Jill Shalvis - Aussie Rules

But not sleep exhausted.

Heart exhausted.

She parked outside her place and sat there for a long time. She looked down at her passenger seat, at the signed lease lying there. She’d never given it to Bo, but now seemed as good a time as any.

So she started her car again, heading to the condo Bo rented. It was dark outside. As she got out of the car, she could hear the waves crashing onshore in rhythm, a soothing sound. Still, her chest felt too tight, her heart squeezed into too small of a space as she knocked on Bo’s door.

He answered wearing a pair of shorts and nothing else. She could tell by his tousled hair and sleepy eyes he’d been lying in bed.

“Um…hi,” she said. “Is it too late?”

“Depends. Too late for what?”

Bo waited for Mel’s answer. His brain was still befuddled from lying on his bed, sleepless, tossing and turning, thinking of the woman now right in front of him, the woman with the biggest heart of any he’d known, with a smile who could melt him at one hundred knots.

It was if he’d conjured her up from his fantasies, except in his fantasies she didn’t have on a pair of jeans and a tank top, she had nothing on but a sexy smile as she dropped to her knees in front of him and-

Instead, she slapped the signed lease against his bare chest. She was trying not to look at him, but her gaze kept dropping to his chest in a way that made him extremely grateful to be a man.

He loved that she lusted after his body. He’d love for it to be more than lust as well, and was banking on talking her into that with some more time.

“I took your deal,” she said. “I know you’re probably halfway out the door, and I just wanted to say good-bye. Alone. Just you and me.”

“Mel-”

“No.” She stepped over the threshold and slid her arms around his neck. “I don’t want to talk. I don’t even want to think. Okay?”

Not thinking worked for him. He’d done so much thinking his brain hurt; about his father, about the past, about what the fuck to do with himself now that he’d come here with destruction on his mind but instead had ended up actually enjoying himself.

He missed Australia, but if he left here, he’d miss this, too. He loved the ocean, he’d discovered. He loved the lush landscape.

He loved the woman wrapped around him like saran wrap.

She sank her fingers into his hair and pulled his head down to kiss him, dancing her tongue to his, and just like that, he was a goner. Send in a rescue plane, he was going down. “Oh, yeah,” he breathed, and tossed the lease over his shoulder, hauling her up against him, kicking the door closed. “A bed,” he murmured against her mouth. “I want you in my bed, beneath me, panting my name, coming…”

“Yes.”

But halfway there he had to press her back against the wall in his hallway, kissing her mouth, her neck, anything he could reach. She rocked against him with a sexy little whimper, and he could barely stand it, this need to inhale her whole.

“God, Bo-”

“I know.” He stripped off her tank top, then ripped open her jeans, unable to get to skin fast enough to suit him. Her jeans got caught on one leg, her tank on his arm, but she just laughed breathlessly and held on.

Held on as if she never intended to let go.

God, the amazing rush that gave him. For a moment he pressed his forehead to hers, just breathing her in, wanting to stop time right at this moment so he could soak her up. Lap her up. “Mel.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and arched up, her legs around his waist, pressing the wet heat of her where he wanted it the most.

I love you. The words wanted to burst from his throat, and it stunned him, the power of them, so that he could only stare down at her.

Her eyes were half-closed, with that sexy little smile curving her lips as she rocked against him again, that hot bod feeling so damn right against his. “I thought you wanted me in your bed,” she murmured.

Yeah, in his bed. And in his heart and soul, for the rest of his life, but he kept his mouth closed as he gazed down at her because he didn’t want the words to escape, not when she might attribute them to just lust.

Because this was so, so much more.

“Please, Bo,” she whispered.

Yeah. He’d please. He’d please if it took all damn night. Somehow he got them to his bed, then crawled up her body and slid inside her.

“Oh, my God.” Arching up, she closed her eyes.

“No, leave them open, Mel. Look at me.”

Her eyes fluttered open as if at great effort, then locked on his. “You are so beautiful,” he breathed.

She started to shake her head but he just nodded. “You are. So damned beautiful I can’t stop looking at you.”

