Noah’s plans to collect Tilly from Oban’s airport went by the wayside. He was called to a dispute between two neighbors who’d reportedly been reduced to screaming abuse at each other along with one flinging said neighbor’s dog’s smelly indiscretions back over the fence.

By the time he’d gotten the two hotheads to see reason, Tilly’s flight had long since landed. While neighbor one picked up all the dog turds he’d flung and neighbor two fixed his yard gate so the animal couldn’t escape and then do his business on his front lawn, Noah composed a message.

A reply came a minute later.

Noah frowned at his phone screen, a sliver of unease stabbing pinpricks down his spine. He’d been planning to sneak in a quick private reunion with her before heading to Due South. As much as he was loath to admit it, he’d missed her like crazy. She’d only been gone for three nights, and he was like a kid on Christmas Eve, dying to rip into a pile of gifts but not wanting to appear uncool and desperate.

Which he totally was.

And he planned to show her just how much he’d missed her once he got her alone.

After the dreaded paperwork was complete, Noah returned home to change out of his uniform and shower off the stench of doggy-doo seeping into his pores. Twenty minutes later, after his nose told him he no longer smelled like the wrong end of a mutt’s digestive system, Noah jumped in his ute and reversed out of his driveway. A quick glance up the road revealed all the lights were out at Southern Seas. The fact that it bothered him sat like a rock in his gut.

“Lots of things bother me,” he muttered as he drove toward the pub. “People who chew with their mouths open. Reality TV. The ever-growing population of plastic bloody shopping bags.”

How quickly time slipped away when you were just beginning to have fun with a woman. In two weeks the lights would be permanently off at the B&B. Until a new owner snapped the property up and moved in. Noah wasn’t feeling very neighborly about the prospect.

He found a parking space and strode past the fogged-up windows of the pub, which was crammed with warm bodies thanks to the quiz night’s growing popularity with tourists. Noah paused outside the glass door leading into the pub and the sizeable line forming at the old-fashioned wooden bar. Behind it, Kip, Carly, and their part-time bartender, Zach, busted their collective asses serving a last round of drinks before quizmaster Rhonda took over the mic. He eased inside, catching an eyebrow-lift greeting from Ford who was currently hogging the bar’s mic with his guitar and soulful voice.

He moved deeper into the pub, scanning the crowd for Tilly. Stuffy air barely circulated and what did was fragrant with the smell of wet wool, wet earth, fried pub food, and wet beer. Spying her seated at a table, talking with Ford’s wife, Holly, he dodged drink-bearing patrons and responded to hails from other locals with a raised hand and a talk to you later smile.

“Hey.” He slipped into a seat that Bree had just vacated and ignored her grumble of irritation as she headed for the bar.

Tilly’s gaze slid past Holly to him. Her mouth rearranged itself into a thin smile, her lush lips pulled tight across her teeth. “Hey, yourself.”

Holly twisted around in her seat. “Where’s your Manly Man tiara and runner-up sash tonight?” Holly also smiled, but unlike Tilly, her eyes crinkled in the corners and she seemed genuinely pleased to see him.

“You’re a funny lady, Mrs. Komeke.” He rested his forearms on the table and leaned forward. “You okay, Til? Rough flight in, so I heard.”

“You heard right,” Tilly said with another fake-as-hell smile. “It was pretty bumpy, but only one passenger started reciting the Hail Mary as we approached the runway.”

If there’s one thing that bothers a guy more than a female uttering the word fine, it’s the torpedoing gut sensation he’d done/said/thought something wrong but with no idea what that something was. While Holly retold some of her most vomit-inducing aeroplane and ferry horror stories, Noah studied Tilly, hoping to spot a clue.

Her usually wild mass of hair was neatly tamed in some sort of complicated braid, and her makeup was applied to perfection. She wore a deep red leather coat he’d never seen before, a short skirt, and knee-high boots with a heel that looked both sexy and lethal. His bafflement only grew as he racked his brain for what’d changed since he’d pushed her laughing out of his bed early on Tuesday morning.

