Just Once More (Escape to New Zealand Book 7) Read online

  “That’s right,” he told her, his hands, his fingers still working, because he knew exactly how to touch her, how sensitive her breasts were, and he loved giving her pleasure there. “Just like that. I want you loud. Going to take care that you are.”

  He shifted off her at last to give her legs the same loving attention, and by the time he was smoothing the butter onto her inner thighs, stroking higher and higher, she was breathing hard.

  “Feels good, doesn’t it?” he said huskily.

  “Yes,” she sighed, closing her eyes to focus on the sensation.

  “Same for me,” he told her. “Your hands on me feel so much better than mine. I think that every time I’m away from you. I close my eyes, pretend that’s your hand, your mouth there. That I’m inside you. Tell myself I’ll be there soon, imagine what it’ll be like, what I’ll do. When I get off the bus, off the plane…I’m that much closer. But not as close as I mean to be. Not as close as I need to be.”

  She didn’t answer. She was watching him now, his familiar, beloved face tough, intent, the way she’d seen it so often. But this time, all that fierce concentration was for her.

  He shifted to her belly, his hands stroking its contours as he smoothed the rich cream into her skin.

  “So pretty,” he told her. “Always. You have the most beautiful skin. Thought so that first time, when I had you on my boat. Wanted to touch it just like this. Wanted to kiss it. Wanted to lay you down and…touch you.”

  She knew what he’d wanted to do, what he wasn’t saying, and the thrill of it shivered along her skin along with his hands. She reached a hand up, traced the network of fine white lines above his eyebrow, along his jawline, his chin. Scarred, battle-hardened. A warrior, first and last. All man, and all hers.

  “I wanted to touch you too,” she told him softly. “So much. You…overwhelmed me. You still do. And what you said, about how you feel…”

  She stopped, watched him twist the top on the tub of cream, set it on the table, then slide back over her, all the way down so his big hands cupped either side of her belly. Her breath hitched as he kissed her there, below her navel, began to move down, his hands stroking the skin of her abdomen, making her feel beautiful, and desired, and his.

  “When you’re…gone, and you imagine me,” she managed to say, “that it’s my hand, and my mouth. I…I imagine you too, those nights. When I…” She stopped on a gasp as his mouth found her, as his lips and tongue began to work. “But it never feels like…this,” she got out. “Like…oh.” He’d found exactly the right spot, and she could barely speak. “Like…you.”

  She wouldn’t have thought she could manage it again, or that she needed to. But she could, and she did. She needed it so much. His gentle touch, and, later, when it wasn’t quite as gentle, when his mouth, his hands were harder, more urgent. When her own hands were fisting, yanking frantically at the sheet beneath her, and then, in desperation, grabbing for his hair, and she was pulling it, just like he’d pulled hers.

  He took that for the signal it was, increased the pressure until she was rising off the bed, crying out her pleasure, knowing he was feeling it as surely as she’d felt his. Knowing that he needed to know he was giving it to her. That her pleasure was his own. Always.

  She was still trembling when he rose up over her again, pulled one of the pillows out from under her and stuck it beneath his own head, settled down beside her.

  “I should put my nightgown on,” she murmured, snuggling closer, the heat of his big body radiating through her. Knowing that he knew she really meant, “Please go get me my nightgown,” and that he would do it.

  Except that he didn’t.

  “Not tonight,” he said, stroking a hand down her back, soothing her as if she’d been a skittish horse, and she sighed and let him do it. “Please. I love you naked. Love to touch you, feel your skin against mine.”

  “Even when I’m this pregnant?” She searched his face. “It wouldn’t be better to cover up a bit?”

  She could see the amusement crinkling the corners of his gray eyes. As cold and forbidding as the winter sea when they needed to be, but so warm when he looked at her.

  “After all this,” he said, “you can still ask me that? You really don’t know?”

  “Know what?” His hand was still moving, sending wonderful tingles through her.

  “How much I want you when you’re like this. Why I do.”

