Australian Affairs: Taken. Miranda Lee
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said. ‘He loves working.’
Loves making money, you mean, Jess thought but didn’t say.
‘You mentioned brothers earlier,’ Ben said. ‘How many do you have?’
‘What? Oh…er…three.’
‘I always wanted a brother. So, Jess, tell me a bit about these brothers of yours.’
Jess shrugged. There seemed no point not telling him about her family. They had to talk about something, she supposed.
‘Connor’s the oldest,’ she said. ‘He’s thirty-six. Married with two boys. Then there’s Troy. He’s thirty-four and married too, with twin girls. They’re eight,’ she added, smiling as she thought of Amy and Emily, who were the sweetest girls. ‘Then there’s Peter, who’s closest to me at twenty-seven. He’s not long married and his wife is expecting a bub early next year.’
‘No sisters?’
‘No, no sisters.’
‘So you’re the baby of the family.’
‘Not a spoilt one, I can assure you,’ she said, though this was a lie. Her brothers had indulged her shamelessly. And had been very protective of her when the boys had started hanging around. They were the reason she hadn’t had a boyfriend till she’d left school. Because they kept frightening them off. Peter, especially. Jess had been a virgin till she was close to twenty.
‘I suppose you want kids as well. I saw you smiling when you talked about the twin girls.’
‘I’d love at least two children,’ Jess admitted. ‘But getting married and having children is not high on my list of wants right now. I’m only twenty-five. First, I’d like to travel all around Australia. That’s why I bought this little darling,’ she added, tapping the steering wheel. ‘Because it can cope with whatever terrible roads Australia can throw at me.
‘Oh look, there’s the turn-off to the Hunter Valley vineyards,’ she pointed out. ‘If you’re staying up on the Central Coast for a while after you get back from your friend’s wedding, then that’s one of the places you should visit. It’s lovely at this time of the year. Lots of great places to stay and terrific wine to taste. You can even go up in a balloon. Colin and I did that not long ago and it was fantastic.’
‘Had you been going out with this Colin fellow for long?’
‘Just over a year.’
‘And you were serious about him?’
‘Serious enough,’ she admitted. ‘To be honest, I thought I was in love with him. But I can see now that I wasn’t.’ How could she have been? Colin had been gone from her life less than a month and she already had the hots for another man.
‘For what it’s worth, Jess,’ that other man said, ‘I think this Colin was a total idiot, leaving a girl like you behind.’
Jess could not help glancing over at Ben. His head turned her way and their eyes would have met if they hadn’t both been wearing sunglasses. Even so, something zapped between them like a charge of electricity, taking Jess’s breath away. And suddenly she knew, as surely as she knew that she should get her eyes back on the road ahead quick smart, that Ben fancied her as much as she fancied him. And, whilst the realisation of his sexual interest was exciting and flattering, it also terrified the life out of her.
BEN COULD HARDLY CONTAIN the burst of triumph he experienced when he heard her sharply indrawn breath, then watched her reef her eyes back on the road like the hounds of hell were after her.
Perhaps they were, he thought darkly. Be damned with his conscience. Be damned with common sense! He had to have this girl. And soon.
* * *
Jess was annoyed with herself for feeling flattered by Ben’s interest. Why shouldn’t he fancy her? she reasoned with more of her usual self-confidence. She was an attractive girl, with a nice face and figure. And, yes, super legs. Okay, so she probably wasn’t a patch on this Amber female, but she was over in New York and Jess was right here. On top of that, he didn’t want Amber. No, no, be honest here, Jess, it wasn’t Amber he didn’t want, just marriage. No doubt he would have continued their sexual relationship if she hadn’t put the hard word on him. The truth was he was out here in Australia, probably feeling a bit lonely, and suddenly there she was, with no boyfriend and availability written all over her stupid face!
Jess was dragged out of her frustrating train of thought by the sudden end of the motorway. She hadn’t even seen the signs to slow down. Rolling her eyes at herself, she made a careful left at the roundabout onto the New England Highway and set sail for the Golden Highway. Thankfully, Ben had fallen silent. No doubt he was working out when to make a pass whilst she was working out how she was going to act when that happened.
As Jess drove on silently, she wondered why she couldn’t be like other girls—the ones who could sleep with guys on a first date, or even on meeting them for the first time at a pub, or club, or disco or whatever. She could never do that. She found the idea repulsive. And dangerous. She had to get to know the guy first. And like him. Had to see that he liked her too. Liked her enough to wait for her. Till she felt ready to go all the way.
She’d made Colin wait for weeks. Jess suspected Ben wouldn’t wait weeks for her.
Not that she wanted him to. Lord, what was happening to her here? This wasn’t like her at all! But Ben wasn’t like any man she’d ever met before. It wasn’t just a question of his movie-star looks, although they were hard to ignore. There was something else. A cloak of confidence which he wore without effort and which she found incredibly attractive. And very sexy. He would be a fantastic lover, she was sure. Very experienced. Very…knowledgeable. He would know exactly what to do and how to do it to make sure she always came.
A shiver rippled down her spine at this last thought. She didn’t always come during sex. But she would like to.
‘When are we going to make our first stop?’ Ben suddenly piped up. ‘I’ll need to have a coffee fairly soon.’
Jess suppressed a groan as she realised that she’d once again become distracted from her driving. It took an extreme effort of will to drag her overheated mind away from those corrupting thoughts and put it to the task of estimating exactly where they were, quickly realising that they couldn’t be far from the turn-off onto the Golden Highway.
‘Denman is about half an hour from here,’ she said, having studied the route and memorised all the towns and services on the way. ‘I checked it up on the Internet. It’s a small historic town down in a valley with a nice pub and a couple of cafés. If that’s too far off for you, we could drive into Singleton, but then we’d have to double back.’
‘No. No doubling back. Denman sounds fine. You wouldn’t happen to have any pain killers with you, would you? I should have taken a couple this morning but forgot.’
Jess only then remembered his bad shoulder. ‘There’s some in the glove box,’ she said. ‘And a bottle of water in your door, if you want to take the tablets straight away.’
‘Thanks.’
‘How bad is your shoulder?’ she asked, happy to have something safe to talk about.
‘It’s a bit stiff and sore this morning, but honestly it’s fine. I could have driven, but the doctor at the hospital said no. Not because of the shoulder—I had a mild concussion as well.’
‘Best you didn’t drive, then.’
‘I’m glad I couldn’t—I wouldn’t have met you.’
Jess could not stop her heart swelling with pleasure. Yet she knew what he was about. She’d seen how her brothers had acted with girls whose pants they wanted to get into. She’d