So Far Into You (25 page)

‘Thank you.'

‘That sound you can probably hear is me kicking myself for wasting five years before I got around to telling you how incredible you are.'

It took a moment for his words to get through, as if he spoke in code that didn't compute. Then she smiled. She was still smiling when she threw herself into his arms.

As kisses went, Remy thought later, it wouldn't have won a prize for finesse.

Her jump was overeager and he wasn't ready, and really, she was lucky his arms were strong and his body was built to take flying leaps from eager women because if he'd been any less solid, she'd have knocked him into next week. As it was, he let out a kind of
oomph
, and stumbled until his backside found some support on her kitchen countertop. Her nose bumped his cheek. Her hair was in her face, in her eyes. Her knee bunted his shin and she thought her tooth might have cut his lip.

‘Don't you fuckin' dare kill me before I get this kiss,' he muttered against her mouth, and that started her laughing, until the midnight gleam in his eyes ignited a yearning in her belly and all her giggles died, like he'd robbed them of air.

He smoothed the hair from her face. Clamped one fist around the strands at the back of her head and brought his forehead to hers. His scent was so familiar. Her soap. Her house. Dog. Underpinned by a scent so uniquely Seth, it brought tears to her eyes because nothing else,
no one
else, would ever smell like this. Not exactly like this. Ever.

‘Don't kill me, before I get …
this.
' His lips touched hers.

This time, it was slow and perfect, until it was ragged and amazing and Remy was standing on the tips of her bare toes with her whole body leaning into him and their breathing the loudest thing in the room.

‘Kill me now. I'll go happy.' He set her on the soles of her feet, looking a bit like a guy who'd been given the world, with a cherry on top.

***

‘I've got a confession to make,' he said later, as she sliced pumpkin for the pizzas and swiped homemade pesto across a pitta bread base. He'd switched from champagne to red wine and he spun the liquid and watched it trail legs inside the glass.

Remy could smell the wine from where she sliced. ‘What did you do now?'

‘I snooped in your photo albums while you were in the shower.'

‘Some of those albums are my mum's. They go a long way back. I'm storing them.'

‘Can I show you something I found?'

It sparked her curiosity. ‘Sure.'

Seth moved to the bookcase, squatted at the bottom shelf in a way that did incredibly hot things to his backside in jeans.
Breathe, Remy.
He pulled out one of the fattest albums—an old one she'd covered in scrapbook-style material a decade ago or more—and brought the tome back to the countertop.

He flicked through a few pages. ‘There aren't that many pictures of you as a baby.'

‘We didn't have much money for developing photos. They cost a bomb back then.' Would she ever be able to make an admission in her life about money, or lack of it, without feeling embarrassed?

‘There's not many of your father either,' Seth said.

‘He was never home.'

‘This one.' Seth turned the album on the bench so Remy could see it right way up and tapped the picture.

Black and white, faded with age, it was an image of a group of six young men and women on the beach. Remy had always loved it for the bathers the women wore. Sixties-style bikinis. It was a lovely, candid shot of happy people: her mother having fun.

‘Mum called that place Trickle Beach. It's not far from Kilcarnup. It was our favourite spot for picnics when I was little. Four-wheel drive track though.' She pointed Lexie out to Seth.

‘I thought that must be your mum. She's so much like you.'

Seth indicated the man in the photo who had his arm around Lexie, his outstretched hand buried in the sand beside her. ‘Do you know who this is?'

Remy shrugged. ‘Mum said he was some guy they met at the beach. He was there fishing. That's her friend Janice, she was a nurse. This guy was Lance. That's another couple of nurses Mum worked with. I can't remember their names.'

‘That guy is my dad,' Seth said. ‘That's Joe. He called this beach Joey's Nose—not after himself, by the way.'

‘Really?' Remy peered closer, looked at Seth a couple of times. ‘I asked Mum once if she knew your parents. She said she did, but she didn't let on much. She said it was a small town and everyone knew everyone.'

Seth turned the album back to face him on the bench, flipped through another few pages, but there were no more pictures of Joe and Lexie.

