Hidden Fire Page 8

  She had to get away on her own for a bit. She needed time to regroup and shore up her defences before she faced Morgan again. Because, one way or the other, despite the turmoil inside her, she had to finish this job. Her parents’ safety depended on it. And whether Morgan realized it or not, so did his.

  Dragging up a measure of confidence she was far from feeling, she grinned and snapped her fingers at Morgan. “Hey, I just had an idea. How about you take me into Winton? I understand it’s not that far away. It shouldn’t take you too long.”

  “You going to catch that plane, Gili?”

  “Actually, I thought I’d hire myself a truck. Then I can come and go whenever I want to.”

  She nodded over his shoulder. “That mine might be private property, but the rest of the Opalton fields are a tourist attraction, open to the public.”

  There was silence for a few minutes as Morgan absorbed what she’d said. Then he tilted his head back and stared up into the sky. “Wrong time of day for traveling. It’ll be dusk soon. Too many emus and kangaroos on the road at that time. Hit a kangaroo and it’ll make a hell of a mess of your vehicle. Not worth the risk.”

  A cocky, smart-ass grin curved his lips as he lifted his hands. “Sorry to disappoint, but besides the fact it’s too late, I budget for going into town once a week and today isn’t it. I’d get no work done if I took off for the bright lights at the smallest whim.”

  Gili groaned. Trust Morgan to make this hard. “This isn’t a whim. I’m stranded out here. And hey, just think about it. You’ll be shot of me then. Can’t you at least take me to your…station?”

  He gave her a mocking smile, his brows lifted high. “Same problem. It’s almost dusk. The homestead is at least an hour away. I don’t intend to put myself—or any passenger—at risk of running into a ‘roo.”

  He jumped down from the rise and headed back to the fire pit.

  “Hey, I thought you wanted to get rid of me.”

  “Changed my mind,” he threw over his shoulder. “At least I’ll know what you’re up to if I keep you out here.”

  “Aww, come on, Morgan, you can’t just leave me standing here. What am I supposed to do?”

  Pausing, he turned back to her. “I don’t usually like visitors, but I’ll make an exception.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He shrugged. “You’ll have to stay with me, I guess. One thing though. We’re camping, and I have one sleeping bag, so unless you brought your own supplies, you’ll have to share my bed.” He grinned again and walked away whistling.

  Gili’s mouth dropped open. She snapped it closed and glared at Morgan’s back as he hunkered down and set a match to the fire. She didn’t know where the hell she was with him. One minute he was scowling at her. The next he was laughing and joking.

  Damn men and their contrary signals.

  Chapter Six

  “Feel the fire, Missy. It be your destiny.”

  Gili awoke with a start. The thump of her pulse resounded inside her head. Her breathing was fragmented, releasing one moment, catching the next. As if her heart had missed its natural rhythm and skipped a beat. Heat surged through her blood, a molten caress designed to melt her resistance. She trembled, caught in the grip of a fierce need for sexual completion. Tossing restlessly, she pressed her thighs together to try to ease the throbbing deep inside her.

  With a soft moan, she slid her hand between her legs and pressed the palm against her swollen flesh. The denim fabric created a friction that about drove her over the edge. She shuddered in reaction, forcing herself to deny the need to raise her hips. Hunger ate at her. Fire licked along her veins. Tension tightened the muscles in her lower belly. God help her, she felt ready to snap, need gnawing at her from the inside out.

  “Well, hell,” she whispered, struggling to get her breathing under control. She closed her eyes and concentrated on relaxing her body, one muscle group at a time. Finally, she sighed in relief. Her hormones stood down, although the muscles in her gut still quivered.

  Shame she didn’t remember whatever the dream was that had brought her to the edge of such a cataclysmic climax. It must have been a beauty.

  She wasn’t normally given to erotic nocturnal fantasies, but it didn’t take much to figure out where this one had come from. Her emotions had been on overdrive ever since she’d seen Morgan again. After six years, she hadn’t expected her reaction to be so strong.

