Sympathy for the Devil (International Bad Boys Book 4) (6 page)

“Are you out of here too?” Zoey asked Caleb and he nodded.

“You
could
stay.”

“Nah, I’m crewing later. I live to work.”

“Especially on trivia nights,” said Zoey dryly. “Thanks for the keys.”

Caleb didn’t bother to hide his smirk as he waited for Bree to say a couple more quick hellos and goodbyes and leave. She was polite to his family, friendly but not effusive. She always had held back a little around his family. Maybe it was because she was an only child. Maybe it was just that she’d never quite fit into the rhythms of the bay.

He followed her from the room, fully aware of the whispers that ran in their wake. He only had to look sideways at a woman these days for rumor to have it that he was sleeping with her. It was a reputation he’d earned in full in his early twenties. He didn’t entirely deserve it nowadays. Not that it made any difference.

“Where are you parked?” she asked as the cool night breeze flattened her coat collar against her neck. She was wearing a thigh-length coat, a tight little skirt that showed off long legs and high-end summery shoes.

“Just over there.” He nodded in the direction of his ride.

She looked puzzled, right up until they stood beside the black and chrome motorcycle and he reached for the helmet sitting on the seat.

“You came here on a vintage Indian motorbike? And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“You know this ride?”

“Only by reputation. I did a photo shoot for a vintage motorbike dealership once. All the pretties, and they photographed like a dream. It was love at first sight.” Bree stroked the studded leather seat lovingly. “They had much newer model Indians than this one though. Where’d you get it?”

“Out of a paddock near Byron Bay. There were two of them. Me and Cutter pulled them apart and managed to put one functional bike back together. And then we tossed for it.”

“I don’t believe you two.”

“Truth is, he rides it whenever he wants and bitches me out when I bring it back dirty.”

“Do you still share everything?”

He dug in the saddle-bag for the half-helmet spare and handed it to her. “Not everything. I wouldn’t share you. To be fair, neither would he.”

She didn’t say anything and hot recklessness overtook him as he swung his leg over his baby and waited for Bree to slide on behind him. Yes, he wanted to feel the weight of her against him again. Yes, he wanted to feel her hands at his waist.

Could be he simply wanted Bree.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, light and tentative, as she stepped up on the passenger foot-peg and swung her leg over her bike. She cursed, softly, and he wondered how her skirt was faring and figured that if all else failed she could rely on that thigh-length coat to cover up whatever needed covering. He imagined her long, slender thighs wrapping around his bike and it was no stretch at all to summon a smile and run with that image.

“Everything all right back there?” he rumbled teasingly.

“You know exactly what’s happening back here,” she said. “I’m having a wardrobe malfunction.”

“You could always tuck in close.”

“I bet that’s what you say to all the girls.”

But her other hand came to rest low on his hip and her bare knees tucked in behind his and a long line of warmth settled against the back of his thighs. Didn’t matter that he had jeans on, she was wrapped around him, open to him, and she’d done this before, sat on a bike behind someone, she was just way too assured about the land of best fit.

“You’ve done this before?”

“Yes.” She leaned forward, lips to his ear and both of her hands now riding low. “I have an old classic Triumph and it’s the sweetest ride. Believe me, it goes. Does this one go?”

The engine roared to life and he smiled. Easy out of the gravel car park and staying just within the speed limit all the way to the pharmacy. That took two minutes and he waited, with the engine still running, while she collected whatever she had to collect.

And then she got on the bike all over again and he could have sworn that this time she barely bothered tugging her skirt back into place at all.

It was a five minute drive to her parents’ place.

Five minutes of thigh-to-thigh arousal and a thrumming between his legs that had nothing to do with horsepower. Sweet night air in his face and a warm woman at his back, and the sensation wasn’t as all-consuming as the lap of water all around him, but it was the closest he’d ever come to feeling at home outside of the sea.

Touch. Sensation on skin. He lived by it. Loved by it.

And so, instinct told him, did Bree.

“Thank you,” she said when they arrived at her folks’ house and he waited while she slid from the seat and hastily tugged her skirt back into place. Good legs,
great
legs and a very wary smile.

He wanted more than the feel of clothing between them. He wanted skin on skin, and just a little more of Bree and he knew where that came from, for it was a go-to memory. Moonlight and nakedness, desperation, and heat. “Come for a ride with me.”

“Did I mention that I plan to stay out of your way?”

“You did mention that.” He sent her a smile that usually ensured he got his own way. “You could always start tomorrow. River road, lighthouse and back again in half-an-hour. What do you say?”

“Is this the Caleb Jackson seduction special?”

“No, that would take longer.”

“If I do this, it’ll be because of the lure of the bike. Doesn’t mean I’m attracted to you.”

“Course not.” The hell she wasn’t.

“Or that I want you back in my life.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Or that I’m going to cave and take photos for Zoey.”

“You will not hear of that again from me.”

“Hey, Mr. Congeniality—don’t overplay it.”

“You’ve got five minutes to get back down here. If you’re not here I’ll leave. And much as I love those shoes and that skirt, you’re going to need to be wearing boots and jeans.”

He figured it for a good sign when she was back in three.

T
he road Caleb
took them on wound up towards the lighthouse. Plenty of curves and a very steep ascent, with ghost gums looming like pale fingers above them and dense undergrowth on either side of black bitumen. Tourists came here to see the lighthouse and stay at the local B&B. Locals came here to walk the bush tracks along the headland and to fish from the beach. The beach was unpatrolled and unpredictable. Few swam or surfed here, and when they did they often had a couple of people on a surf ski with them, ever-ready with a tow back in to shore.

