Australian Outback Kings / The Cattle King's Mistress / The Playboy King's Wife / The Pleasure King's Bride (29 page)

Sam instantly put on a spurt, past the lattice gate, running up the path, the steps onto the verandah, panicking at the thought of facing anything with Tommy right now. It wouldn't be about caring what she felt. He would have followed her sooner if he'd really cared about her. As for the sexual thing that had been zipping between them…it was just Tommy being the way he was with other women…nothing special to her, except perhaps an extra zing of titillating interest because it was out of their usual pattern.

She rushed into the house, along the halls to her room, needing to shut Tommy out, to give herself time to get this nerve-shuddering misery under control and paste over the cracks…make-up, hair, heart. A half hour break. Excuses could easily be made to cover that.

Tommy couldn't be sure who it had been out there. She hadn't answered him and the darkness would have precluded positive identification. Hopefully he would think he'd made a mistake, wander back and get involved with other company. Then she could turn up in the marquee again and pretend nothing was amiss.

She whirled into her room, closing the door as fast as she could. Safe, she thought, and without switching on the light, tottered over to the bed and sat down to catch her breath. The ache inside her hurt so much she sagged forward, elbows on knees, head in her hands. Somehow she had to hold herself together, finish the night.

Tomorrow she would fly home with her parents and brothers. The resort had closed, the tourist season over for the year. Tommy didn't need her, not in any sense. He could manage without her services as a pilot in his KingAir charter business. She needed time away from him, away from anything to do with him. Best to go home, lick her wounds, get herself into shape to face a different future from the one she had no hope of having.

Her heart jumped as she heard footsteps thumping along the hall. Before she had time to think, her door crashed open and the room was flooded with light. Tommy stood there, his hand still on the light-switch, his chest heaving, his face strained, his dark eyes wildly targeting her, and tension flooded from him, swirling around her, stiffening her spine and pulling her onto her feet in a fierce burst of outrage at his intrusion.

“This is
my private
room! You have no right to…”

“As I see it, we've kept too much private from each other,” he sliced in, vehemently denying her protest and closing the door, punctuating his determination to confront no matter how she felt about it.

“I'm sick of arguing with you!” she cried, her hands curling into fists.

“So am I,” he retorted.

“Then what are you doing here?” She barely repressed the urge to fly at him and fight him out of her room.

“I'm here because I want you. What's gone on between us in the past doesn't matter a damn! I want you, Samantha Connelly…”

The passion in his voice brought the raging turbulence inside Sam to a paralysing stop. Her mind was only capable of clutching and repeating one thought.
He meant it.… he meant it
…

“…and I think you want me!”

CHAPTER TEN

S
AM STARED AT
Tommy, all her yearning for him mixed with the panicky doubt that this might not be the real thing. His desire for her right now was real. It was burning in his eyes, making her churn with the treacherous excitement that had gripped her earlier this evening. Except she knew now that just having sex with him wouldn't be enough. She wanted it all…what Miranda had with Nathan…and if Tommy was only wanting to be satisfied on some libido level…

He took a step towards her, emanating unshakable purpose. It propelled Sam into dashing away from the bed, frantically, instinctively, needing time and space to sort out what was happening. She caught sight of herself in the dressing-table mirror and jerked to a halt, momentarily mesmerised by the reflection of a stranger to her real self—huge eyes smudged with make-up she never normally used, skin unmarred by freckles, sophisticated hairstyle, expensive jewellery, sexy dress.

“It's not me!” The words burst out of her painful confusion and gathered a hysterical momentum. She swung to face Tommy, to confront him with the
real
truth. “You never wanted me before. It's this…” She lifted her hands and flung them down in a fierce dismissal of how she looked today. “…this get-up!” she finished contemptuously.

“I did want you,” he declared without batting an eye. “I always wanted you.”

Oh, no! She shook her head at such a terrible lie. She didn't believe it. Couldn't believe it.

He took another step towards her. Another step.