‘I'll have to ask her about that next time I speak to her,' Remy said.

‘Do you talk to your mother much?'

‘Every few weeks.'

Seth replaced the photo album in the bookshelf. He detoured to the fridge to refresh Remy's glass. She had the oven preheating, fan running, and it added that background hum of white noise to the room, along with champagne bubbles, slicing, dicing and the kitchen hustle of drawers opening and closing, plastic chopping boards sliding on timber.

‘I've never thought of putting pumpkin on a pizza,' Seth said, watching her chop.

‘It's good. This one is fetta, pumpkin, oregano, caramelised onion, olives.' Behind her, the oven clicked that it was up to temperature. ‘Going in right now.'

Seth's mobile phone buzzed a couple of times as she cooked. The third time he checked the device and Remy saw him frown.

‘What's up?'

‘It's that journalist from Channel 7. Jennie Grey. She's been chasing us for an interview the last few days.'

Remy stopped spreading mozzarella over the second pizza. ‘Us?'

‘She wants to come up here and take some photos of us at home and interview you.'

It hit the pit of her stomach like a lump of lead. ‘Interview me? The media?'

‘Don't worry, Rem. I'm putting her off.'

‘Why would anyone want to interview me?' She grumbled. ‘You maybe, sure. But me? I'm nobody.'

‘You're not nobody, and don't worry about it.
The Advertiser
is her direct competition, and I've been in the papers a hundred times. I think she's just looking for a different angle out of those snippets in the paper. Don't worry. I'll look after it.'

Remy sipped her champagne, glad the food wasn't far away. She was starting to feel light-headed and that dizzy feeling wasn't helped by thoughts of journalists and cameras.

‘You know what I've really loved about living in the Adelaide Hills?' She said.

‘What?'

‘I love that no one knows me. I love how anonymous I am here, especially how it was in the beginning. Do you know that in five years, I can only remember one time when I ran into someone I knew in the supermarket in Mount Barker? It's not like living in Margaret River.'

‘That might change, if you're serious about being with me.'

‘Yeah. I'm kind of afraid of that.'

‘Can you handle it, Rem? I mean, without freaking out. Because if it's an issue we should probably stop right here.'

She wished her stomach didn't give that awful lurch at the thought of stopping right here. The last thing she wanted to do was
stop right here.

‘Maybe stop after pizza, hey? I'm starving.' She tried for a tone that said she was good with it, but her hand shook and mozzarella cheese missed the pizza topping and skittered across the counter. Seth reached for her wrist, held firm enough that her gaze flicked to his.

‘I don't want to stop. I'm all in, Rem. I'm so far into you I couldn't find my way back if you gave me a torch.'

Her arm jerked in his hand, she couldn't help it. All of a sudden it was like the heat in his skin would burn her up.
Hell and Tommy,
what was she supposed to say to that?

The oven timer buzzed. So she said: ‘Pizza.'

Chapter 23

Remy Roberts shouldn't be allowed to eat pizza. It wasn't fair. Watching her pink tongue curl around a melted strand of mozzarella cheese was its own special kind of torture, and don't get him started on the way she licked her fingers, or what it did to him when she pulled off an olive and popped it in her mouth.

She didn't even know she was doing it. He loved that about her.

Another thing he loved on her was that ankle chain. He'd linked silver jewellery and Remy in his mind all these years, but that dainty damn slink of gold on her foot had him rewriting his own preferences.

He'd like to see her wearing only that, nothing else. He'd like to kiss his way round it, nibble at her skin.

‘Are you done? There's another half if you want it,' she said.

‘As far as food goes, I'm all full up.'

He'd made her blush again. She stood to clear the plates, and he said, ‘Remy,' once, to make her stop, and then: ‘come here, beautiful.'

Her first response was so primitive, it made her ache. When he said her name, when he held his hand out to her, she wanted to climb into his solid, strong chest and burrow there forever. She wanted to feel his big arms haul her so tight, she'd never be let go.

