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‘It’s useless to talk about hypotheticals. Life doesn’t come with a guarantee. All we can do is do our best. I’m standing here telling you I’m going to do my best—what about you, Sarah?’

She stared back at him, wishing he were wrong. Wishing there were some guarantee someone could give her, some promise, that, no matter what, they’d be okay. But there were far too many uncertainties, too much unknown.

‘You’re overthinking it again,’ he said, with frustration. ‘You’re looking for a promise I can’t give you.’

‘I know,’ she whispered.

‘Stop thinking,’ he repeated. ‘Just…stop,’ and then he was pulling her body against his, kissing her until she was breathless and abandoned, just as she’d been out on the station, hours earlier. Her whole body seemed to thrum with heat as her legs lifted of their own volition and curled around his waist. He stood easily at this depth, and with her legs anchoring her to him, his hands were free to roam her body and explore, to unhook her bikini top, so he could drop his head and take one of her nipples in his mouth, tormenting it until she was whimpering his name into the desert night air.

‘Perfect,’ he groaned, moving to the other, so she arched her back and tilted her head towards the sky, staring at the sparkly blanket of stars as he made her body hum and sing. His hand moved between them, even as his mouth worked, and her senses were too scattered to know what was happening, until she felt his fingers nudge her bathers aside, and his arousal tilted against her sex.

‘Oh, God, please, Tate,’ she cried, knowing only that if they weren’t together in that moment, she might cease to live.

‘I’ll make you another promise, Sarah,’ he said, moving his hand to the back of her head and tilting her to face him. ‘I could do this with you all day, every day, but I will never let it change what we are. You and I both know sex is sex. I can sleep with you without falling for you, and I know it’s the same for you. See? You’re safe with me.’

‘Yes,’ she groaned, ignoring the way her chest suddenly felt incredibly heavy, and the waves of pleasure momentarily receded. It was only temporary, for then he was pushing inside her with slow determination, and Sarah was no sooner squeezing his length with her muscles than she was tumbling over the edge of pleasure, incapable of controlling her reactions to him, incapable of arguing the flipside of his statement—her brain was mush, her body lava, and she was okay with that, for now.

* * *

He’d half expected her to pull away from him again. Just as she had every other time they’d been together. Okay, the first time, it had been him. He’d pushed her away, and he’d known what he was doing. But after that, it was all Sarah. Every time they gave in to temptation, she beat herself up about it afterwards, and, in doing so, beat him up too.

So the last thing he anticipated hearing from her, after sanity had returned and he’d put some distance between them, was for Sarah to say, with a lazy half-smile, ‘Okay, now I’m hungry.’

He’d completely forgotten about his statement regarding dinner, so, too, the fact he’d been hungry enough to kill a horse an hour earlier.

‘I’ll go and get some food, then.’

‘I can help.’

‘It’s no trouble. It’s all made. I just have to put it in the microwave.’

Her lips pulled to the side. ‘If you’re sure.’

He was, and, in part, it was because he wanted a moment to gather his thoughts and get his head back in the game. Sarah had him dancing on eggshells way more than he’d ever felt with his father, because he never seemed to know which way she was going to go. The only thing he could count on with her was that their sexual chemistry would eat them alive if they weren’t careful.

But his assurance about being able to contain it to ‘just sex’ seemed to have done the trick. She seemed much more relaxed this time around. Then again, maybe it was just becoming more routine for them?

He closed the distance between them once more, pressing a finger beneath her chin to tilt her face to his. ‘Listen, Sarah. I know you probably have more questions, more things you want to discuss, but what if we don’t?’

She furrowed her brow but at least didn’t immediately argue with him.

‘What if, instead, we just spend the next few days together, like we agreed? See what life out here would be like.’

‘You mean…what do you mean?’

His smile was slow to spread, as suddenly his mind was populated with mental imagery of Sarah all over the station. On a horse, at the pens, eating lunch at the sheds with the staff. Being a real part of this. Being…something he’d never allowed—and would never allow—himself to want.

‘Come see how the place runs, see the town.’ His voice came out deep, gruff. He was trying to assert boundaries that he knew mattered, even when he didn’t want them to. ‘I promise, the more you see, the less you’ll doubt.’

She bit into her lower lip, so his whole body fired with renewed need.

‘And let’s both stop pretending we don’t want this,’ he said, moving forward, pressing himself against her. ‘It’s a silver lining to this whole thing, and I would rather make the most of that than not.’

CHAPTER TEN

SARAH HAD SPENT time in the English countryside, during the summer holidays, as a girl, and that had included horse riding. Her mother had not been an equestrian, but she’d wanted Sarah to learn, and, for Sarah, there had been something so freeing about being on the back of a horse and leaning forward, riding across fields—with an instructor, at first, and then on her own.

But it was nothing compared to the feeling of being on a horse at dusk, out here on the station. The sun was low in the sky, the palette all dusky oranges and mauves, and her pulse was thready. Because of the beauty of it all, because of the wildness, but also because of the man riding to her side.