In the pub’s corner by the makeshift stage, Rhonda tapped the mic. “One minute, folks. Please move back to your quiz team’s table and we’ll get started.”

“Tilly, do you want to join me at Ford’s table?” he asked once Holly paused to take a breath in the middle of her How Many Times Piper Has Gotten Seasick story.

Holly switched topics on a dime and answered for her. “No way, José. Tilly’s already agreed to be an honorary member of the Madame B’ovaries. No backsies.”

Tilly rolled her shoulder. “Sorry.” But her eyes said not sorry. “I’m taken.”

Yeah, she was. And she would be—by him. But there was nothing he could do about it in a public place without arresting himself for disturbance of the peace and/or indecent exposure. Someone tapped his shoulder and he looked up to Bree’s move your butt stare. Hell—had he somehow pissed off the entire female population? Then her gaze softened—unlike Tilly’s—and she winked.

“I believe it’s time for you to get out of my seat, Officer Sexy-Britches.”

Noah stood, keeping eye contact with Tilly. “Talk to you later?”

“Count on it.” This time her smile was genuine, but there was a razor edge in it that cut him to the core.

Something was really bloody wrong.

Tilly was still an expert at making small talk, and Noah was wound up tighter than a jack-in-the-box spring as he drove them home after the quiz night ended. She’d begun a super-chirpy monologue on the way, the likes of which he hadn’t heard since she first arrived in Oban. He knew her well enough now to see it for what it was.

Nerves.

Auckland weather, Auckland traffic, the airline’s newest safety video, the person seated in front of her on the plane with a diabolical case of gas. A little of everything and nothing about what she really wanted to talk about. Because she did want to talk, otherwise she’d never have agreed to him driving her home.

Noah pulled into his carport and killed the engine. After a few moments the interior lights switched off, leaving them sitting in semidarkness. The dashboard lights cast a green shadow over their faces. Tilly finally ran out of steam and fell silent. He unclipped his seat belt and shifted his weight to face her, his jeans rustling. Tilly flinched and her hands clamped into fists on her lap, as if the sound of denim on vinyl was like a gunshot.

What the hell was going on? And why was she suddenly not the good kind of nervous around him, but the bad kind?

She unclipped her seat belt, crossing one sexily booted leg over the other. Then she crossed her arms so tightly against her chest that her leather jacket creaked.

“Will you tell me what’s wrong? Or do we have to play twenty questions?” He kept his voice pitched low and calm because he didn’t want to startle her into making a run for it. In those heels she’d break her damn ankle.

“I don’t play games.”

Her tone implied that he did.

Nope, he still had no clue. Only that whatever she was mentally accusing him of wasn’t a misdemeanor but a jailable offence.

“And since I don’t play games,” she continued, “I won’t ask if you forgot to tell me you used to be in the AOS, but I’ll tell you how my ex smugly informed me of it, proving that I didn’t know you as well as I thought.”

Whatever he’d been expecting—a misunderstood text, calling her by her full name that she hated, forgetting her birthday even though it wasn’t until June—it hadn’t been this. His fingernails dug crescents into the vinyl-covered seat, ice slicking through his veins and freezing any plausible excuse he might’ve invented on his tongue. He swallowed thickly, which sounded absurdly loud in the confined space of the cab.

“It just never came up in conversation.” Even to his own ears that sounded lame.

“Please. Yes, we’ve screwed more than overshared our life stories, but you can do better than that.”

He winced at her description, since he’d begun to think by the time she left on Tuesday morning that they were doing more than screwing. Like more than just good times and smoking-hot sex. Like creating something real and solid—hell, maybe even an actual relationship.

“Only a few people in Oban know what I did before. I don’t talk about it because it’s not relevant to my life here.”

“It’s relevant to me.” Then her voice softened. “I heard about what you went through, and I want to be here for you to talk to.”

