It didn"t take long.
With a sigh that seemed to tremble through her whole body, Rosalind sank back so that the kiss could deepen. And deepen it did, until all he could see behind his eyelids were swirls of red and black, deep, desolate darkness with no end in sight.
She snuck a soft hand behind his neck, lifted herself from her seat and melted against him. The world of sensation inside his mind lit up until he felt as hot and bright as the surface of the sun.
He held her tighter, fisting a hand into the back of her T-shirt, running another over her bottom, the exquisite softness of old denim making his fingers clench, pulling her closer still. His eyes were shut tight, head spinning, and he was kissing her for all he was worth until he couldn"t remember ever doing anything else.
As do all good things, it came to an end.
Rosalind pulled away first, her lips slowly sliding away from his, as though it took every effort she could muster. Her head dropped and she rested her forehead against his chest, her hands splayed over his abdomen.
Cameron opened his eyes, the bright, sharp light of reality slamming him back to earth-the reality of what he"d done and what he"d been about to do.
He laid a gentle kiss on her soft hair as his eyes focussed hard on the perfect precision and crisp, true angles of the floating staircase in the distance, looking for his centre as a builder looks to a spirit level.
But all he could think of was lifting her into his arms, carrying her to his bedroom and making love to her all night long. h.e.l.l, once there he knew he"d be happy not to come up for air for days.
This woman was giving him a lesson in the lure of temptation, of the lengths a man might go to in order to satiate the want of the one thing his reason and sense and experience and moral centre told him he shouldn"t want.
That pull of dangerously destructive desire, a dimension he"d always feared he might be genetically predisposed to possess, was ultimately why he tucked a finger beneath her chin and lifted her head, and waited until her soft dilated eyes were focussed on his.
And in a firm voice he said, "Might I suggest after tonight we slow things down?"
There, he"d done it, on the back of the kind of kiss that made a guy unable to think sensibly for hours after. That way she"d know it wasn"t as merciless as it had sounded.
Her skin paled and went blotchy all at once. She looked at him as though she"d just been slapped. And the shock in her eyes...
His fingers recoiled guiltily into his palm, then uncurled to touch her face. But she"d already disentangled herself to bolt into the lounge, frantically searching for something in her handbag. Whatever it was he could see by the tension in her neck that it wasn"t coming to the surface quick enough.
"Rosalind."
She held out a hand, which as good as told him to shut the h.e.l.l up.
Ignoring it, he tried reasoning with her, "Three dates in three days was pure overindulgence on my part. And you can"t tell me you"re not exhausted. I saw you trying to hide a yawn not ten minutes ago."
When she lifted her eyes to his, he was fairly sure all she saw was red. She held her mobile phone to her ear and said, "Which is why I think now is the perfect time to call a cab."
"Don"t be ridiculous. I was always going to take you home."
"Really? Was it diarised? Kiss Rosie at nine. Dump her at nine-fifteen. Drive her home by ten. In bed by eleven."
She turned her back, put in the order for the taxi, then threw the phone into her bag.
"Rosalind. Come on. n.o.body"s dumping anybody. All I"m saying is that we be sensible and look at where we are going here with open eyes."
She closed her eyes, took a breath and her shoulders relaxed. Somewhat. But that warm, husky voice that he"d become so used to turned as cold as the river at night as she said, "You want me to be sensible? Well, you obviously haven"t been paying close enough attention. If I"d been sensible I would never have agreed to go out with the guy I had a crush on through high school. That is obviously one fantasy best left unfulfilled."
Cameron"s heart slammed hard and fast against his ribs. She"d had a crush on him? And fantasized about him? His voice was deep and dark when he said, "Come back, sit down and talk to me."
She waved a frantic hand across her eyes. "Please. You were right. I"m just overtired. I get it; we"ve both monopolised one another"s time so much these past days. You"re busy and I"m busy, and neither of us ever meant for this to be more than it has to this point been. It"s fine."
In the end all she could do was shrug.
If he wanted out for good, this was the moment. He had no doubt she was just waiting for the word-goodbye. It was a simple enough word. Benign, unambiguous, final.
But he couldn"t do it. He couldn"t be that cool with her. Unlike every other woman he"d ever dated, she"d never been cool with him. She"d given him nothing but the complete truth, and she deserved the same.
"Rosalind, it"s not you."
"Where the h.e.l.l"s the d.a.m.n cab?" She paced to the bottom of the stairs. He followed.
"Rosalind, I need you to hear me out." He knew it was manipulative, but in order for her not to leave feeling hurt and angry he needed her to hear what he had to say, so he said it anyway. "Please."
At the "please", she turned back to him. Her jaw was tight, her eyes wild with emotion. But at least she stopped walking away.
Having to ground himself if he was really going to say this, Cameron parked his backside against a corner of the lounge and looked out across the city view.
