Secrets and Seductions (13 page)

Her eyes widened as she gazed southward. Mac wanted her, there was no doubt, and Leah knew for dead certain she was ready to jump his bones.

Darn it, things were getting way out of hand. “Sex. You want sex.”

So do you!

“Sounds good to me.”

She poked the tip of her middle finger in the centre of his chest. “Don’t be so sure of yourself, Mac Grainger.”

He laughed then, a deep, belly laugh. “You couldn’t get enough of me.” That was the problem. He told the truth. She lusted after him…badly.

But a moment of doubt captured her in its web. Was it him, she wondered? Or could it have been any man, perhaps a reaction to the shock of losing her house, her life? Didn’t they say that after disasters, people reacted to the adrenaline differently? And she had sure
reacted
. Just thinking about
those
reactions heated her blood to fever pitch.

For a moment, her gaze lingered on him, watching the play of desire color his expression. There was nothing pure about that expression. It burned for her.

“Sweetheart, I am right.”

She wanted to ask him if that were always the case but knew the answer would be a definite yes. Mac Grainger had risen to the top of the business world in a short time. Hard hitting and determined, he took no prisoners.

He nodded toward the edge of the bed where she balanced. “There’s nowhere to go, except the floor. Mind you, that could offer some unique experiences. Or,” he said, offering her a wink, “you could come closer.”

“Or I can leave,” she countered.

“But you don’t want to.”

True.

Then close became so close his breath scalded her skin. His lips touched hers. Nothing else. No skin touching skin. It reminded her of what she really wanted.

Just
one kiss, she told herself. That was all. Then she’d skedaddle from his bed and take solace in the sanctuary provided by distance.

Fool! She shouldn’t have listened to herself. One kiss and she became his.

Mac’s hands circled her waist, and he pulled her to him so that she lay along the length of him. Time didn’t matter anymore. Only bodies, theirs, together. Nothing could douse the frantic passion as he joined her and began to dot tiny kisses along her ribs.

“So how about this?” He breathed a heated sigh across her skin.

Leah inhaled. She wanted to giggle; instead, her stomach rumbled, and Mac stopped his ministrations, humor-filled eyes glittering up at her.

“Sounds like you need food, not kisses.” He tossed the bedcovers back and stood, unembarrassed by his masculine glory. “Come on.”

Leah couldn’t help but stare. Naked, Mac Grainger was supreme. “Oil drilling obviously did you proud,” she quipped, refusing to look away.

“True, it’s a hard life, but the boardroom offers another kind of battle,” he said as he absently brushed the fingers of his right hand across his left hand.

Leah’s eyes widened. “Your hand.”

Scars littered his hand, whitened ridges crisscrossing over tanned flesh.

“An accident,” he said, his tone suddenly curt. His hand dropped away, and the desire reflected in eyes only moments ago disappeared, replaced by a dark sadness. Concern tempered Leah’s confusion. Why hadn’t she seen the scars before?

Because hands weren’t what she’d actually been looking at.
They also wore work gloves in the grove, so the scars had been covered.

“What happened?”

“I got distracted. Love and lust do that to you.”

What love? Who? “I’m sorry.” She reached out to him, but he shifted away.

“Yeah, well, it’s a long time ago now.” His mouth thinned, but in the next breath, it was almost as if he had to tell her, the horror softening his face and the color in his eyes. “There was an explosion,” he explained. “I wasn’t where I should have been. I got hurt. Others died.”

“Oh, dear God.”

He sank onto the bed, head dropped into his hands, and she reached out to touch him, soothe him, but again he shook off her act of compassion.

“God wasn’t there that day, and neither was I.” He turned to her, a wash of bitterness marring his beautiful face. “I should have been.” Shoving himself up from the bed as if burned by the memories, he cursed, dragging his scarred hand across his eyes, then through his tousled hair. Leah wished it were her hand touching him, caressing, soothing, but with each word Mac uttered, he distanced himself just that little bit more from her.

“Love got in the way. That’s why I don’t do love. Why business is better. Love means responsibilities, and I failed.”

“Is this why you’re here now?” No matter the consequences, she thought. Mac was trying to correct a perceived wrong.

