Aussie Rules (23 page)

“Hungry?” The word came out rather smothered, as she lay sprawled face down and sideways on the bed.

Bo trailed a long, work-roughened finger down her spine, continuing farther, dipping with wicked intent where other treasures lay, making her gasp.

“Oh, yeah,” he answered. “I'm hungry.” Flipping her over, he put his hands on her inner thighs and gently pushed them open, then groaned at the sights before him.

“Bo—”

“Shh, darlin'. Don't interrupt a man when he's eating.” And he bent his head to the task.

 

Far later, the water sloshed out of the lush hotel tub, hitting the fancy tiles with a splash, dousing the candles they'd lit, prompting Mel to say,
“Bo,”
in that voice he loved, all low and throaty, and sexy as hell.

“Careful.” She laughed breathlessly from her perch astride his legs. “We'll cause a flood.”

He skimmed his hands up her gloriously wet, taut curves to cup her breasts, loving how her breath caught at his touch. “A little water never hurt anything. Christ, you have a body.”

“Right back atcha.” She looked him over and made him hard. Or harder, since he'd been in this state for two weeks now.

She lifted the soap. “Remember. No funny business. We're just getting soaped—” Her eyes glazed over when his thumbs rasped over her nipples.
“Bo.”

“Right. Have at me then. Soap me up.” Because he couldn't help it, he made one more pass of his thumb…

She dropped the soap.

Between his legs.

“Whoops.” He grinned. “Someone's going to have to get that.”

She laughed, a sound he was beginning to love, and he laughed, too, which backed up in his throat when her hand dove into the water after the soap…

 

Mel woke up alone; naked and sore in spots she'd forgotten she owned. She staggered into the bathroom and eyeballed the empty condom packet on the floor.

And the second on the counter.

A third had actually made it to the trash.

Her body let out a traitorous little shiver of remembered delight. She loved the way he touched her, looked at her. The way he drew her hands to his chest, moaning his encouragement when they lowered. The way he reared back, driving her higher and higher still, face and body tight. Loved that it had been her name on his lips when he'd come.

God. What was she doing, thinking of him this way, romantically, softly, with a dreamy smile on her face? She knew that was a one-way street to Hurtville.

He'd left her a note.

Hmmm. So he hadn't gone running from morning-after fear. She took a shower and catalogued her wounds. Whisker burns on a breast and between her thighs. Hickey on her throat. Swollen lips. Bite mark on her ass, which she'd had to twist around to even see.

She hoped like hell Bo had some marks on him, too, then took that back. No! No marks! No proof of the digression! This little interlude was over. Back to the real world for them, she thought, looking around at the empty hotel room. Apparently starting right now.

I
n the lobby of the hotel, the Huttons were waiting for Mel. Bo had already caught his own cab to the airport.

Good. That meant she didn't have to see him quite yet.

But that ended all too soon on the tarmac. He boarded the passengers while she went through the preflight check. When she was finished, he stood there, those deep, unwavering jade eyes fixed on her.

“What?” she asked, a little defensively, unconsciously straightening her shoulders as she prepared for battle.

He only shook his head, moved toe to toe with her, cupped her face, fingers gliding into her hair, and then kissed her.

Not a hello peck, either, but a long, melting one that had her staggering back. “Man.” She couldn't recover.
“Man.”

He simply smiled and boarded, and for the entire flight—blissfully uneventful—she felt incredibly aware of him sitting next to her. Everything he did seemed to spark a reaction within her, whether it was sliding on the headphones over his come-as-it-is hair, or covering his eyes with those mirrored sunglasses, stretching out his long legs, talking to air control with that low, effortlessly sexy voice, dealing with her passengers with far more patience than she ever could have managed…

They were nearly back to Santa Barbara when the conversation turned to the hotel. The Huttons went on and on about the incredible service, then asked about Mel's room.

Bo glanced at her. “Yes, did you sleep well?” he asked.

In fact, she'd hardly slept at all, as he very well knew. “Yes.”

“Did you enjoy the service?” he pressed.

It was all she could do to maintain her composure. “The service was…”

Bo raised a brow, lips quirking. He thought he was so funny. Well, she was funnier.

“It was okay,” she finally said with a shrug.

The Huttons expressed their surprise, then after a few minutes of small talk, busied themselves with their laptops, leaving Mel and Bo to their own.

“Only okay?” Bo murmured.

