Page 49 of Return of the Outback Billionaire

She hummed in pleasure and set her hands to his waist. He could feel all his muscles clench as if he were ticklish and waiting for assault. But he wasn’t ticklish, and the kisses continued. He let go of her hand and pulled her against him, soft heat to unbearable hardness.

She smiled through her kisses. ‘You want me in your bed.’

‘Never doubt it.’

‘You can have me.’

‘Still coming to terms with that. You haven’t said yes to marrying me yet.’

She pulled back, out of his arms to check the food. ‘You haven’t said you love me yet. Or is that too much to ask?’

‘It’s not too much to ask.’ But he still didn’t know how to go about saying it.

‘Let me guess,’ she said drily. ‘Love means making yourself vulnerable and that’s hard for you.’

‘Good guess.’

‘Then I guess we’ll just have to work on that. Can you hand me the plates from the warming oven?’ she asked as she spooned sauce over steaming fish. He got her the plates, grateful for the reprieve, and she smiled her thanks. ‘I hope you’re hungry.’

‘Famished.’

The tasty baked fish and accompanying greens, and the time it took to eat them, did nothing but ratchet up his tension. Was she going to wear his ring again or not? And how would he perform in bed? Would she want to tie him up again?

‘Don’t tie me up in bed this time,’ he blurted, with absolutely no finesse.

She looked up from the delicate dissection of her fish. ‘Okay.’

‘Not that I—’ He started again. ‘I’ve been working on shoring up my self-control.’

‘By yourself?’ she teased.

‘More or less.’ She could think what she wanted and it’d probably be true. ‘Those first few weeks at home... There were so many foods I hadn’t tasted in years and I was a glutton for them, just shovelling it in. So many things I hadn’t done in years and the need to do them rode me hard. And there you were. Willing.’ He cleared his throat and took a sip of the very fine wine she’d served with this course. ‘I had so little impulse control back then. I had freedom and no one was controlling my every move, and the curse of it all was that I could barely function. I wanted you and not in a good way. I wanted to take.’ He shook his head. ‘It wasn’t right. You should have been scared of me.’

But she hadn’t been.

‘I have more control now. Over everything.’ God, let it be true. ‘Even with the occasional bonfire event.’

She lifted her glass and sipped, all effortless elegance and restraint. ‘I know you do.’

‘There’s still a way to go.’

‘I know that too.’

He refused dessert and then relented when he saw that she’d gone to the trouble of making lemon tart and had whipped cream to go with fat blackberries. They abandoned the formal dining room and Bridie served dessert on the veranda, and that, more than anything, calmed him.

He didn’t know if he’d ever be much of an indoor person.

‘Where do you go of a night to bed down when you don’t stay here?’ she asked.

‘All over. Mostly the top of the escarpment if it isn’t windy. River bend if I’m looking for extra shelter.’

‘And you sleep in a swag?’

He nodded. Couple of rolls of latex mattress and bedclothes, all of it covered in a canvas outer and he was all set. ‘Unless it’s hot, and then I sleep on the swag in the bed of the truck.’

‘What about the bugs?’

‘I’m outback tough. There are no bugs.’

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