Jill Shalvis - Aussie Rules

He ran the pad of his finger over the base of her throat, and something warm and delicious and utterly dangerous slid into her belly. If I’m so off-putting,” he murmured, “you’re going to want to work on this, then.”

“On what?”

Again a swipe of his thumb over her wild pulse. “On how bad you want me.”

She slapped his hand away but in a lightning-quick move, he snagged her wrist, and then her other, the one that held the letter opener. He eyed the steel point with curious amusement, then squeezed until it clattered from her fingers to the floor. “You might want to work on that, too. That temper you clearly have smoldering for me.” He tsked. “Dead giveaway on that wanting-me-bad thing.”

“You are delusional.”

“Why?” His gaze met hers. “Are you taken?”

“Taken?”

“Committed.”

“No. Not committed.” Not that she had anything against the idea in theory, but though she’d had lovers here and there over the years, she’d always discovered some fatal flaw and broken things off before anything too serious began. Char called the phenomenon the Anderson Chronicles. Dimi called it pathetic.

Closing the gap between them, Bo pressed his body to hers. Her nipples had gone hard at the beginning of this little discussion, and now they bore into his chest. Could he feel them? She thought maybe by the look on his face that he could.

“So you don’t want me,” he said a little hoarsely. “Not even a little.”

She had to clear her throat to talk. “Not even a little.”

“Prove it,” he whispered, lowering his head so that their mouths were only a fraction apart.

“I don’t have to prove anything-”

He clucked like a chicken.

“This is so juvenile.” Her hands came up between them, her palms open on his chest. To push him away, she told herself, only she didn’t push so much as hold on like he was her lifesaver and she was going down. “I am not going to kiss you just to prove I don’t want you-”

“Shut up and do it, darlin’.”

“You know what? Fine.” Grabbing his ears, she yanked his face closer and laid one on him. Only the joke was on her because the moment she felt his warm, delicious mouth touch hers she forgot that this was supposed to be about making her point and instead got sucked into the hot wave of lust that washed over her, drowning out all good sense.

His good sense, too, apparently, because she got much more than she bargained for. He met her halfway, kissing her hungrily, possessively, then deeper still, pushing her back against the desk, his thigh pressing up between hers, his hands-God, his hands.

She might have let him do whatever he wanted, possibly even have stripped her naked and begged him to touch bare flesh this time, because she was lost in the sensations, one hundred percent lost.

But then the radio crackled, and Charlene’s voice filled the air. “Mel? Bo’s got an incoming. He still in there?”

Her heart pounding, pounding, pounding, nipples hard, thighs quivery, damp between them, Mel stared up at Bo.

He was breathing just as heavily as she was. “It’s, uh, about a vintage Stearman PT-13D I’m thinking of buying.”

Mel nodded, cleared her throat again, then lifted the radio to her mouth. “Thanks, Char, I’ll tell him.”

Bo, having apparently proven his point, gave Mel one last long look filled with heat and some other stuff that made breathing difficult, then simply walked out.

She let out a long breath. Well. If that wasn’t the cruelest thing he’d done so far, making her like him, making her want him. With a shaking hand, she stroked the hair from her face. One of them wasn’t going to survive this, and at the moment, body humming, buzzing, aching, she wasn’t sure who’d be left standing in the end. She sagged back against the desk, thankful for its durability, because, wow.

Just wow.

Seemed she wanted more than for Bo to simply go far, far away. She wanted him to do her first. Which solved it, really. She wasn’t lost, she’d merely left reality and had driven right into insanity.

Dimi woke up on a plane. Now if it had been in the air, she’d have freaked and needed serious aromatherapy, but all was still and quiet, and she relaxed.

It wasn’t the first time she’d woken confused…There’d been many nights hanging out with the guys until late, drinking with them, getting a little too toasted to drive home. She’d always just made herself comfortable in one of the planes they stored for people who had too much money.

But as she sat up and put a hand to her reeling head, she realized this wasn’t just any plane but a Lear Jet, luxurious and plush and gorgeous.

Oh, and bigger surprise, she wasn’t alone.

A muscled forearm was wrapped around her waist. Then a pair of lips pressed to her shoulder as a husky, sleepy male voice whispered, “Morning, Sexy.”

Before she could get her wits together, she was turned over into his arms. With a sexy smile, he slid a thigh between hers, bent his head, and sucked her bare breast into his mouth.