"I was in the eleventh grade when I saw my father come out of a city hotel with a woman who wasn"t my mother. As I stood on the opposite side of the street, on my way to meet him at his office after school, he kissed her. Right there on the footpath, in front of peak-hour traffic-my father, who the whole city knew by sight. No thought for discretion or propriety or the woman the world thought he"d been blissfully married to for the previous thirty years...or anyone but himself."
He blinked, dragged his eyes from the city view and looked to her. She stood still as a statue, those grey eyes simply giving him the s.p.a.ce to keep going. Deeper. To places he"d never let himself go before.
"My mother...She had to put up with a lot, being married to a man like my father. The long hours, the ego, having to raise his four headstrong children in public. She did so with grace, humility, and love. So the fact that he could show such contempt towards her, to all of us..."
His fingernails bit into his palms as he fought down the same old desire to take a swing at his father the next time he laid eyes on the man.
"Why I am telling you this, what I"d like like you to take from this," he said, "Is that I won"t be like him. I"d rather see you walk away now-right at the very moment I can barely think straight for how much I want to continue what we started back there in the kitchen-if that means not hurting you by giving you false hope that I might one day offer you anything more. I can"t. Not when I know that even the most solid relationships ultimately fail beneath the weight of secrets and lies." you to take from this," he said, "Is that I won"t be like him. I"d rather see you walk away now-right at the very moment I can barely think straight for how much I want to continue what we started back there in the kitchen-if that means not hurting you by giving you false hope that I might one day offer you anything more. I can"t. Not when I know that even the most solid relationships ultimately fail beneath the weight of secrets and lies."
He came to an end and needed to breathe deep to press out the sudden tightness in his lungs. His eyes locked onto hers, her strength keeping him amazingly steady.
"Cameron," she said on a release of breath, "You expect far far too much of people." too much of people."
"Only what I expect of myself."
"I was including you too."
He shifted on his seat. "You think loyalty and good faith are too much to expect, even after how your father treated you and your mother?"
A muscle in her cheek twitched but her steady gaze didn"t falter. "For some people they are too much."
He shook his head hard. "I"m sorry, but I can"t accept that."
"Then that"s a real shame."
Cameron shot to his feet and ran a hard hand across the back of his neck. This wasn"t how this had been meant to go. He"d hoped that by being forthright and upfront with her he"d feel justified in slowing things down, like he"d done right by her. Instead she was somehow making him feel like he hadn"t done right by himself.
She tugged her poncho over her head, flicking her hair out at the end and running fingers through it until it fell in messy waves over her shoulders.
His response was chemical. His insides tightened and burned with a need to have her lose layers, not put them back on.
The doorbell rang; her taxi. She slipped her feet back into her shoes then looked back at him.
Her eyes said, ask me to stay ask me to stay.
But her tilted chin and tense neck said, let me go let me go.
He went back to her eyes. Those beautiful, sad, grey eyes, so wide open he felt himself falling in, wanting more than he knew he could give. He pulled himself back from the brink just in time to say, "I"ll call you."
She nodded, gave a short smile that held none of the mischief and humour he was so used to seeing therein, and jogged up the stairs without looking back.
CHAPTER TEN
ROSIE was exhausted. Which was naturally manifesting itself in a complete inability to sleep. was exhausted. Which was naturally manifesting itself in a complete inability to sleep.
The minute the clock beside her bed clicked over to a quarter to three, she dragged herself out of bed.
She wouldn"t be able to see Venus until about an hour before sunrise, but it had to be better outside than staring at the low ceiling of her caravan, wondering how on earth she"d let herself get to the point where she"d decided she might be able to allow Cameron deeper into her life at the precise moment when he he had decided he wasn"t sure that he wanted her in his. had decided he wasn"t sure that he wanted her in his.
She ran her hands over her face, then through her hair, tugging at knots in the messy waves, then trudged into the bathroom to splash water on her face. As she wiped it dry, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. Eyes dark. Mouth down turned.
She blinked and for a moment saw herself at fifteen, locked in the bathroom of the tiny flat she"d shared with her mum, and this feeling, the same familiar, cutting pain, crawling beneath the surface of her skin. It wasn"t the pain of a girl pining for a man in her life. It was the pain of a girl who"d never been bright enough, good enough, devoted enough to fill the subsequent hole in her mother"s heart.
How could an invisible girl like that ever hope to be enough to fill anyone else"s heart?
Rosie licked her dry lips, then wiped fingers beneath her moist eyes. Time to go. Focussing on the colossal mystery of the universe would render her woes less important. It had to.
Too cold and too miserable to get completely naked, she pulled her clothes on over the top of her flannelette pyjamas-a fluffy wool knee-length cardigan she"d picked up in a thrift shop years before, a thick grey scarf, a lumpy red beanie with two fat, wobbly pom-poms on top, and the jeans she"d worn the day before. She didn"t bother with her contacts, leaving her gla.s.ses on instead.
The hike to the plateau with her ma.s.sive backpack was not in the last bit invigorating. It was cold, uncomfortable, and when she hit the spot the night sky was covered in patchy cloud.
