“I’m filthy.” He gave a strained chuckle. “Likely to get all manner of things under your nails.”
“I’ll risk it.” She leaned against him, so her body pressed into his as he turned them, now swaying without much in the way of steps while the jukebox crooned another, more popular but less poignant song. It was a tune he expected was played with full, wailing gusto in the clubs of the big city she was used to. But she seemed to like the quaintness of the tinny sound.
As for him, the music made no difference. The slow dancing he wanted to do with her wouldn’t be obeying any tempo except the thundering of his heart against the wall of his chest, the pulse of need building in his cock and testicles. Did she have some strange ability to make a man, already in sore need of a woman, suddenly consumed by a maddening hunger for one? For her specifically?
“Tell me some of the amazing things a bushman can do. Like all city folk, I’ve heard the stories.” She flashed him a mischievous look. “But I don’t know if they’re only stories now. It’s been a long time since I’ve been home.”
“Same as Knights of the Round Table or American cowboys. Romantic fantasy, for the most part.” She tilted her head. “Romantic fantasy is usually born from some piece of reality, even if it’s only one man. A hero among the ruffians can transform the whole lot of them into legends.”
“Wishful thinking can do the same. Some say Ned Kelly was a thug. Some say he was a hero. Only he knows the reality. I wouldn’t get carried away by any of it.”
She managed to slide an inch closer, such that he had the pleasurable and disquieting sensation that they’d become like two interlocking puzzle pieces. Every part fit together easily, no pushing needed. Though he wouldn’t mind doing some pushing. Some thrusting, ramming, pounding. The need was becoming a raw ache in his gut, a hammering pain in his temples.
“Seeing as I’m holding a real man in my arms now, and I’ve had some quite fierce wishful thinking in my life, I can tell you that one would never be mistaken for the other.” Reaching up, she laid her hand alongside his face. “Easy,” she murmured. “We’ll get there.
At my pace, bushman. You understand?”
“I can’t handle much more in the way of games, my lady.”
“I never play games. It’s all about what I want, and when I’ll demand it. Now . . .” She put some more space between them again, let go to take a turn under his arm, and then came back to him, a piece of footwork that couldn’t help but make him smile. “What type of thing can a real bushman do that will impress me? Quick, the first thing you can think of.”
“I can guess your exact weight. We do that at the fairs. If I guess right, you have to buy me a drink.” He gave her a wink, trying to regain some sense of the upper hand. In response, her thigh pressed to the inside of his so she grazed his aching balls. Her hip slid across his groin and her lips parted. The bloody tease.
“If your guess isn’t ten pounds less than my actual weight, you’ll owe me a drink.” Her eyes glinted in that elusive way, a danger back in the air he couldn’t identify. And didn’t give a damn about anyway.
“I don’t lie. But I can tell you, your body couldn’t be more perfect.” When he leaned in close to her ear, his nose against her hair, she stilled on the outside, while everything inside him just locked up. His nostrils flared, taking in the scent of soft female flesh. He wanted to taste her, put his lips under the ear, bury his nose deeper into spun gold silk. He made himself rein it in. Settled instead for caressing with his breath the shell of an ear so delicate it looked like something found broken on the beach sands. He hadn’t been to the ocean in a long time. Surfing at Cottesloe . . . He shoved that thought out of his mind and whispered the number to her.
When her head turned, he stayed where he was, so her nose brushed his jaw and he could see the moistness of her lips up close.