His Brand of Beautiful (22 page)

Her fingers tugged at the buckle on his belt, then his fly. Fingernails scratched his pubes. She knelt beside him on the bed, hair veiling her cheek. She didn’t bother to remove his jeans and her fingers sprang his cock free.

He tried to get at the drawstring of her tracksuit pants but she moved her hips out of reach.

Tongue and lips enveloped every straining inch. His hands clenched into fists and he lost himself in the delicious sensations of tug and suck and pull.

“
Jesus, Christina.
You had me at hello.”

She lost her rhythm for a few seconds as her mouth shaped into a grin, but then she had it under control and took him into the back of her throat. Her hand chased her mouth up and down his shaft.

He wanted to make love to her, wanted to be inside her and he groaned, fighting the wave because she was going too fast and it had been way too long and he didn’t want it to end.
Ever
.

“Christina. Baby.
Stop
. Give me a minute. You’ll make me come.”

Her moan of denial vibrated around his cock. If anything she sucked him even slower, even deeper. The way she knew he couldn’t resist.

He reached for her breasts—the only part of her body she’d let him touch—and cupped the warm weights in each hand and he knew he couldn’t wait. As his hips thrust to meet her mouth he clasped a hand to the back of her head. Not because he thought she might pull away, because it felt
so. damn. good.
To hold her to him like that.

He remembered the orchids later.

****

“You
were
hungry,” he said over dinner, eyeing the dribble of oil on her lips as she licked home‐made mango salsa from her finger and reminded him again of what she could do with her tongue. A nest of chicken‐wing bones lay strewn across her plate.

“We had the same amount. You’ve been talking too much.” Her gaze dropped to the remnants in the salad bowl like a seagull ogling the last chip on the beach. “Don’t you want that?”

“Hasn’t anybody been feeding you while I’ve been away?”

She grinned around a mouthful of cherry tomato and rocket. “It’s hungry work growing a—” and she hesitated for a second and swallowed: “brand.”

After dinner he took their glasses of wine and the box of crackers, brie and dip into the lounge. Christina put
Regatta de Blanc
in the CD player. Not loud, but not so soft they had to strain to hear. She dimmed the lights, tucked herself into his ribs and began to quietly butcher
Message In A Bottle
alongside Sting.

He kissed her hair. Her rainforest scent was stronger after her shower, unmasked by deodorants or perfumes and he found himself touching her often, loving her solid warmth, the way her body fit perfectly with his.

Lily Malone

She crunched another dry biscuit, sighed, and untied the drawstring on her pants. “I think I ate too much.”

“You’re telling me.” His thumb rubbed her upper arm. “I thought that dip was your favourite?”

She made a face. “I’ve gone off smoked salmon.”

“Wasn’t it beef you decided to boycott?”

“This might come as a shock,” she said, tilting her head to meet his eyes. “So brace yourself.”

Her seriousness made him grin.

“I’m actually on
your
side, maybe because I’m in a family business too. Maybe now I’ve met people like Shasta and Bree and Corky and Doug, I can see what the cattle industry means to them. Employment. Self‐worth. Purpose. So many people drift like seaweed. They go wherever life takes them. Especially in the outback where there’s so much of nothing.

We can’t just ban their livelihoods and all those opportunities. It isn’t that simple.”

“I never thought I’d hear
you
take the side of the cattle baron.”

“The wine industry has its fair share of people who want to ban us, too.” She punched his arm. “Don’t get me wrong, that television footage was barbaric. I had nightmares about men coming after me with knives for weeks after you left. People were right to be appalled. The government did the right thing by stepping in. There has to be a better way. Why can’t Australia butcher the animals here and export the meat?”

“No cattleman I know wants to see his animals suffer,” Tate agreed. He didn’t want to talk about mandatory stunning policies or religious slaughter when Christina was warm in his arms and the last few bloody months had finally ebbed to the back of his head.

She lapsed into silence, fingers tapping
Bring On The Night
on his jeans. The tap was slightly out of rhythm, a little hurried.

He took a sip of his wine and noticed her untouched glass. “Are you boycotting wine too?”

