He guffawed. ‘And adult too.’
‘Last time you checked.’ Amy giggled.
Ben realised that was the first time he’d heard her really laugh all day. All week, for that matter and he’d had enough opportunity given the amount of time they’d talked on the phone. Normally she was a cheerful little ray of sunshine, but lately, she’d been distant and pensive behind her smile. Even the impromptu singathon had felt a little forced.
‘That’s better,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘You’re laughing.’
Amy just smiled warmly, bringing out double-barrel dimples. ‘Turn left up here.’
‘Where?’
‘That road just up ahead.’
‘I can’t see one.’
‘That’s because you just passed it.’
‘Prepare to be fired.’
Thirty minutes later, Ben gingerly eased his exorbitantly expensive car along a rutted gravel road and winced each time he heard a stone flick up, no doubt chipping the paintwork. If he did write the damn travel book, it would include a chapter-long rant on this alone.
‘This is why we should have brought my mini,’ Amy said with far too much I-told-you-so for Ben’s liking.
‘Sorry sweetheart, as much as I’m comfortable with my sexuality, I think I’d have to retire from the fraternity of heterosexual mankind if I drove that car.’
‘Scott does all the time,’ Amy retorted. ‘It’s just up here on the left, slow down. See that little cottage? That’s ours.’
‘Watanabe is either a greater or more foolish man than I, I can’t quite decide. Is that a kangaroo?’ Ben brought the car to an abrupt halt, scattering gravel everywhere as the large grey marsupial bounded across the road.
‘Yup. There’ll be plenty of them this time of year with all the green grass around. Along with cows, sheep and rabbits, thanks to your people. If you’re really lucky, you’ll get to see a couple of snakes and a whole lot of spiders too,’ Amy said with glee.
Ben was still watching the retreating the kangaroo with rapt fascination as every BBC nature documentary he’d seen as a boy darted through his mind. ‘I’ve never seen one in the wild. Amazing.’ He watched the kangaroo jump clean over a fence in the middle distance.
‘It’d be a lot more amazing if we were watching this from the porch of our cabin.’ Amy gently nudged his shoulder. ‘Come on, or another one will turn up and scratch your paintwork. You know they attack cars right? They sharpen their teeth on the metal.’
Ben swivelled around to face her quicker than a possessed child eyeing off a crucifix. ‘You’re having me on.’
‘I might be,’ Amy said smugly before laughing. ‘Come on, city boy, it’s only a few metres down that track. Get moving.’
Amy sat on the edge of a beautiful white cast-iron bed covered in a blue and white patchwork bedspread and listened to Ben clunking through their delightful, cozy little cottage, lugging her second smaller suitcase into the bedroom where she was already unpacking her first.
‘Thank you.’ She grinned as he dropped her suitcase on the floor and eyed it balefully. ‘Before you start, it’s not just clothes and shoes. I’ve packed some other things too.’ She resumed placing her underwear in a simple unfinished pine dresser.
‘Lead bricks? A contingency of large animals? A small surface-to-air defence system? We’re only here for three days but I have a suspicion you’ve got enough in there to equip you for an arctic expedition,’ Ben grumbled before wandering out of sight, back out into the cabin’s cozy living area that was decorated in whites, blues and natural wood.
‘Hey!’ Amy exclaimed after him. ‘You’re not supposed to make fun of me until we’ve been together for at least three months. It’s a rule.’
‘Three months?’ Ben repeated softly to himself in the other room, just loud enough to hear.
Amy cursed her big mouth and suppressed the urge to smother herself with a pillow. They hadn’t had a relationship talk yet. Or an
anything
talk yet. She thought they were kind of serious, but she’d been wrong about stuff like this in the past.
‘No. I can’t agree with that.’ Ben’s voice from the doorway cut through her panic. She looked up from the drawer, now full of lacy underwear, into a pair of mischievously sparkling pale green eyes. His mouth was quirked at the corner.
‘What?’
‘Don’t playground rules stipulate that the more a boy likes a girl, the meaner he gets to be?’
‘What!’ Amy snorted, despite her overwhelming feeling of relief. ‘Who says we’re in a playground?’
‘Oh I don’t know. I seem to remember someone poking their tongue out at me on the drive down and threatening my car with a large hopping rodent. And let’s not forget that same someone’s evil cackle when I overshot the first two turns to get here.’ He sauntered into the room.
Amy stood up abruptly and spun around to face him, her back against the dresser. ‘I did not!’
