He stopped the replay with the strength of mind that had got him through years of study, years of guilt.
He did not discuss the scar. Not with anyone.
He realised he’d been silent a while. She was watching him, watching whatever he’d let slip across his face. She looked serious and he knew she’d seen more than he’d intended. He flashed her a smile—charm mode. But the questions didn’t leave her eyes. Her serious look intensified. Not buying it.
He needed a better method of distraction—for both her and him. He moved quickly, picked her up and carried her to the bathroom—the weight of her transforming the moment of angst to a moment of masculine pleasure. They just managed to fit in the shower.
She giggled at the ridiculously small cubicle. ‘Practising for the Mile High Club, are we?’
‘I think that’d be a piece of cake after this.’ He hoisted her up against the wall. ‘I like carrying you. Makes me feel all he-man.’
‘And I’m the little woman? That is not a PC thing to say.’
He shrugged. ‘What are you going to do? Sue me?’ He scooped her higher so her breasts were almost at mouth height. ‘Besides,’ he added with unashamed arrogance, ‘you like it.’
He kissed her body, let her slide down the wall so he could kiss her mouth. The pathetic trickle of water from the shower head was barely enough to wet her majestic hair. Man, he wished they were in his apartment. His bathroom was built for more than one occupant and had fantastic water pressure. He’d take the hose and spray the water all over her lithe limbs and then follow it with his hands and mouth. His appetite for her was huge and hardly filled.
She seemed to share the hunger for him. She swept her hands over his chest, traversing the indentations and ridges of muscle and bone.
‘What do you do to keep fit?’
‘Sail.’
On the few days he had away from work he’d spend hours on the water, in the water. Finding freedom with wind and sun and silence.
‘You get muscles like these from sailing?’ She started exploring them with her mouth as well as her fingers.
‘It’s not all just sitting around holding the tiller eating crab cakes.’
She mumbled as she kissed down his sternum. ‘I’ve never been sailing.’
‘We should go some time.’ They should do everything.
‘Would you take me below deck?’
She was heading south now and he could hardly answer. ‘I’d take you above…below…in the cupboard where I keep the sails. You’d look sexy on my spinnaker.’
‘Where do you sail?’
‘On the…’ harbour. He jerked out of the daze of desire. He wasn’t supposed to live in Sydney. What had he said—had he said? He’d thought Melbourne. Hell, he couldn’t think at all when she did that. She didn’t seem to have noticed his lack of answer. She was trailing her hands down his belly, watching as his body responded. Her eyes glazed, the flame in her face growing. He could think of nothing but her. ‘What do you want?’
She didn’t reply with words. Instead she made like him and let her actions speak—touching him with the hunger he had for her. She raised her head from where it had been deliciously close to where he really wanted her. ‘Are you sore at all? From last night?’
Actually, yeah, his legs had been feeling it a bit today.
‘Maybe you should lie down, let me do the work this time.’
He lost all ability to think, couldn’t come up with a thing to say. She could be the boss. Fine. ‘Uh, OK.’
They abandoned the shower, didn’t bother with towels, just landed back on the bed in a hot, damp tangle. Her smile was so full of eager anticipation he had to close his eyes against the power of it. He lay on the bed and she knelt above him. Slowly roving over him from top to toe with her hands, her trailing hair, her hot mouth. Her roughened hands killing him with their firm grip and determined action. Exactly where he’d wanted her. Keeping control was such an effort—one certain to slice even more years off his life.
She guided him home. He gasped as she rode him hard. ‘We’re supposed to be pushing you, not me.’
She laughed, shook her head at him as she kept it crazy, fast, slow, faster again, keeping him on the edge until the heat was intolerable and his breath came harsh.
Sienna propped up her head by placing four of the thin pillows in the one pile, looked down her body to where he lay sprawled halfway down the bed. He’d spread her legs around him. Was seemingly having a wonderful time focusing on one at a time and exploring it—running smooth fingers down her thigh, twirling round her knee and back up again, fingers playing on her occasional freckles. She was almost reluctant to break into his enjoyment, but she couldn’t resist talking to him, wanting to get to know him better. Wanting to break through his quiet charming façade and beyond into the vast reservoir that she sensed was there. There was a lot more going on with Rhys Monroe than he let show.
‘You have such smooth hands. No calluses from hammering?’
He looked up, confusion flashing in his face.
She held up her hands to him. ‘Look, hardly sexy, is it?’ The calluses from hours and hours keeping the beat, from holding the drumsticks. Yet his palms were soft and smooth, surprising given he must spend hours and hours holding hammers and tools.
Dark shadows lurked in his eyes before the green light chased them away again. ‘Actually, your hands are very sexy. You have a hold that is unique.’
‘A hold?’
‘Good friction.’ He grinned wickedly.
‘You like them?’ She looked at the raised welts of toughened skin in amazement.
‘There’s nothing about your body I don’t like.’
‘How come you don’t have workman’s hands?’ He didn’t. He had the fine hands of a pianist. Long-fingered, smooth-skinned, neatly manicured.
He shrugged. ‘I spend more time working inside than out these days.’
She was about to ask more but he diverted her, leaning over to follow the path of his deftly moving fingers with his mouth. She couldn’t concentrate on finding out about him, only what he was doing.
But he was learning about her—body and mind. His fingers probed while he posed questions. ‘How come you ended up playing the drums?’
She leaned back on the pile of pillows, luxuriating in the wantonness of her position. Loving looking down and seeing his head nestled between her thighs. Delighting in the freedom to lie back and let him taste her as if she were the most delicious thing. ‘I wanted to do something. I wasn’t allowed to play sports. And I didn’t have the puff for a wind instrument. I thought piano and strings were dull. I wanted to make the biggest, baddest noise I could.’
‘Prove you were there, huh?’
She lifted her head to look at his expression. His astuteness was acute—and fascinating to her. He understood her so quickly and she had no hesitation in opening up further to him. Yes, she’d wanted to declare her existence to the world. Not wanting to have a mouse-like existence on the edge of life, hardly daring to move for fear her heart wouldn’t cope with action. She’d wanted to claim her place, make enough noise to let others, and herself, know she was there. ‘I like loud.’
‘Do you, now?’ His fingers climbed higher and his chuckle warmed her skin. ‘I think I knew that.’
She giggled. He wiggled closer. Nuzzling the very top of her thigh.
‘So why the holiday in Australia?’
‘I wanted a week to relax before starting the big bit of my trip. Sydney has shopping, sun, surf…so long as I don’t see any of your spiders and snakes I’m a happy tourist.’
He laughed. ‘They don’t tend to show themselves in the city much. You’re in the clear, I think.’
‘Maybe from the snakes but not the spiders. And they’re all poisonous, aren’t they? I’m terrified every time I shower one will scuttle out of the drain.’
He nipped her tender skin, then licked it, soothing and seducing. ‘Tell you what, I’ll shower with you the rest
of your holiday and scare them away.’
She grinned. ‘OK.’
‘And what’s the big bit of your trip?’
She lay back, enjoying the delightfully slow way he was toying with her—the thin thread of desire being pulled ever tighter. ‘Checking a few things off my list.’
‘List?’
‘Yeah, things I want to achieve before I die.’
His head jerked up. ‘I thought you weren’t about to die.’
‘Well, hopefully not.’ She gave him a reassuring grin. ‘But it’s time to take control of my life and do the things I’ve always thought I’d never be able to do.’