The Goodbye Ride (8 page)

He put the flowers on the bench, leaned his
hips on the bevelled edge and folded his arms across his chest. “You really
live here?”

“It’s my parent’s house.”

“Yeah. But you
live
here? I don’t
get that. How old are you?”

“You can talk. You’re squatting at your
aunt’s. What’s the difference?” She fumbled around in the crystal cabinet,
concentrating on not smashing her mother’s neat rows to smithereens.

“I’m staying with Aunt Margaret because
Mark is on the invalid list and she needs a hand. It’s not the same. You could
move out on your own. Cut the apron strings.”

“You think I
want
to live with my
parents?” Liv fumed. Her hand closed about a heavy rectangular vase and she
came up from her crouch thinking how ready she was to drop it on Owen’s toe.
“You don’t know anything about me.”

“That’s because you won’t tell me anything
about yourself.”

“I can’t see why you’d care? It’s not as if
you’re staying around. Anyway, you have—”

“I have what?” The muscle flicked in his
jaw.

You have Vanessa.
“Nothing.” She stared at the sparkling
crystal in her hand.

His fingers tapped a beat on the old wax
bench. “If you’re talking about Antarctica, I told you I hadn’t decided whether
I’d go yet.”

“Yes—because of your Pop and because of a
girl—I get it.” She waved the vase impatiently. “Look, Owen, no offence, but
what I do, who I do it with, where I live? None of it is any of your bloody
business.”

“The hell it’s not.” Owen bounced from the
kitchen bench. “You’re the damn girl, Olivia.”

His words exploded into the space between
them like a volcano unleashed. The intensity left her breathless. It surprised
him too, because his face softened and he stepped back.

For long seconds they just stared at each
other, until Liv took a careful breath, as if testing the air. “
I’m
the
girl?”

“I’m sorry, that didn’t come out right,”
Owen lifted his hand, palm down. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Liv stepped around his legs, stepped around
the kitchen bench, buying time so she could process what she’d heard. He
reached for her arm, thought better of it, and dropped his hand to his thigh.

Pushing the pile of plates out of her way,
she shoved the vase under the cold tap. Cutlery and glass grated in the
stainless steel sink.

Liv picked up a camellia stalk, slid it
into the vase, picked up another and spun the flower in her fingers. “Owen, if
I’m… the girl. Why did you make me think you had a girlfriend? Who is Vanessa?”

“Vanessa?”

“A woman rang you today? This afternoon...
when we…well, I think you were about to kiss me…in the shed. Mark called her
your girlfriend.”

“
Vanessa?
Vanessa Bell runs the
Hahndorf Respite Care service. Granddad had a turn late today. I’ve just been
in to see him.” Then he shook his head. “Bloody Mark. Don’t believe a word he
says. He was just stirring me. He knows I like you.”

That admission made blood bolt to her
cheeks. “Oh.”

“Yes. Oh,” Owen said pointedly. “You’re the
one who assumed I had a girlfriend remember? The one who wouldn’t like getting
helmet hair?”

Now she was the one who needed a helmet,
something to hide the crimson flush she was certain crept to the crown of her
head. “You could have set me straight, like you did when I thought Mark’s ute
was yours.”

“If I’d known that was all that was holding
you back. I’d have come clean in record time.” His eyes creased into one of his
killer smiles.

Liv got caught by the light in his eyes
which meant her second reaction—the one she probably should have thought of
first—was a little belated. “I hope your Pop’s okay?”

“Granddad’s fine. He’s tough as old boots.”

This time, Owen did reach for her arm.
Leaning over the bench, he took her wrist lightly in one hand, plucked the
camellia from her fingers and tucked it into the vase. His touch triggered
thrills all over her skin and she had to lean into the bench with her thighs so
her legs wouldn’t tremble.

“Come for a ride on the Duke with me, Liv.”
His voice was soft, husky, and his charcoal gaze held hers. “Now. Tonight. Get
your stuff.”