  When she didn’t answer, just continued to look at him, he went on. “It’s a…it’s a male thing, I guess. Well,” he said, chuckling a bit, “it’d have to be, wouldn’t it? It’s…how much you’re mine, when you’re pregnant. I see you like that, my baby in your belly, and it’s…it’s possession, I reckon. Virility. Proof. Something like that. It’s your body showing the world what I did, what I did to you. And I know that’s a bit caveman,” he hurried on. “But then, I am a bit cavemen. I can be. I know.”

  He had his hand on the side of her distended abdomen now, a soft touch over the firm contours. “It’s all mine,” he confessed, “and I love it. And the more you feel that way to me, the more I want you.”

  She was tingling from more than his touch now. “Then I guess I’m a cavewoman myself,” she told him, “because that’s exactly how it feels to me too. That I’m yours, and how much I want to be. And the thing that turns me on the most, so you know? It’s knowing you want me. Having you tell me so, seeing it in your eyes, feeling it in your body. That’s the sexiest thing you can do for me. Just want me that much. Just show me you do.”

  “If that’s all it takes,” he said, “I’m a lucky man, not that I don’t know that already. I want you, and I can show you how much I do. How often I do. Which is at least as often as you want it. And exactly that much, too. More than that much.”

  She smiled at him, loving him so hard her heart ached with it, because she knew what he was doing. What he was doing for her.

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice nearly a whisper.

  He laughed a little, leaned over, and kissed her hair. “Nah, sweetheart. Thank you.”

  Hannah woke to more bright morning light around the blinds. She wasn’t alone this time, she realized. Drew’s quiet approach through the double doors of the master bedroom must have woken her.

  He came across to the bed, a mug in his hand, and set it on the table beside her. She scooted over, patted the spot next to her, and hoisted herself up.

  A smile, and he was sitting down, reaching a hand out for the hair that had never made it back into its braid the night before, smoothing it back from her face. And looking at her like that was exactly what he wanted to do. Look.

  Not just at her face, either. He gazed at her bare shoulders and breasts for a long moment, then asked, clearing his throat, “Uh…want your nightdress? Or are you just showing me some of my favorite things again? Is this a message? Because if it is, I’m happy to get it.”

  “Both,” she said with a happy smile at his response. “Showing you, if they’re still your favorites. I hope they are. And yes, please.”

  He got up, went to the chair where he’d obviously laid it when he’d got up this morning. He was dressed already, of course—navy blue shorts and a gray T-shirt, his feet bare. Country casual. Tauranga style.

  He helped her into the white nightdress, sat down beside her again, and she settled back, picked up her mug, and took a sip of herbal tea. Smiled at him some more, and enjoyed the sight of him smiling back.

  “Lazy again,” she said. “The kids up?”

  “Yeh. Mum and Dad have got them, no worries. And lazy?” He laughed. “Nah. You earned it.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” She pulled her hair back, preened a little under his appreciative gaze. “How do you manage to make a woman who’s almost nine months pregnant feel this sexy?”

  “Maybe by thinking she is?” he suggested.

  “Guess that’s it.” She was smiling like a fool, but that’s how she felt. “Better not share that one in my next interview, or eve
rybody will really be jealous.”

  He laughed. “Nah. Just clue them in on my more disgusting habits, make them think that fella they’re waking up next to is a bargain in comparison.”

  “Oh, yeah. They’ll buy that.”

  “But what I came up to ask you,” he said, “is this. Mako was thinking we should take you girls to see a movie this afternoon. Get the grandparents babysitting again, since they aren’t complaining so far.”

  “Everybody?”

  “Well, yeh. Anybody who wants to go. Another beach day would be too much for you and Kristen, we thought, and a movie might be a good distraction for the two of you anyway. Going to be a hot one again today, and the cinema’s got that lovely air con. I know that wouldn’t come amiss. Sound good? Or too much social time? Had enough?”

