"Yes," he said with that gentle small smile. "From Australia."
Right. Right! That had beentwo. Two, he was obviously from Australia, with that accent, so it was dumb to have even said that. Tiffany berated herself silently, straightened her shoulders, and plastered on a professionally apologetic smile. "Well, I'mafraid they're going to have to talk to the city about rescheduling, because we're on a tight schedule ourselves here and we'll be working from dawn until dusk for the next eighteen days to get this done. I have a contract."
"And time is money." That smile just stayed on his face. His voice was so low and so inviting that Tiffany took half a step closer, like she was going to…
She had no idea, honestly. Maybe just listen more closely, since he was so soft-spoken. Which was not a thing she was into. Loud, brash, bold. Those were her favored traits in guys. Weren't Australians supposed to be all those things? Or maybe she just thought so because they came from a continent where everything wanted to kill you.
"I'm sure we can come to some kind of arrangement," Ollie went on softly.
If that arrangement involved wrapping her thighs around his head, Tiffany thought she could be convinced.
For a horrifying moment she thought she'd actually said that out loud. Given that his soft expression didn't change, though, she decided she probably hadn't. She wondered if it was physically possible to give herself a swift kick in the ass, or better yet, in the teeth, to keep herself from thinking or saying any such things, and blurted, "Probably not this is a very time-sensitive project that I have to keep on schedule" at a nearly-deafening volume.
A little wave of silence rode out on that shout. It swept over Ollie, leaving him blinking thosegorgeouslypale eyes, and reached the seven or eight people decorating the gazebo, who all turned toward her in slow, displeased astonishment. One of them, a Black woman in a retro-y jumpsuit sort of thing, put down her garlands and came toward the gazebo steps with a dangerous look in her eye. To her obvious surprise, and to Tiffany's as well, Ollie raised a graceful hand, indicating hedidn't need anybody's support, and smiled graciously down at Tiffany. "Why don't we go have a cool drink and talk about this?"
CHAPTER 2
Acool drink?!
Ollie's koala sputtered the word at top volume, which was, as it turned out, incredibly loud. Nobody thought of koalas as noisy, and they mostly weren't. But when they were, it wasa lot.
Especially when it was in his head.A cool drink?!the koala demanded again.She's our mate, mate! Don't take her for cool drinks! Take her into the trees and makepassionate luuuuuuvto her!
Oliver Campbell was, for one agonizing moment,incrediblyglad that there were no meaningful trees in the Virtue town square. He was fairly confident he could keep himself from scooping Tiffany Wright over his shoulder and carting her off for acrobatic sex even if there had been trees, but honestly, the lack of them made it easier.
A cool drink,he agreed as gently as he could.It's two in the afternoon. A cool drink is suitable for negotiating over.
What's to negotiate?the koala said.We're meant to be! Let's do it! She's into us!
If the last part of that was true, then fate was much, much more generous than Ollie thought his koala deserved. He couldn't say it waswrong: Tiffany's gaze had barely left him since he'd come down the stairs, and there was a hunger in her teal-blue gaze that made him want to shiver. She was tiny: maybe a hundred and sixty centimeters, which translated to…small, in American measurements. Sunshine blonde curls spilled in a ponytail from under her hardhat, and she had delicate features, a petite nose, a small full mouth…
…and looked like she could bench press him. Herbiceps, visible in a short-sleeved shirt under her safety vest, were thick, solid muscle. Her shoulders had to be equally strong: they were wide for her size, at least, and although her general torso shape was indistinguishable beneath the vest, her thighs, clad in tight, thick blue jeans, looked carved of rock.
On second thought, he shouldn't have suggested going anywhere, because he wasn't sure he could walk with all the blood in his body concentrated in his crotch, but it was too late now. "A cool drink?" he asked again, aloud, but in carefully controlled, quiet tones.
Tiffany wet her lips, shook herself, wet her lipsagain—that wasn'tfair—and nodded. "It's not going to change anything," she warned. "I still have a contract."
"I understand."
"You'll want to go to Kate's." Sarah, the woman who had been about to intervene on his behalf, nodded across the square toward a cafe. "Great lemonade, great food in general, and also closer than anywhere else."
"Oh, good. Thanks. I don't know where anything is in this town," he said to Tiffany as he offered his elbow. To his dismay, although not really to his surprise when he thought about it, she cast him a look that suggested he was a lunatic, tossedher hardhat back toward her workspace, turned, and marched toward Kate's Cafe ahead of him.
Phwoar. Lookit her go. C'mon, mate, we gotta hit that.
Ollie closed his eyes, as if denying his koala the actual sight of Tiffany Wright's exceptionally well-formed backside would remove it from his mind's eye. He'd spent a lifetime dealing with the koala's temper—they were not nice, cuddly, sweet little beasts the way they looked—and he had long since learned that the only thing worse than its aggressive tendencies was trying to cope with its amorous ones. And this was worse than usual. Mostly it didn't care all that much about human women. Why would it? But apparently meetingthewoman, his fated mate,thatinterested the koala.
Unfortunately, it had seemed to have learned all of its vocabulary about human romance and romantic interactions from crude movies that Ollie himself had never actually watched. Occasionally he wondered if he spent whole nights bingeing bad movies while in koala form, his human self peacefully sleeping while the koala picked up language Ollie would never, ever use himself.
He'd taken several steps with his eyes closed by that time, and opened them just in time to trip over Tiffany. His legs were much longer than hers, and he'd caught up without meaning to. Before he could pull back or issue an apology, she, with the air of a woman who had dealt with handsy men a lot in her life, grabbed his wrist, dropped her weight, and rather magically flung him over her shoulder onto the ground in front of her.
He hit with awhumpthat knocked all the breath out of him. Stars danced in his vision and the sky swam above him for a few seconds. Then Tiffany Wright came into view above him, hands on her hips and an expression that said she knew she ought to be sorry, but wasn't, stamped clearly across her beautiful face.
The koala whispered,Oh my God,yes, and Ollie knew he was lost.
CHAPTER 3
Tiffany was almost certain she shouldn't have done that, but it was very hard to feel bad about it.
