Southern Sunset: Book One of 44 South Read online

  “Michael,” she said, and then cleared her throat. “He’s older than me. I always looked up to him.”

  “Looked?” I queried.

  “He…” she stopped and lost her footing, almost standing on my shoes in the fumble.

  I pulled her close, ran a hand over her back soothingly, and said, “It’s all right, Maggie. I’ve got you.”

  She clung to me for a moment. My heart ached. Too full. Too big. And yet breaking.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “He was a cop. That’s why I became one, really.” She didn’t say anything more.

  It wasn’t an answer, just a glimpse into her past. Because I was guessing, he was no longer a cop. Especially if he was the brother she referred to when she told the twins she understood.

  She had a mute brother who had at one time been a cop. Is that why she was down here? Hiding away from what had gone wrong?

  I wanted to ask. I wanted to soothe her heartache and pain. I wanted to hold this woman in my arms forever.

  “There’s something I want to show you,” I whispered, pulling her off the dance floor, well aware of my mother’s beaming smile and Justin’s and Sam’s ribbing looks. I ignored them, leading her through the crowd of party-goers and out of the vineyard’s events building toward the back of the winery.

  Vines lay in row upon row across a dark landscape. Strategic lights shining up on the gnarled trunks and bare, clipped branches. I slipped my jacket off and wrapped it around Maggie’s shoulders; I hadn’t thought to grab our coats. That alone should have told me I was well and truly gone for this woman. I never went outside at night in winter without several layers.

  “You’ll freeze,” she protested, but I wouldn’t let her remove the jacket.

  “You can keep me warm,” I replied, slipping my hand back in hers and taking her over the rise behind the buildings.

  The wind died down as we walked behind the shelter of the outcropping, and then around a corner to a viewing platform. The vines out here were vast and unlit. In the ambient light, you could just make out the grid. It went on for miles and miles.

  “Wow,” she said, clearly awed at the size of Justin’s vineyard. “That is impressive.”

  “That’s not what I wanted to show you,” I said, gripping her chin between thumb and forefinger and tipping her head toward the horizon. “It’s better when the winery is shut down completely and the lights are all off. We don’t get any light pollution from Twizel or the homestead out here, so that helps,” I explained. “But the hill behind us manages to hide us just enough tonight.”

  Out in the distance, beyond Mount Glenmary and the Southern Alps, the sky slowly turned a sinuous shade of green and pink.

  “Aurora Australis,” I whispered, watching her closely. “The Southern Lights.”

  She sucked in a breath of air. Held it. Didn’t breathe for long seconds.

  And then a slow tear slipped down her cheek, glinting in the moonlight.

  She turned. I moved. My lips finding hers in a heartbeat.

  Chapter 13

  I Was In So Much Trouble

  Maggie

  I shouldn’t have kissed him. I shouldn’t have allowed it to get this far. But when I saw the dancing lights and I turned to thank him, the look on his face chased away all cognitive thought.

  And then his lips. So soft, but firm. So commanding. It wasn’t me kissing him, but him kissing me. And I liked it.

  I wanted more.

  I wrapped my arms around his neck, felt him tug me close against his hard body, and fell into the kiss. Completely.

  It consumed me. I didn’t feel the biting cold air or see the beautiful Southern Lights. I couldn’t hear the sounds of the wedding reception or the wind as it whisked through the vineyard. I didn’t think of why I was there or what I needed to find out. Or anything, really.

  Just a gnawing hunger that he seemed to fuel with every sweep of his tongue inside.

  I might have moaned. He did growl softly, his arms tightening, his hand sweeping up my back, burying his fingers in my hair. He cupped the back of my head, tipped my face up to greet him. Devoured me with his lips. With just a kiss.

  I certainly shouldn’t have agreed to go home with him.

  There were people at the reception I needed to meet. Hell, I needed to touch base with the senior sergeant. There was a ute to find and a case to solve. But all I could do was cling to his body, wrap my arms around his tall frame, twist my fingers up into his slightly overlong hair.

