Page 11 of Outback Mate
Fat droplets fall from the clouds above, splattering on the hot road, and I frown at the sky. When had those clouds arrived? It’d been an endless blue sky earlier.
Carefully, like I’m a breakable piece of china, he settles me into the passenger seat and buckles me in. The door slams shut, and he climbs into the driver’s seat.
Sweet, precious cool air blasts from the vents. My sweat-slicked skin tingles in relief.
“Oh, that feels nice,” I moan loudly, and tilt my head back to expose my sweaty neck, reveling in the blast of air conditioning.
The Alpha shifts in his seat and exhales. Another flash of lightning illuminates his sharp features, forks of light crawling across the sky. A deep rolling thunder clap follows. It reminds me of his voice.
“You need to rehydrate,” he clips, and presses a cold bottle of water into my hands.
I don’t need telling twice. I drink like a woman possessed, finishing the bottle with alarming speed.
“That head-wound is going to need stitches, but I’ll give you a full workup later.”
I snort. “What are you? Some kind of doctor?”
He exhales in droll amusement, and the ute engine roars to life. “Yeah, something like that.”
Chapter Four
Poppy
I’m a disoriented, loopy puddle of goo. Time holds no meaning. I slip between studying the backs of my eyelids and making moon eyes at the hunky Alpha who rescued me.
He’s so damn handsome it almost hurts to look at him. Even though my vision has a fuzzy black ring around it, I won’t look away.
I’m determined to take inhis glory.
And, oh! What glory there is to behold!
Wavy hair, thick beard, broad shoulders, a muscular frame, and an amazing jawline. His body screams ‘protector’ but his cold blue eyes say ‘stay away.’
I’m captivated and filled with a rebellious compulsion to disobey the very clear warning.
It’s like when the art gallery sign says ‘no touching’ and you’re consumed by an insatiable need to rub your handsallover an expensive statue.
“You’re ve-ery handsome, Mr. Stranger Man,” I tell him with a definitive nod.
Yes, yes, yes. I want to touch.My Omega is enthusiastically in agreement, and the air swims with my perfume.
It’s loud in the cab as the rain beats relentlessly against the windscreen. The headlights cut through early evening darkness, illuminating the falling rain like its mist.
The Alpha clears his throat, his tongue darting out to lick his lips, and shoots me a concerned frown before muttering to himself. “Yeah. Definitely concussed.”
I smile broadly and look down at the tiny cherub burrowed in my sweatshirt. The baby kangaroo is sleeping peacefully.
The Alpha barely said a thing about my companion. He checked him over briefly with the ease of someone who knows what they’re doing, and it made me feel reassured. The joey seems happy enough sleeping against my warmth.
“Won’t be too much longer,” he says as we pass a sign with writing starting with the letter ‘B.’ My eyes don’t focus long enough for me to read it.
In fact, my eyelids are getting rather heavy again.
If I just close them for a moment, surely I won’t miss much. Hell, I’m happy to simply listen to him. He has an Australian Outback accent, gruff with a bit of a rumble, like he’s speaking from the bottom of his chest. Yet he says words with an educated lilt, pronouncing each syllable.
He pulls the four-wheel drive over and turns the vehicle off, cutting the rumbling purr of the engine, leaving only the sound of rain and his heavy breathing.
His hands are still gripping the steering wheel, the whites of his knuckles stark in the dark.