  A shiver ratcheted through her. Although it was freezing inside the darkened mine, sweat dampened the jeans and light top she’d worn to bed. This was Western Queensland—stinking hot during the day in the Australian summer. How then could it be so freakin’ cold at night?

  She’d never expected to have to spend the night in the mine. She thought Charlie would come back for her. Her mouth quirked. Seems Charlie had his own agenda.

  And now here she was, stranded with the one man who could make her seriously question everything she stood for and believed in. She plucked at her sweaty top. To make it worse, she didn’t even have a fresh change of clothes with her. In fact, she didn’t have any clothes at all, except for the shorts, top and underwear she’d left at the station.

  A bubble of hysterical laughter burst to life, but she bit it back. All this didn’t matter a damn right now. Her priority was to find the opal and get her father off the hook. But first, she had to get through the night.

  Her arms shook as she clambered to her knees on the thin blanket she’d earlier wrapped around herself. A glance at the luminous dial of her watch showed she’d only been asleep for a couple of hours. She groaned. It would probably be better if she didn’t sleep at all. Maybe then she’d avoid the weird dreams and the voices she’d heard in her head.

  “I did warn you that sleeping with just a blanket wasn’t going to be enough. Better if you’d shared my sleeping bag.”

  Gili yelped. “Morgan! You scared the living daylights out of me.”

  The campfire Morgan had built just outside the mine had died down to a cluster of red coals, casting very little light beyond the entrance. Gili peered across the expanse of the tunnel, relying on her memory to work out where Morgan had bunked down for the night.

  A shadow, darker than the surrounding area, moved, elongated. The clang of metallic items caught her ears. A bitten-off curse as Morgan kicked something over.

  “Hang on, I’ll get some light going,” he muttered. “I’ve got a carbide lantern here somewhere.”

  “N-no, it’s alright. I’ll just curl up again and go back to sleep.”

  She couldn’t let him see her like this. She ran her hand over her chest. Her nipples were hard, throbbing. She tweaked at one and felt the pull shoot through her body and center at the juncture of her thighs, intensifying the ache already there. She moaned, biting her lip to try to keep the sound inside, but to no avail.

  A hissing noise from the opposite side of the mine drew her attention. Pushing herself to her feet, she reached down for the blanket and twitched it about her shoulders. Her thigh muscles quivered and a burst of sensation rolled through her. Biting off another fevered moan, she pressed her legs together even harder and tried to gain control of her libido. She drew in a deep breath to dispel the tension gnawing at her belly and all she could smell was the musky scent of sexual excitement. Hers! God help her, it wouldn’t take much to drag her back to the edge of a thundering orgasm.

  Even before she’d arrived in Australia, she’d known that being around Morgan Hunt would be hard, just not this damned difficult.

  The striking of a match pulled her across the tunnel, feet shuffling so she wouldn’t fall. Morgan applied the flame to a curious, jug-like structure on the ground in front of him. The hissing stopped and the area around the campsite lit up.

  Gili moved closer, wrinkling her nose. “It stinks.”

  “Acetylene gas, created by mixing water with calcium carbide crystals. Far better than relying on batteries.” He adjusted the reflector shield behind the flame and set the
lantern aside. “So, you joining me or not?”

  She swallowed the groan that surfaced as he disappeared back inside the sleeping bag. Morgan’s muscled body in nothing but a tight black t-shirt and briefs was enough to turn any girl into a screaming heap of need.

  “Come on, woman, make up your mind. I want to get some sleep. I’ve got work to do tomorrow.” Morgan flipped one side of the sleeping bag up, silently inviting her in.

  “I, ah…it doesn’t look big enough for two of us.”

  Her chest heaved as she struggled to come up with a reason not to join him. At the same time, her body hungered for his nearness. Goosebumps broke out on her arms from the combination of the cold atmosphere and uncertainty. Her body trembled and her teeth chattered.

  He leaned over and grabbed her around the ankle, dragging her closer. “For crying out loud, get your rear end in here before you get hypothermia. And strip off those jeans before you do. They’re damp. They’ll just make you feel colder and I don’t fancy sleeping with an iceberg.”