Of course she’d heard. And he could guess what kind of spin her ex had put on it. Blood thrummed in his ears. All he could hear above the thudding was the memory of his OC barking orders, the sound of a gunshot, and his life swerving off in a different direction in an instant. He stiffened on his seat, muscles turning to a cold, hard shell to protect his weakness beneath.

“So you can use me to write an authentic, messed-up cop character?”

He regretted his outburst the moment he snapped his mouth shut again. If he’d been aiming to wound her with his words, he’d done more than that. While her chin arched in defiance, brokenness shuttered her gaze. He’d done more than wound her; he’d hurt her deeply.

Noah turned to stare through the windshield, unable to fend off the smothering weight of his emotions. How the hell could he feel guilty, fearful of rejection, and pissed at the world but most of all himself, all at the same time? Gripping the steering wheel in both hands, he braced himself for the justifiable Wrath of Tilly.

But there was no wrath forthcoming.

The passenger door cracked open. He caught a glimpse of her pale drawn face as she slid out of the vehicle and quietly closed it.

He swore under his breath. “Tilly—”

But she’d already gone.

Some call it navel gazing. Others, like his mates, a good old-fashioned man brood.

Whatever label Noah used to describe sitting alone in his ute, staring out the windshield at his darkened house, it sucked. And it sucked more that she was kinda right. He should’ve opened up to her about that part of his past.

He groaned and thunked his forehead on the top of the steering wheel. When all was said and done, he trusted Tilly. So accusing her of plagiarising his life was beyond a douche move; it was an all-time low blow. One he couldn’t let go unchecked.

With a mental kick in the butt, Noah walked up to Southern Seas. This time the lights were on, and the sight of them gave him a momentary twinge of comfort. At least she was still here on the island. He pushed away the not for much longer thought that followed it and knocked on her door.

Silence echoed from inside the house, and all the drapes were pulled tight. He knocked again, straining to hear the soft pad of her footsteps on the other side. Nothing. He leaned against the door, resting the back of his head against it.

“I can wait out here all night if I need to, though my nuts will probably freeze off.”

Not even a twitch of her living room drapes. Yeah. He probably deserved her lack of sympathy for the state of his junk on this brisk night. With a grimace, he slid down to sit on her doorstep, draping his arms over his bent knees and closing his eyes.

A cold, salt-infused breeze stung his cheeks, ate through the thin wool of his sweater, and chilled his skin. Moments later the breeze swept a volley of icy raindrops across the porch steps. Likely the wind would bring that rain under the small porch roof soon. His lips curved into a wry smile—he’d waited in worse conditions than this and for longer periods of time. Though he suspected, even with Tilly’s kind heart, getting a foot in her door wouldn’t be a walk in the park.

He kept his eyes shut, relying on his old training to still his mind and yet remain alert to anything changing in his immediate environment. An unknown amount of time passed before he detected the whisper of footsteps inside, the rustle of clothing against wood, and the change of pressure against the front door. If he wasn’t mistaken, Tilly was mimicking his position on the other side.

He sucked in a deep breath and opened his eyes. “I was a tool. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

No response.

“I know you’d never do that to me or to anyone else.”

No response.

He couldn’t even hear her breathing.

“I’ve never talked to any woman I was involved with about the AOS or that night. It’s not just you.”

That time a sharp inhale was his reply.

“Hell. I don’t mean it like that. You’re not just any woman.” He lifted his gaze to the sky. The stars were hidden by misty drizzling rainclouds. The back of his head banged against the door. A jagged laugh caught in his throat. He’d thought it’d just be a case of him putting on the contrite male act, but he knew now that wouldn’t be enough.

“That night…” He licked suddenly dry lips. “It was a lot like tonight. Misty rain, poor visibility, freezing fucking cold. The call came in just after one in the morning and the squad left headquarters twenty-five minutes later. There was nothing unusual about the initial emergency call—a reported domestic disturbance. But the constables first on the scene were threatened by a male with a rifle, so the Wellington AOS was deployed to take control of the situation.”

