Fierce (45 page)

Hemi straightened, now, and asked his grandfather, “All right?”

“Yeh, mate,” he said. “Karen and I’ll be home in the morning, after we have our wee adventure.” Which consisted of spending the night in his caravan—his travel trailer—in the RSA’s parking lot as he always did, “so I can stay up late and have a few.” 

I’d asked Karen if she’d be good with that, but she and Hemi’s grandfather had bonded. She made him laugh in the same way she amused Hemi, to my relief, and she’d headed out there to help the two of them with their fencing as soon as we’d gotten home from our hike today, and had seemed to enjoy it. We’d always been pretty short of male companionship, and Karen was making up for lost time. 

Tonight, that left Hemi and me alone, which was another thing that suited me fine. We said our goodbyes and left, and Hemi said, as he held the car door for me, “Would you rather have stayed longer?” 

“No. I want to go home with you. Although,” I mused as we headed up the winding road toward the house, “I’m rethinking that now. Some of those rugby players were
really
good-looking, and that’s some fierce stuff. I always thought you were sexy, but if you were sexy
and
a rugby player....hmm, mightn’t that be even better? Maybe I’ll just stay on here, take a little extra vacation, and see what happens. What do you think? Think I’ve got a shot?”

“I think,” he said, smiling all the way now, “that I’ve created a monster. And that it’s been too long, and that I may need to do a little...reminding tonight of who you belong to.”

“I think you’re right.” I moved a little closer and put a hand on the thrilling solidity of his thigh. “I like you this way. All manly and Kiwi and Maori. All that veneer worn off. Think you could show me some more of the elemental man tonight?”

“You know,” he said, the smile still quirking the corner of his mouth, “I think I could. Throw down a challenge like that?
You’re
asking to get thrown down, aren’t you.”

“Only if I’m very, very lucky.” I stretched so I could give his neck a gentle bite, then a soft kiss, which had him swearing and slowing a little too much around the next corner, then throwing me a glare that told me what I had to look forward to. “But then,” I said with a sigh, “I pretty much am.”

For all that, he wasn’t one bit rough, as it turned out. He was just...thorough. He took me into the house, put me on the bed, and took my clothes off slowly, kissing all the way down my body. And when I tried to reach for him, he grabbed my hands, pinned them over my head, and kissed me some more. Until I was sighing. Until I was melting. And then he started moving down my body again.

After that, he set to work to remind me of exactly how much pleasure he could give me with his slow hands, his talented mouth, and every solid inch of his hard body. To satisfy me over and over again, to move me into one position after another, to wear me out until I was lying, limp and shaking, against his chest, and he was running his hand over my back, letting it drift down over the curves of my backside.

“Another night,” he promised me as I lay with my eyes closed and hummed a little at the pleasure of his hand stroking over my skin, “I’ll let you know what I do to girls who fancy the All Blacks.” He rubbed a bit more, then slapped me once, hard enough to make me jump.

I smiled against his chest, then squirmed upward a little and bit him in the spot where the ridge of muscle at his shoulder met his neck. “Promise?” I breathed into his ear.

He sighed. “Saucy. What am I going to do with you? Think I need you under my iron hand a bit more, eh. And as it happens, I’ve got a plan for that.”

I sobered a little. “We’ve talked about this.” 

Because we had. Hemi’d wanted to move Karen and me in with him ever since he’d given me my bracelet, and I’d said no. For the same reasons I’d been careful all along. Karen, for all her feisty talk, loved Hemi so much already. I didn’t want to think of what it would do to her if she lived in his apartment, got used to counting on him, and then it ended. 

And if you think I might have had some of those same issues—you’d be right.

“Mm,” he said, his hand smoothing over my skin again, gentle now. “Not until we’re sure it’s forever, you said. Until you’re sure
I’m
sure, more like. Would marriage help you be sure enough? If we did it here in En Zed, so we could go home together and start the rest of our life? Because as far as I’m concerned—I want to spend it with you, and I want to start that now. Or do I need to do that carved moko after all to convince you? I’ll do it if I have to, but, sweetheart, you’ve made me hurt so much, it feels as if I already have.”

I was sitting up. “Wait. What?”

He pulled me down with him again, wrapped his heavy arms around me, held me close, and took a deep breath while I tried to process what he’d said. 

“Bloody hell,” he said after a moment. “I’m not doing this right. I’m trying to make a joke of it, because I’m scared of what you’ll say. So let me try again. I love you, and I want to marry you. And I meant to ask you properly. I was going to buy the ring and take you to the ocean, to stand in the spot where I used to look across the Pacific, out to where I saw my dreams coming true. Not knowing what the most important part of those dreams would be. Not having a clue, because I didn’t believe in fairy tales then. I didn’t believe in enchantment, I didn’t believe in love, and I didn’t believe in you. And now I do, so I wanted to look out at the sea and hold your hand and tell you all the things I feel. But I didn’t. I don’t do anything without a plan, but I’ve done this. And I wish you’d answer me.”

“I—” I was having trouble breathing. “Are you...sure? Karen—”

“Karen too. Karen absolutely. Karen’s had enough worries in her life. She needs to know that she’s going to university, and not to have to worry about how she’s getting there. Not to mention that she’s turning out to be as pretty as her sister, and she needs a brother-in-law to meet those blokes before they take her out. And to stare them down before they even take her out the door.”

