could, and as he’d been able to keep most of the sensation out of the papers, that was no mean offer.
Then Rayne gave all his mother’s clothes and belongings to the Goodwill Society and ordered her the biggest monumental angel he could for the top of her grave. It would have made her smile.
Then he put the house up for sale and bought a ticket for Australia and Maeve. The woman he couldn’t forget after just one night. Not because he was looking for happily ever after but because he owed it to her and Simon to explain. And if he was going to start a new life he had to know what was left of his old one. If anything.
All he knew was the man he was now was no fit partner for Maeve and he had no doubt Simon would say the same.
On arrival it had taken him two days of dogged investigation before he’d traced Maeve to Lyrebird Lake and he would have thought of it earlier if he’d allowed himself to think of Simon first.
Simon’s birth father lived there and Simon often spent Christmas with them—he should have remembered that. With Maeve’s mother in the US it made sense she was with her brother.
Who knew if she’d say yes to seeing him after the way he’d left, if either of them would? He guessed he couldn’t blame them when they didn’t know the facts, but he had to know they were both all right. Maybe he should have opened the letters Maeve had sent and not refused the phone calls Simon had tried, but staying isolated from others and keeping the outside world out of his head had been the only way he’d got through it.
Looked down at the wad of letters in his hand and decided against opening the letters now in case she refused to see him in writing.
Two hundred miles away from Lyrebird Lake, and driving just over the legal speed limit, Rayne pressed a little harder on the accelerator pedal. The black Chev, a souped-up version of his first car from