  I liked gripping his hair, but I liked that he returned the gesture, almost angrily. As of to say, I can do that too, only better. He twisted the strands of my hair around his fingers, making a pony-tail out of the tresses. And then he tugged, tipping my head back, stretching my neck taut, opening my throat up for his lips and teeth and tongue.

  He nipped and licked and sucked. Oh, God, he sucked. My skin tingling, my heart thumping, my mind whirring and floating away.

  I did moan. He shuddered. And then his hand was under my dress, skimming over my Glock, slipping into my underwear.

  Oh, Lord, he was hot. His fingers so sure, so confident, so determined. I lifted a leg, wrapped it around his hip, and wantonly made myself available for him.

  I was wet before he even touched me. Sopping wet, almost begging for more.

  He growled again, ran his thumb over my clitoris, swept a long finger inside.

  “Fuck,” he murmured against my hot skin. “Oh, fuck.”

  He started pumping that single finger inside me. Sucking on the side of my neck in time to the rhythm he set up below. I bucked against him, gulping in frigid air through parted lips, my head still tipped back by his hold on my hair.

  I’ve never been one to enjoy containment. My lovers have always been generous and kind. Almost too gentle. Letting me lead, when I’d rather follow. I’m a cop. I lead by example every day I don the uniform.

  I hadn’t realised I wanted to give up all control when undressed.

  “Say it,” he growled against my neck, two fingers now deliciously flicking inside me. “Say my name.”

  Oh, Jesus, where did he get off being so sexy?

  I wriggled against him, panting, moaning, determined to fight this call he had over me, this desire to let him under my skin. He licked up the side of my neck, leaving goosebumps in the cold air behind, and then nibbled on my ear, sucking the lobe into his mouth.

  I shuddered. Rocking against his hand and fingers, begging silently for his thumb to rub me right there.

  “Say it,” he whispered, “and I’ll let you come.”

  I wanted to reply, I could come on my own, thank you very much. I didn’t need him. I was perfectly fine as is. But despite his fingers inside me, despite the delicious touch of his lips against my skin, despite the way my heart was thundering away in my chest, demanding to be let free, and shudders were racking my body, and heat was settling down deep… I couldn’t come.

  As if he knew exactly how to play my body. How far to go to turn me on, make me beg for more, but not let me tip over that blissful edge into oblivion. He didn’t stop, didn’t take away the addictive sensations. I’ll give you this if you give me that. No. He gave me everything, he made me want more.

  But he somehow managed to keep me just there, just where he wanted me, wound up, strung tight, teetering on the edge of an explosion.

  “Say it,” he whispered against my lips, his hot breath pressing into my mouth. “Maggie,” he moaned, his lips covering mine, his tongue dancing with my own.

  The kiss was hard and urgent and hungry and desperate. So desperate. His desperation as much as mine. And not for one second during it did he stop touching me, stroking me, pumping his fingers inside. I could feel moisture down my legs, it was freezing against my feverish skin. I could feel my body shuddering constantly, so tightly wound I was sure it would break apart. I could taste whisky and man. Smell leather and soap and Old Spice aftershave.

  I was consumed by Luke.

/>   “Say it,” he practically begged, laying kisses back over my chin, down my neck, burying his face in the crook against my shoulder, shuddering.

  “Luke,” I whispered, voice husky and not at all my own, and his thumb swept over my clit, the world shattering into a million pieces.

  “Oh, fuck, you’re beautiful,” he said, having pulled back to watch me. “Utterly magnificent.”

  I collapsed into his arms.

  “And mine,” he whispered, sweeping me up in his arms and carrying me back over the hill, toward the party.

  I wasn’t prepared to face people. I knew I needed to, there was something I had to do, but I couldn’t think. Not now, not after having the best orgasm I had ever had in my entire life. I was boneless. Limbless. Utterly spent, but when he placed me in the cab of his truck and slipped into the seat beside me, I wasn’t too tired or spaced out to wrap myself around his body and kiss him soundly.