She stared at the polished surfaces of her
mother’s kitchen, trying to remember where she’d left her handbag, phone,
lipstick.
Stuff.
“What stuff?”

“You’ve got a riding jacket? Leathers? A
helmet? You can’t ride like that.”

She looked down at the tracksuit. “Oh.
Okay. Sure. Hang on. I’ll be quick.”

“I’ll be here.”

Liv raced to her mother’s junk room. That
too was immaculate. In the cupboard labelled ‘Olivia’, she dragged out
leathers, gloves and helmet, before hurrying to her bedroom to rip off the
tracksuit. She pulled on a singlet and a rolled-neck top, then the jacket—all
black. The leathers were stiff. Either she’d put on a few pounds since she’d
last worn them or they’d shrunk. The pants clung to her thighs like black to
night.

“Everything okay in there, Olivia?” Owen
called.

There was no time to change into her trusty
jeans now, Liv thought, staring at the imposter in her mirror—at a girl with
eyes too-bright and cheeks too-pink.

“Live a little, Liv,” she hissed at her
inner Catwoman, wrapping the pink scarf around her neck and snatching up the
helmet before she could change her mind.

When she emerged from the hall, she forgot
her wish for jeans.

Owen’s eyes lingered the length of her
body, loitered on the return journey, and the wide sweep of his mouth broke
into a lop-sided grin. He flicked the remote at the television, cut Graham
Norton and the statuettes off mid-note, and returned to his slow appraisal.

“Wow.”

The blaze of pure male appreciation made
her heart dive through her ribs with a single, ragged,
thump.

Liv tried to will the hot blush from her
throat—
hell—
tried to will that blush from
everywhere.
Her core
temperature must have climbed ten degrees.

“You’ve been stuck on Antarctica too long.
A penguin would look hot to you.”

“No penguin I ever saw looked that good.”

He pushed off the bench and moved close. So
close she could smell the heady scent of leather and didn’t know if it was his,
or hers. Saliva pooled on her tongue, rich with the taste of how much she
wanted him.

“God, Liv. If we don’t go for this ride
right now…”

“If we don’t go…” Her lips popped apart and
she heard his muffled groan against her hair. She was so sure he’d draw her
closer. She ached to be in his arms—but with one hand on her shoulder, he held
her away.

“I want that ride, Lovely. I’ve been
thinking about how it would feel to have you pressed up against me all day.”

Liv tilted her head back so she could see
his eyes. “Luke used to call me that.
Lovely
. You’re the only other
person who’s ever said it.”

“It’s true. You put those beautiful eyes
together with this stubborn little chin...” the hand on her shoulder moved and
his finger grazed her jaw, brushed her lips: “and this mouth.”

Owen’s hands, his words, they worked on her
brain and her body like a drug and she felt her eyes start to drift closed,
knew she swayed nearer.

“Fresh air, Liv,” Owen said on a jagged
breath. “That’s what we both need. Let’s go.” He took her hand and led her up
her parents’ hall, then waited while she locked the door.

The fresh air slapped them both sober.
Freeway noise drifted over the town and the night was lush with dew and
cuttingly cold. From the main street, music played. A Bon Jovi cover.

Liv found her boots, pulled on her helmet
and snapped the visor in place. Last, she tugged on her gloves. Owen mounted
the Ducati and switched on the ignition. If she’d been worried about the
neighbours earlier, she cringed doubly now—at this rate none of them would
sleep for a week. Even on idle, that v-twin roar was
loud.

She swung her leg over the bike. The padded
seat cushioned her thighs and she searched for the footrests, resting her hands
lightly either side of Owen’s waist. Owen reached back and wrapped her arms
around his waist until her tummy pressed hard into the small of his back and
her breasts crushed his shoulder blades. Leather met leather. Thigh met thigh.
Soft curves met hard, lean muscle.

