Read Nobody but Him for Free Online Page B

‘Don’t think this means you’re getting away with not telling me the whole story about you and Ry. Later!’
    The pub was already coming to life for the Sunday lunch shift and Ry observed it all as he sat at a table in the corner of the front bar, the one closest to the fire, trying to concentrate on the screen of his iPad. For the past five years there hadn’t been a Sunday when there wasn’t work to do, and today he was attempting to do what he did every day: return emails and catch up on business that he’d been too flat-out to deal with during the other six days of the week.
    This time, however, everything was a blur. He decided a caffeine jolt was the answer and waved to one of his staff, indicating he’d like another double espresso. Maybe that would help him get his head together.
    He swiped his finger across the screen of his iPad, re-reading the previous page of the development application he’d been trying to interpret for the past half hour. It all became a jumbled mess. What the hell was up with him today? He normally got off on this stuff, always had a head for details and the finer points of amendments to development plans, applications and approvals and heritage regulations. He usually liked knowing exactly where the business was on any given day, and had people working for him who could, at a moment’s notice, give him precise details about the status of approvals and vacancy projections.
    But this particular morning? He couldn’t drum up the enthusiasm to give a shit about any of it.
    When his coffee arrived, he thanked the waitress with a distracted smile. He wondered if he should talk to her — Kimberley, wasn’t it — about her pink hair. Man, all of a sudden he was thinking like a grumpy old man.He gulped his coffee down and waited for the familiar buzz. It didn’t come.
    Ry wasn’t proud of himself for a whole range of reasons. He rubbed his eyes and tried not to think about Julia’s face that morning, full of indignation and some other emotion he was having trouble defining. He’d been racking his brain to figure out why he’d been so incensed at seeing her in the house next door. And furious at himself for touching her, for getting so close to her that he could see into her eyes; deep pools of caramel and chocolate, and smell her perfume. Sweet flowers. Her hair was still the same; wild, untamed and skimming her shoulders, and her skin, Irish pale. Easy to keep that up in Melbourne, he figured, where it rained most of the time. He’d wondered how she’d coped growing up down here in the blazing summer sun without burning to a crisp.
    And that body. He took a deep breath and blew it out in frustration. It was more luscious than he remembered. Curvier, fuller, a real woman’s body. And when her dressing gown had gaped open, he’d caught a glimpse of her tight nipples under a thin T-shirt, hardened into nubs from the cold.
    Looking back, he couldn’t believe he’d been so close to the edge, so distracted by the sight of her again that he’d been tempted to plunge right into no man’s land and kiss the living hell out of her. Which would have been monumentally stupid.
    Julia.
    In this town. In his pub. On his street.
    Still in your head, you fucking idiot.
    He clicked the cover of his iPad shut. There was no way he was going to get any work done while his brain was idling in neutral and his dick was revving in fourth gear. And that, in itself, was unfamiliar, this being bent out of shape by a woman stuff. It had been years since the last time, at least five. He’d been way to busy, bone-tired with exhaustion, over-stimulated by pressure and ground down by worry to let anyone get to him the way Julia had in only one day. One fucking day. He needed to get his head out of his arse.
    At least buying the pub had been a good idea. That was something he could be proud of. It had good bones, solid stone sandstone walls topped by an original cedar ceiling so high that no one had ever