She stared up at him, her arms locked around his neck. Sent him up a shaky smile that he managed to return, but it backed up in his throat as he began to move, as she gasped and pulled him even closer, struggling to keep her eyes open on his. She moved with him, and with their eyes locked, something extremely deep and real passed between them. I love you, he thought again, his last coherent thought for a good long time…

Mel woke up in Bo’s bed, burrowed beneath the covers, a pillow over her head. Seemed she’d gotten pretty comfortable, sleeping with ease next to his muscular, warm body…

The thought of him brought a smile to her lips and she pushed the pillow away and blankets off. The early-morning sun slanted across her face. Squinting, she turned her head and reached across the bed.

Still warm, but no Bo.

The shower was running, and she lay back and grinned up at the ceiling, wondering how long he’d been in there…if he still had enough hot water left so that they could make it a twosome.

Odd, this wanting-to-stay thing. A first.

And here was another: she loved him.

Goofy with it, she sat up in the bed just as a scream sounded from the bathroom.

A female scream, followed by a gunshot.

The gunshot was accompanied by a crash and a thud, a second gunshot, and yet another scream.

Mel’s heart stopped as she leapt out of bed and went running for the bathroom in nothing but Bo’s T-shirt. She hauled the door open, then gasped in shock.

Bo stood in the shower, the door open, water raining out on the floor, holding a gun. There was glass everywhere, and above them, the light had been shot out.

On the floor, wet and looking extremely pissed, sat…Sally.

The years hadn’t been particularly kind to her. Oh, she was still carefully gorgeous, with her long hair and wild blue eyes, with tanned, toned skin and a body most men would drool over, but she looked as if she’d been rode hard and put away wet. She looked cold. Rough.

Mean. “Ah, shit!” she said at the sight of Mel. “What are you doing here?”

Dealing with stressful situations was like breathing for Mel, but this was beyond anything she’d ever experienced. She was looking at the woman she’d loved, deeply loved, after years of absence. This person was holding her arm and bleeding profusely all over the floor.

Mel’s gaze whipped toward Bo, who still stood there, naked, water streaming down over his back and shoulders, holding a gun on Sally. “She tried to kill you,” Mel guessed, horrified.

“Luckily, she’s a bad shot.” His eyes were still trained on Sally, gun steady.

“Bullshit, I’m a bad shot,” Sally spit out. “You grabbed my shooting arm.”

“And shot her?” Mel gasped.

Bo’s mouth tightened, but Sally laughed harshly. “I damn well shot myself, thank you for asking. The bastard was going to wrestle me to the floor, the gun went off twice.”

“Oh, my God.” Mel put her hand to her mouth. He could have been killed. Just like that. Before she’d told him-

“Don’t move,” Bo told Sally, who was creeping toward the door. “Don’t fucking move.”

Sirens went off in the distance. “Well, that’s just perfect.” Sally thunked her head back against the tile, pale and exhausted looking. “It’s over. You should have left it all alone, Mel. Why couldn’t you just have left it alone?”

“You gave Eddie the deed. You never even told us,” Mel said slowly, so many things going through her mind she could barely speak. “How did that happen? Why did that happen?”

“It was mine to give.”

“You should have told us.”

Sally laughed again, a cold sound. “It was just a means to an end.”

“The end being?”

“Cash.” Sally opened her eyes, and they were shockingly filled with honesty. Pain.

But no regret. Not even a little bit. “Men are scum of the earth, Mel. You know that by now. You’ve always known it. Look at your father. They all deserve what they get.”

“If that’s true, why did you marry two of them?”

“Eight.”

“Eight?”

“And each of them left me a fortune, stupid bastards. It was a great gig, too. Until you started digging your nose in. That’s when things began to unravel.”

“Yeah, you were in control right up until that point,” Bo said dryly, reaching behind him to turn off the water, gun still on Sally.

“I’m not going anywhere, stud,” Sally told him. “You win. You can lower that bad boy now.”

Bo kept the gun on her.

“Aw, jeez, at least wrap yourself in a towel.” Sally scooted a little closer to the door. “Not that you aren’t impressive or anything…”

He was. Standing there naked, dripping wet, all his muscles seemed to glow. Unfortunately for Bo, he couldn’t move without getting cut on the glass splintered at his feet, but he reached out and grabbed a towel, holding it in front of him.

The sirens grew louder.

“So let me get this straight,” Sally said to Bo, still bleeding profusely, and beginning to shiver in shock. “You sleeping with her to get back at me?”

Bo didn’t answer, just kept the gun on her. Mel’s heart took a little dive.