“Stop it, Tommy!” she commanded, her voice shaking in violent protest. She knew there was a box of tissues on the dressing-table. Blindly grabbing, she pulled out a bunch of them and wiped them over her painted face, savagely destroying the work of the beautician. “See? This is me!” she hurled at him. “The Sam who isn't worth a second look from you.”

He kept coming at her.

She dropped the tissues and attacked the pins holding up her hair, tearing them out, throwing them away, messing up the artificial sophistication. “You never wanted this, and this is who I am…the carrot mop-top…not to be taken seriously as a woman…the pesky squirt in the background…the freckle-faced…”

He caught her wrists and dragged her hands down, forcing them to rest against his chest, holding them there. “The feisty, freckle-faced girl I wanted to impress but never seemed able to,” he said, his voice like a burr in her ears, determinedly penetrating the chaos running through her.

“The fellow spirit who feels as alive in the sky as I do,” he went on, the words making her temples throb. “The woman whose beautiful, burnished curls are like magnets to my fingers…and my need to touch them could only be covered by a teasing manner because I believed you didn't want to be touched by me.”

His chest expanded as he inhaled a deep breath, and his eyes seared hers of any further covering up by either of them. “But that's not true, is it, Samantha?”

She crumpled, unable to hold up the shields she'd hidden her feelings behind for so long. “I didn't mean to drive you away from me, Tommy. I didn't mean to…to…” Her lips trembled. Her throat choked up. She could feel his heart thumping under her palm. Were they touching now? Was this the truth?

“Tell me you want me,” he demanded hoarsely.

Her truth spilled out, heedlessly, compulsively, irrevocably. “I want you.”

For a long nerve-tearing moment, their eyes locked, a fierce, primitive challenge surging between them—no holds barred—the final ripping away of years of destructive pretence and the passion for proof of the desire declared was a violent force, climbing, clawing its way past the old inhibitors, scattering the ghosts, screaming to be satisfied to the very core of absolute truth.

Then his mouth crashed onto hers, explosively invasive, demanding a response to match his driving need, and Sam poured all her craving for him right back, voraciously and exultantly feeding the deep wrenching hunger for the feel of him, the taste of him, the heart, the mind, the soul of him.

He kissed her with the same ravening appetite, binding her to him with an ardour that drew on everything she was, and the rush to give—to give and take—was a raging wanton wildfire, racing through her entire body. This time he was hers. Absolutely hers. His mouth, his hands, the hard, hot yearning of his body were telling her so.

Fingers kneading her hair, kisses adoring her face, burning down her throat, heating her bare shoulders; her own hands revelling in the ripple of muscles on his back, her breasts peaking with almost painful excitement, her stomach and thighs quivering with pleasure under the strong, masculine pressure he exerted on them, all her senses swimming in the intoxicating delight of his desire for her.

The zipper at the back of her dress fell open, loosening the boned bodice, the tight fit around her waist and hips. Tommy lifted her up, hauling her out of the satin sheath, burying his face between her breasts as though inhaling the scent of her and savouring the softness of her flesh as he carried her over to the bed and laid her on the quilt.

His eyes glittered over her. “Look at you,” he said with an intense mixture of admiration and awe.

And she realised he loved the look of her and a glorious swell of pride swallowed up any chilling nervousness about her nakedness.

He threw off her shoes, peeled down her pantihose. “Silky red curls. I knew there would be,” he murmured gruffly, tossing the last garment aside and thrusting his hand through the curls, reaching into the apex of her thighs, stroking, inflaming a tumult of sensation as he bent over and kissed her breasts, leaving them throbbing with his need to possess, aching to be taken like that again and again.

“Don't move,” he muttered fiercely as he drew back. “I've never seen you like this and I've wanted to…all these years…you naked on a bed, open to me, wanting me to come to you.”

The heat of his words consumed any inhibitions she might have had as she lay there, her pulse racing, her stomach churning with fever-pitch anticipation as she watched him discard his clothes. Her eyes gloated over the smooth sheen of his tanned skin, the nest of black curls across his chest, arrowing down to the flat tautness of his stomach. Her heart kicked at the sheer power of his aroused sexuality. This was Tommy wanting her…the only man in her life she had ever wanted…and excitement writhed through her. Her arms lifted, welcoming, yearning, dying to hold him to her, feel him, love him.

