Taka spotted her first and the corner of his mouth leaped. “Thank the gods, someone reasonable for me to talk to.”
“I’ll get us another round.” Rose surged to her feet.
Adam turned to Louise and smiled slowly, the heat in his gaze solely for her. “No. Let’s call it a night.”
It felt as if someone had flicked a switch inside her. Her blood rushed and her body warmed. Having the full focus of her husband’s attention was a breathtaking, giddy thing. She didn’t even hear Rose’s snarky reply…mostly.
Adam stood and pushed back his chair, moved to stand in front of her. Close enough to block out everything else. The scent of him filled her head, warm and pleasingly familiar.
“Let me go take care of the bill and then we’ll go,” he said.
“Okay.”
Taka fell in beside him while Rose busied herself at the table, gathering her bag and coat. The dark fall of her braids blocked her face from view.
“It’s lovely here,” Louise ventured.
“Yes, it is. I was going to bring you here the other day when I was meant to give you the tour.” Rose’s voice was brusque as she settled her bag on her shoulder. She didn’t look directly at Louise. Her focus remained somewhere over Louise’s shoulder, mouth pinned shut.
“I’m sorry I missed your message.”
The woman snorted.
Which made it past time to cut the bullshit. “What’s the problem here?”
Rose turned and hiked her chin up. “It doesn’t matter… I understand you went to Adam and offered to scrub his back. It’s great that you and he are getting on now.” The woman showed her a whole lot of shiny, white teeth. “Maybe now you’ll make more of an effort to fit in with the other wives. Community is important out here.”
He had fed intimate details about her to his friends? He had actually done that? Louise locked her knees and looked the woman in the eye. “Thanks for your opinion, Rose. If you don’t mind, I need to talk to my husband.”
“Adam’s had a difficult life. He hasn’t always had it easy, you know.”
“No, I don’t know. I only just met him.”
The woman glared at her. “Exactly.”
Fury bound her so tightly that her lungs couldn’t keep up. A million retorts rested on her tongue. What she wouldn’t give to let loose and cause a scene. Also, her husband might want to worry about how to keep his balls attached once she got her hands on him.
Adam’s hand pressed against her lower back. “Everything okay?”
“You’ve been discussing our sex life with Rose?”
For the corner of her eye, she saw Taka hold Rose back.
Wise man.
He squinted at her as if she had spoken in tongues. “No, I just… Rose and Taka are friends of mine. But I didn’t—”
“What goes on between us is private,” Louise said, amazed that it needed to be said. She stepped back from him, needing the breathing space. The sense of betrayal staggered her. Her throat closed as tight as her fists. “It’s all in the details, Adam. Private details about us that you don’t need to be sharing with other people.”
Her desire to hit him stunned her. Served her right—sex didn’t mean any more than a damn contract did. She was so stupid. She had to get out of there.
“Louise,” he said, his voice low and rough.
“Don’t.” She put a hand up to halt him.
She took another step backward. Then she turned and fled.
* * * * *
Adam’s shirt clung to him in the garden’s muggy air. Lighting was close to none. If she hadn’t been wearing a white top he might never have found her. His wife sat by the lagoon with her pant legs rolled up and her feet in the water.
They did well in water. He had hope.
“Hi,” he said when he got close enough. Though she’d probably heard him crashing through the undergrowth, despite the noise of the small waterfall.
She lifted her gaze briefly from the pool. “Hi.”
Adam sat down on a rock beside her, started pulling off his boots and socks. Searched his mind for something to say. Something innocuous that wouldn’t piss her off any worse. Talking just wasn’t his talent. “You know, ah…the company built all this for psychological reasons. They thought it would make the adjustment to being out here easier.”
“There’s nothing like this at home,” she said in a quiet voice.
“No.” The first touch of cool water on his toes was magic. He let out a groan and settled himself as close to her as he dared. His knee was a hair’s breadth from connecting with hers. For a moment he held his breath, waiting, but she didn’t move. “It’s nice here.”
And it was. The rich smell of damp earth, the fragrance of flowers. He could see why this had become her haven.
“What do you want, Adam?”
