Melbourne Heat
Melbourne Heat
ISBN #
978-1-78430-880-3
©Copyright Elizabeth Lapthorne 2015
Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright November 2015
Edited by Ann Leveille
Pride Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Pride Publishing.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Pride Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2015 by Pride Publishing,
Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN
Pride Publishing is a subsidiary of Totally Entwined Group Limited.
MELBOURNE HEAT
Elizabeth Lapthorne
In the steamy Melbourne summer nights, two men meet by chance in the Botanical Gardens.
Spencer, against his better judgment, agrees to meet a new client in the Botanical Gardens. While waiting, he bumps into Charles, who is out paintballing with some mates. Spencer agrees to have a quick bite to eat with Charles, not knowing the sequence of events that will unfold from such a simple action.
Charles is a shifter with plenty of secrets and Spencer has unwittingly brought someone else into the mix—another shifter, eager to stake his claim. Even after such a short time, Charles can’t imagine giving Spencer up. He’s willing to fight for what’s his. Spencer has also found himself falling in love with Charles, despite the secrets that surround him. Passion and danger collide and soon both men will have decisions to make. Ones with serious consequences.
Dedication
With love and thanks to Sue, Billi and Lily, without whom this would never have reached the finish line.
Trademarks Acknowledgment
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Tigers: Victorian Football League Corporation
Lycra: Invista North American S.A.R.L. Corporation
Instagram: Instagram, LLC
Facebook: Facebook, Inc.
Twitter: Twitter, Inc.
Tumblr: Tumblr, Inc.
YouTube: Google, Inc.
Chapter One
It was Charles’ favorite hour of the evening. The sun had just set, but Melbourne’s summer heat still shimmered on the air. The sky was a delicious royal blue that was slowly bleeding toward navy. The first few stars had come out twinkling. All up, it was the perfect night for a game of paintball.
Charles and a few mates had met earlier, just as the sun had begun to sink into the horizon. They’d agreed on which sections of the Royal Botanical Gardens were fair game and which ones were out of bounds. Scheduling a rendezvous at a particular gazebo near the pedestrian exit in three hours, they’d all gone their separate ways.
The rules were well known to them all and simple. Stay in the chosen area and don’t use their shifter talents except sight and smell. Whoever had the least shots at the end of the game was the winner. Lastly, the guy with the most hits bought dinner and drinks for them all.
Checking their watches were in synch, they’d each headed off. Ten minutes in and Charles had only shot a few balls and not been hit at all himself. Walking slowly on the grass next to the pavement, Charles enjoyed the scent of the fresh air, heavily tinged with the smell of leaves, freshly mown grass and fragrant jasmine. Twilight was falling. It wasn’t quite yet dark enough for him to get off the footpath, still light enough that the street lamps hadn’t automatically switched on, but the shadows were growing.
While the pedestrian track had wound between the trees and shrubs, the rolling, hilly lawns were the best chance of catching his friends unaware. But, until the light left, Charles knew his tall body created a shadow—which begged for his friends to catch him instead. Patience was the name of the game, he knew.
He paused at the base of a hill. There was a small stream with large stepping stones to cover it. The water was barely a trickle, and there were four pavers needed to cross it, mostly for the schoolchildren who flocked to the Gardens on field trips. Feeling whimsical, Charles jumped up onto the first rock and balanced on it. Not too slippery, there was barely enough water to cause concern should he fall. Charles sprang to the second stone and a rustling in the bushes snapped him to attention.
Raising his paintball gun, Charles instinctively leaped across the rest of the stream and landed in a crouch. He listened intently, his gaze sharp as he surveyed the bushes and trees in front of him. Caught in a bend at the base of the hill, the area was a perfect hiding spot, already in full darkness.
Charles twitched his finger, kept it hovering just above the trigger of his gun. He only had a set number of balls and he was loath to use them carelessly this early in the match. After the first sound there was nothing but silence, and the seconds dragged by with excruciating slowness.
When there was no further sound and no explosions of pain from being hit, Charles crept forward a step. Even with his extraordinary sight, Charles couldn’t see through the thick shrubbery. He sensed someone was hidden within. But if so, why weren’t his friends taking this opportunity to shoot him?
Perhaps it was a field mouse, a feral cat or a possum.