  He started chuckling against my lips. “Home,” he said. “And then you can have your wicked way with me.”

  He pulled me close to his side, practically on his lap, and started the vehicle. Within metres of the vineyard carpark, he’d pulled over and was kissing down my neck, lowering the edge of my dress, and wrapping his hot mouth around my nipple.

  He made me come again. Calling his name into the steamed up cab of the truck. He was panting, a strained look on his face that made me feel extremely smug. I ran my hand down his heaving chest and cupped his erection.

  “Ah, sweet Jesus,” he moaned as I pulled him out. “Not here. Home. Let me get you home.”

  I never shy away from a challenge.

  The road into the vineyard was dark, everyone still back at the wedding. I flicked my eyes to Luke’s face, saw how flushed he was by the light of the dashboard, his head thrown back as I stroked his hard shaft. Then lowered my lips to the broad head of his cock and licked, tasting salt and pre-come and him. I hummed around the tip, his hips bucking up at the sound and sensation. And then I sucked him in as deep as I could, making him moan.

  “Fuck!” he cried, his hands finding my head, his fingers wrapping up in the strands of my hair. “Maggie,” he moaned. “Babe, I won’t be able to hold back.”

  I didn’t want him to hold back. He’d shattered me. Turned me into something I was not. Something a part of me feared I was meant to be, but had never taken the risk to find out. Luke Drake made me stretch myself. Take a chance. Stop thinking. Just live.

  I was determined to make him lose a little of himself, as well.

  I licked up the underside of his cock, swirled my tongue around the head, my eyes flicking up to his now tipped down face, his eyes devouring me sucking his cock.

  “Fuck,” he whispered, and then started to rock. His hands tightened in my hair, not too hard, just right. His eyes never left me as he pumped his hard length into my mouth. “Open wide,” he rasped. “Let me have that gorgeous mouth.”

  The end of him reached the back of my throat and he paused there, just a second too long, enough for my heart to flutter and saliva to pool, and my eyes to widen. And then he was drawing himself out between my lips, wet, hard, determined.

  “That’s it,” he said. “A little more. You can take it.” He thrust back in again, farther this time. Down my throat, making me have to work not to gag. It should have alarmed me. It should have angered me. Instead, I was turned on.

  He was so in control and yet I could see him losing it. He demanded my acceptance of him and yet I could tell if I baulked he would have stopped immediately. I felt safe, even when I felt like I might be drowning. In him. In the moment. In the realisation that I enjoyed him holding me still, fucking my mouth.

  I enjoyed it because I could see how close to shattering he was. How my acceptance of his cock, how and where he liked it, was his undoing. Slowly unravelling that control he had in his life. In everything he did, even this.

  Until he didn’t.

  I sucked hard, I kept eye contact, and I swallowed his cock down my throat, again and again and again.

  “Fuck, Maggie!” he cried, and then lost all rhythm. Lost all careful hold on my hair, my head, my face, and thrust hard. Fast. Erratically.

  And then he was coming and I was swallowing - something I had never done before in my life - and he was moaning, and looked so beautiful. Bathed in the soft light from the dashboard, covered in a fine sheen of sweat, shuddering uncontrollably as he lost himself to my touch.

  I let him fall from my lips with a final lick and sat up, watching him float down from somewhere high in the sky. His hand reached up and cupped my cheek, a soft stroke of his thumb against sensitive skin. His eyes shone brightly, intently taking in my face, my breaths, the pulse at the side of my neck.

  He hid nothing, this man, when stripped so bare. I saw all of him.

  And I liked it.

  I wanted more.

  “I’m not done with you,” he husked. I smiled.

  This was dangerous ground I tread. A Drake. My boss’s brother. The man in charge of Red Tussock Station. Where a dead body had been found.

  I was in so much trouble. For more reasons than one.

  Chapter 14

  And I Still Craved To Make That Smile Mine

  Luke

  The smile was fake. She hid it well. Oh, I was sure she was into this. Into me. I was sure I’d have her several times tonight. But the smile was fake.

