Cale moved closer and, ignoring her desperate plea, pulled her into his embrace. Strong arms bound her and she found herself breast to chest, her face tucked into the hollow beneath his shoulder, his bent head blowing warm breath across her cheek.
So this was what being held by him again felt like. Maddie had to admit that Reality kicked Memoryâs butt.
Maddie lifted her head to look into those fabulous eyes. A muscle ticked in his jaw as his eyes darkened and the flame flickered brighter. Maddie could feel his body change, felt the switch from comfort to awareness. It was in the way his hand flexed on her back and ran down her spine.
And that was all the warning he gave before lowering his mouth onto hers. The world fell away as she welcomed his manly, exciting taste, his firm lips and clever tongue, his strong hand on her back pulling her closer.
Whoa! She was not nineteen any more, at the mercy of her hormones and her emotions. He didnât get to step back into her life and pick up where theyâd left off. She wouldnât let that happen again.
JOSS WOOD wrote her first book at the age of eight and has never really stopped. Her passion for putting letters on a blank screen is only matched by her love of books and travellingâespecially to the wild places of Southern Africaâand possibly by her hatred of ironing and making school lunches.
Fuelled by coffee, when sheâs not writing or being a hands-on mum, Jossâwith her background in business and marketingâworks for a non-profit organisation to promote local economic development and the collective business interests of the area where she resides.
Happily and chaotically, surrounded by books, family and friends, Joss lives in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, with her husband, children and their many pets.
âNICE tattoo, Mad.â
The voice came from out of the blue, clear and distinguishable despite the high volume of noise in the bar. Such a luscious voiceâdeep, smooth, compelling. Like hot chocolate after a freezing walk in the winter rain, she thought as her heart roller-coastered inside her rib cage.
Maddie Shaw flicked a glance to her left and there he was, leaning against the bar counter, a bright blonde barnacle superglued to his side. Hot damn, her memory wasnât playing tricks on her. It was Cale Grant andâoh, heaven help herâheâd moved up from very good-looking to stupid-making hot. Long and lanky had turned into long and strong. Instead of the ponytail she remembered, his naturally streaky blond hair was cropped so that the ends brushed the open collar of his shirt, and the goatee heâd sported on his stubborn chin was gone.
His eyes flicked over her and she watched, mortified, as they stopped at her chest. The tight sleeveless top with the image of a camp queen splayed across it was cut low enough to reveal the edges of her tangerine bra, way more than necessary of her cleavage, and most of the teeny-tiny red butterfly that sheâd acquired in a fit of pique shortly after her last conversation with this same man.
âCale Grant. Wow. Hi.â
And lift your eyes up, bud, she silently suggested, or I might have to hurt you.
Resisting the urge to tug up her bra, she met those fantastic eyesâthe colour of old-fashioned blue ink. A deep blue that sometimes looked black. Or cobalt. Maddie had always loved his eyesâ¦
She gestured to the bar. âWhat can I get you?â
Cale snagged a barstool from under the bottom of a departing drinker. As his date, a mature blue-eyed blonde, arranged her very curvaceous body onto the barstool, Maddie filled another order and turned back to Cale, to find him dissecting her with that intense look she remembered so well.
âWhat on earth are you doing?â
Maddie looked around her in fake bewilderment. âI donât know. Raising goats? Computer programming? Macramé?â
âI meant, Miss Smarty Pants, what are you doing behind a bar?â
Maddie lifted dark winged eyebrows. âI know what you meant.â
âWell? Ten years ago you were doing a degree in Marketing and Communications. Had plans to do your Masters. So why this?â
Maddie sighed as Cale added one and one and got a hundred and two. She kept her answer short. âItâs a job. What can I get you to drink?â
âA glass of Chardonnay and a draughtââ
âMaddieâoh, Maddie!â
Caleâs words were drowned out by a yell from the back of the crowd of customers waiting to be served. The booming voice was loud and compelling enough to immediately snag her attention. Maddie laughed as her thin, gangly neighbour good-naturedly pushed his way through the bodies to sink against the bar.