Mel stuck her tongue out at him. Immature, but there it was.

He only laughed softly. “I have a better job for that tongue,” he said.

“I bet.”

“Watch your altitude.”

“Altitude? Or attitude?”

He laughed. “Both.”

She glanced down at the instruments and sighed. “Are you always right?”

He met her gaze again, and suddenly he wasn't playing. “Usually.”

Her smile faded. Yeah. He'd been right about a lot of things. Sally, for instance. After meeting his gaze for a long beat, she looked out at the horizon. No visible storm, but that didn't mean the one brewing inside her heart wasn't going to be a Category 5. “If the money in those accounts you found was your father's, then where is it now?” she asked quietly.

“Maybe she bought an island and is drinking her lazy days away.”

Mel shook her head. “Then why ask Dimi and me to send her cash over the years, leaving us so strapped all the time?”

He didn't answer. The implication being, of course, because Sally could.

Mel absorbed that for a time, flying in silence.

He let her, and if she hadn't been in such a bad place inside her head, she might have admitted that she liked that about him. No rushing, no forcing of his opinions. “I'm going to get a private investigator.”

“How about
we? We
get a PI. We start with Mexico, and that last call you received.”

She paused. “I think I should do this alone,” she said carefully. “And talk to her first.”

His eyes went dark, inscrutable. “You want to warn her away from me.”

“I want to make sure she's okay, and that she wasn't a victim.”

“And…”

“And nothing,” she said. “That's all.”

Jaw tight, he shook his head but didn't say another word. The truce, if there'd ever really been one, was over. Tentative trust shaken if not gone completely.

 

The next day, in between charter flights, a broken tow, fuel deliveries, and filing a police report for the e-mails and notes, Mel pulled out the local phone book and picked a private investigator.

Matt Thomas promised to investigate Sally's whereabouts, which should have made her feel good but instead left her feeling like she'd betrayed her own mother.

The next two days moved like a blur. Bo took a flight to test-fly an old Douglas he was looking at in Los Angeles. Mel stopped what she was doing to watch him take off, wondering when things would ever get back to normal.

Or if he'd ever want her again…

One afternoon, Char fed her, standing in her small kitchen fanning air with her shirt as she grumbled about the heat.

“It's not that hot,” Mel said.

“Well, you're not facing early menopause, are you?” Char lifted her top. “Look at me.”

“Um…” Mel couldn't help but take in Char's slightly curved belly and full breasts straining to escape a black cotton bra. Her skin was flushed beet red and dewy. “Maybe you could open the window—”

“It doesn't matter. I could take the roof off, I'd still be too hot.”

“Charlene, Jesus.” Al came around the corner and blocked the view of his wife's breasts and belly. “What are you doing?”

“Didn't you hear me? I'm hot! Hot, hot, hot—”

“You're flashing the customers!” He craned his neck to the tables, found them empty, and lost some of his bristle. “Okay, fine, there are no customers.”

“Hey,” Mel said. “I'm right here.”

“You don't count.” Char smiled up at Al. “You don't want to share my breasts.”

“Nope. All mine,” Al murmured, and pulled her against him.

Mel rolled her eyes and hightailed it out of the den of love. The
hot
den of love.

She stayed late that night, working on the Hawker. When she was done, she hopped into the shower in her office bathroom, closing her eyes in bliss, letting out a long breath as the tension finally began to drain from her body.

“That sounded like a loaded sigh.”

With a startled squeak, she blinked one Bo Black into focus.

One soon-to-be-
dead
Bo Black.

The walls of the shower were glass, clear glass. He could see everything of her.
“What are you doing?”

“Same as you.” Eyes on hers, he kicked off his shoes.

“Oh, no.” Even though she still had shampoo in her hair, she slammed off the water. “Go away!”

He pulled off his shirt, and her gaze dropped to his shoulders and chest, gilded from the sun, the sleek flesh delineated with long, sinewy lines of muscle.

An undeniable surge of anticipation coursed through her.

He reached for the waistband of his jeans.

“Don't you dare!”
she said.

“Now what have I told you about daring me?”

“We just had sex a few days ago.” She eyed his unmistakable hard-on. “You're still mad at me. You can't want it again.”

“I've got a part of me that says otherwise.”

“Well, you're not supposed to think with that part.”

“It's how us men are made, darlin'. Ridiculously easy.” Pop, pop, pop went the buttons on his Levi's.

