Read Online The Goodbye Ride by Lily Malone - Free Book Online Page A

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?”
    His cousin grinned.
    “Jesus you two,” Owen said, shaking his
head, but smiling anyway.
    “Sorry, love. We’re just