  “No,” she said. “That does sound good. Better than staying at home. Distraction, like you said.” She tried to pull herself up a little more, a groan escaping despite herself.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Just my back,” she admitted. “A little achy this morning, that’s all.” A lot achy, in fact, but she hated complaining about physical ailments to Drew. How could you whine about your aching back to a man who’d played entire rugby games with broken bones? “You barely feel it at the time,” he’d tried to explain, but she hadn’t really taken his word for it.

  “Roll over,” he said now.

  “No, that’s OK. I’m fine.”

  “Nah,” he said. “Least I can do. Who knows, that may have been from me. Not sure your back was helped by having a hundred-ten kilos of me on it last night.”

  He was rolling her onto her side as he spoke, his hands finding the spot at the small of her back that always gave her trouble. The massage offered instant relief, and she sighed and relaxed into it.

  “You weren’t on it,” she said as best she could against the sheet beneath her cheek, the pressure of his strong hands. “You were over it. And I liked that just fine.”

  “I liked it too,” he promised, the satisfaction in his voice letting her know how much he meant it. “So what d’you think? Movie? Or you could stay here, have a rest, since we’ll have the wedding tomorrow. Yet another event. Mum and Dad could take the kids to the beach,” he added, forestalling her objections. “Nobody’d bat an eye, you know that.”

  “No,” she said. “I’d like to go. As long as the movie doesn’t have too many explosions. Violence when I’m pregnant…I hate it. Must be some instinctive thing. Some maternal thing.”

  He laughed, his hands keeping to their task. “No violence, except maybe to the boys’ sensibilities. Mako found a rom-com. Says he’ll enjoy it too, though that may be taking it a bit far.”

  She laughed a little herself at that. “Maybe he’s in touch with his feminine side.”

  “That’s what he says. That he gets enough violence on the paddock, doesn’t need it anywhere else in his life. But I have my doubts. I don’t think boys ever get tired of watching things blow up.”

  “I know Jack doesn’t.” She was feeling a little sleepy again under his ministrations, her eyes closing, because that felt good.

  “Or could be Mako just knows how to keep a Montgomery girl happy,” Drew said. “Though I warn you, I’m not quite willing to go that far. I’ll take you. But I won’t promise to enjoy it.”

  “Someday, you know,” she told him with a sigh, “you’re going to get tired of being so perfect. I’m going to find out that there’s a Mr. Hyde somewhere, out doing all the things you don’t. Saying all the things you’ve never said to me. I know those things must be bottled up somewhere.”

  “Nah,” he said, sounding, as always, so completely sure. “Or if I do, you’ve got a Mrs. Hyde somewhere yourself. Turnabout’s fair play, that’s all. I seem to remember somebody who was pretty good to me after I hung up my boots. For quite a long time, because it was a fair few months there before I came right.”

  “You still weren’t…nasty,” she objected. “You didn’t do anything wrong. All you did was go quiet. And go fishing.”

  “Yeh. Left you and Jack to do it every time, too, even though you were pregnant. And did you give me a hard time about that?”

  “Of course not. It was tough. I knew it was tough.”

  “You did. But most women would’ve pouted that I wasn’t spending more time with them, badgered me to talk about my feelings. I don’t like to talk about my feelings.”

  “Huh.” She couldn’t help teasing a little. “You astonish me.”

  He laughed. “Yeh. Guess that’s obvious.”

  “Just because you don’t talk about them,” she said, “doesn’t mean you don’t have them. Or that I don’t see them.”

  “Exactly,” he said with satisfaction. “How’s that, on the back? Better?”

  She rolled, tested it out. “Much better.”

  In fact, the achiness remained, a low, dull reminder, but there was no help for that. If Drew could play rugby with a broken jaw, she could get through a day with an aching back. That was life.

  Hugh got out of the car with Josie, reached into the back seat for the plastic container of tuatua and pumpkin fritters she’d insisted on bringing along.

  “They had everyone to dinner last night,” she’d told him, “and now they’re having us all again for lunch today? If Hannah’s willing to do it, I’m not coming empty-handed. Besides, give me something to do, and a use for some of these tuatua that the kids and I collected this morning.”

  “I thought they were for tomorrow.”