His shoulders dropped and he exhaled hard. “Truthfully? To come up with a way to apologize to you without actually having to apologize.”
Louise rested her elbows on her knees. Her face was in her hands, blocked from view. Everything about her posture radiated defeat, and his guts clenched. He’d done this to her. There was no humor to be found in this situation.
“Princess, I’m sorry. I was an ass.”
She turned her head with her cheek still cupped in her hand. “Why do you call me that?”
“Ah.” He rubbed his hands together and scrunched up his face. Did they really have to go there? At least she’d spoken to him again, not much but a little, and a little felt better than nothing. It remained infinitely preferable to her walking out on him. Shit. “Well…last night, you know how we discussed our mutual distrust of one another when we first met?”
She blinked.
“So, ah… I…I felt…” He sucked in his cheeks and shut his stupid mouth, not enjoying himself much at all. Unhappiness sat like a stone inside him. His wife sat there patiently, waiting for him to dig himself a deeper hole. Something he proved particularly efficient at. “It’s a term of affection. Now.”
Louise turned to look out at the dark pool. “You should go and get some sleep. You’ve got work tomorrow.”
“No, I’ve got tomorrow off.”
She gave a small, uninterested nod.
“You haven’t accepted my apology yet,” he helpfully pointed out.
“I don’t feel like forgiving you yet.”
He held back his smile of victory. She didn’t feel like forgiving him
yet
. “Yet” being the key word, thank fuck. “Ah.”
Water trickled and splashed, and a bird hooted somewhere in the thicket of trees behind them. He rubbed the side of his foot against hers, daring to touch her. Needing to touch her.
The response was immediate. Louise jerked her foot back, brows and mouth drawn tight. Her eyes lit with fury. “You discussed our sex life with another woman!”
“Only a little and in very vague terms, and I said I’m sorry.”
“Not good enough. Say more.” Her mouth trembled and he felt like the biggest heel in the universe.
“I wasn’t discussing it with Rose, exactly. I was just… You have to understand, they’re family to me.”
“And if you’d told your brother intimate details about me, then rest assured, we would still be having this conversation. You betrayed my trust.”
He clenched his jaw tight. “I know.”
“Is she family to you, Adam? Or something else? Because honestly, I’m confused.”
“Louise—”
“The truth. Please.”
“Are you fucking serious? She’s my best friend’s wife,” he growled.
“And I’m asking if you’ve fucked her. Is that why she’s so territorial? Answer me.”
“Louise…”
“Forget it.” His wife shook her head and pulled her feet from the water, every movement tight and sharp, fast and graceless. She scuttled back from the lagoon’s edge and got to her knees, obviously preparing to leave.
He couldn’t do it. He could not let her go again. Everything in him revolted at the idea. It didn’t even feel as if he had control of his own body anymore.
Adam spun and rushed to his knees. He wrapped his arms around her waist, grabbing her from behind before the dubious wisdom of such a move could make its way through his panicked mind.
Louise grunted and her top half pitched forward, unbalanced. She shoved a hand at the ground to hold herself up while the other clawed at his arm. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t go.”
“Adam,” she growled, and squirmed.
“Please.” He shuffled his hand up her chest and pulled her back up against him, her back to his front. “Princess, I fucking hate the thought of you walking away from me again. Honest to the gods, deep down hate it. So…please.”
The rise and fall of her chest against his palm was furious. “You have abandonment issues now?”
“So it would seem. I’m sorry for that too, if it helps.” He coughed out a humorless laugh. Adam fisted his hand in her top and buried his face in her neck. He pressed his mouth against her hot skin. “I swear, it’s just you. Only you.” He was hers and she was his. Or she was supposed to be. He wanted her to be. “I’m sorry she was mean to you. I guess she feels slighted about the tour or something.”
Louise squirmed in his hold. “Do not defend her to me.”
“All right. All right. I’m sorry.”
She said nothing.
“I only want you.”
She scoffed.
“It’s true.”