‘You did too.’ Ben backed her against the bulky piece of furniture.
‘Ow.’ Her rump connected with the drawer she hadn’t closed yet.
‘What?’ Ben’s expression changed to one of concern as he ran his hands from her shoulders to her waist and back up again.
‘You’ve just bruised my bottom,’ Amy said with an exaggerated grimace while rubbing the offended part of her anatomy.
‘How?’
‘You pushed me against the drawers.’ She stuck out her lip.
‘Oh? I’m terribly sorry.’ Much to Amy’s delight, Ben really did look contrite. ‘Can I kiss it better?’
‘You’d better.’ She yelped when she found herself across Ben’s lap, her face smooshed against the bedspread as he ran his hands up underneath her skirt. ‘Ben! What are you doing?’
‘Kissing it better. Shush, you’re distracting me. What are these things? Tights?’ he asked with indignation when his hands kept going, not making contact with bare skin.
‘Leggings.’
‘I hate them.’
‘What?’
‘As a matter of fact, I hate everything you’re wearing. It has to go,’ he said with enough playfulness to take the bite out of his words. Or maybe that was just his wandering hand, which had finally found the top of her leggings and was inching them down along with her underwear to bare the skin of her backside.
‘You know this isn’t exactly a dignified position.’ She leaned on her elbows, twisting around to look up at him. ‘I’m only staying like this so you can kiss my—’
‘Hmm?’
‘Ohh.’ That sneaky wandering hand had decided to get up to mischief. Amy wiggled her bottom a little to encourage it.
‘Is that better?’
‘No, it’s making it worse.’ Amy tried to move but he placed his other hand on the small of her back, holding her still.
‘Poor baby. Give me a moment. I’ll do my best to make it all better,’ he said and then proceeded to show her just how very good his best could be.
‘So are you going to share what’s been worrying you this week?’ Ben’s voice broke through the sated snooze Amy was thoroughly enjoying a little while later. She was sprawled across his chest, cozied under the covers, listening to the sound of rain hitting the roof overhead.
‘Why d’you want to know?’ Amy nuzzled her cheek against the coarse black hair on his chest, savouring the heady combination of touch and his spicy citrus scent.
‘Ah. Avoidance.’
‘Yep . . . well, nope. I had a fight with my sister.’ Amy went for a casual, one-shoulder shrug. ‘And I’m having a bit of trouble with an ex-boyfriend. I had to go to the police and . . .’
‘I beg your pardon?’ She felt the muscles on Ben’s chest and stomach tense as he lifted her chin up so he could look into her eyes. ‘Is my hearing going in my old age or did you just say police?’
‘Yeah, but it’s not as bad as it sounds,’ Amy insisted, desperately trying not to meet his gaze. She had a feeling if she did, she’d spill the whole story and she really didn’t want to get onto the topic of why she and Jo had fought. Something told her that telling your boyfriend your sister thought he was a bastard might be a bit of a passion killer.
‘Then enlighten me,’ Ben insisted, steel in his tone.
Amy snuggled back against him. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I shouldn’t have said anything in the first place. It’s been a really bad week and being here with you is making it better. Can we leave it at that?’
There was a weighted silence while Ben contemplated her request. ‘Are you in any physical danger?’ he demanded.
‘I don’t think so,’ Amy replied truthfully. She was worried about Liam making a scene but she didn’t really think he’d get violent.
‘Are you lying just to make me feel better?’ The deceptive calmness in his tone was belied by the taut muscles below her cheek.
‘No. I’m really not,’ Amy insisted. ‘Can we leave it? I already feel enough of a loony as it is. I don’t need you thinking I’m a colossal nut.’
‘You’re Australian, of course you’re loony. Colossal goes without saying. What I’m more interested in is your safety.’ He rolled over and pinned her beneath him, ice-green eyes boring into hers.
‘It’s all fine, Ben,’ she said, trying for earnestness.
‘Hmm. You know there’s this relationship rule where you have to tell me the truth. It goes with the one that says I have to be nice to you for the first three months.’
‘Can’t we do something more fun instead?’ She wiggled her hips against his and was gratified at his body’s immediate reaction
‘That’s not playing fair. You know, there’s more than one way to get information.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Amy brought her hand up to stroke the side of his jaw. She smiled when he automatically rubbed against it like a big cat. ‘What is it?’
‘I vaguely recall you told me I talked far too much.’ Ben inched himself leisurely down her body, his eyes narrowing with intent. ‘I think it’s far, far better if I show you.’