She put the glass to her lips, took the tiniest sip and set it back on the coffee table.

“What? Is it corked?”

“It’s a screwcap, my friend. It can’t be corked.” She reached for another dry cracker.

“I don’t feel like wine, that’s all.”

“You realise that’s like a fish not wanting water? At least Ruth had a good excuse.”

Christina shoved her hands in the front pockets of a sleeveless purple wool cardigan with bullet‐shaped bits of wood for buttons. “Is Ruth on a de‐tox or something?”

“No, Ruth’s pregnant. Alcohol’s off the list, and soft cheese. It’s something to do with Listerine.”

“Listeria,” Christina murmured, reaching for another dry cracker.

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

She tucked her legs up on the couch and brushed biscuit crumbs from her shirt to the floor. Cracker flakes fell like dandruff.

“Christina?” He stopped.

She looked up quickly then her eyes slid away. The first finger of ice touched the back of his neck.

What the hell did he know? So what if her boobs seemed bigger and she was eating like a horse? If he asked
that
question he couldn’t go back. It was one of the golden rules.

Never ask.

Bugger not asking.

“You’re not pregnant?” He waited for her indignant snort. “Christina?” Nothing.

Nada
. And she’d gone very still. “I thought you were taking precautions,” he sputtered. “I mean, you told me it was safe—”

“
Technically
,” she interrupted, like a teacher about to preach the difference between a verb and a noun: “you asked if we needed to use a condom. That’s not the same as asking if I was on the pill.”

“That’s bullshit, Christina. You knew what I meant.”

Her bravado crumpled. She wrapped her hands around her knees. “I would have told you about the baby sooner. I wanted to tell you first, but I found out when you were away and I wanted to tell you face to face. And I thought I should wait, until—”

“Until what? You knew if you wanted to keep it?”

“No, of course not.” Her green eyes jerked to his face. “Until I was at least twelve weeks pregnant.”

He felt more and more out of his depth. “I don’t understand what difference it makes.”

She drew in a deep breath, stared out through the French doors to a tree fern in a half‐wine barrel, leaves shaking in the wind. “I’ve miscarried before, Tate. At eight weeks, a few years ago. I had fibroids. I’ve had them out since and I didn’t think I could get pregnant, not so easily. And I’m getting older.” Her eyes flicked back to his face. “I turned thirty‐five this week. My doctor said the statistics are only slightly higher that women who’ve had a previous miscarriage might have another with a subsequent pregnancy but I still thought it would be best to wait till I was twelve weeks before I told you; told anybody. The chances of miscarrying dive after twelve weeks.”

He touched the nape of her neck.

“No one knows,” she said in a small voice. “Not even Bram. We’d split by the time I found out I was pregnant and I was so angry with him, I hadn’t even told him. Lacy came to the hospital with me and I swore her to secrecy. I felt like such a failure. The only thing a woman is put on this earth to do is have children and I couldn’t.”

He unwrapped her arms from her knees and gathered her to him. “I’m sorry about your baby.”

“It was a long time ago. The specialist thought the fibroids may have added to it.

They’ll never come out and tell you one‐hundred‐per cent what causes a miscarriage; it frustrates the hell out of me. He said I might have trouble falling pregnant after he removed the fibroids. He told me not to wait too long. That’s why I asked you about skeletons in your closet.”

Something about that nagged him but he put it to the back of his mind. Right now, there were more pressing things to deal with. She needed to know he was in this for the long haul, he’d be there for her and the baby—his family—come what may. Which meant one thing.

“We’ll get married,” he announced, once his mouth caught up with his mind.

She spun away from him and ended up with her arse hard‐up against the far arm of the couch and a gold brocade cushion clutched to her stomach. “You don’t have to
marry
me because I’m pregnant.”

His spine prickled. “I want to be part of this baby’s life, Christina. A child of mine will know its father. I want to do the right thing.”

“You don’t have to marry me to be part of this baby’s life.” The skin over her top lip had gone bone white.

Lily Malone

And it clicked.
Skeletons
.

“You asked me if I had any skeletons in my closet at the wedding. You asked if I wanted kids.”