“Samantha…” It was a low, animal growl, a deep affirmation of who and what she was to him as he came to her, gathering her to him, flesh to flesh, a glorious pagan freedom in their touching, their kissing, the feverish need to savour every inch of each other, to drown in the sheer sensuality of this magical experience, to capture every drop of knowledge to be treasured…this first time, the reality of a dream coming true…and it was wonderful, incredibly satisfying, beyond any imaginable feelings.

Tommy…her King…and when finally, frantically, she arched herself to take him inside her, urging the ultimate intimacy, the wild, tremulous anticipation that seized her was ecstatically answered. He
was
the king of all men, the fullness of his power driving forward, possessing the path she'd most wanted him to take, the path that fused them together, and from it radiated a pulsing energy so intense, Sam was lost in a chaotic internal world, a place that shimmered to the beat of his will to be one with her, onwards, inwards, a deep rhythmic giving of himself, and she receiving the bliss of it, winding herself around him, holding on to the riveting sensation of travelling with him, the blind ecstasy of feeling him taking her further and further towards some sweet pinnacle of perfection.

It burst upon her in convulsive waves, his release, her release, great molten spasms of pleasure, and she clutched him to her, hugging the sense of absolute togetherness, wanting to feel totally immersed in his life-force, belonging to him and with him. His arms burrowed under her, hugging her just as possessively, no space between them, and he kissed her, their mouths melding, fulfilling the need to feel utterly deeply united, not wanting it to end.

This was it—she and Tommy—and surely nothing could ever part them now. The frustrations of the past…what did any of them matter? This was a new beginning—a beautiful, mutually felt beginning—that would cast its power over everything else.

Passion eased into a lovely sense of peace. Yet once their breathing became less laboured, and their hearts stopped racing, some cooler sanity trickled through the beautiful buzz of basking in their togetherness, bringing with it the realisation of where they were and where they should be…in attendance at the marquee until Miranda and Nathan took their leave.

“We can't just stay here, Tommy,” Sam whispered.

“Mmmh…I'm willing to move…” He trailed his lips over hers “…as long as you promise…” soft, butterfly kisses “…this will be continued…when our duty's done.”

“I promise,” she answered on a rush of pure happiness.

He hitched himself up on his elbows and his eyes were deep, dark whirpools of feeling, sucking away any doubts she might have about where they were going from here. “Having you means more to me than anyone's wedding. Tell me you believe that.”

She wound her arms around his neck and smiled her implicit faith in the desire they shared. “I'm not about to let you go, Tommy. It feels as though I've been waiting all my life to have you.”

He grinned. “You can say that again. For me.”

Somehow that claim and the flashing dazzle of his smile came too quickly, too easily, niggling at her sense of rightness. “What about…” She instantly bit her lip, stopping the criticism and pushing it into the past where it belonged.

“The other women I've wasted my time with?” he picked up, his mouth twisting into an ironic grimace. “Something was always missing. But not this time. Not with you, Samantha. You're the woman with everything. Understand?” he softly appealed.

She wanted to accept it, had to, or what she'd just felt with him would be diminished and
it had been perfect
. “Yes,” she breathed on a contented sigh.

He nodded. “So keep this memory of us shining brighter than anything else until we're free to make it all we want. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He pressed a feather-light finger to her lips, as though sealing her promise. “Then I guess we'd better get dressed and show our faces again.”

Faces! She jack-knifed up, clapping her hands to her cheeks in dismay as Tommy rolled off the bed. “What will I do? I must have ruined all the make-up. And my hair!”

Having landed on his feet, Tommy turned and hauled her up to stand in his embrace, his grin a mile wide and his eyes sparkling warm approval. “Your hair is glorious just as it is. All tousled and sexy. And you don't need make-up. A bit of lipstick will make you respectable enough for the rest of the party.”