Cordon, contain, appeal; the AOS mode of operation. Initially everything had run smoothly with the evacuation of the surrounding houses and police setting up a safe perimeter around the property and the suburban street. Senior Constable Miller had made contact with the suspect, and information was trickling in.

“The suspect was Tristan Howard, a forty-two-year-old mechanic who’d lost his job two weeks earlier and had only moved into the second-floor apartment a month before that. A neighbor thought the woman’s name was Mandy, and she was Howard’s girlfriend, but none of the people interviewed knew anything about her.” He let out a soft, humorless snort. “They kept to themselves, was the general consensus.”

Not knowing your neighbor was a cardinal sin in Oban. One of the many differences between city and rural life.

He continued in a low monotone, describing the positions of his squad and the timeline of the negotiating standoff, which had lasted nearly three hours before they’d gotten a glimpse of the hostage.

“Howard dragged her to the window, using her and the frame as a shield, a hunting knife pressed to her throat so snipers couldn’t get a clear shot. He wouldn’t admit to being high on drugs or alcohol; in fact, he refused to engage with the negotiator at all. We didn’t really know what or who we were dealing with, but the woman was in a life-threatening situation. Something I could’ve prevented.”

His last words fell hollowly to the ground, slid under the door, and elicited a reaction. Clothing rustled.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

He shook his head, the weight bearing down on him making his movement slow and jerky. “When the woman started screaming inside the house—a kind of scream that can only mean physical pain—the OC ordered us to move. And when we move, we go in hard and fast. Jim and Andy took out the front door, Mike, Dale, and I, the back, with Mike and Dale ahead, all of us hollering at Howard to give it up. Something along the deck caught my eye before I followed them inside. I backtracked and saw the offender struggling out of a low window with his rifle. He saw me at the same time I saw him, and he swung the weapon up. There wasn’t time to hesitate or light enough to discern whether or not his finger was on the trigger. I was trained for it—using necessary force to protect innocents when there’s no other course of action. So I took the shot.”

He heard her sharp inhale. “I remember that case now.”

“Yeah, the media was all over that story. Fortunately only a small percentage of AOS callouts end so brutally.”

“What he did to that woman was brutal. You prevented him from hurting anyone else.”

Noah emptied his lungs on a long drawn-out breath. “Mike and Jim found her tied up in the hallway. Mike had been a paramedic before he joined the police force, and he knew right away she couldn’t be saved. Howard had severed her carotid artery and stabbed her three times with his hunting knife. She bled out in front of them. It wasn’t pretty. In the organized chaos that followed it wasn’t until the coroner arrived and the hallway was lit up like a stadium that I caught a glimpse of Mandy’s face.”

“You knew her?”

“No.” His gut clenched then went numb as old memories broke free and rose darkly to the surface. “Not exactly.”

Tilly seemed to sense he needed time to gather his thoughts. But if he gathered them too much he wouldn’t speak them out loud. He’d never told anyone about the woman with red dreadlocks. Why he suddenly wanted to tell Tilly, he didn’t know. Maybe it was because he didn’t have to see her face, the way someone would confess their sins to a priest.

“That afternoon I was running late and I didn’t finish my shift on time. When I finally checked my phone, there were five increasingly pissed off messages from Hayley. I’d completely forgotten we were supposed to attend her brother’s birthday dinner and I’d be even later now that I had to go home and change into something suitable for a posh restaurant. As I left the station I noticed a woman with striking red-dyed dreadlocks sitting near one of the concrete pillars. Her cigarette was burned down almost to the filter and I observed her, while reading through another of Hayley’s messages, shooting quick, nervous glances at the station doors. It didn’t occur to me, even while I watched her watching me, that the woman wasn’t just jittery. She was genuinely scared.”

