Page 50 of Just Come Over
He prompted, “Then what happened? In the story?”
She was going on. “What d’you think happened? If it hadn’t been bad, there’d have been no story. He was the king. She was the wife of one of his generals, and he knew it. And still, he sent for her, and he slept with her. They don’t tell you whether she wanted it, but I’m guessing she was torn. The heart of a lion, the courage of twenty, and the strength to build himself into a king, all the way from nothing? Anyway—however she felt about it, he did it, and he got her pregnant. After that, he sent her husband off to the front lines to be killed. Once that was done, he married his widow. Not too loyal. Not too virtuous. You couldn’t call it anything, in fact—” She had to stop and take a breath. “But betrayal.”
“Or,” he said, “you could call it overpowering. Stronger than reason. Stronger than everything you’ve ever been taught is right.”
She swallowed. It wasn’t easy. “Strong as sin.”
“That desire you talked about,” he said. “When the spark turns to flame. When it takes you in the fire, and you can’t help but burn.”
She was burning now. “I—”
He took a step toward her. Just one. And she was right over the edge. She asked him, “Do you know what I wanted last night?”
Oh, no. She wasn’t saying this.
“No,” he said. “I know what I did, though.” He wasn’t touching her, but his chest was rising and falling like he was in the gym. “I know what had me running for two hours this morning to try to shake it loose, and it wasn’t just the game I lost. It was what I want that I can’t have.”
Her own breath was so shallow, she was nearly panting. “I wanted,” she said, then gathered her courage around her like a cloak of feathers and went on. “I wanted to watch you play, just once, and be allowed to do it all the way, to feel everything I felt, with no shame and no holding back. Almost every time I did watch, you were playing against the Blues.”
“Playing against Dylan.” His hand came out, exactly as it had on the couch a few nights ago. When she’d thought,No. You’re imagining things.Now, she knew she hadn’t been, when he took a curl between his fingers and rubbed. “Or watching with him, maybe.”
She couldn’t move. He had her pinned with those eyes. “Loyalty,” she said. It was almost a whisper.
“Sin,” he said, and the word fell from that sensual mouth like a pebble into a pond, sending its ripples through her body. She knew how Bathsheba had felt, when she’d become aware of the king’s eyes on her. How she’d turned her head and drawn the sponge over the back of her neck, down her arm, warm and languid, and thought,He’s the king. What can I do?The dark thrill when she’d walked to him across a bedchamber, and he’d put his hand out, brushed the white gown from her shoulder, and exposed her. How she’d closed her eyes, and how she’d shuddered.
His hand moved from her hair. Slowly. His palm cupped her face, turned it up to his, and it was so gentle, it hurt. Her eyes closed, and he said, “Zora. Look at me.”
Oh, God. There was no escaping this. Her lids fluttered open, and he dropped his head. And when his lips brushed over hers... they tingled, and the desire went down her body like a flaming arrow.
Strong as sin.
Another kiss, his lips firmer now, and his arm around her back, pulling her in. The faint scent of cedar and sandalwood, the moisture in the air from the shower he’d taken, cleaning up for her. The warmth coming off the skin of a man who’d run for two hours on a forest track, trying to get her out of his blood, and hadn’t been able to do it.
“Mum?”
Rhys stepped back. Barely. He didn’t turn around, though. She slipped out from under him, and he stood there, both big palms on the white benchtop, his dark head bent, his breath coming hard. She knew why he hadn’t turned around. Because he couldn’t. That arrow had been as hot going through him as it had been in her.
They were both there. Isaiah and Casey. Casey was looking at Rhys, or at his reflection. Isaiah was looking at her. They were both looking worried.
“Hi,” she said. “Good house, eh. I can see why you like it, Casey. But you know what I haven’t seen yet? Where you’re planning to put these rabbits. Take me down and show that to me. After that, I think Uncle Rhys has plans for the day. I guess we’ll all be surprised.”
She knew she had been.
Rhys was standing in a front garden in Mount Eden, watching Casey fall in love, and not thinking about Zora.
That was a lie. He wastryingnot to think about Zora. How it had felt to finally kiss that sweet, soft mouth, after ten years of imagining it. The intake of breath that he’d felt under his mouth, the triumph of knowing he was making it happen, and the silk of her cheek under his palm. He’d still barely touched her, and he knew exactly how she’d feel under his hands, and most intoxicating of all—how she’d respond to him. That was the beauty of imagining things for ten years, except not. Imagining wasn’t enough anymore.
He didn’t tell himself the thing about the reporter in Sydney again. He didn’t want a blonde.
“Ilovehim,” Casey was saying, and he refocused. “He’s so, so aborable. He’s the cutest one ever, except all of them are. They’re like babies, even though they’re grownups. They’re better than dolls.”
“He” was a rabbit. A Mini Cashmere Lop rabbit, to be exact, less than a kilogram of fuzzy cuteness, currently being cradled in Casey’s arms as she sat on the grass, and nibbling a baby carrot out of her fingers. He was adorable, right enough, a mound of impossibly plush, cream-colored fur, his head round and his little ears hanging down. No stuffed toy in the world could possibly be as cuddly as this, and Casey was toast.
Beside Casey, Isaiah was cuddling another rabbit, this one a rich brown, and Zora held a third, a dappled black and white. All of them, though, were exactly as sweetly fuzzy, exactly as round, exactly as droopy-eared, and exactly as tiny.
“We have another couple of places still to visit,” Rhys reminded Casey. “And then we’ll decide.”
Three pairs of eyes turned to him. All of them were reproachful. The current owner of the rabbits, an older woman with short white hair cut in a combative style and an air about her like a dealer in Oriental carpets that boded no good at all, said, “That’s fine, then. If you’re finished looking, go on and put them back in the pen, as I have another couple coming who are very keen.”