But he didn’t answer. Instead, he strode into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him. He shut her out.

Leah stared at the closed door and cried silent tears. Not just for Mac’s injuries, but for his pain that she couldn’t fix.

Hearing the start of the shower, she took the opportunity to scamper from the bed, glancing back one more time at the tousled sheets. Her cheeks burned, and she scooted out of that room and hunted out her toweling robe, then slipped into it and yanked the belt tight.

Instead of heading to the kitchen, she paused at Charlee’s bedside and reached out to brush a strand of hair from her daughter’s cheek. Her heart ached with love. Thank God she was safe. Things could have been so different.

But it was her stomach’s protesting its need for sustenance once more that forced her back to reality, and she ventured into the kitchen.

Coffee. Food. In that order. She’d deal with Mac later.

But that wasn’t to happen. The moment she turned the corner into the large open-plan kitchen, she walked slap-bang into him. He stood at the stove, a spatula in hand, a tea towel tucked into his jeans.

He was barefooted. She directed her gaze away from his feet…again.

He glanced at her over his shoulder, and the remoteness she’d seen in his eyes not too long ago had disappeared. “Coffee is on, and the eggs are ready. Do you want toast?”

Leah inhaled a waft of freshly brewed coffee and the fragrance of buttered toast. “Yes, please.” She took a seat at the kitchen table while Mac finished the eggs and poured her a coffee. She watched him work, his movements sure and precise, and found herself mentally tracing the white lacerations across his hand. Her heart ached for his pain and his guilt.

After placing a plate in front of her, he sat opposite, and Leah’s pulse erupted into a flurry of haphazard beats.

He smelt good. Clean and tempting.

Darn it, why couldn’t the guy just go to work?

“I’ve ordered some clothes to be sent up for you and Charlee, and there’s a rental car downstairs for you to use.” Leah bristled, but he cut off her answer before she uttered a syllable. “You can forget the ‘I can look after myself’ routine.”

Despite wanting to argue back, she said nothing, her focus completely captured by his chin and what she’d like to do to the tiny bead of butter dribbling down it.

Subtlety wasn’t possible, each aware of the other, yet neither mentioning what had happened in the bedroom. He watched her watching him, the tip of his tongue sliding along his lips, wiping the butter away and taking her fantasy with it. But then the fantasy returned as he sucked the tip of a buttery finger…and watched her.

Leah’s heart stalled. Breathing didn’t exist. Only Mac and his finger and the erotic image her mind replayed. Dear God, she was drowning in need.

Suddenly, his lips slid in to a knowing smirk, and he pushed his plate aside.
“Right, time for work.” The sound of chair legs scraping across the tiled floor dissolved her fantasy. Mac stood, began to speak but seemingly changed his mind. Then he was gone. No good-bye. No kiss. Just left her with memories of his hands skimming across her body, holding her. Memories of making love. But while they’d spent the night in each other’s arms, they were really still strangers.

With Mac gone, Leah showered and dressed, then went through the clothes Mac ordered for her and Charlee, surprised he’d got her size right. Surely he must have checked the labels of her smoke-ridden clothes? But then perhaps it was because he knew her body so intimately. He had traced every inch of her.

Oh Lordy. Just thinking it did seriously shameful things to her body.

This had to stop. Right now. It was one mistake, not to be repeated.

With Charlee seemingly unaffected by the disaster, Leah gave in to her daughter’s pleas not to miss kindy and dropped her off in the rental vehicle. Next, it was time to return to the grove. Her stomach clenched in a thousand and one knots at the thought of seeing all she had lost, but she had to face the damage and her future, or lack of it.

She turned the vehicle toward Aroha Farm, battling to quell the somersault of emotions as she drove in silence.

At the arched gateway where the gnarled vines of the wisteria tangled with the wild rose planted by her grandfather so many years ago, she drew to a halt. She wound down the window and shut her eyes for a moment, thinking, feeling, breathing in the heady fragrance.

Then she blinked her eyes open at the reality. She couldn’t smell the smoke.

Funny, that.

It smelt
normal
, of olives and soil and the fragrance of the roses.