Rose had never been his—she didn’t compare. He thought highly of her and always would. She was a beautiful, lovely woman. But she wasn’t Louise. The everyday intimacy of being with his wife blew any guilt-ridden daydreams of Rose out into space. She just wasn’t real to him in the way that Louise was. Rose didn’t draw him in the same way at all. When his wife stopped and stared at him, it seemed time stopped as well. What he wouldn’t give to know what went through her mind. Never before had he been so driven to know a woman down to the last detail. Having Louise with him was a revelation. The sense of belonging had been lost to him for a very long time, but Louise, sitting beside him in the bar, sleeping next to him with an arm thrown over his chest… Listening to her quiet breathing in the dark of night. The warmth of her and the scent of her. All those small intimate things fed something inside him that he hadn’t even known existed. He had barely gotten a taste of it and now he was on the verge of losing her.
“Louise?”
Her breath left her on a sigh and she reached back, threading her fingers through his hair. She tugged only once. But she tugged hard. Whether from frustration or affection, no matter, though it did smart. “You’re driving me out of my head, Adam Elliot.”
“Right back at you, Mrs. Elliot.”
“This is insane. It’s only been four days.”
“Imagine what we’ll be like in four years.”
“You really think we’ll last that long?”
“Yes.” He clung to her in the quiet of the garden, bussing the side of her neck ’til her breathing calmed and she leaned back into him. “To answer your question, I think maybe I had a crush on Rose. Before…”
“You and your before.” Slowly, her hand slid down from his hair, pressed against the arm circling around her middle. So long as they were on him, it was all good.
“There’s before you arrived and after. Before shouldn’t count.”
“It doesn’t,” she said firmly. “I agree. But you realize I’m going to do savagery to you and your man bits if you pull any more shit with me.”
His stomach tightened and his cock hardened inside his jeans. It felt a little wrong but a lot sexy when she threatened him. With castration, no less. She could be so fierce, his wife. Adam rubbed his nose against her neck. Gods, she smelt good. It was the lemony, citrusy thing again. “Loving the honesty, princess.”
In a voice so small it sounded lost, she said, “Honesty is important.”
“Yes it is.”
She said nothing for a moment. Then she opened her mouth and made him a very happy man. “So is make-up sex.”
“Very.”
“I thought you might agree. Your dick’s poking me in the back.”
“Ah.”
“Lucky I’m fond of it.”
“You’re going to confuse it, threatening it and then complimenting it under a minute.” He palmed one perfect, small breast through her shirt. His wife upped the ante, sliding a hand down to cup his groin, stroking the heel of her hand over him through the thick denim. He loved how she was all boldness when it came down to this between them. It worked for him like nothing else ever had.
She
worked for him.
“It doesn’t seem worried,” she said.
He grunted, pushing said appendage into her hand. “Hmm.”
“Home?”
“Water.”
“What? Here? Someone might see.”
“I know.” He plucked at her nipple and her breath caught audibly. “Your nipples are hard. Excites you, doesn’t it? That someone might see us.”
“No. If you’ll please recall our earlier conversation about privacy, Adam.”
“Shhh. We need this.” Her hasty denial failed to convince, but he kept that to himself. He started in on the neat line of buttons running down the front of her top. “There’s no one around. No security or anything in here. No one will know but you and me. And every time you come down here, you’ll remember…”
“Adam…”
“And you’ll think of me.”
“Egotistical.”
“Practical.” He slipped the top off her shoulders but it caught on something. A belt. The impediment could be dealt with easily enough. “You spend a lot of time down here. And no, I don’t mind you spending a lot of time down here, so don’t give me that look. I just like the thought of being on your mind now and then.”
“You’re definitely on my mind now and then.”
“Good.” The waist of her pants gaped sufficiently to let him slip his hand down the front and burrow into her panties. Why she wore such ill-fitting clothes he had no idea, but it came in handy right then. His fingers found her meltingly hot and wet, and he nearly came right there. The faint, heady scent of her arousal drove him mad. “Princess, you need help.”
“Shuddup,” she said, but he could hear the smile in her voice. “You can talk.”
Her hand squeezed his cock. Swearing profusely, he removed her clever grip before he disgraced himself. He twined their hands together against her bare belly while he explored with the other, gliding two fingers through the slick folds of her pussy. She was so lush and lovely. Back and forth he traced, making sure he had her full attention.