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She sighed. “Nan didn’t like it loose or hanging down my back. She said it looked undisciplined.”
“That’s a bad thing?”
“For Nan it was. I think it was really about my mother. She never forgave her for taking my father away from the Crossing. Leading him astray. She was a friend of the Appleton’s. Mainly Honey, Briar’s mother; my parents met when my mum was visiting the commune. To top it off, Mum was nearly nine months pregnant when Dad finally convinced her to marry him. Nan blamed Mum for him dying too.”
“It was a car accident. How was it her fault?”
“Nan had this weird logic that if he’d stayed here and worked on a farm or in town, they wouldn’t have been on the highway at that time and place and they wouldn’t have been run into by the fuel tanker.”
He shuddered, his eyes darkening, and she knew he was visualising the scene. There were cuttings in Nan’s scrapbook of the newspaper articles about the pileup, but he wouldn’t need to see them to imagine the carnage. “How come you weren’t with them?”
“I was with the babysitter. Mum had no family of her own.”
“So you ended up here with your nan.”
“I was lucky. I could have ended up in state care. I had Nan and your grandparents.”And I had you.Not that she could ever tell him how important he’d been to her in those teen years, when she’d had the most awful crush on him.
His fingers were fiddling with the thin cotton shirt she wore against her skin, running the tips around the collar.
“This is damp too.”
“It will dry.”
His wicked chuckle gave her a moment’s warning before he whipped the shirt over her head and draped it over the back of the armchair. “There’s no way you are going to convince me my underwear is wet, Xander Mac.”
He traced the scalloped lace where her breasts swelled above the fabric, his nails scraping the tender skin. The other drifted lower on her stomach, avoiding the patch and tube with careless ease. “Not yet.”
It took a moment for the innuendo to sink in and she swatted at his wandering hand, conscious of the flood of heat flowing out from her chest, radiating warm colour. “Flo should wash your mouth out with soap.”
“I have better things to do with my mouth.”
He lowered his head to take one nipple, lace and all, into his mouth. It was warm and wet and the tug sent a shaft of feeling to where his fingers slid under the soft elastic, searching out more sensitive spots. Bonnie bit her lip to stop a whimper of anticipation from escaping. Those musician’s hands could make magic on more than his guitar. The slight roughness of his calloused fingertips dragged across swelling flesh and delved deep.
Abandoning her breast to one cupped hand, he made his way to her collarbone, taking soft toothless bites over the pulsing artery in her throat, his tongue leaving damp patches that cooled in an odd counterpoint to the warmth of his mouth. She gave up controlling her voice, allowing a squeaky sigh to bubble out. “This shouldn’t be happening.”
He stiffened, tilting his head back to study her face. “Do you mind?”
“No. I’d forgotten how good it could be.”
His chuckle was silent, but she felt it in his chest, pressed against her body. Maybe fun wasn’t so bad. She opened her mouth to say so and Xander blocked the words with his lips. Coffee with a tang of mustard. His tongue dipped past her teeth and she met it with her own, tasting more, tasting him. Time expanded, fluid and somehow urgent all at once, wiping away the years apart. He sipped at her lips and ran his tongue over her teeth before deepening into an intimacy that mimicked the thrusting of his fingers.
Heat flushed his skin with a fine dew where she ran her hands over his back and dug into his buttocks under his shorts. Trickles of perspiration tickled her spine and belly. Her whole body burned, flames licking at her insides, pushing her higher. She bucked under his touch and soared, surrendering to pure sensation. Surrendering to him. She’d missed this. Missed him most of all.
“Are you okay?”
The velvet voice dragged her back from wherever she’d been. Somewhere in total bliss. It should have been eons later but the light hadn’t changed, nor the fire. Xander still knelt between her legs, his body slick but unfulfilled.
“I’m fine. More than fine.” She had a feeling her mouth was curled up in a smile she couldn’t control. “How about you?”
She tugged at the waistband of his shorts and exposed him, wrapping her hand around the silky hardness.
He shuddered under her touch. “I thought you didn’t think this was a good idea.”
“Maybe I could be up for some fun. For today, anyway.”
He didn’t smile back and she tightened her grip, bending forward.
“I don’t have any condoms.”