Except this time she didn't need shelter or protection from a storm. It wasn't raining and nor did she want to hide away from the world. If she was going to be with Seth, it would be as equals. Partners.

So she smiled at him, let go of her shyness, banished her fears of not being pretty enough or rich enough or good enough to keep him. There was honesty in his eyes when he called her beautiful, a raw need that dismissed her doubts.

‘I don't think so,' she said, backing away with her hands filled with pizza plates and her smile filled with promise. ‘You come here.'

He was out of the chair in a flash, stalking across the floorboards. She barely had time to put the plates on the kitchen counter before he caught her to him, pressing her back, moulding her body to his.

He picked up a thick handful of her hair and rubbed it through his fingers, lifting it away from her neck. ‘You've been driving me crazy every second I've been inside this house. You're all over it, everywhere around me.'

His lips found her neck and she sighed, tilting her head to give him access, wanting more of his mouth and his hands and just
him
…

‘Hold on,' he whispered as his breath grazed her skin. His hands gripped her hips and he picked her up, setting her butt gently on the kitchen bench. ‘I think that's safer.'

So their second kiss started perfect, straight off the bat. No bunted shins, no split lips. Then Remy whispered, ‘bugger being safe, Stud,' and opened her mouth to let him in.

***

She woke to the sound of the curtain being pulled aside in her bedroom and the very first thing she did was blush.

Hell and Tommy,
what a night.

She didn't want Seth to know she was awake. She wanted a few precious seconds to relive those recent hours. It started on the kitchen bench. It ended in her bed. She was pretty sure somewhere in the middle they'd christened the couch.

‘I know you're awake, Rem.' He pulled the curtain completely open and bright light flooded into the room.

‘That's
so
not nice,' Remy groaned, twisting away from the light.

‘Never said I was nice.'

She giggled.

He pulled the covers back and they fought for a bit, stark naked, until all the bits of her that wobbled during wrestling games caught his attention, and made the part of him that might have wobbled not wobble at all.

Seth wrapped her up in the quilt and stopped her struggles.

‘You don't fight fair,' she grumbled.

‘I don't want to fight at all. You killed my fighting mood. Come share a shower with me.' He kissed her fingers, entwining them in his.

‘You've only got three minutes. I'll have the eggtimer on you.'

‘Jeez. Can I handle the pressure?' He tugged her arm.

The ensuite had been built beneath the low sloping roof of what had once been a verandah. Seth's head didn't fit beneath the shower-rose, so he had to bend his knees. Thirty seconds into their wash he gave up, dropping to those awful pink and beige tiles.

Remy squirted shampoo in her hands and lathered his hair. The shower spray washed the foaming suds away. He took the soap and rubbed her stomach, breasts, hips, thighs, making circular swirls all over her skin.

Remy leaned back against the wet wall and closed her eyes, shivering where the tiles were cold. Then he made her so hot with his hands, she needed the cool to keep her standing straight. Somewhere, late in the second minute or early in the third, his tongue replaced his fingers.

‘Like that. Oh, just like that,' she muttered, opening her thighs wider.

She really didn't think she could go another round this morning, she ached all over in the very best of ways, but then Seth's tongue delved deeper, shooting waves of pleasure through her, and she changed her mind.

Gripping his shoulders, she held on hard, felt it build; roll, then rock through her, and as she shuddered to her climax, she shouted his name.

He kissed her belly button, held her through the tremors. ‘That's gotta be some kind of record.'

‘Don't sound so proud. You've got about fifteen seconds before I turn off the water and call the show and the shower over.'

Seth stood up beside her. ‘Rem, all I need is ten strokes.'

She laughed and closed her hand around him: ‘Let's see how many times ten goes into fifteen.'

Chapter 24

They took the dogs for a run in the vineyard after breakfast so Remy could inspect the fruit. Seth took measurements and they both agreed, by the end of the week Remy's grapes would hit the sweet spot.

Seth squinted at the gum trees lining the road and in the pockets of bush surrounding the vineyard. ‘You ever get any problem with birds?'