Breathless for You

By Lexxie Couper

When desire goes sky high, things get hot. Really hot.

Breathless for You, from Award winning erotic romance author Lexxie Couper is book 2 in her Outback Skies series. Passion flies high when a sexy Australian doctor meets a beautiful pilot for the Royal Flying Doctors in the Australian outback!

The middle of the Outback seems the perfect place for city-bred Dr. Matt Corvin to recover from the beating life has given him. Working in Wallaby Ridge as a member of the Royal Flying Doctors is just what this doctor needs, until he finds himself paired with a pilot who’s every sexual fantasy that’s ever-done barrel rolls through his head. She rekindles in him a desire for something he thought he’d never want again—connection.

Natacha Freeman was one medical exam away from RAAF fighter pilot status when her lungs royally screwed her over. Flying a medical plane in the Outback should have provided isolation to match her desolation. Instead, she’s stuck in a tiny plane with a nice guy who sends her hormones screaming full throttle.

Though Tash is jumping on the brakes with both feet, Matt’s not above using his thorough knowledge of the human body to change her mind. Until the dangerous reality of living in the Outback brings them crashing to the ground.

This contemporary erotic romance contains a sexy Australian doctor, a pilot for the Royal Flying Doctors, and hot passionate romance. Breathless for You is not intended for readers under the age of 18.

Previously Published: (2015) Samhain Publishing

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Boutiques
• Release date: Apr 11, 2017
• ISBN: 9781946363411

Lexxie Couper

Lexxie Couper started writing when she was six and hasn't stopped since. She's not a deviant, but she does have a deviant's imagination and a desire to entertain readers with her words. Add the two together and you get erotic romances that can make you laugh, cry, shake with fear or tremble with desire. Sometimes all at once. When she's not submerged in the worlds she creates, Lexxie's life revolves around her family: a husband who thinks she's insane, an indoor cat who likes to stalk shadows, and her daughters, who both utterly captured her heart and changed her life forever. Contact Lexxie at [e-mail], follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/lexxie_couper or visit her at www.lexxiecouper.com where she occasionally makes a fool of herself on her blog.

Book preview

Dubois

Excerpt

"You really think you have no purpose in Wallaby Ridge?"

At his question, she returned her gaze to his face, the confusion in his eyes tearing at her. I can’t contribute anything to the community, Doc. All I know is flying, and I can see now it was selfish of me to think I could continue to do that with asthma.

And that’s the reason you’re leaving? His jaw bunched. His stare held hers. "Because you don’t think you can pilot a plane anymore? There’s nothing else, no other reason you can think of for staying in Wallaby Ridge? No purpose at all?"

She let out a wry laugh, her heart a wretched weight in her chest. "I can’t just be the sexy doctor’s girlfriend, Matt. I can’t just sit around waiting for you to come home after healing people, helping people all day. I’d go crazy, and you’d grow to resent me."

Bullshit.

She smiled at his vehement statement, the action at once sad and bittersweet. You make it too easy to fall in love with you, Doc.

All the more reason to stay, don’t you think? How many people have you come across in your life, Tash, who are easy to love?

His question, asked with guarded tone, made her laugh. The sound was as weak as she was. She truly was running on empty fumes. If she didn’t get moving soon, she’d surrender to every impulse in her body and just crumple into Matt’s arms. And she couldn’t do that. Not and still walk away from him and the fantasy life he presented when they got back to town.

Turning to the nose of her plane—no, not her plane, not anymore—she shrugged. "I’ve never found anyone I wanted to love. Not until you came along. And it’s that reason I have to go. Until I know who I am without being a pilot, I’m just a pretty girl in a tight pair of jeans, poor people skills and a bleak attitude. And that girl, you don’t want to love her. I’m pretty certain you’d grow to hate her very quickly."

Tash.

Fix your clothes up, Doc, she said as she began walking away from him and the wing. We’re going to be airborne…

The rest of the sentence died on her lips as a tsunami of giddy blackness crashed over her. She staggered sideways, her feet like lead, her limbs the same. Oh no…

Her vision blurred.

Dammit, she was so tired. Tired and weak and—

Two arms wrapped around her. Pulled her close to a hard body.

I’ve got you, babe, she heard Matt murmur through the foggy blackness of complete and utter exhaustion. I’ve got you.

She slumped against him. Didn’t fight or protest when her feet were lifted from the ground and her body cradled against Matt’s chest. Couldn’t fight. She didn’t have the emotional or physical strength. This doesn’t… she slurred, incapable of opening her eyes. Oh man, she’d never felt so drained. This doesn’t change anything.

He may have chuckled. He may have told her to shush. He may have kissed her temple. She wasn’t sure. Her brain, along with her body, had finally succumbed to the toll of her numerous asthma attacks and shut down. Defeated.

Breathless For You

Outback Skies, Book 2

Lexxie Couper

Published 2017 by Book Boutiques.

ISBN: 978-1-946363-41-1

Copyright © 2017, Lexxie Couper.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Book Boutiques.

