‘Unit Seven, respond?Report of a drunk on the road, Stuart Highway, five k’s past the turnoff.Truckie reckons he nearly hit a bloke on a quad bike, weaving all over the place.Can you attend?’
Porter groaned, dropping his head back.‘Deadset?’
Again, the radio squawked.‘Copy that, Unit Seven?’
He scrubbed a hand down his face, reaching for his discarded uniform and radio.‘Copy that, Unit Seven en-route.’
Amara sat up, tugging the blanket around her, still not sure what to say.
He glanced back at her, half-dressed, still breathless from what they’d just done, and offered a lopsided grin.‘Try and get some rest before our date, huh.I want you at your best for the ball.’
Twenty-four
Amara hadn’t just crossed the line.She’d pole-vaulted over it, backwards, and landed in a police cell with her housemate.
At work.
In a prison cell.
With Senior Constable Logan Porter.
And today?She’d been dodging him like her job depended on it.Barricading herself in the office, doing everything short of physically stapling her thoughts to her paperwork just to stop them circling back to him.His voice.His mouth.His everything.
They weren’t even compatible.
They had nothing in common except the job.And the house.And now, apparently, that encounter in the cells.
This ball tonight?It wasn’t a ball.It was surveillance.Work.Not a date.
Definitely not a date.
She was fine.Totally fine.And if she repeated that enough, maybe she’d believe it.
But standing in front of her bedroom mirror, wearing her light blue ballgown, Amara felt like she was staring at a stranger.She smoothed her hands over the bodice, adjusting the fit, admiring the way the fabric cinched at her waist and accentuated her curves, with her breasts pushed up just enough to make her hesitate.
The colour softened her, made her look… different.Less like Officer Montrose, and more like someone from a life she’d left behind.
The delicate tiara caught the light to create a subtle shimmer in her loose hair—the kind of style no one in Elsie Creek had ever seen her wear.
She hadn’t bought this dress for tonight.It had been tucked away in a box, saved for another event that never happened.A reminder of that old version of herself that had once believed in fairytales, polished nights, and in promises from a fiancé that had never lasted.
And tonight?No.This wasn’t a date.It was work.
No matter what Porter thought.
With one last twirl before the mirror, completing her final inspection, she headed down the corridor.
Only to pause.
She hadn’t meant to look.
But in the living room stood Porter, sliding one arm into the sleeve of a crisp white dress shirt, the fabric clinging to the broad muscles of his back before he pulled it forward, his fingers making quick work of the buttons.
Her mouth went dry.
He was half-dressed, wearing nothing but a pair of fitted black briefs—Calvin Kleins, hugging him in ways she had no business noticing.
Amara swallowed hard.She’d seen him in uniform, in dusty work shirts, sweat-soaked under the outback sun.And shirtless—the memory way too crisp that she clutched the base of her throat like it might help her breathe again, or at least control her heat.