He chuffed out a humorless laugh. “Being jittery wasn’t unusual. Not many people look happy when they walk into a police station. I was late, and I knew there’d be drama about it, but I still walked over and asked if she was okay. She took another drag on her smoke then ground it out. She told me she was, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. I was about to ask if I could help in any way, when Hayley called. I turned my back on the woman to talk—a forty-seconds-at-most conversation to try and calm Hayley down. When I turned back, the woman wasn’t there. Maybe she’d walked into the station, in which case she was the front desk’s problem. Maybe she’d just changed her mind. I dismissed her from my mind and went home. The next time I saw her she had a knife to her throat.”

Another rustle from behind the door, and suddenly it clicked open. A kiss of warmth from inside the house caressed his neck, and the delicious scent that was Tilly’s unique blend filled his nose. She kneeled behind him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pressing her mouth to his throat in the softest of kisses.

His heart slammed around his chest over and over. Could she feel the rapid bump of his pulse against her lips? He swallowed hard. “If I’d let Hayley’s call go to voice mail and just taken the time to talk to her…”

“You hold yourself accountable, but no one could predict the outcome of that tragic day,” she said. “Even if she’d come to the station to make a complaint against Howard, you can’t say with certainty things would’ve turned out differently.”

“My head agrees. But my heart…”

“Still hurts for Mandy.” She rubbed her palm over the spot in question. “Come inside now. It’s cold.” Backing up the statement with a shiver, her breasts pressed sweetly into his back.

If he followed her inside, he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands—or mouth—to himself. Better if he didn’t crawl out of the dark and take what he needed just so he could get another taste of her warmth and light.

As if sensing the turmoil churning inside him, she stood and, with surprising strength, gripped his wrist and tugged. Considering his willpower to resist her was at an all-time low, it didn’t take much effort for her to pull him to his feet.

He framed her face in his hands. “You deserve more than being a distraction for my brokenness.”

Her nose crinkled and she placed her hands over his. “You’re not broken, just a little dented and battle scarred. And am I really just a distraction?” Her gaze challenged him to push beyond his comfort zone and admit the truth.

He brushed his mouth against hers, reveling in the way her pouty lower lip clung briefly to his. “No. You’re everything good and bright and real.” A kiss to the corner of her mouth, which curved upward. “I think you’re my unicorn.”

“Your what?” Confusion and laughter danced in her voice.

The sound of it peeled away some of the darkness threatening to overwhelm him and he gazed down at her beautiful smile. There wasn’t time for explanations, or, at least, he didn’t have the temperament to resist claiming her mouth for a space-and-time-bending kiss. Like trying to catch sunbeams, he sought solace in one deep, drugging kiss after another. The heat of her tongue dancing along his, the silky texture of her hair caught between his fingers, the feel of her breasts molding to his chest—he was becoming lost in this woman. 

His woman.

He backed her step by step into her house, kicking the door shut behind them. Somehow they made it into Tilly’s room, minus a few items of clothing discarded on the way. He wasn’t even certain they’d make it to her bed when he peeled off the last of her clothes to leave her standing in a red lace bra, matching panties, and those sexy knee-high boots.

“Detour,” he muttered, pinning her to the back of her bedroom door. 

His lips and tongue took the most pleasurable detour over the bump of her collarbone to the swell of her breasts playing peekaboo beneath her bra. He cupped the underside of one breast, leveraging it slightly upward until he could close his mouth wetly over a lace-covered nipple. Tilly moaned, pushing herself hard against his palm as he teased and suckled the sensitive peak into a rigid little tip. He repeated the attention to her other breast, then continued his detour south. He flicked his tongue into her belly button—which made her giggle and squirm—then traversed down to gently clamp his lips over lace and needy woman. She cried out, grabbing a handful of his hair to keep him there.

As if anything other than removing him handcuffed from the room would keep him from exploring Tilly’s delicious body. 

He drew down her panties, letting them pool around the ankles of her boots. Then he feasted with lips and tongue, and when she whimpered for more, his fingers. She came for him, pulsing and shuddering, only his hands clamped either side of her hips preventing her knees from buckling. That and her death grip in his hair. He smiled as she continued to spasm against the pressure of his circling tongue. What were a few less hairs when you could drive your woman out of her mind?

