So Far Into You (34 page)

Strange, the difference a year makes.

Last time Seth Lasrey sat his backside in Cafe Nix, he'd flirted with the waitress, Tamsin, because she reminded him of Remy. It was something in the way she moved. That same willowy walk. Not exactly like Remy. No one moved like Remy. Remy's walk was easy as water sliding over glass.

That was February last year when he'd met with Max Montgomery and Montgomery's accountant. They'd all been in Sydney for the Sydney Wine Show where he and Max had signed the deal for Lasrey to buy Montgomery Wines, over a lunch of the best pork belly Seth had ever tasted.

‘You always like to see the wine list first, Mr Lasrey. I remember,' Tamsin said now, materialising beside him.

‘I do, and thank you, but I already know what I want.'

She paused, fixing him with green eyes that had probably seen every come-on known to woman or waitress and anticipated one right now: ‘And what would that be?'

‘Pork belly and a bottle of Bowen Estate Cabernet.'

‘Ah,' and her eyes crinkled into a smile that held genuine warmth. ‘Good for you. Nice choice.'

Tamsin eased her way back toward the bar and Seth pulled his phone and earpieces from his satchel. It was just after eight, Cafe Nix gearing up for another busy night. Most of the tables held couples. Some were groups, business meetings he suspected, or tourists. A stuffed koala poked out of an older lady's handbag and the young boy with her had an Australian flag tucked across his thighs.

It would be 7.30 pm in Adelaide. They were in the middle of a heatwave there. Remy said last night it was expected to last another two days and she almost sounded disappointed. She loved the heat.

He'd bet she was wearing her shorts right about now. Her shortest shorts. The Jessica Simpson/Daisy Duke denim ones that showed the curve of her arse when she bent over in the garden. Probably in tandem with her purple tank top: the one with material that could have hugged a pencil it clung so damn tight. If she'd been digging or pruning—and she was always digging or slashing at something, or getting him digging or slashing at the tougher stuff—there'd be a darkened purple vee in that sweet valley between her breasts. She'd be hot. Drippy. Sweaty. Remy.

He let his thoughts rest there for a few pleasurable seconds. Then he thought about her boots.

He couldn't picture Remy any other way. He'd lost count of the times in the last year he'd told her she should appear in adverts for Blundstone. It would have solved all her money problems in a heartbeat. Bugger the bank.

A junior waitress, not Tamsin, brought him a bottle of iced water. Seth loosened his tie, tugged it out of his collar, undid the top button, started to feel human.

He put the first of his earpieces in, watching Tamsin pick her way through the tables with his bottle of Bowen. She poured without stopping to let him test it. Another testament to her good memory. He'd never been one for testing wine in a restaurant. There were so many screw caps nowadays the odds of finding a corked wine were pretty much zero. He didn't like the wank value of it either.

Red wine flowed. Tamsin put the bottle in a Cafe Nix holder, smiled at him, and kept moving.

Seth swirled the liquid, buried his nose in the glass.

He and Max had drunk Bowen Estate last year too. Max had got himself so pissed over lunch he hadn't been able to back up in time for the Awards dinner that night. Montgomery's winemaker, Lewis Carney, had accepted the trophy for best white wine in show on Max's behalf.

Seth put his other earpiece in. The hum of conversation over cutlery receded. From his seat, he could see Sydney Harbour shining: the bridge lit up like half a lemon alight.

Remy rang at quarter to eight, Adelaide time. On the dot.

‘Hey,' he said, 'cause he'd forgotten the cool greeting he'd planned the second the screen lit up with her name.

‘Hey yourself. How's it going?'

‘Hot.'

‘Not as hot as here. It hit thirty-nine today. The dogs are licking an ice-cream container milk-ice block.' She laughed. God he loved her laugh. ‘Can you hear them?'

Seth listened. A vague canine growling that could have been his stomach came down the phone. He smiled anyway. Remy and those dogs were his life. Two American Staffordshire Terriers: Occhilupo the male, and Breeze, and now their puppy: Judster. Juddy was the last of the six pups they'd had last year. The others had all sold to good homes.

‘I miss you,' he said. ‘Next time you have to come with me. You'd love Sydney.'

‘I'd hate Sydney. I don't even like little old Adelaide. I don't like cities.'

‘You'd like this restaurant. It has crab.'

‘I'm so there. When are you taking me, cheapskate?'

He laughed. Loud enough to make the woman with the koala in her bag glance his way. ‘Don't make me laugh, Rem. People are staring.'

‘You're probably wearing odd socks.'

He inched an ankle out from the table. ‘Nope.'

‘I knew you'd check. Three days away from me and you can't even dress yourself with surety. How the mighty Seth Lasrey has fallen.'

Softly, because the woman with the koala was checking him out again, he said: ‘I love you. I miss waking up with you in the morning. I miss listening to you snore. I'm not the same man without you.'

‘I don't snore.'

He smiled. It was so like Remy. He declared undying love and emotion. She talked about odd socks and snoring. Remy's emotions were still shackled somewhere inside that lovely big heart she let slumber in her chest.

It used to bug him. Now he accepted it for what it was. Remy's father was a drunk. He'd died about six years ago in a car accident in Margaret River. She'd grown up listening to him make promises to her mother: that he'd stop drinking, that he'd be a better husband, that he loved her, that he wouldn't gamble anymore, that he'd change … and it never amounted to anything.

