up the sticks, pulled back her shoulders and sat. She tilted her head from side to side in her little pre-drumming warm-up routine. Her foot tapped and mentally she worked through the rhythm, slipping easily into the zone and feeling her body come alive. Her smile spread slow and wide across her closed mouth. This was exactly what she’d needed. Then she moved, hands, feet, whole body—moving separately but together to create one hell of a noise.
Rhys Maitland stood at the far end of the bar and clamped his jaw shut to stop it falling to the floor. He held his arms tight across his body as if to hold back the sudden rush of adrenalin—make that attraction. He’d been in unchartered territory since that strawberry-blonde had walked into the bar and stared right into him with those huge blue eyes of hers. His brain hadn’t been working properly since. Instead he’d been filled with one thought only. Getting her naked. Yep, screaming lust central. Thing was, he had a feeling that same thing might have happened to her. She kept glancing at him, and that was definitely a good sign. Either that or he was wearing his lunch on his chin—the attention she paid to his mouth. He’d taken a sip of water to cool his internal heat, but the need to move had grown too strong and he’d slipped out the bar and back round so he could watch her from behind, so he wouldn’t be sent into cardiac arrest—her eyes were more powerful weaponry than anything he’d ever encountered.
So now he stood, a picture of studied relaxation, staring at the elfin honey onstage. She looked small behind the drum kit but he knew from when he’d stood beside her that she was actually quite tall. Very slim, almost ethereal, and yet there she was thrashing the life out of those drums in a way that had him, and every other male on the premises, immobile and in awe. Her hair had been piled up on her head but as she moved it started to come down—first a couple of wisps and then the whole mass tumbled about her shoulders and down her back as she rocked on her seat in time to the beat. Heaven have mercy. Her face gently flushed with the exertion. And try as hard as he could he couldn’t tear his gaze from her.
He sensed the stillness in the bar. Knew all the others were equally transfixed. Felt the flare of territorial male. She’d looked at him. And in that moment, they’d swapped something. Recognition—not of him, of his name, or who he was, but awareness of something elemental.
Like desire. Evident from the moment she’d walked in with her long, long, slim legs set off by a very cute little skirt. Her sandals were just a hint of leather straps over her feet. She was like any other babe on the beach and yet somehow totally different. She lacked the usual overtly confident quality. She’d come in, but with quiet reticence. Then her big eyes, bluer than any ocean or outback sky, had sized him up. Beneath the hesitation he’d seen a flash of bold awareness—a contradiction that had him uncharacteristically uncertain of how to progress. But, man, he wanted to progress. The unshakeable fog of ennui that had hung over him these last few weeks blown away in that one second.
Tim sidled up to him at the bar. ‘Have you ever seen anything like that?’
Rhys shook his head, not trusting his voice.
‘That is the hottest thing I’ve seen on two legs. Unbelievable.’ Even Tim knew to shut up after that and enjoy the view.
After a few minutes—they could have all happily watched for hours—she stopped. Sat still on the stool for a moment, head bowed. Rhys could see her panting.
She stood and handed the sticks back to Greg, the drummer. ‘Thanks, I needed that.’
‘Any time.’ Greg almost fell over the kit to take the sticks, his complete attention on her and not the obstacles in the way.
Tim walked up to the stage, looked up to where she stood now at the front of it. ‘I’m Tim. You have to come and watch tonight. As payment, you know.’
‘Sure.’ She smiled and jumped down from the stage. Rhys clenched his fists even tighter at the view of her legs in action. ‘I really appreciate that, guys. I feel a lot better now.’
She must have known they were all watching, tongues practically hanging out of their mouths like rabid dogs. But she walked casually as if she hadn’t a care in the world, as if no one was looking, not least five full-grown, deeply red-blooded men.
She felt a lot better? Rhys’ blood was pumping through his body to a far faster beat than she’d been playing on the drums. More alive than he’d been in months—yep, he felt better too. And he knew what would make him feel marvellous.
It had been so long.
He tracked her progress down the room. She was looking down and ahead of her, seemingly forgetting the band onstage behind her. Coolly ignoring the four sets of eyes trained on her back. Then she turned her head just as she passed where he was ‘resting’ against the bar.
Five tables stood between them as she walked down the centre aisle, but they could have been millimetres apart, such was the clarity with which he could see her eyes, almost feel their laser-like intensity. She didn’t smile as she looked him over—one killer inspection. He didn’t smile either, didn’t move a muscle in fact—couldn’t.
Unspoken communication. Unstoppable contact. That screaming lust again. Every sinew and muscle in his body tightened to the point of pain, his body wanting him to take action—to reach out and grab. At three in the afternoon with a bunch of his best mates watching?
Then she looked away and walked out of the bar. Rhys jerked his attention back to the band. Finally remembered to breathe.
‘Hot damn, that was some chick,’ Tim called over to Rhys. ‘Gave you the look.’
Rhys stood locked in position against the bar and managed another shrug. Yep. The look. He was still in recovery. Her eyes were haunting. Those brilliant blues had burned right through him and that message had passed again. Magnetic. Rhys was no stranger to ‘the look’—the one a woman flicked a man to say she’d noticed him and was interested. That maybe he and she were a possibility.
Maybe a possibility?
She was a dead certainty. Right now he wanted her as he’d never before wanted a woman. Instant, inescapable, intense. His body was still coiled. He wanted to reach for her, wrap her around him and make her his. Restraining that urge made him ache.
Per capita Sydney had an excess of beautiful, glamorous women and Rhys was on familiar terms with several of them. But suddenly a slip of a girl in a casual tee and quick-dry skirt had nearly rendered him catatonic with need.
‘The minute she finds out who you are, she’s yours,’ Tim said, sizing up the situation.
Rhys frowned. Wrong. She hadn’t known who he was. And he didn’t want her to find out. Didn’t want to see that suggestion of raw physical attraction in her face replaced with attraction to something else—like dollar signs. He wanted to explore the desire without the hindrance and hang-ups that came of history and prejudice and preconceptions.
She was foreign. Had the vowel sounds of a New Zealander. Was wearing the garb of a girl who had nothing but a pack on her back. Kiwi girl on holiday. He was out of his native habitat too—in a part of the city he rarely came to. It was almost like being in a foreign country, one where he, blessedly, wasn’t known. Thus far their interaction was pretty much a blank slate. He didn’t need it to be filled in. What he wanted was physical—his body sought a connection with hers and had from the second he saw her. She’d felt the pull too and he sure as hell wasn’t leaving this bar again until she walked back in.