A twig snapped and Charles revised that thought. A stray animal would have frozen, then scurried away as fast as it could. That sound was from someone moving nervously. He would have thought his shifter mates could remain patient and not wriggle, but maybe they didn’t have a clear shot of him and were aiming for a better angle?
“Ashton? Hugo?” Charles called. He strained to catch even a glimpse of movement to indicate that he’d caught one of his friends by surprise. “Darren?”
Not a sound.
Feeling faintly ridiculous now, Charles growled in frustration. He raced toward the bushes and crashed through the leaves, ignoring the twigs that scraped at his face and neck. His eyes were already adjusted to the gathering darkness, so when he came through to the small nook he was astonished to find a young man cowering on the grass.
This wasn’t one of his mates.
The slender man was hunched down almost in a protective ball. The first thing Charles recognized were long, skinny legs. The man was wearing business slacks, a shirt and cardigan despite the still warm temperature. Long brown hair almost touched his collar. In what he believed to be a nervous gesture, the man lifted a slender hand and tucked a tendril behind his ear.
The stranger turned and Charles drew a breath. His face was all sharp angles and lush lips. With cheekbones he could cut his tongue licking, the man was astonishingly handsome.
“Don’t shoot. Please! I didn’t see anything,” he said with a wobble in his tone. He quickly looked away again, as if worried that he’d be chided for looking directly at Charles.
Charles smiled despite himself. Real guns were an uncommon sight except on police officers. Australia’s gun control was exceptionally tight. Dressed in faded army fatigues, a black beanie and with a few days’ worth of dark stubble, Charles wasn’t surprised the man had jumped to the wrong conclusion.
“This is a paintball gun, kid, not a real one,” Charles said, making sure to keep his tone low. When he noticed the tremor in the man’s hand, Charles crouched down and lowered his weapon to the grass. “Hey, it’s all right. I’m sorry if I startled you. Some blokes and I are having a bit of a game, that’s all. I’m Charles. Charles MacAllister.”
The young man took a few deep breaths and slowly turned his face back. The air rushed from Charles’ lungs again. Pale skin glowed in the darkness. He turned on his feet, making the leaves rustle and a few more twigs snap. The stranger moved so he knelt on the soft grass and wrapped his arms around his own waist in a defensive motion.
“I must look pretty stupid,” the stranger said. “But with it getting dark, my imagination must have got the best of me. I’m supposed to meet someone and I’ve been trying to talk myself out of it. It doesn’t feel right. So when I heard you clomping along and caught sight of your fatigues… I guess what little courage I had fled. I ducked into here. And you looked so big, so dominant, I just froze.”
“That’s actually pretty smart of you,” Charles said. He was often surprised how people could sense something different about him. Mostly he worked hard to fly under the radar, to seem like another ordinary bloke who liked nothing more than a beer after work and a good game of footie on the screen. Clearly, with his friends—who were also shifters—and playing a game of hunting each other, he’d not been focused on suppressing his natural predatory instincts. The guy was impressive to have picked up on it within a few seconds.
“You’ve got good instincts,” Charles said. He pulled off his tactical glove and held out his hand to shake. The young man glanced at it, then studied his face for a moment. Charles smiled and leaned a little so he’d be in a small pocket of light. The stranger moved closer and took his hand. They shook in friendly greeting. A fission of energy snapped through Charles. It was like touching a mildly electrified fence—one to warn cattle not to cross it, but not to damage or maim them.
“Spencer Dowell,” he said.
When Charles released him, Spencer grasped the strap of a backpack slung over his shoulder. “I guess I’ve taken you from your game long enough, Charles. I think I might go. If I’m this on edge then I really don’t need to be hanging around.”
“What about your meeting?” Charles asked, curious as to whom Spencer was expecting and what their plans were. Charles frowned, struck by the odd notion that he didn’t like the thought of Spencer planning an illicit tryst with some woman here in the romance of the gardens.
Down, boy.
Charles tried to cool himself.
The man might be delicious, and he’s clearly meant for dirty, red-hot sex, but you’ve just scared the crap out of him. Let’s not get arrested for lewd behavior because he presses your buttons.
“I don’t need a new client this badly,” Spencer replied. “Besides, I get a bad vibe from the guy. I shouldn’t have come.”