Page 72 of Outback Reunion

‘Please. I want to pay for it.’

He glanced sideways at her. Man, she was hot. Some very naughty thoughts landed in his head. ‘Then how about you agree to going on another date with me?’

‘The first one wasn’t a date, remember. It was just two old friends catching up over drinks.’ She bit her lip, clearly stifling a smile. ‘Anyway, I can’t go on a date with you. I’ve got Luna.’

‘She can come with us.’

‘Sounds very romantic,’ Gabriela said wryly as she picked up a stick and threw it for Rookie. The dog immediately rushed after it. ‘I thought you said she couldn’t be trained.’

Mark shoved down his disappointment that she’d rejected him. ‘Try to get her to give it back so you can throw it again.’

Rookie bounded back with the stick between her teeth but when Gabriela reached out her hand to take it, the dog jumped back like a total tease.

Mark chuckled. ‘Told ya. I keep telling her I can’t throw balls and sticks if she doesn’t give them back to me, but she just doesn’t listen.’

Gabriela gave up as Rookie saw a pink and grey galah land a few metres away and darted after it.

Mark went back to work, deliberately letting his t-shirt ride up his back as he leaned over the bonnet. He may not train as hard as he once did—okay, not at all—and he may have let his nutrition slide since he’d left Melbourne, but he still had a body he knew plenty of women drooled over and he couldn’t resist trying to use it.

Stooped over, he couldn’t see Gabriela’s face, but he sensed from the way she cleared her throat then made a tiny mewling noise that she wasn’t entirely unaffected.

And when he slammed the bonnet shut and turned around, she was staring at him as if he was a thirst trap.

‘That should do the trick,’ he said. ‘Do you want to test it?’

She nodded but took a few long seconds to make a move and when she stepped past him, his hand shot out to grab her wrist.

‘I would have stood by you,’ he said. ‘After I woke up and you were gone, I looked for you for months. I went to clubs all over Melbourne, to musicals and other shows. I looked all over social media but there’s a surprising number of Gabrielas around. Anyway, I never stopped thinking about you, so yes. I would have stood by you. If you’d come back to me, I’d have welcomed you with open arms, whether Luna was mine or not.’

Gabriela blinked as if fighting tears. ‘You don’t know that. We barely knew each other. We barelyknoweach other.’

‘Really?’ He quirked an eyebrow. ‘Is that how you feel? Because I feel like I know you almost as well as I know myself. Didn’t we agree we must have met in the past?’

It sounded insane but it was true.

‘Argh!’ She startled him with the exclamation. ‘You make me crazy!’

And before he could reply, she dragged his face to hers and kissed him.

Liquid heat flooded his body as his muscles relaxed and pleasure replaced the doubts that she wasn’t as attracted to him as he was to her.

She wouldn’t kiss him like this if she wasn’t. There was no hiding the desire in this kiss. God, she tasted better than beer, better than chocolate cake, better than any other woman he’d ever been with.

Their hands and mouths moved with a desperate urgency, as if neither of them could get enough.

‘We shouldn’t do this,’ she all but moaned as he moved his mouth down to taste the soft skin at the nape of her neck. The hickey he’d given her last night was still there and he had an intense urge to brand her again, to put his mark over every inch of her skin.

‘Why not? We’re both single, consenting adults, aren’t we?’

She nodded, her expression halfway between torture and pleasure. ‘Yes. But... I should be getting back to Luna.’

‘I can be fast,’ he promised, sneaking his hand beneath her t-shirt.

‘God, Mark.’ She moaned again as he cupped her breast.

Feeling her melting beneath his touch, he put his other hand on her back to draw her closer. Her body fitted perfectly to his as if they were two parts of a whole.

As he played at her nipple with his fingers through her bra, she pressed her hips closer to him, teasing his already hard erection. It was then he remembered that he didn’t have a condom.