She nodded. “You said you did.”

“I said,
one day
.”

Her hand karate‐chopped the cushion. “I’m thirty‐five with a dodgy womb, Tate.

There wasn’t any point in me going on the pill and us going through the motions for six months or however long before I broached the subject of my biological clock. I didn’t think I’d get pregnant so quick anyway. It took years of trying… last time… and then when Bram got married he and Abigail had twins right away. So I knew the problem was in my department.”

“Wasn’t any
point
?” He’d heard everything she just said, but his mind stuck on that one thing.

She shrugged. “I’m not going to apologise. What’s done is done. I can’t undo it. It’s what I want. I don’t want anything from you. I want this baby and you’re very welcome to be part of this baby’s life. And mine.” Her voice turned husky then. “That’s enough for me.”

“You don’t
want
anything from me?” It felt like hot rocks blocked his throat and he wanted to lash out then, at Christina, at himself. He’d made it all so easy for her. He straightened and his shins rammed the coffee table. Wine sloshed over the rim of her glass, puddled at the base.

Christina gripped the cushion harder and a diamond‐hard part of his heart thought,
good
.

“If all you wanted was a fucking sperm donor, Christina, why not just ask? Did you think I’d be flattered?”

She opened her mouth. Not a sound came out and she closed it.

He answered his own question. “Because it wasn’t all you wanted. Was it? You had to keep me around long enough to get a baby
and
a brand.”

“Of course not, Tate. I—”

She broke off and he waited. “You what?”

“I care about you.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Christina. There’s only one person you care about, and it sure as shit isn’t me.”

Her shoulders shook. There’d been tears in the bedroom, too. Crocodile tears. At least he got a great blow‐job for his trouble, even if it had been nothing more than a distraction. She’d been buying herself a little more time to get her story straight.

Christ
. He had to go. Get out before he put a chair through the wall.

She didn’t call him back. She never made a sound.

His overnight bag lay inside the door of Christina’s bedroom, tangled in the straps of the sportsbag she’d dropped. He tugged and when the bag wouldn’t come he switched on the overhead light, stomped on the leather, hauled her sportsbag straight up until it released like a slingshot. The water bottle inside clunked hard into his jaw.

Ow! Fuck.
He rubbed his face. Dropped her bag; snatched up his own.

A scrap of yellow material swayed at the edge of her sewing table, caught in a lazy draft. The movement drew him across the room.

Not a scrap. It was a tiny arm, hanging beneath her computer. He pushed the laptop aside.

It was a baby’s suit—the all‐in‐one‐kind with feet so small it looked meant for a doll.

He tested its weight on his finger. It was like holding air. There was a chubby‐cheeked cherub stitched in lavender on the front with a crown embroidered around its head. A Rubens’ cherub.

He lifted the suit higher.

Not a crown.
In wavelets of soft curls at the cherub’s temple he saw the open‐mouth and hood of a frilled‐neck lizard, painstakingly stitched, a mirror image of his own tattoo. Its tail twined around the opposite temple, brushing the cherub’s ear.

Of all the Masters you could choose... why Rubens?

He drew his women real.

Tate waited another beat, clutching the yellow suit softly in his hands. He laid it on her sewing table, placed Christina’s laptop gently back in place then crossed to the bedroom door and flicked off the light.

The music died as the cottage door shut behind him.

Lily Malone

Long after Tate had gone, Christina rocked on the couch. Rocked and wondered if the frozen feeling in her spine would ever thaw. The Police album spun to the end and the mechanical whir of the stacker changing discs burped through the room.

A staccato beat of Chili Peppers’ funky guitar drove her to her feet, stumbling for the CD player.

Not that song. Please!
It was the same one that was playing at the Hen’s party on the night Tate walked into her life.

She was too late. Her finger punched the stop icon and the lights on the player faded to standby red.

Christina carried crackers and wine from coffee table to kitchen, stacked the dishwasher, filled the powder dispenser. The clunk and splash of the machine soothed her and she straddled the stool nearest the machine so its heat, as well as its sound, might warm her belly. Then she reached for the phone.

Lacy answered on the third ring.