They accelerated into the night. Owen rode
through the roundabout out to the Freeway and picked up speed up the long
stretch of hill. Freight trucks crawled like bloated snails and the Ducati
streamed past, houses and streetlights blurring behind them in orange and
yellow ribbons.

She’d forgotten how thrilling it was to
ride a bike fast at night. She’d forgotten the rush, the roar; the vibrations
that throbbed right through her.

Liv moved when Owen moved. She leaned in
and out of corners with him, concentrating on becoming one with him on the back
of the bike.

He took the exit at Eagle On The Hill,
looped back on the bridge above the Freeway and made the bike climb to a dimly
lit lookout. Below them, Adelaide’s lights winked like ten thousand stars.

When he turned off the engine and they
pulled off their helmets, it was as if the night held its breath. Even the
silence was turbo-charged.

“I don’t want to move.” Indeed, her lower
body didn’t want to let him go. Somehow, she was sure his leathers had
imprinted on hers.

Laughter rumbled through his body. “Come
on, Liv. You have to see this view.”

Liv climbed from the bike. There was a
stone retaining wall protecting a dizzying drop into thin air and Owen led her
toward it. He had been a pace in front, but he turned to her, the expression on
his face inscrutable.

“Can I kiss you, Olivia?”

She didn’t answer him. She wasn’t sure she
could speak. Her eyes lit on his mouth. She took two paces toward him, the
second faster than the first, lifted her face and fused her lips to his.

All her pent-up joy from the wild ride went
into that kiss.

For long, delicious seconds, that single
touch connected them. Then Owen’s hands cupped her jaw, her lips parted beneath
his and he gave a sharp, guttural groan as she tasted his tongue.

Whether she was the one to melt into him,
or it was Owen who imposed his body on hers, Liv didn’t know. Nor did she care.
His hands had gripped her arse by then, pulling her into the erection that
strained between them. Her fingers wound in the short spikes of his hair, damp
and tufted with sweat from his helmet.

Where their bodies touched, leather slipped
and held, gripped and slid.

The kiss went on and on—two mouths
fucking—and when Owen ended it, Liv touched her lips with her fingers. Plump
they were. Swollen. And her mouth wasn’t the only part of her body that felt
that way.

“You are an unbelievable kisser,” she
breathed.

He chuckled in a deep, rumbling way that
warmed her toes, and pulled her close, stroking her hair and tucking her head
to his chest, holding her tight as their breathing quietened.

Liv lifted her head, gazing out at the
lights. “I wish we didn’t have a vineyard to finish pruning tomorrow. I could
stay up here all night with this view.”
And with you.
As bold as the
suit and his kiss made her feel, she wasn’t bold enough to say it aloud.

“I could stay here all night with you,”
Owen said, his certainty shredding the last of her defences.

There was no longer any room in her head
for doubt. Not tonight. She didn’t want to think about tomorrow.

He tipped her mouth to his and pressed his
lips to hers, less insistent than the first kiss but every bit as sweet, and
somehow, more piercing.

“At this rate, we might be staying here all
night anyway,” he said, adjusting the bike leathers at his groin, his teeth a
gleam of white in the night. “I can’t get on a bike right now.”

Slipping her hands around his arse,
pressing herself even closer, she giggled—a happy bubble of sound that flew
from her lips.

“Witch,” he groaned into her hair as her
hips swayed against him. “That’s not helping.”

“Don’t blame me. Blame the suit.”

****

Aunt Margaret and Mark were both awake when
Owen walked into his aunt’s house just after eleven. The slow combustion fires
in the kitchen and lounge burned low and it felt like he’d walked into a
furnace.

He unzipped his jacket in the hall, yanked
it off.

“What? She kicked you out already?” Mark
crowed when Owen was still three steps away from the lounge-room door.

He reached the opening in time to see his
aunt drop her Soduku to her lap, look up from where she half-filled her rocker,
and wink at him. “Hi, Owen love. Had a good time?”