Tropical Sin: Bandicoot Cove, Book 3 (11 page)

He cocked her a look. “You and Rogers having problems?”

Mason’s question squeezed a ragged sigh from her chest. “Depends on your definition of ‘problems’.”

“Do you love him?”

Her mouth fell open. “Love?”

Mason rolled his eyes. “Oh, c’mon sis. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. We all have. He’s been in love with you for bloody ever. And honestly, I’ve seen the way you look at him as well. It wasn’t as obvious, but it was there—an affection way beyond that of a mere friend. So I ask you again, do you love him?”

McKenzie swallowed. She hadn’t expected that from her bother, but then, she hadn’t expected anything that had happened so far since she stepped foot on this island. “I…I…” The rest of her answer caught in her throat, the implications of her answer far too scary to consider.

He gave her a pointed look. “Aidan’s your best friend for a reason, sis. Hell, he’s the only one I know you let push you around, and to be honest, he’s the only one I know who I’d
let
push you around. He’s been looking out for your heart since the day he met you, holding it in those massive bloody hands of his and making sure no one hurts it. He would do anything for you, you know that, right?”

“I know. But what if I don’t know what that ‘anything’ is at the moment?”

Mason turned back to the surf, his gaze focused on the gentle waves as if the answer to her question was riding them. “I think, when it all comes down to it, a best friend knows
more
about what’s right for you than you do.” He turned his attention to her, really looking at her. “That’s why they’re your best friend, yes?”

McKenzie looked at him back—into his face so like hers and yet so very different. “Yes. That’s exactly why.”

A heavy beat thumped in her temple. Aidan
was
her best friend, but just as importantly,
she
was his. He may have been holding her heart in his hands, but she’d been bloody well holding his in hers for as long as she could remember, too. And she sure as shit wasn’t going to let it go now. Not when she’d finally realized how damn right it felt there. And as for the “anything”? She knew exactly what she wanted that “anything” to be—Aidan in her life. Not just as her friend, but as her lover, and if Nick Blackthorne was the sex toy
du jour
while on the island, she was fine with that. When she and Aidan got back home to Newcastle, they would just go shopping for a different one—maybe some handcuffs? Or a glass dildo? Or one of those funky U-shaped vibrators aimed at couples? Maybe all three? Maybe nothing at all.

It wouldn’t matter because they would have each other.

“Your best friend will never ever do anything wrong by you, Mack.” Mason nudged her shoulder with his again. “Aidan would die before he did.”

With a strangled cry, McKenzie threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a tight squeeze. “Thanks, bro,” she whispered in his ear, warm pressure holding her chest a fraction of a second before she slapped a noisy kiss on his cheek.

“Eww,” he wailed, scrambling for her wrists with his hands. “Girl germs!”

She laughed, skipping backward away from him, the sand like cool satin between her toes. “Freak.”

He grinned at her, his teeth flashing white in the mauve dusk light. “Lunatic.”

She danced another step backward, her pulse pounding in her neck, her pussy heavy with constricting want. “Gotta go.”

Mason’s grin stretched wider. “Going to go do something reckless and insane?”

She grinned back. “And totally surreal. You?”

He laughed. “Oh, you better believe it.”

Chapter Seven

“
A face of an angel with filth on her mind
,” Nick sang under his breath, studying the smooth amber liquid in the cut crystal glass in his hand.
“I pray to burn in her fire, I pray to die in her arms.”

The words sent a charge through him, like the electrical energy of a summer storm—crackling through the hazy, eucalyptus-drenched air, making the pulse quicken and the breath turn to shallow pants. It was intoxicating. Potent.

He held his glass closer to his face, watching the rolling waves kiss the white sand beyond his private bungalow’s eastern balcony through the still scotch.

“
Yet the arms of her lover reach out for more
,” he continued to sing on a murmur, closing his eyes, his dick—already half erect—twitching in his jeans.
“Like a sinner I will burn in his fire. I will die in his fire as she pleads for—”

“I don’t think she’s coming.”

Aidan’s low voice, spoken from the balcony’s doorway, opened Nick’s eyes and he lifted his glass to his lips, swallowing the scotch—his first since Germany—in one mouthful. The liquor burned its way down his throat, a river of heat that did nothing to ease the unsettled nerves fluttering in his gut. So much more to his song to be found, to be felt… So much more of it still hidden in the mist.

Letting out a soft breath, he turned to the massive man now standing beside him, casting him a slow smile. “She’ll come.”

Aidan didn’t look convinced. The muscles in his sizable body tensed and he turned to look at the main door.

“She’ll be here, Aidan,” Nick said, taking in the man’s coiled strength and taciturn apprehension.

Troubled green eyes turned back to him. “How do you know?”

“Because she loves you.”

At Nick’s simple statement, Aidan let out a ragged sigh. “She hasn’t told me that.”