This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, locales, or events is wholly coincidental. The names, characters, dialogue, and events in this book are from the author’s imagination and should not to be construed as real.

Manufactured in the USA.

Email [e-mail] with questions, or inquiries about Book Boutiques.

Blurb

When desire goes sky high, things get hot. Really hot.

The middle of the Outback seems the perfect place for city-bred Dr. Matt Corvin to recover from the beating life has given him. Working in Wallaby Ridge as a member of the Royal Flying Doctors is just what this doctor needs, until he finds himself paired with a pilot who’s every sexual fantasy that’s ever done barrel rolls through his head. She rekindles in him a desire for something he thought he’d never want again—connection.

Natacha Freeman was one medical exam away from RAAF fighter pilot status when her lungs royally screwed her over. Flying a medical plane in the Outback should have provided isolation to match her desolation. Instead, she’s stuck in a tiny plane with a nice guy who sends her hormones screaming full throttle.

Though Tash is jumping on the brakes with both feet, Matt’s not above using his thorough knowledge of the human body to change her mind. Until the dangerous reality of living in the Outback brings them crashing to the ground.

Previously Published

(2015) Samhain Publishing

Dedication

For the people who put their lives at risk every day to help those who need it.

And for Schellie. Who talked my finger off the delete key without even knowing it.

Acknowledgements

Cover Artist: Valerie Tibbs, Tibbs Design

Chapter 1

Two steps into the Outback Skies Pub, a place so stereotypically Australian Outback it could have been used in a Crocodile Dundee movie, Matt Corvin, M.D. was struck just below the eye by a cardboard beer coaster.

Busted. A man in a beat-up cowboy hat grinned at him from a table to his right just inside the main door. You were thinking about Captain Tight Pants again, weren’t you?

Dropping himself onto the table’s only empty seat, Matt let out a disgruntled chuckle and rubbed at his cheek. Nice aim you’ve got there, Ryan.

Ryan Taylor, heli-musterer and Wallaby Ridge’s only openly gay man, laughed. The sound completely matched the way he looked—rough and rangy. I’ve got an eye for nabbing befuddled animals. Before I took to the skies to round up cattle, I was pretty damn good at using a rope.

Matt gave Ryan a wounded look. You calling me a befuddled animal?

He had been thinking of his prickly, standoffish pilot again, but was that any need for the beer-coaster assault?

Ryan smirked. When it comes to Natacha Freeman? Yep.

At the mention of the person responsible for flying him all over the vast area of the Outback covered by the Royal Flying Doctors Service, a tight heat curled in the pit of Matt’s gut. And lower. Damn it, he’d just spent the last three hours in her company thanks to an emergency at a cattle property two hundred and fifty kilometres from Wallaby Ridge. For his own peace of mind, he was hoping to get away from thoughts of her for a while. But nope, it seemed like his mates were determined to give him hell tonight.

Bastards.

The man slouched in the chair beside Ryan snorted and tugged the brim of his baseball cap lower over his eyes. Befuddled animal is an understatement, the town’s aviation firefighter said. More like pre-occupied, fixated, goo-goo eyed, love-sick puppy.

Matt swung his glower on the man. Jesus, you too, Evan?

Evan Alexander’s lips curled in a slow grin, the white scars covering the lower left side of his face giving the expression far more menace than Matt knew it had. It wasn’t often Evan smiled, or even let the collar of his jacket rest on his shoulders.

Corvin, I’ve got a group of doped-out tourists from Amsterdam in lock-up less befuddled than you. Charlie Baynard, the last of the group—and the most intimidating—chuckled and raised his beer to his lips. "And if you say the words tight jeans one more time, I think I’m going to have to throw you in there with them."

Trying to ignore the now familiar tension in his body at the thought of Tash’s exquisite arse wrapped up in the faded Levis she wore daily, Matt sat back in his seat, crossed his arms over his chest and gave Wallaby Ridge’s Senior Constable and the town’s only Air Police Wing pilot a pointed look. Will you now, Charlie? Is that before or after I let everyone in town know I wrote you a twelve-month prescription for Viagra?

On Matt’s left, Evan chuckled.

Charlie crossed his own arms over his chest, a chest far more muscular and powerful than Matt’s, and leveled a steady stare at him. He didn’t utter a word. Just stared at him.

Matt rolled his eyes and let out a wry laugh. Okay, I didn’t write you a twelve-month prescription.

Charlie nodded his head. Damn right you didn’t.

It was a six-month one.

Charlie smirked and reached for the handcuffs hanging on his belt. Cuffs he wore even when he was off-duty. When it came down to it, Charlie Baynard was never really off-duty. Not as far as Matt could tell. Right, that’s it. Lock-up time.

Matt laughed. So did Evan and Ryan.

Four men completely different and yet all joined by one thing—their place in the sweeping skies of the Outback.

Matt had found them in his second week living in Wallaby Ridge.

Two weeks into his new job as the Ridge’s resident Flying Doctor he’d come to the decision he needed a beer. The first he’d had since waking from the coma that had resulted in everyone he loved presuming he was dead over a year ago.