  I wasn’t sure what to do about that. Maggie Blackmore was a puzzle. A puzzle I was determined to solve. Whilst having her frequently in my bed.

  I hadn’t felt this enamoured with a woman for years. I hadn’t been inactive. But I hadn’t been committed, either.

  I was committed to having Maggie. In every delicious possible way.

  I even wanted her smile. The real one. Fuck the fake.

  I put the ute into gear and pulled back onto the vineyard road. I reached over and slipped my hand into hers, brought it to my thigh, rested them both there. It made her stretch slightly, so she shifted to accommodate my demands. Did she realise how perfect she was?

  How strong and beautiful and bendable she was?

  I couldn’t wait to have her under my body. Above it. In front of it. In every possible way I could imagine.

  I broke the speed limit getting home. Didn’t bother to leave her in the car while I rounded the bonnet to open her door; I simply reached over, unbuckled her seatbelt, and carried her out of the driver’s side door. I was already hard again.

  She laughed, slung her arm about my neck, and let me act all Neanderthal.

  “You’re perfect for me,” I said, kicking the front door open. It wasn’t locked. You don’t lock Red Tussock’s homestead. It might be mine now, but it would always be open to the family. Mum and Dad would be sleeping here again tonight, easier than driving back to Twizel. So would Momo’s parents. Finn and Momo, themselves, were taking the little guest cottage over the back of the vineyard for some wedding night privacy. And Justin and Matt had their own homes on station land, close by.

  But in the morning, everyone would be here.

  I wondered if I should warn Maggie.

  And then I forgot about it as soon as I stepped through the master bedroom’s door. It swung shut behind me as I flailed around, trying to find the light switch, while not letting go of my prize.

  “Put me down, caveman!” Maggie demanded, laughing.

  “Never!” I shouted, giving up on the light - there was enough moonlight to guide my touch tonight - and throwing us both down on the bed instead.

  “Oomph!” I managed as her elbow caught me in the gut. “You are so going to pay for that.”

  “Oh, yeah?” she teased, getting up to her knees above me. She started to undo the buttons down the front of her dress.

  Slowly.

  Seductively.

  Beautifully.

  Her breasts spilled out, my mouth went dry, and then I was stretching up, reaching for the back of her neck, and hauling her lips to mine.

  I
didn’t last long before I was kissing her down her neck, over her collarbone, and wrapping my tongue around a nipple. My hand palmed her free breast, as my other held her immobile by her hip on my lap. Straddling me. Her panty clad pussy rubbing against my hard on.

  I was gonna die.

  In a fit of genius, I rolled us, and then tore her dress open, making buttons pop and fly off in every direction, clattering onto the floor.

  “Hey!” she grumbled. “How am I going to dress now to go home?”

  “One. I may never let you go home,” I said, studying my bounty in the dim light of the moon. “Two,” my voice lowered, “you can wear something of mine.”

  “Is that a caveman thing? Dress me in your clothes? Tie me up to your bed?”

  “Hmmm,” I said, contemplatively, “I think I might have some rope down in the shed.”

  “Har har,” she managed, before she was moaning under my lips again.

  I kissed down between her breasts, stopping long enough to lave each one with undivided attention. And then I was licking into her belly button, pressing open mouthed kisses across her beautifully rounded stomach, biting into a flared hip.

  Fuck! She was perfect. Soft and curved in all the right places.

  My hand dipped between her legs, cupping her intimately. She was wet. So responsive. I slipped a finger inside, swiped a thumb over her clit, watched her eyelids flutter closed, her chest rise and fall rapidly. And then I had to suck on her pulse.

  “Luke,” she moaned beneath me, writhing, rubbing against me, begging for more.

  “I want to taste you,” I declared, pushing off her body again and returning to between her legs.

  “Yes!” she said breathlessly and I almost lost it.

  There is nothing sexier than a woman who knows her own mind and is not afraid to show it.

  “You want my tongue?” I asked, pulling her folds apart and watching her sweet cunt as it throbbed hungrily. “Or my fingers?”