‘Smelly socks with a hint of . . . no . . . don’t tell me . . . ear wax. Yes? No? I’m right, aren’t I?’ Ben placed the small glass of Chardonnay he’d been sniffing on the table next to them and thumped Amy gently on the back as she spluttered. The six other people on their wine tour were not amused.
The tour guide, an overly tanned woman embodying the Australian cliché in khaki shorts and shirt cleared her throat loudly.
‘When you’re both quite ready,’ she said in an exaggerated accent, while glaring pointedly at Ben and Amy, who were standing at the back of the cellar door of Leeuwin Estate, one of the region’s largest wineries, laughing like two naughty school children. The guide’s pronunciation of ‘ready’ as ‘red-day’ had Ben guffawing and it was all Amy could do not to thump him. The other members of the tour, two middle-aged American couples and a South African couple, added their censorious looks to the mix.
‘My most
humble
apologies.’ Ben bowed theatrically and smirked when Amy slipped her hand into the back pocket of his jeans and not so subtly gripped his tight backside in a warning.
‘What?’ he asked her, plastering on an innocent expression.
‘Behave,’ Amy whispered, the corner of her mouth twitching. ‘You’re offending my people.’
‘Heaven forbid,’ Ben whispered out the corner of his mouth as they watched the tour guide demonstrate how to taste wine in excruciating detail.
‘I bet you have a wine cellar that’s fully stocked, don’t you?’ Amy asked in a low voice a few minutes later while they were trying a too-young Shiraz.
‘I’m quite proud of it,’ he replied in an offhand manner, theatrically parodying their guide by swirling his wine around the glass. ‘Good legs on this one,’ he said, referring to the runnels of wine along the side of the glass. ‘Rather sexy. A lot like yours. Although I have to say, yours taste much better.’
Amy prodded his side with an elbow and flicked a curl of her hair, left loose today, over her shoulder.
‘Is there a line I just stepped over? You have an aversion to sexual suggestiveness in public?’ he asked silkily.
‘You stomped over it some time ago. Now be a good boy and gargle your wine.’
Later that afternoon, Ben watched Amy’s stiff back as she charged ahead of him.
She was simply adorable when pissed off. It was like having a cupcake unexpectedly growl at you. Right now, he knew she wanted to growl at him to hurry up.
‘You know, I think I have a new nickname for you.’ He strode leisurely behind her, absentmindedly noting the lush green winter pasture mowed down to a few inches by a flock of sheep in the distance. Not that he was really focusing on the scenery with Amy’s hips swaying in a pair of eye-wateringly pink skinny jeans. Her feet were encased in a pair of silly purple wedge-heeled sneakers of the kind that hadn’t been seen since the Spice Girls inflicted them on the general public in the late nineties.
‘Yeah?’ Amy stopped abruptly and looked over her shoulder, her ponytail swinging round jauntily to hit her cheek.
Ben eyed off the shoes, wondering who had been insane enough to sell them. ‘Yes. There are a few contenders actually. Pinup Spice? Sexy Spice? I like that one.’ He made a mental note to log the name away for future reference. He’d decided this morning that he was going make Ross’s local Jaguar dealer very happy.
Over the past two days, without even meaning to, he’d begun mentally composing chapters for the book. Being shown around Western Australia’s impressive wine region by Little Miss Kewpie Sexy Spice was far too good a subject to pass up. He was on holiday with his muse and his imagination was going double time.
‘Walk or talk, your pick, mister smarty pants,’ Amy said pertly, oblivious to his thoughts as she turned back to stomping across the grass, deftly dodging sheep manure and the odd cowpat without even blinking.
‘Do you own any flat shoes? Any at all?’ Ben chuckled at the way her ponytail swished in irritation.
‘No, they make my feet hurt.’
‘Really? You really can’t wear flat shoes at all?’
‘I don’t need to usually,’ Amy said over her shoulder. ‘I haven’t worn proper flats since I was a kid.’
‘After you left home you mean?’ Ben skirted his way around a particularly large and pungent cowpat.
‘Yeah. When I left here I promised myself I’d never go barefoot again.’
‘Oh? You know, I never got around to asking why you left.’ Ben tried to keep his tone nonchalant. He was now burning with the frustrated curiosity of both a lover and a writer. He’d worked out how Amy operated. It was bloody intelligent really. Instead of clamming up, she shared, but only what she was comfortable with, and she did it in a way that made any further prying seem rude.