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His smile lifted higher. ‘What do you think?’

He moved one hand to her bottom, pulling her forward, so she was hard against him. Her eyes widened, and he dared her, silently, to contradict him. To lie about what she was feeling.

‘I think you want me to take you, right here, beneath the sky.’ He dropped his head then, his mouth seeking the soft, bare flesh at the base of her neck and flicking it with his tongue before drawing it into his mouth until she was whimpering and shaking against him. Then he moved his other hand to her breast, cupping it with indolent, arrogant possession, his fingers moving over her nipple until her hips were writhing in a desperate, unspoken plea.

He lifted up his head to stare down at her, piercing her with his gaze, searching for something in the depths of her eyes. ‘I think you want me to fuck you until the air is filled with the sound of your screams, and my name is the only word you can remember.’ He drew her against him even harder, ignoring the fact his own desires and needs were turning him into something barely resembling a man. He felt part-beast, wild and driven by his most basic needs.

Needs that, in this moment, it felt as though Sarah, and Sarah alone, could meet.

‘I don’t know what’s happening,’ she said, lifting a hand to his chest, pressing it there. Not to push him away, but almost as if she needed reassurance that he, and this, were real. Reassurance he could definitely give.

‘Sex,’ he said, simply, the explanation intended to answer something within both of them. ‘Nothing more complicated than that, sweetheart.’ And then he was dropping his head towards hers, his lips a mere inch from her sweet softness. ‘Tell me I’m right.’

Her brows flexed together.

‘Tell me you want this.’

Her lips parted on something like surprise, and then, slowly, she was nodding. ‘I want…’ A flush crept up her neck, spreading through her cheeks, as her eyes dropped to his chest, shielded by her lashes. ‘I want everything you just said,’ she whispered.

He was tempted to push her, to make her beg for him to take her, just because he wanted to hear those words, and exactly those words, on her lips. But there was something he wanted even more, and that was to claim her here, on this ancient, beautiful land, to submit their pleasure to the sky overhead and let the elemental passion that stirred inside them explode into the ether, eternal and unforgettable.

‘I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that,’ he muttered, and then his hands were inside her underwear, stripping it from her body with as much speed as she’d shown restraint. Even as she stepped out of it, he was lifting her against his body, one arm clamped strongly around her slim waist as he carried her back to the soft expanse of grass near the water’s edge and placed her feet back on the ground, his hands on her hips pulling her down with him, so they were kneeling together, kissing, hands roaming each other’s bodies in a way that was completely abandoned, now that they were here, submitting to this.

He wanted to push her onto her back and take her, but it was Sarah who moved first, rocking him back on his haunches, gently guiding him to sitting, then climbing onto his lap, her eyes wild when they met his, as though a fever had overtaken her. A fever that drove her to lift up, then come down on his length, her head tilting back in a shock of pleasure as she took him deep inside, muscles tightening around him, until he could hardly breathe because of how intensely perfect this moment was. The gum leaves behind her whispered against the sky, the gentle breeze releasing a hint of eucalyptus in the air, so he knew that fragrance would always remind him of this—her.

But she was moving then, lifting her hips up and down, rocking back and forth, until there was nothing but this, and her, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever had a more perfect or pure moment.

* * *

Two days ago, they’d tumbled into bed together, and she’d been able to blame any number of things. She’d been able to blame him, too, for using the moment to force her hand, to get her to agree to the marriage. But as her breath returned to normal and the world slowly came back into focus—the deep call of the magpie, the rustle of leaves, the gentle lapping of water, the low buzz of tiny little bugs swarming the grass nearby—she couldn’t think of a single thing to blame for this but herself, and their chemistry.

The same heat that had sparked between them from the beginning and pushed them into bed together had roared back to life—a combination of proximity and temptation. Only it was something more, too, now. She didn’t want to admit that—hell, she was terrified to, but the truth was, his plan was working.

Sort of.

She was getting to know him, in all sorts of ways, and the more she saw, the more she…liked. At least, she no longer thought of him as some gruff, closed-off billionaire. There was so much more to him, and it made it almost impossible to fight temptation when he was around.

So what was the solution, then? To keep a distance from Tate, in the hopes this wouldn’t happen again?

Even as she thought of it, she shivered, pleasure easily stoking inside her as his hand trailed over her spine, towards the curve of her bottom. She wanted to stay just like this.

It was a scary thought. Red flags burst through her mind. It had been just Sarah’s mother and Sarah for as long as she could remember. There’d been a huge, gaping wound in her heart left by her father—by his decision not to be in Sarah’s life. And as her mother had worsened, towards the end, and told Sarah more of the details around his choice not to meet her, not to love her, it had been like losing both parents. It had reopened the wound Sarah had thought she’d dealt with.

Tate represented the biggest threat Sarah had known, because there was no way he’d ever care for her. No way he’d ever love her. For all she carried wounds from her childhood, he was the same. She saw it on his face any time he talked about his father, his mother, his stepmother. He’d been emotionally neglected—at best—and abused, more likely, by the people who were supposed to love him, and he’d built the walls around his heart so high and so solidly they could never be broken. As hard and unyielding as those trees on the ridge, he was ironbark—he’d grown that way by necessity; he’d never change.

Only the more time they spent together, the more intimate they became, and the harder she imagined it would be—for herself, anyway—to keep their lines from blurring. Which was why she had to be very, very clear about what she was prepared to give—and what she wasn’t. The rejection she’d felt all her life, from her father, made it imperative that she protect herself.

‘That shouldn’t have happened.’

His hand, on her hip, stilled a moment, before tracking a little lower, to the top of her leg. ‘No?’

She forced herself to meet his gaze as she shook her head.

‘You didn’t enjoy yourself?’ His voice was rich with arrogance and disbelief, so her gaze slipped to the watering hole, rather than be probed by him.

‘It’s not that.’

‘I know.’