She'd told Seth once she'd prefer to show him how much she loved him every day, than tell him. Words were cheap. Words didn't mean anything.

He took another sip of his wine.

‘So what are you having for dinner?' She asked him.

‘Pork belly.'

‘Gee you have a hard life.'

‘You're the one who makes it harder.'

‘Bet I made it hard last night,' she said, voice lowering to that sexy purr she did so well.

‘I'm not alone in my hotel tonight, Rem. I'm in a crowded restaurant. So we'd better not repeat the experience.'

‘Are you sure? It sounds like it might be fun. You always said you wanted me to keep your number on my phone sex personal speed dial.'

‘You wouldn't be so keen to get me all revved up if you laid eyes on the waitress. She walks like you,' Seth said, shifting slightly in his chair because even this much suggestion from Remy had his cock stiffening. No wonder she'd been good at her second job.

‘You said nobody walks like me.'

‘Well she goes close, Rem. She's got hair halfway down to her arse, like you. If I closed my eyes, and she closed her eyes, we could pretend.'

‘Why does she have to close her eyes?'

‘They're green. Only grey eyes work for me these days.'

‘I think you just drew a line through ninety-five percent of the female population.'

‘Then it's lucky I got you.'

‘What about her legs. Are they like mine?'

Seth slowly tracked Tamsin across the restaurant floor. She was leaning over another table, pouring wine. Her tight black skirt crept up her thighs to a backside shaped like a double quarter peach.

He stifled a groan. ‘You have no idea what you're doing to me here, Rem.'

‘Yes I do.'

‘You must trust me more than you trust yourself.'

‘I do. I trust you with my life. That's the only reason I play the game.'

‘You wait till I get home. You won't walk for a week.'

She gave him a giggle filled with promise, then said: ‘How's the wine show going?'

‘It's good. Judging was today. Presentations are tomorrow night.'

‘I hope Chameleon wins.'

‘Me too.'

Remy's grapevines provided the fruit for Montgomery Wines flagship Adelaide Hills Chameleon Sauvignon Blanc.

‘I can't believe you and Rina weren't going to make Chameleon last vintage,' she said.

It was a gentle dig and he didn't mind. ‘That was a different stage of our relationship, Remy Roberts. If you remember, I hated you then. I didn't mind at all the thought of bankrupting you and having you beg me for mercy. On your knees.' The lady with the koala glanced at him and he turned away from her, lowered his voice further and said: ‘with your skirt pulled up over your arse and your knees wide, so I could see your pussy spread for me.'

‘Hell and Tommy,' Remy said, a little breathless. ‘You are getting good at this.'

He felt a jolt of satisfaction and delight. His cock got a jolt of delight too. Not sure about satisfaction. But that was part of what made these phone calls when he was out of town fun, and he would get his own back on the teasing, they both would. Two days from now when he drove into her cottage on Red Gum Valley Road and wrapped her in his arms, because she was everything he wanted.

‘Well if I'm on my knees … you know where that leaves you vulnerable, Seth. You'd be standing before me …'

Jolt. Jolt.

‘You'd be hard as a rock. That cock of yours would already be jutting from your pants, just waiting for my mouth to close over it, take you so far in.'

Jolt didn't cut it. He had no words to describe what this woman did to him.

A hand touched his shoulder and he spun. It was Tamsin with his pork belly in the crook of her arm, on a wide, white plate.

‘Hold on,' Seth said to Remy, taking the earpieces out.

‘I'm very sorry to interrupt you, Mr Lasrey. Your call looks most important. I didn't want to place the plate and startle you.'

‘That's fine, Tamsin.' He leaned his upper body away, sliding his chair back all of two millimetres because he couldn't risk her seeing the tent in the front of his pants.

A smile curled the waitress' lovely lips. Was it a knowing one? Seth wasn't about to find out. He'd jump off the Sydney Harbour Bridge before he cheated on Remy.

Tamsin put the plate in front of him. ‘I hope you enjoy your meal.'

‘Thank you, I will.' He'd enjoy making a meal of Remy too, when he got home. Seth put the earpieces back in. ‘Sorry about that, sweetheart. My pork belly just came.'

‘Lucky it came before you did.'

She chuckled: a happy sound, like a glass jar of bouncing jellybeans. It made him chuckle too. They were quiet for a beat and then she said: ‘I love you.'

Seth stopped laughing. ‘Our phone calls never ended that way before.'

‘I know. I'm saying it now.'

‘I love you, Rem.'

‘I know. You say it all the time.'

And normal service was resumed. ‘So I'm hanging up now, before you kill my buzz.'

‘Happy pork belly, Seth. Sleep well.'

‘Goodnight, Crazy Lady.'

Seth unplugged his earpieces and tucked them and his phone in his satchel. The boy at the table with the woman with the koala gave him a grin that was missing two front teeth. ‘Were you playing Angry Birds, mister?' The kid said.

His mother, or she might have been grandmother, said: ‘Don't stare, Bradley Randy Bishop. It's rude.'

Seth laughed as he picked up his fork. ‘No mate, I wasn't playing Angry Birds.'

‘Definitely not Angry Birds,' the woman said to him. And she winked. ‘Turtle Doves maybe.'

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