He’d wandered into the pub on a Friday afternoon, found the other three men talking about the hours they’d spent in the sky for work that week and asked to join them. He’d introduced himself and bought them all a round of beers. That had been the beginning of their tradition.

Friday afternoons in the Outback Skies, talking shit, giving each other shit, finding calm and peace in their friendship when their jobs flying high above the world left them raw and exhausted and drained.

If it weren’t for Friday afternoons, Matt probably would have done something stupid by now. Like tell Tash Freeman she had to stop wearing those tight bloody jeans of hers.

Her and those damn faded Levis that left no uncertainty she wasn’t wearing underwear beneath. Not even a G-string. After he and his ex-fiancée parted ways four and a half months ago, he’d been adamant any kind of connection with anyone was off-limits. Well, anyone of the opposite sex, that was. And then six weeks ago, Tash had swooped into Wallaby Ridge, stalking across the runway and into his life in hip-hugging, thigh-hugging, arse-hugging jeans, and he’d been connecting with the image ever since.

He was on the verge of telling her to buy a pair of sweatpants, for Pete’s sake. At least that way he’d be able to keep his mind on saving lives. He was finding it increasingly difficult to stop thinking about her and her tight jeans, tiny waist, toned limbs, pixie-cut auburn hair, round, full breasts, rarely heard laugh and rarely seen smile.

Increasingly difficult not to think about her when he was stretched out in bed alone and—

Damn it. He hadn’t come to the Outback to fall in lust. If Tash knew about the very debauched, very carnal thoughts he was harboring about her and her jeans every time he buckled into the seat beside her, she’d probably toss him out at twenty-seven thousand feet, whether he was the area’s only flying doc or not.

The RFDS-supplied pager on his hip vibrated into life. A second after that, his mobile phone began to ring and the theme music from the cult sci-fi television show Doctor Who rose above the rowdy sounds inside the pub.

And there she is, Evan murmured, tugging at the peak of his cap as he seemed to slouch lower in his seat.

At Evan’s side, Ryan laughed. Duty calls, Doc. Guess you’re going to be tortured by those tight jeans some more before the sun goes down. Going to take her a coffee again?

Pulse thumping fast in his throat, Matt silenced the pager on his hip, pulled his mobile phone from his back pocket, swiped his thumb over its screen and raised it to his ear.

What is it, Tash? he asked, all too aware the reason for his accelerated heart rate and constricted throat had nothing to do with whatever medical emergency he was being called to and everything to do with the woman on the other end of the connection. A woman he’d been fantasizing about for the last six weeks, even if she behaved like he barely existed.

Reg McGuire’s fallen off the roof of his woolshed, his pilot answered, her husky voice playing merry hell with Matt’s senses. And his body. His wife called it in. Says she found him on the ground, bleeding like a stuck pig from the head and a wound she can’t see on his back. And unfortunately, we’re doing this run without a nurse, because Jen’s sister just went into labour and Milly isn’t answering her page.

I’ll be at the runway in five, Matt said, rising to his feet.

I’ll have the engine running, Tash replied before killing the call.

Bad? Charlie asked, studying Matt as he shoved his phone back into his pocket, his cop’s instincts no doubt kicking in.

Matt reached for Ryan’s half-full beer glass, took a mouthful and then wiped his lips with the back of his arm. Doesn’t sound good. Old Man Dingo’s fallen from his woolshed roof.

The old bloke with Parkinson’s? Ryan asked, taking his beer back from Matt. What the fuck was he doing on the roof in the first place?

Matt shook his head. No idea. But I gotta go. Catch you next week, guys.

And without another word, he turned and left the pub.

He had a job to do, a good job. The job he loved doing. He just wished to bloody God he had his old pilot back.

He’d never gotten turned on by nose-picking Fred Stiller.

Ever.

* * * *

Keep your focus on Old Man Dingo. Keep your focus on Old Man Dingo.

The mantra wasn’t helping Tash at all. Nor was the fact the doc was looking sexier than freaking ever. Which wasn’t really possible, given only two hours had passed since they’d touched down from the Bourkenback cattle station call-out and this one. But he was. In those short two hours, he’d somehow grown more of a five o’clock shadow, his hair had become scruffier, the jagged scar running from his forehead down his temple to his cheekbone had become whiter in his tanned face and his shoulders had somehow become broader. Impossible.

It didn’t help that he was now doing what he did better than any doctor she’d ever known. He had an uncanny ability to make a person in serious pain forget all about the agony wracking their body with his amazing, relaxed and totally natural bedside manner.

She stood at the side of Reg McGuire’s bed, octogenarian’s wife clinging to her hand like a lifeline, and watched Matt do his thing.

God, why couldn’t he be a fat, chain-smoking, alcoholic doctor like the one who’d shattered her fighter-pilot dreams? That way, she’d have a better chance of hating him.

If she hated him, good doctor or not, drop-dead gorgeous or not, sexy scar or not, she wouldn’t spend every day wishing—deep down in the most selfish centre of her soul—for emergencies that would require them to be together.

Pathetic.

She truly was pathetic.