  “Yeh, well, we may have got a bit carried away.”

  “Most women don’t spend the time before their weddings fishing,” he pointed out. “Or gathering clams. Not to mention cooking.”

  “Maybe Maori women do, you thought of that? Could be you’ve just known the wrong women.”

  “Well, I know that’s true. But I still doubt it, on the fishing.”

  “Fishing was yesterday. Just doing my bit, staying involved, trying to keep myself from getting stage fright. Would you rather have a Bridezilla, throwing a wobbly because I gained two kilos and my dress doesn’t fit?”

  “Nah. Keep fishing,” he said hastily. “And did you gain two kilos?”

  “Of course not,” she said, because of course not. She never did. She couldn’t afford to. “But I’m glad to stay busy. Otherwise, who knows.”

  So here they were in Hannah and Drew’s big kitchen, reheating Josie’s fritters while the rest of the group came and went, setting up their impromptu picnic on the tables outside before their movie date.

  “Why do I get the feeling,” Hugh asked Josie in a low voice, flipping a luscious orange fritter in the hot pan, “that we’re the only two people here who didn’t get lucky last night? Some serious touching going on out there. I know that look.” A hand on a back, a quick kiss, a secret smile, even the occasional grope. For everybody but him, and he was the groom.

  Josie let out a startled laugh. “Shh. Maybe they’re just relaxed.”

  He snorted. “I’ve been that relaxed too. Pity I can hardly remember it.”

  “You just wait,” she promised.

  He sighed. “That’s what you said last night. Feel like a kid waiting for Christmas. Got that big, beautiful present sitting there, just taunting me. Wishing I could unwrap it right now. Knowing I have to wait, and so sure that I can’t. Wondering if I could get up in the night and sneak a peek. Maybe even take it out of the box and play with it a little.” He had his arm around her now, his lips at her neck.

  She reached over, shoved her spatula under the smoking fritters in his pan, opened the wall oven, and slid them onto the platter. “Those are yours,” she informed him. “You’ll recognize them. They’re the black ones.” She transferred a couple more of the golden disks into both their pans. “You’re relieved of duty, mister. You’re too distracted to cook.”

  Which was nothing but true, and had been for days, and it was only getting worse. And it wasn’t the wedding. />
  They’d gone for a walk after dinner the night before, when Josie had stood to do the washing-up after dinner and Hugh had risen to help her, and Josie’s mum had waved them off.

  “Amelia and Charlie will do it,” she told them. “Take this boy up the bush track, Josie. I think he needs an outing.”

  “Makes me sound like a dog,” he said.

  Arama snorted a bit at that. “You saying you don’t want to go for a walk with Josie?”

  “Nah,” he said with a grin. “I’m not saying that.”

  “Then go on,” she said. “Get out of here and do it.”

  They’d taken their walk up the mountain without talking much, the steepness of the rocky climb, the roughness of the track precluding conversation. It had been good to be alone with her all the same. It felt like ages, even though it had actually only been a few days. A few days of sleeping in the caravan with the kids, of her being in the house. Of preparations and family and friends and children. And not nearly enough Josie.

  The shadows had been lengthening by the time they’d approached the house again. They could see, from their vantage point up above, the level blocks of orchards, the green of kiwifruit vines, the trees heavy with avocados and citrus. Josie’s parents’ farm, and all the other small farms and orchards around it, spreading in both directions. The rolling green of paddocks dotted with houses, barns, outbuildings, all of it sloping inevitably down to the little settlement of Katikati, barely visible below. The darkening mountains behind them, the sea beyond. Nothing but idyllic, a landscape straight from a postcard.

  It was a sight to gladden the heart in the soft, glowing light of evening, but it hadn’t entirely gladdened Hugh’s. Because he could also see that Josie’s family was spread around outside the house. Her brother and sister-in-law on the front patio, most of the rest of them on the deck, enjoying the evening. Getting in his way.

  “Come on,” he said before they got down to the drive. He opened the gate to the orchard blocks. “Last chance.”