“Well,” I said weakly, “you’re the guy for that.” I couldn’t catch up. I couldn’t even catch my breath. 

“I am. But the question is—am I the guy for you? Because, sweetheart. I’d be so proud to be your husband.”

I was sitting up again now, because I had to look down into his face. His amazing face, which could look so hard, so inscrutable. And, right now, was nothing but open. Nothing but vulnerable. Nothing but mine.

“Yes,” I told him. “Yes. You’re the man for me. You’re the
only
man for me. I love you, too, and I always will. And I’d be...” I was having trouble with my voice now, but I forced myself to go on, because I needed to say it, and he needed to hear it. “Hemi. I’d be so proud to be your wife.” 

I hope you’ve enjoyed this first entry into the new Not Quite a Billionaire series. Want to hear about new releases, sales, and preorders—plus receive a FREE Escape to New Zealand book? Sign up for my
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My thanks as always to my awesome critique group: Barbara Buchanan, Carol Chappell, Mary Guidry, Kathy Harward, Bob Pryor, and Jennifer Spenser, for helping me make this book the best it could be.

Check out sweet, sexy rugby players in the Escape to New Zealand series

Learn more about New Zealand, listen to Maori songs, watch the All Blacks doing the haka, and more on the
Rosalind James website
.

Read on for the first three chapters of the inspiration for this book--

JUST IN TIME (Escape to New Zealand, Book 8)
Available now!

It all started with Mrs. Johnson’s toilet.

Faith Goodwin wielded the blue plastic plunger with everything she had. She was late, and every plunge was making her later. The accordion pleats compressed with a
whoosh
, then released with a sucking sound that…never mind.

“Three”—
whoosh
—“hundred”—
suck
—“dollars,” she chanted in her mind. The amount of rent she paid in exchange for managing the six-unit apartment building. It was a good deal, even though she was wearing rubber boots and rubber gloves, and this wasn’t the first time she’d unclogged Mrs. Johnson’s toilet. Or any toilet. 

“It’s the colitis.” The quavering voice came from a nice, clean, dry spot behind her. “I have to use extra paper. And you know, dear, these toilets could stand to be replaced.”

Faith closed her eyes and counted to ten. “You need to start flushing more in…in between, Mrs. Johnson. This makes twice this month.” 

“Maybe a plumber…” the old lady suggested.

“He’d charge me a hundred dollars to do the exact same thing,” Faith said, doing her level best to detach from her surroundings. “So, please. Flush.”

She plunged a few more times, then gave the lever a push, crossed her fingers in the yellow gloves, and held her breath. The toilet thought about it for a minute, and then reluctantly decided to resume normal service, the water gurgling its way down the bowl. Yay.

“All right,” Faith said. “Good. If you’ll hand me the mop and the bleach, I’ll clean up.”

Yet another job they didn’t tell you about during Career Day. She was late for work already, she was going to be later, and she couldn’t stay in this spot for another moment. So as usual, she took her mind somewhere else.

She was jogging down the hard-packed sand of the beach in a pink—no, a
black
bikini, which looked great on her, because…well, because this was a fantasy, and she’d obviously put in some gym time before it started. The gentle crescents of blue lapped up onto the shore, delicate scallops edged with cream, and her feet were getting wet, but that was all right, because she was running barefoot, as she did every morning. Past the group of guys throwing a football, and she could see their heads turning out of the corner of her eye. She pretended to ignore them, but she could tell they were watching.

And then one of them streaked past her as if she were standing still, turned and waved an arm, and Faith looked, too. Which was lucky, because the ball was headed towards her like a missile.

She shrieked a little and threw an arm across her face to block it, but even as she did, the man planted a foot, swiveled in mid-step, and was leaping, stretching sideways to intercept the ball. His arms were across her body, the ball was smacking into his palms, and his feet were tangling with hers. She went down on the sand, flat onto her back, the breath knocked out of her by the fall—and by him falling on top of her. 

He shoved himself off her where she lay gasping, sprang to his feet in one quick motion, and reached a hand down. “All right?” he asked a little breathlessly. “Bloody hell, I’m sorry. Tell me I haven’t hurt you.”

Ooh. Her fantasy man had an accent. And the sweetest smile as he hauled her to her feet, looking so relieved at the sight of her smiling back. He started to laugh, white teeth flashing in his tanned face, and she laughed, too.

“Yes, dear?” Mrs. Johnson asked. Because Faith wasn’t actually lying on a beach beneath a half-naked man with muscles that required their own ZIP code. She was wringing out a mop into a toilet in an eighty-five-year-old woman’s apartment in Las Vegas, and it was January.

“Nothing,” Faith said. “Just something I thought of. Or the general ridiculousness of life, I suppose.” She gathered her bleach solution and her plunger. Onward and upward.

“Laugh or cry, that’s the choice.” Mrs. Johnson’s smile launched a spiderweb of tiny wrinkles across her face, and her blue eyes twinkled behind her glasses. “Getting old isn’t for sissies, and sometimes the rest of life isn’t either, is it?”

“Nope. It’s not. But, please, next time? Flush more.”

After that, she headed back to her apartment again for a shower she didn’t have time for, because there was no way she was showing up smelling like Mrs. Johnson’s bathroom. No time to dry her hair, either, so she shoved it into a messy bun instead. She was more than twenty minutes late by now, and it was raining. And she still had to pick up the coffee.