Nicola Marsh - Hot Nights with the...Australian

‘Give it up, Tony,’ he tersely advised. ‘You’re in a no-win situation. Leave now or I’ll call the police.’

Luther, who’d lined himself up with Max and Chloe, growled his own warning.

Tony turned his vitriol onto him. ‘Bloody dog!’

Luther charged, teeth bared to take a chunk of the enemy. Tony kicked him viciously right across the room. Chloe screamed and ran to check the little dog for injury.

Max’s control snapped. With Chloe’s scream reverberating through his head and outrage at the callous cruelty to a little pup pumping through his heart, he took one step forward and king-hit Tony Lipton on the jaw. The sight of him, sprawled on the floor near the door, still despoiling the children’s house that should have been a safe refuge, could not be borne. Max grabbed the back of his shirt collar and dragged him outside, dropping him on the lawn before quickly returning to the living room to see how Luther was.

‘Do we need to call a vet?’ he asked Chloe, who was cradling the little dog on her lap.

‘I don’t think anything’s broken,’ she answered anxiously. ‘I think he just tumbled, Max.’

‘I’ll look him over as soon as I get back from dumping Tony in his boat.’

‘You needn’t dump him gently,’ she said with vehement feeling.

A fierce exhilaration zinged through Max as he headed back to her decisively ex -husband, who had managed to draw himself up on his hands and knees, shaking his head dazedly. It might not have been a wise move, punching out Tony Lipton, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. Justice had been served, albeit in a primitive fashion, and he’d certainly not damaged himself in Chloe’s eyes.

He grabbed Tony’s collar again and the waistband of his trousers, lifted him onto his feet, and began frog-marching him across the lawn to the steps leading to the bottom terrace.

‘Let me go! Let me go!’ he gurgled, arms flailing as he tried to balance himself.

‘You used force on Chloe and force on her dog. Have a taste of it yourself,’ Max said, using unrelenting strength to push him along.

‘I’ll get you for this! You’ve broken my jaw.’

‘No witnesses,’ Max mocked.

‘Chloe …’

‘Will not testify on your behalf. You kicked her dog.’

They reached the steps and Tony struggled against Max’s grip. ‘All right! All right! I’m going! Just get your hands off me.’

‘Okay. But try anything stupid and I’ll throw you down the entire flight.’

Max let him stumble down the steps by himself, following to ensure Tony did, in fact, leave the property. He’d tied his boat to a pole at the base of the wharf—a small hired outboard motorboat—hidden by the rock breakwater. Max watched him clamber into it, untie the rope, start the motor and head out into the harbour. Neither man said goodbye.

Max waited until the boat was completely out of sight. He didn’t think Tony Lipton would be returning in a hurry. Nevertheless, he made a mental note to have the security system tightened up on his harbour frontage. There should not have been a loophole for an intruder to scramble through. He’d failed Chloe on that count. If she now felt unsafe in the guest house, would she be willing to move into the mansion with him?

One step at a time, Max told himself. He had to get back to her now, seize whatever advantage he could from the positive flow of emotion towards him—ride the wave of opportunity.

He’d taken quite a few steps before it struck him he’d be breaking his own rules if he invited Chloe to share his own living quarters. In all his relationships with women, he’d never co-habited with any one of them, consciously avoiding any claim of a de facto wife partnership that could demand a financial settlement at the end of the affair. He hadn’t wanted a wife, hadn’t wanted a woman to fill that role in his life and he’d always made that quite clear.

That special something about Chloe was blurring all the rules that made his life what it had become. He’d just acted completely out of character. He should be appalled at his loss of control, not savouring the satisfaction it had given him. Life with his mother had been chaos and he’d hated it. Order, logic, a sane approach to everything … that was his safety net. He had to move with care where Chloe was concerned. Satisfying his desire for her was one thing, leading into an area of heavy commitment quite another.

But the only future he had to think of right now was this time with her and he was going to make the most of it.

LUTHER curled up on her lap and went to sleep, probably a normal reaction to frantic activity and shock. Chloe hoped so. He was only a baby and slept a lot in the normal course of events. She kept stroking him lightly, wanting to soothe away any lingering trauma. Such a brave little dog, and his wild yapping had brought Max to her when she’d desperately needed some strong intervention.

Max, in his brief black swimming costume, looking like a Greek god with all his physical power on display—her saviour once again. She hadn’t cared that he was almost naked. It hadn’t worried her one bit having her body hugged against his. If she was honest with herself, she’d revelled in his muscular support and was savagely glad he’d hit Tony and hauled him away. If they were living in some primitive society, she would certainly want Max as her mate. In fact, she would be happy to share a cave with him in every sense.

But their lives weren’t so simple. Hers, particularly, was complicated with a whole lot of issues, and she shouldn’t keep leaning on Max to fix everything for her. Apart from which, he was currently attached to another woman, and she shouldn’t be forgetting that relationship, either. Although she was feeling more and more connected to him on many levels, and the plain truth was she wanted him to want her, regardless of every other issue.

Was that weak and stupid?

She didn’t know, didn’t have time to sort it out. Max strode back into the children’s house, filling it with his powerful presence, and her mind went to mush. He was a marvellous man—a dangerous, ruthless, infinitely desirable man—and she wanted to fling herself at him again, feel his arms around her, crushing her body against his, feel everything he could make her feel.

Did he see that wild, wanton desire in her eyes? For one heart-stopping moment, he paused, his dark riveting gaze holding hers, questioning, probing with an intensity that trapped the breath in her throat. Then he looked down at the little dog in her lap and moved forward, crouching down beside her.

‘He seems to be breathing normally.’

Which was more than she could say for herself. Her lungs relaxed back into action and she managed to speak normally. ‘He whimpered for a while, but I couldn’t feel anything broken.’

‘I think Tony’s foot went more under Luther’s belly than connecting with his ribs, but if you’d like me to call a vet …’

She shook her head. ‘I’ll wait until he wakes up, see how he is then.’

‘Where’s his sleeping basket?’

‘In the corner next to the doll house. He likes it there.’

‘Don’t get up. I’ll fetch it and you can gently transfer him.’

Luther barely stirred as she lifted him into the basket, only opening his eyes to check all was as it should be then closing them again. Max carried the basket back to the corner as Chloe pushed up from the floor. Acutely conscious of her own nakedness underneath the silk kimono, she re-adjusted it to maximum modesty as Max moved the rocker Tony had occupied back to its correct position and closed the front door, scanning the room to see if anything else had been changed.