Wildlife flourished here, kangaroos and wallabies, hawks, sea-birds, quolls, the occasional koala and everything under the sea. You could see Shark Rock and Green Island from here in the daytime, and long beaches punctuated by headlands to the north and south.

Come night-time the light from the lighthouse fanned out over the ocean.

It was as close to paradise as any earth-bound soul could be.

And then there was Caleb Jackson and his hips at her fingertips and his throbbing badass bike between her legs.

Plenty of purely mechanical reasons for Bree to be turned on as she slid from the bike and wondered what on earth she was doing up here with him. They hadn’t come here often as teens—none of them had. There were no memories of kisses or parties or late-night get-together’s to recall. The lighthouse keepers had never encouraged nocturnal happenings up at the lighthouse and maybe, just maybe, the elder Jacksons would have skinned their boys if they’d ever used it as a playground.

Let the Jackson boys get a little rowdy on land, but never ever bring it to sea.

Caleb stood the bike and unhooked his helmet before lazily easing from the bike.

“Lighthouse lookout?” he asked and she nodded, because that was where the light-show shone its best. They walked up past the three silent cottages. One for the lighthouse-keeper and two for his assistants—although it had been a long time since they’d been used as such. The lighthouse was fully automated now and as far as Bree knew, the National Parks service ran the cottages as a B&B.

Tonight they stood dark and empty, unused, with an air of neglect about them. “What happened to the B&B?”

“It’s closed for renovations. They’re getting rid of the lead pipes and paint.”

The footpath wound ever steeper and Bree was grateful that she wasn’t wearing the strappy sandals she’d worn earlier in the evening. Not that knee-high black leather boots were much better. He’d said jeans and boots. They were the only boots she’d brought with her from Sydney.

He stopped and turned to watch as she tried to stop the leather from cutting in at her ankles.

“Want a hand?” he asked finally.

Bree didn’t know which course of action would be the more foolish—taking the hand he held out to her or taking off her boots.

She took his hand and knew instantly that she’d made a huge mistake when her body responded with a fierce kick of need. Not a soft and manicured male hand, she’d shaken plenty of those, but a broad and capable hand bridged with nicks and callouses. One that anchored her effortlessly in place. Apparently, she had one hell of a kink for those.

She tried to keep pace with him, but there were steeper places where Caleb went first and gave her a tow. By the time they reached the little wooden lookout platform below the lighthouse, she was slightly out of breath and her fantasies concerning what those big, capable hands might wring from her were running rampantly out of control.

“That one was from a stingray tail,” he said gruffly, and she realized that she’d been tracing the ridges of an old scar on the back of his hand with her thumb.

“Oh.” Abruptly, she let his hand go. “Sorry.”

“The others are from fish-hooks, fins, claws and the occasional knife. Doesn’t matter how many gloves we wear, something always gets through.”

Part of her wanted to catalogue those nicks and ridges. To put them in front of a lens and add contrast for better emphasis. A kitten, maybe. Or a baby.

“They’re good hands,” she found herself saying quietly. And nothing else.

They watched the light roll out over the ocean for a while. Three bands of light and then a gap, another three bands and then a gap, and repeat. A different pattern for every lighthouse along the coast.

“I missed it, you know. When I left,” she offered quietly. “This place and the people in it. I didn’t think I would.”

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“When it came to photography, I found everything I’d been looking for and more. Teachers. Opportunity. Fulfilment. That part worked out just fine.”

“And the rest?”

“The rest covers a lot of ground. I’ve met fascinating people, but it’s a superficial world. I have a handful of friends. Not sure how far they’d carry me if I fell.”

“Yeah, that one often requires family.”

“I’ve always envied you yours.”

“You have one too.”

“I know.” A smaller unit altogether. “And it’s a beauty.”

“How bad is he, Bree?”

Her father. He didn’t need to say it. “Not good. But he hasn’t given up and neither will we.”

“You need anything you call me.” Caleb’s unflinching support all but broke her.

“So what about you?” She stared out over the water and tried to make sense of him. The boy he’d one been and the man he now was. “Have you ever felt the urge to leave the bay?”

“I’ve been away at times. I’ve scuba-dived the world over and I still run wreck-diving trips throughout Micronesia. I worked a fishing boat in the North Sea for a year when I was twenty. Cruelest sea I’ve ever seen. I worked an oil rig in the Bering Sea. Most dangerous diving I’ve ever done, but the pay was good and it got us the equipment we needed to start building bigger boats.”

“You went all over?” She didn’t understand it. “You were always just going to . . . stay.”

“I know. At eighteen, I thought I’d never leave, but I couldn’t always find what I wanted here. Sometimes I had to change direction.” He shrugged. “The difference between you and me is that I always come home.”

She’d underestimated him all those years ago. She hadn’t contemplated the ways in which he might use the family business as a base and branch out from there. “You’re kind of impressive. I never thought you’d leave.”

“I always kept the sea.”

“So that’s your anchor?”

He nodded.

“I didn’t know you very well back then, did I?”

“I’m not going to hold it against you.” He turned to look at her and she melted beneath the intensity of his gaze. “Sometimes I knew what I wanted, but not how to get it—you fell into that category. Oftentimes, I could have used a bit more maturity in order to see all the options available to me.”

“Could be I’m still in need of maturity,” Bree offered quietly, and let the serenity of the night help her choose her next words. “I came back here thinking that you wouldn’t want me anywhere near you. You tried to tell me differently this morning, but I wasn’t listening. Tonight I’m listening more.”

“You still carrying those regrets?”

“For the way I treated you and Cutter all those years ago? Yeah. They’re old companions.”