  “Ah, I can’t.”

  He shook his head. “Please yourself. If you want to go back to the other side of the cave and shiver for the rest of the night, who am I to stop you? Me? I’m going to get some sleep.”

  With a grunt, he rolled onto his side, his back to her.

  Gili waited a second, but he didn’t look at her again. She huffed out a deep breath. Well, she sure as hell couldn’t stand here all night. She’d just have to tell him.

  “I don’t have any panties on under these jeans. I washed them out and they’re hanging up in the bathroom at the homestead. I figured I’d be back there tonight.”

  Morgan rolled back to face her, but didn’t say anything. Then he gulped and pointed at his pack. “There’s a pair of cotton boxer shorts in the top of my pack. You can borrow those. Oh, don’t worry, they’re clean.”

  She wasn’t going to give him a chance to change his mind. It took her only a minute or two to find the boxers and then she turned to face him.

  “Um, you want to…” She waved one finger in the air in a circling motion.

  Morgan, with a disgusted look on his face and a frustrated-sounding grunt, twisted over so his back was to her again.

  Gili’s hands shook as she unzipped the cold denim and slipped off the jeans, all the while conscious of the fact she had nothing covering her nether regions. She scrambled to step into the boxers and pull them up to her waist. They were a little loose and sagged down to her hips, but at least she was decent.

  “I’m done,” she said.

  Morgan turned over and lifted up the top cover of the sleeping bag without saying a word.

  Chill bumps broke out on Gili’s legs and she started to shiver again. She dropped to her knees and scooted under the down covering of the sleeping bag. Curling on her side, she tried to keep her body from touching Morgan’s.

  He flipped the covering over her and angled across her to turn the lantern down to a mere flicker. Then he settled behind her, his body spooning hers, one arm across her waist.

  Heat instantly hit her and drove the cold from her body. Gili stiffened in reaction. Her breathing hiked, heart racing as tension gripped her and tightened the muscles low in her stomach.

  “Relax,” he murmured. “I’m not going to jump your bones…unless you ask me.”

  Relax? She snorted. Easier said than done. She felt on fire. Her nipples were hard. Her breasts ached. Moisture pooled between her thighs. Her skin was so sensitized that the slightest brush of his hand would make her explode.

  She held herself as still as she could until Morgan’s breathing deepened. Then, one by one, starting with her toes, she made a determined effort to tighten and release each muscle in her body. Eyes squeezed shut, she dragged air into her lungs and exhaled on a deep sigh. The tension inside her eased. Maybe now she’d get some sleep.

  An inch at a time, she edged away from Morgan, as far as the confines of the sleeping bag would allow. Finally, she had enough room to roll onto her back. Problem was, Morgan’s arm now rested across her stomach. Did she dare move it? Or would that wake him?

  No, not worth the risk. It had taken her long enough as it was to get herself to the point where she thought she might actually get some rest.

  She cleared her mind of all extraneous thoughts. The trials of the day floated away, borne on the stream of pre-slumber consciousness. Gili slid deeper into the layers of darkness inside her mind. Time enough tomorrow to deal with the effect Morgan still had on her senses.

  Watch the fire, Gili lubra.

  Gili jerked as the voice filtered through her mind.

  What the heck was going on here? Had she actually heard that? Or had she imagined it?

  She turned her head to stare at the feeble light from the carbide lantern. The flame suddenly flared up. The smell of the gas burned heavy on the still air inside the mine. Shadows flashed, thrown into relief on the sandstone surfaces.

  A darker shape emerged from the center of the fire. An apparition that swirled and twisted, taking on a definite shape, until she saw the outline of a man and woman, their features heavy with Aboriginal native heritage.

  The phantasms floated into the air, driven by the thermals created by the flame. They took on greater definition until they resolved into two lovers, naked, unadorned; delighting in their oneness.

  The man lowered his head and took the woman’s nipple into his mouth, his hand sliding down her body to cup her between the legs. The woman moaned, turning her head to face Gili.

  “Your destiny, Gili lubra,” she whispered.