Boom, boom, boom went Mel's heart.
“Stop.”

To his credit, he did. Thumbs hooked in his opened jeans, he lifted his head, a specimen so magnificent he took her breath. Her body quivered for more.
Just looking,
she told herself.
That's all, just looking
. “Fine,” she relented, already breathless at the thought of his nude body. “Go ahead and get naked, then. That'll make us even.”

“Even is good.”

“But we're not doing anything.” She tore her gaze off his body and looked into his eyes, which were lit with humor and heat.
Gulp
. Lots of heat. “I mean it, Bo.”

“Remember the other night?” he asked.

Remember? She could do little else!

“Yeah, you remember,” he said. “You know it was off-the-charts amazing.
You're
off-the-charts amazing.”

“Are you trying to butter me up?”

At that, his eyes positively smoldered. “Do you have butter?”

“Oh, my God, you are so male!”

“I'd think you'd be grateful for that.” His smile was slow and wicked and did things to her belly, not to mention her nipples and between her thighs.

“Oh, this is ridiculous.”

He merely turned away to make sure the door was shut.

Um, yikes. “Bo…We don't even trust each other, so—”

“I want to trust you. Can you say the same?”

She absorbed those words as he slid the bolt home, the click echoing in the bathroom. “I'm naked here,” she said. “Which surely displays a certain level of trust.”

“I'm looking for more than that.”

More? What more?

“Finish your shower,” he said, leaning against the door. “You need the relaxing.”

“I'd loosen up if you'd get the hell out of my bathroom.”

“You asked so nicely, but no. Sorry. Careful, you're going to get that shampoo in your eyes. And don't use all that hot water.”

“You're ever so romantic, you know that?”

He grinned. “I'm not trying to romance you, Mel. Trust me, if I was, you'd already be panting my name.”

“Ha ha.” The shampoo was beginning to burn her eyes. “Stay right there.”

He lifted his hands innocently. “Staying.”

Incredibly aware of his gaze on her, she ducked her head back beneath the spray to rinse off the shampoo. Everywhere the suds slid down her body felt like a caress; over her shoulders, her breasts, her belly, her thighs…

Then the shower door opened, and she squeaked, opening her eyes. “You cheated!”

That devastatingly slow, sure smile stretched across his mouth as the water sprayed him. “I'm an Aussie. We don't cheat. We just take advantage of any given situation.” Gaze still holding hers, he shoved down his jeans.

Oh, my. Oh, my my. He was aroused. Extremely aroused.
Hugely,
extremely aroused. She tried not to look, honestly, she tried, but her eyeballs appeared to have a mind of their own, and took themselves on a happy tour.

As she already knew, Bo Black really had it going on.

He stepped into the shower with her, not cockily, but completely unselfconsciously, easily showing her everything he had as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do so.

He'd always done that, from the very beginning, shown her everything.

For a moment that truth hit her so hard she couldn't even breathe.

His smile faded. “Mel?”

“I'm okay.”

“Yeah, you are. Let me in,” he urged softly, stepping close. “I'm getting cold. Certain things aren't pretty when they get cold, Mel.”

“Bo—”

“Look, there might be trust issues between us. Truth issues, too. But one thing we don't have is a chemistry issue.”

She stared at him, then scooted back, giving him room beneath the water with her.

He took it, and more, pulling her wet, naked body to his.

 

The next morning Mel was on hold with Matt when Bo stuck his head in her office.

“That number in Mexico,” Bo said. “It's to a place called
El Pelicano Blanco
. The White Pelican.”

“The number is to
El Pelicano Blanco,
” Matt said, back on the line.

Mel stared at Bo.

“And,” Matt continued in her ear, “one interesting thing. That return address stamp on that letter you got via USPS!”

“Mexican?” she asked weakly. “From the same zone as the White Pelican?”

“Yep.”

Mel hung up and looked at Bo. It didn't escape her that he was still sharing all his info, when she wasn't quite sure if she'd have shared hers.

“Get your passport,” he said.

“I don't suppose there's any point in telling you I'm doing this by myself.”

“No point,” he agreed. “We'll take the Gulfstream.”

 

They left immediately, going through Los Angeles for customs, and then landing in Hermosillo. Mel had grabbed a picture of Sally along with a small overnight duffle bag, which she really hoped she wouldn't need because that would mean another night with Bo.