She popped up the one-man dome tent which was just tall enough for her to stand up in, threw in all her stuff to keep the dew away and laid a canvas-backed picnic blanket upon the already moist gra.s.s. She set up her telescope. And turned on the battery-operated light attached to her notebook.
She sat on the ground cross-legged, waiting for the cloud cover to open up, revealing a sprinkle of stars.
Time marched on and the sky gave her nothing.
No mystery, no majesty, nothing to take her mind off the world at her feet and all the heartache that came with it. She slumped back onto the rug and closed her eyes.
She and Adele had both been wrong. Cameron wasn"t really any different from any of the others. They all left her eventually; location had no effect on the matter.
She heard a twig snap, and her eyes flew open.
It could have been a possum. Or there had long since been rumours of a big cat loose in the area. And crazy axe-murderers were a genuine fear for some people for a good reason.
Rosie was on her feet, spare tripod gripped in her hands, eyes narrowed, searching the shadows, when Cameron appeared through the brush, tall, imposing, stunning. It was as though a girl could simply imagine a man like him into existence through sheer wishful thinking.
"What the h.e.l.l are you doing here?" Rosalind cried, waggling a big black metallic object Cameron"s way.
He snuck both hands out of the warm pockets of his jacket and held them in front of him in surrender. "I tried calling your mobile several times but you didn"t answer. So I called Adele."
"Adele?"
"She gave me her home number when I first rang you at the planetarium. I a.s.sumed in case of emergencies."
Rosalind glowered, but at least she was lowering her weapon at the same time. "Sounds like her. Though you"ve got her motives dead wrong."
"Either way, she told me how to find you in the dead of the night in this crazy middle-of-nowhere place, where anything could happen to you and n.o.body would ever know."
He stepped forward, shoes slipping in the soft, muddy earth. By the look in her eyes-behind gla.s.ses that made her look smart enough to be an astrophysicist, yet somehow still her usual effortlessly s.e.xy self-she was far from happy to see him.
He didn"t blame her. He"d acted just the way Dylan had when they"d been boys, wiping the chess board clean at the first sign the game wasn"t going the exact way he"d intended it go.
After she"d gone, he"d lasted about three hours before his furniture had begun mocking him. The stool she"d sat upon when he"d kissed her stuck out from under the bench stubbornly. The beige rug on which her pink shoes had been haphazardly dumped, and the cream couch where her bright poncho had been suggestively draped, had seemed drab and bare. Even the fire had hissed at him, and, whereas for her it had been roaring, for him alone it had crumbled into a sorry pile of ash.
He"d told himself he felt like there were ants crawling under his skin because she was out there feeling upset and it had been his fault. But the truth was his home had felt empty because she wasn"t in it. Because he"d expected more of their night together. Before he"d acted like such a lummox, he"d planned on having more time to familiarise himself with her soft skin, to let her s.e.xy hair slide through his fingers. To know those lips as intimately as he could. And the rest.
He needed boundaries, but they also had unfinished business he hoped to take care of-if he could convince her.
"Can you put down the truncheon?" he asked. "It"s making me nervous."
Rosalind bent at the knees, set the metal object onto a backpack and stood up, her dark-grey eyes on him the whole time. "You"ve told me how you got here, not why. And hurry up. I have to get back to work."
He picked a reason that she couldn"t say no to. "I was watching the sky through my bedroom window when I remembered you telling me that I hadn"t seen stars until I saw them from this spot. I thought, what the h.e.l.l? I"m awake anyway, let"s see what the fuss is all about."
She glared up at him over the top of her gla.s.ses. "So what do you want to see?"
He was looking at it. But he said, "Show me something spectacular."
"You"ve picked a rubbish night." She dragged her eyes away and looked up into the clear heavens. "Huh, well, what do you know? Five minutes ago you were all hiding. But in he he waltzes and there you all are, all bright and shining and cheerful. Capricious brutes, the lot of you!" waltzes and there you all are, all bright and shining and cheerful. Capricious brutes, the lot of you!"
She glowered back down at him. "Well, go on, then. There it all is for your viewing pleasure."
Cameron looked up into the clear sky, and there it all was, the Milky Way, spread across the sky like someone had scattered a bag of jewels on a swathe of black velvet.
He looked down at her; her nose was tilted skywards, her chin determined, her long, pale neck and wavy hair glowing in the moonlight. He breathed out through his nose. Spectacular. Spectacular.
As though she sensed him watching her, she turned her head just enough to make eye contact. She blinked at him, then leaned down towards the eyepiece and found a bearing using the naked eye. She twirled k.n.o.bs, gently shifted the lever, changed filters, then with both eyes open pressed one eye to the eyepiece and carefully adjusted the focus.
A minute later she stood back and made an excessive amount of room for him to have a look. He took her place, looked through the lens, and the view therein took his breath away.
She"d given him the bright side of the moon. Craters and plateaus in stark white-and-grey relief faded into the creeping shadow of the dark side. So far away, yet it felt so close.