  Gili’s mouth dropped open. Although insubstantial, made of nothing but wispy overlays of white mist, she recognized the woman. The same woman who’d appeared in her vision at the hotel in Brisbane. The same woman who’d made brief appearances in her dreams since she was sixteen years old.

  Dreams? Maybe in the beginning, but not now. More like a vision, given she was wide awake. She reached down and pinched her thigh, wincing at the burst of pain. Yeah, no doubt about it, she was wide awake.

  Waves of heat rolled over Gili. Her skin prickled. Fire raged through her veins, igniting pinpricks of sensation that ramped up her libido again.

  More shadows formed in the circle of light around the campsite. Couples twined in sexual abandon. The musky smell of satisfaction filled the air. Bled deep into Gili’s consciousness until an inferno burst to life inside her.

  She felt as if she were burning up. Her breathing rasped. Pulse pounded. Tremors of sexual tension awakened nerve endings seared with the molten sweep of her blood. The muscles in her belly contracted as the need for release increased.

  Hands shaking, she palmed her breasts. A sob gusted from her mouth. An arrow of need shot from her chest and lodged between her thighs.

  Avoiding Morgan’s arm still resting across her stomach, she slid one hand down her body, whimpering at the sensitized brush of skin against skin. With a furtive glance at Morgan’s sleeping form, she slipped her hand between her legs and palmed her sex.

  It wasn’t enough. She needed more. Her skin felt too tight to contain the level of sexual hunger that assailed her. She clenched her hand between her thighs. A moan surfaced. She swallowed it, not wanting to wake Morgan.

  “You too, huh?”

  Gili gasped and pulled her hand away from her body. Oh, God, how embarrassing. “I…ah, I—”

  “Christ, I feel like I’m about to explode,” Morgan interrupted. He slid closer, his hand tightening across her stomach.

  She didn’t need to ask what he was talking about. The hard ridge of a straining erection caressed her hip. He rocked against her and the breath caught in her throat. Her muscles clenched and a shivery feeling filled her.

  Overhead, the misty couples swirled in the dim lighting. The moans of surrender, swiftly followed by cries of satisfaction, echoed in Gili’s head. She looked back at Morgan as he reared up and balanced his weight on one elbow. His dark eyes glittered and a sensual smile curved hi
s lips.

  “Can you see them, too?” She kept her tone to a whisper, half afraid the sound of her voice would banish the apparitions.

  “I’ve been watching them for a while, but I heard their voices in my sleep long before that.”

  “I thought I’d imagined it. The voices are what woke me up.”

  “It’s this mine. The spirits of the people.” Morgan reached out with his free hand and ran the pad of his thumb across Gili’s lips.

  She shivered, only this time it had nothing to do with the cold. She fought for a degree of sanity amid the tumult of sexual hunger that consumed her.

  “Think they’re trying to tell us something?” she quirked, going for a bit of light relief to lessen the tension clawing at her gut.

  “Unfinished business, Gili?”

  Before she could respond, Morgan swooped. He nibbled on her bottom lip before sucking it into the warmth of his mouth. Gili moaned. As if taking the sound for a sign of acquiescence, he fastened his mouth over hers, increasing the pressure until she accepted the thrust of his tongue. Tremors slid up and down her spine. Oh God, she’d needed this. His taste. His touch. The liquid warmth flavored with the scent of pure male mixed with a hint of the coffee he’d had before turning in for the night. She became the aggressor, wrapping her free hand around his neck and tugging him closer. Meeting the movement of his tongue with the flick of her own. Then sucking hard, forcing a groan from his throat. When he broke off the kiss, her breathing was shattered. She rolled her head on the sleeping bag, fighting to fill her lungs with fresh oxygen.

  The ghosts still hovered in the air above them. Fainter now, twisted with tendrils of white smoke, but still there, each one with a smile on its face as if sated with voyeuristic pleasure. Gili felt as if she’d somehow managed to please them.

  Morgan turned her face to him and stared into her eyes. “No strings, Gili. Mutual satisfaction for both of us, but nothing more. You understand?”