But nothing would be normal again.

She scanned the landscape ahead. It looked so peaceful, belying the rage that only a few hours ago had robbed her so brutally.

Minutes ticked by, and still she hadn’t made a move, her courage deflated, but she couldn’t stay here all day. She had to see for herself what lay beyond the bordering native ponga ferns that flanked the winding driveway.

She put the vehicle into gear and eased down on the accelerator, fighting hard to stem the urge to turn and drive away. She held her breath and continued to hold it until she felt as if her lungs might explode.

Time to go and face reality.

The vehicle inched forward until it rounded the curve at the top of the drive.

Twenty-four hours ago, her stately old villa had graced this beautiful valley. Now, all that remained were charred ruins and memories.

The overnight fire crew that remained to keep an eye on the smoldering ruins had departed. It was just her…and burnt rubble.

Wiping back the flood of tears trailing down her cheeks, she exited the vehicle and picked her way through the blackened debris. She spied her old table, its legs burned to stubs, the top lacerated by flames, and slid her fingers along its worn surface, now coated with a slick of smoke and ash.

Gone. Everything was gone.

Making her way to where the porch had been, she sat on a remaining battered step and hugged her arms around her chest, lost in self-pity and the injustice of it all.

Just then, the call of a fantail above drew her attention, and she sought out the bird as it flittered from bough to bough, seemingly testing each branch until it found one that felt like home.

Leah choked back a sob. Home. Her home was gone and with it her security. All she had ever wanted was to be safe, secure, and to be able to give that to Charlee too.

Now it lay in tatters around her.

Across the acres, her precious olives glistened under the sunlight, soaking up nature’s warmth, still growing, fulfilling their promise. At least she still had her olives…she hoped. She’d need to test them first, make sure there was no smoke damage or singeing from the heat.

Leah pushed herself from the step and strode over to the entrance to the grove, then glanced back at her house. It was a building. Four walls. That’s all. She had to believe that.

Home was what she made it. It could be a tent or a mobile home, as long as she and Charlee were together. Like the fantail, she could choose any bough she wanted.

Seeking solace in the familiarity of the grove, she wandered each aisle, plucking one olive, then another and another. She sniffed them, bit into a few and checked the actual trees for any hint of damage.

Nothing! She rejoiced. They had survived nature’s worst.

As she came to the gate that led back out of the grove, she tilted her head back and looked to the heavens, glorying in the heat of the sun, drawing all her determination and courage to the surface. Her heart swelled with pride at all she had achieved, would still achieve. “I will survive. I will.” Her voice echoed across the silent valley, a powerful testimony to what she believed, what she would do, had to do. “I will not give up.”

They were strong words, courageous. Yet, despite it all, a niggling thought tugged at her. What about last night? What about Mac? And…what about tonight?

The moment Mac opened the door to his penthouse, the sweet fragrance of Tandoori chicken engaged his senses, followed in hot pursuit by a churning twist of disquiet in his gut.

Home, sweet home.

He bit back an oath, dropped his briefcase on the ormolu-engraved table and sidelined his conscience when he thought of the legal papers his lawyer had sent him to review.

Then he saw Leah in the kitchen and his body jerked alive. Correction: his body had been in torment all day long, and things just got a lot harder.

Last night had embedded the touch and feel of her in his psyche, his body a combustible force of desire as memories of lust and of skin touching skin replayed in his brain, a video on constant rewind.

She wore a pair of black leggings and a floaty top. He cursed the top. He could see right through it. See her delicate lace bra beneath. See her skin.

His eyes closed as the image of the soft blush of that skin beneath his fingertips replayed too.

He hadn’t even said a word, and yet her hazel-green eyes flecked with tiny amber darts widened, and her chin tilted upward with that “don’t you dare” attitude he’d come to recognize.

He swallowed back every word he had been about to utter, though in truth, words weren’t really on his mind. However, kissing definitely was. And more.

As she wiped her hands on a tea towel, he found himself staring at her beautiful fingers, remembering their ministrations. He remembered too the glistening sheen of her skin as he’d brought her to climax. God, he wanted her.