He gathered up her limp body and carried her to the bed. She made a half-hearted attempt to unzip a boot, but he stilled her hand with a grin. “Lose the bra, but leave the boots.”

She smiled up at him and flicked the front catch of her bra, releasing her incredible tits. “You’re the boss.”

Noah stripped off the rest of his clothes in double time then followed the direction of her pointed finger to find protection in her nightstand. He suited up and crawled onto the bed, sinking into her welcoming arms and even more welcoming body. Guiding himself between her legs, he parted her slick folds until he pushed inside her—just a little. Just enough to give them both a taste of how perfect they were when connected so intimately. She hooked her legs over his hips and crossed her ankles, using her heels against his butt to pull him deeper inside her.

Plunging into heaven, he felt her muscles squeeze around him. God, the sensation was incredible. Addictive. Powerful enough to metaphorically bring him to his knees.

He thrust again and her eyes widened, then hooded into sensual bliss as she stared up at him. He kissed her throat and the creamy soft skin just above her breasts. When she moaned, he took her mouth again in another blisteringly hot kiss.

Her fingers trailed up his triceps and cupped his shoulder blades, urging him with the rocking of her hips to move within her. He obliged but kept his rhythm slow, drawing out every ounce of pleasure at the delicious friction they created.

You’re not just creating a little feel-good friction, a little voice whispered from a dark corner of his brain. This is not screwing or humping or banging, where the only goal is to reach orgasm. You know what this is. But it’d been such a long time since he’d made love to a woman, he couldn’t be sure his dick wasn’t just messing with his brain.

Noah pulled out of her and guided Tilly onto her stomach, and then to her knees. He bowed over her, caressing her breasts and reentering her wet warmth at a deeper, snugger angle. She moaned low in her throat and pumped her hips back, greedily taking everything he offered. Moving from breasts to her parted thighs, he found her swollen center and stroked her until she bucked beneath him.

He stared down at the graceful sweep of her spine, her smooth skin and her hair spilling over her shoulders. In this position—like rutting animals—surely this wasn’t lovemaking? His gut clenched and once again he pulled out of her. She looked at him over her shoulder, and without saying a word, rose upright and gave his chest a push. He flipped onto his back and she straddled him.

Sex. Really great, really acrobatic sex, but just sex. They could work through the entire Karma Sutra, and it would still be just sex.

Tilly sank down onto him. Of their own accord, his hands settled on her hips, fingertips digging lightly into her soft flesh. She braced her palms on his chest and rocked up and back, using her internal muscles to sheath him so sweetly that his breathing hitched. He was helpless beneath her. She rode him, taking him deep within her until he couldn’t tell where he ended and she began, or who was making love to whom.

Her eyes met his, and he couldn’t look away. She was so beautiful, but that wasn’t the reason he couldn’t wrench his gaze from hers. Intense pleasure caused her eyes to glaze over and she bit down on that plump lower lip that he loved to nibble on.

This.

Her hips moved faster as he helped her along, slamming up into her.

Wasn’t.

Body bowing, nails raking his chest, Tilly cried out his name, her body gripping his as if it never intended to release him. He was good with that. And damn, but he couldn’t stop smiling as she continued to quake around him.

Just.

She sank onto him and he gathered her close, stroking her hair as she panted into his neck. Hard as an iron rod inside her still, he was content, against every male instinct, to just hold her.

Sex.

Tilly had other ideas. She rolled onto her side, giving him a flirtatious eyebrow wriggle and slapping a palm against her butt cheek.

“We’re not done yet. Spear me with your horn, unicorn boy.”

Laughter bubbled out of him. The sound was a little odd in a bedroom setting, but so right between the two of them.

You’re everything good and bright and real.

He buried himself inside her, tearing a groan of pleasure from his chest and making her gasp. He took her, and she took him. Over and over, until he poured himself into her and lost himself in everything that was good and bright and real.