Jill Shalvis - Aussie Rules

His fingers tightened on her hips. A rough groan tumbled from him.

Hmmm. Now they were getting somewhere. She stroked him over her again until he glistened with her own excitement, and then again right…where…she…needed…him…the…most-

“Christ,” he said thickly. “Look how beautiful you are.”

She skimmed her free hand up over her own belly, her ribs, then her breast.

“Oh, God.” His eyes darkened. Went opaque. “Definitely feeling desperate here, Mel.”

“If you were desperate,” she panted, desperate herself, thank you very much, “you wouldn’t be able to talk.” Again she stroked him over her, but that turned out to be a two-edged sword because her own body was reacting, heating, tightening. Begging. Because she had to, she allowed the very tip of him to slip inside her, stretching her sensitized flesh, stretching and filling-

“More.” Breathing hard, he arched up. “More.”

She was dying for more, but she shook her head. “Not yet.”

With a groan, he pushed his hips up, his hands trying to urge her closer, to let all of him in. His abs were tight, his nipples tight, his skin hot and damp, his eyes all but flaming as they held hers, letting her see everything he felt, which was possibly the sexiest, most arousing thing she’d ever experienced.

And just like that, with his fingers on her breast and only the tip of her inside her, she began to lose it.

“Oh, yeah,” he murmured, and grazed his thumb over her clit.

That was it, all she needed, and she was gone, completely gone, in a spectacular orgasm that left her deaf, blind, and mute. “God,” she finally breathed as she sank down over his chest like warm putty. “What is that?”

“I don’t know, but stick around, there’s more.”

Stick around…The thought might have made her sad because he wasn’t going to stick around, but then he thrust up into her, filling her to bursting.

His hands gripped her hips, set her rhythm as she rode him, and when she heard him call out her name in a hungry, heated voice, it-unbelievably-sent her skittering over the edge again.

He joined her that time, and as she fell, she thought…It’s so easy with him. So damned easy, it terrified her.

“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.

Mel,

Wanted you to catch a few extra winks if you could. I’m going to the airport to fuel you up and run the preflight check.

– Bo

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.

In 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…