Right. She remembered now. Gorgeous Guy from Sunshine Café. Brother of the owner of the plane she was currently butt-ass naked in. He’d ditched his buddies and his brother on their night on the town to be with her, and she’d made it worth his while.

And he’d made it worth hers, taking her mind off the fact that Bo Black held the key to her livelihood. A brutal reality that thrust her back into insecure, desperate, fearful mode, a feeling she hated and resented with all her heart.

Gorgeous Guy nibbled his way to her other breast, rocking an impressive morning erection between her legs as she tried for a graceful escape. “So.” She cleared her throat. “Anyone here remember last night?”

He lifted his head. “You don’t?”

She shrugged. “Well, we did get fairly toasted-” There’d been plenty of alcohol in the wet bar right behind them. “Everything’s a bit of a blur.”

His smile faded. So did Mr. Impressive between her legs. “You don’t remember any of it?”

Ah, hell. A sensitive one. Furtively, she tried to get a look at his watch without further insulting him but his jaw went tight. “It’s five forty-five,” he said gruffly.

Oh, shit. She wriggled, trying to get free. “Move, Sugar, I’ve got to get up.”

He pulled back, still looking shocked.

Galvanized into action, she hopped off the buttery soft leather double recliner and winced at the hangover rattling her head. Ignoring the opulent interior all around her, she began searching for her clothes. She found her panties dangling off a window shade and pulled them on, getting a flashback of the man behind her yanking them off her last night, inadvertently scratching her tender inner thigh in his hurry. “The crew signs on in fifteen minutes,” she said. “They’re probably already gathered in the café, listening to AC/DC and mooching off Charlene. You’ve got to be gone.”

“We’re not taking off until ten.” He reached for her, slipping his fingers between her legs. “Let’s have breakfast.”

“I can’t!” She batted him away. “I have to work.”

“Come on,” he cajoled, pulling her back against him. “We clicked so well last night, let’s continue the fun.”

How much clicking could there have been if all she remembered was him scratching her? “Sorry. Breakfast isn’t my style.” Her bra was in his loafer. She shimmied into that and began the hunt for her skirt and top-there, on the back of the pilot’s seat. “Where do you usually go when you tie down here for the night?”

“A hotel, but-”

“Good. Great. Take the rental car I arranged for you yesterday and come back in a few hours.”

He came up behind her, again tried to hold her. “I had fun,” he whispered, nuzzling her jaw.

The sun had come up, and for all Dimi’s worldliness, she never had sex in the light of day. Never.

“We have a connection,” he said.

Uh-huh. A connection. He couldn’t be more than twenty-four, and she knew men. At that age, the biggest connection they had was to their own penis. Mostly, she figured, he just wanted to get lucky again. “Get dressed.”

He pulled on his pants, his shirt, and began hunting for his shoes. “How about next weekend? Are you-”

“No.” She softened her voice. “I’m sorry, no.” She put her hands on his shoulders and tried to turn him toward the door to shove him out, because damn it, if Mel caught her with one of the clients, she was going to skin her alive. “Go,” she said.

“This first.” He leaned in to kiss her but she shifted, giving him her cheek instead.

“Hey, I want a kiss.”

“Well, I don’t.” She never kissed her lovers. Like getting naked in the light of day, it seemed too intimate, too real. Putting her hand to her head, which was threatening to leap off her shoulders, she tried to smile. “Look, I’ll call you, okay?” Standard line, of course, used only to avoid a scene.

He saw right through her, and went from pout to something else, something darker and much closer to anger. “You don’t have my number.”

From the radio in her skirt pocket she heard Kellan say something. Shit. Indeed, the crew had arrived, probably all in the lobby macking on donuts, hangover free. Damn it.

Danny would look at her with that combination of disappointment and regret, like it was her fault she sometimes tended to use sex as her Prozac, and Dimi would feel like crap. “I’ve got to run-”

But Gorgeous Guy grabbed her arm and held on with a shocking strength. Just last night that strength had been incredibly arousing. Now, not so much. “Let go of me,” she said very carefully.

“You can’t just run out on me.”

She went from guilty to mad without passing GO. “Look, I can do anything I want.”

“So that’s it?” he asked, eyes narrowed, definitely annoyed. “You got off and now you’re done with me?”