Nick chuckled, unfurling from his seat and placing his hand on Aidan’s broad shoulder. He’d seen the guy buck naked, he’d been witness to his amazing strength and power, but at the feel of Aidan’s muscles under his palm—like chiseled marble—another wave of awed appreciation rolled through him. The male form had never turned him on before, but it was impossible
not
to be impressed with Aidan’s sheer masculinity. “Her eyes have told you, mate.” He fixed Aidan with a steady look. “Trust me, she’ll be here. She loves you.”

Aidan studied him, doubt etching lines on either side of his eyes. “Damn it, I fucked up.” He dragged his hands through his hair as he turned back to the door. “I should have told her—”

A soft knock on the entry door brought him to silence.

Nick’s heart leapt into his throat. His pulse rate doubled. He stood and stared at the bungalow’s closed door, the knot in his gut twisting tighter. There were two possibilities to what awaited on the other side and as selfish as it was, he longed for only one of them: McKenzie Wood would cross the threshold and he would find the ending to his song. The other was too bleak to consider: she would tell Nick she wanted nothing to do with him again.

The knock came again, softer this time.

He shot Aidan a quick look and found the man standing motionless. “Do you want to get that, or shall I?”

With a start, Aidan moved, his ropey muscles coiling and flexing as he strode to the door. Nick watched him wrap long, callused fingers around the doorknob, watched him twist his wrist, watched his shoulder bunch as he pulled open the door.

A shaky sigh escaped from Nick as McKenzie stepped over the threshold, closed the door behind her with her heel and slipped the soft black shift dress she was wearing from her shoulders.

It fell to an inky puddle of material at her feet, but Nick didn’t really notice. Not when she stood before Aidan wearing nothing but a tiny black lace G-string and delicate black patent leather stilettos. Not when her breasts rose and fell with such sublime perfection, their rosy nipples puckered into hard tips, their creamy form swollen with anticipated pleasure.

Not when she looked up at Aidan and said, “And I want to beg but I can’t find the words.”

The lyrics from Nick’s first love song—a song he wrote for the goddess who long ago owned his heart—speared into his soul. The song McKenzie had selected when he’d come to them both and asked to be a part of their rapture.

He walked towards the two lovers, scooping the red silk scarf he’d laid out on the bungalow’s dining table earlier up as he did so. The cool fabric slid over his fingers in a gentle caress that send wicked licks of hot desire into his groin. His throat thickened. Oh, what he wanted to do tonight…

He stopped beside Aidan, giving the man—who still gazed down at McKenzie with silent love—a steady look. His heart beat harder. How could they not know how much each loved the other? How could they not
see
it? It was so potent, so undeniable he could barely draw breath. It fueled his arousal like nothing he’d ever experienced before. It moved him, inspired him. Fuck, it rocked him to the very center of his soul.

“Aidan—” he kept his voice steady, “—tie McKenzie’s wrists together behind her back.”

McKenzie’s sudden intake of breath, a hitching gasp, sent another hot surge of hunger into Nick’s groin. As did the way Aidan’s nostrils flared as the man turned to look at him.

He raised his hand, holding it palm upward, fingers extended. The red silk scarf draped over his palm, vibrant and evocative, as if alive with the future of those in the room.

Aidan studied it for what felt like a lifetime, his jaw clenched, his eyes unblinking. He lifted his stare to McKenzie’s face. “Mack?”

The question—just her name but full of unspoken hope—was enough to make Nick’s cock flood with hot blood. When McKenzie gave Aidan a single nod, moving her hands to behind her back, her breasts thrusting forward, Nick almost came there and then.

The trust, the faith these two people had for each other… God, it was exquisite.

And so fucking arousing.

Without a word, Aidan removed the scarf from Nick’s hand, stepping behind McKenzie, towering over her.

Nick took his place in front of her, his gaze holding hers as Aidan slid his hands over her shoulders and down her arms, the scarf held loosely between his fingers, caressing her skin as he reached her wrists.

“You trust him, don’t you?” Nick’s balls rose at the concentrated want in McKenzie’s direct blue eyes.

He saw Aidan become still, his head bent, his body pressed close to McKenzie’s back, as if he needed to hear an answer he already knew. Perhaps, with Nick there, he did.

A small smile pulled at the corners of McKenzie’s mouth. “I trust him.”

Nick’s balls throbbed and he took a step closer, letting his denim-clad thighs brush her naked ones. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” She drew in a deep breath, the action causing her nipples to graze the front of his shirt and his balls didn’t just throb, they ached. “I do. Besides, I know Aidan will break you in two if you do anything to hurt me.”

Nick chuckled. “True.”

Aidan’s gaze flicked up to his. “True,” he said softly just as McKenzie’s gasp filled the room and her body stiffened.

Nick’s pulse thumped harder in his chest, her reaction telling him exactly what Aidan had done: tied the scarf around her wrists. Bound them together. Rendering her vulnerable.

Fuck, yes.

The urge to kiss her, to capture her lips and plunder her mouth almost overwhelmed him, but he held it in check. Just. Turning on his heel, he crossed the room to the table, retrieving another soft silk scarf waiting there. He heard Aidan’s heavy breaths behind him, the sound affirmation the man was as close to breaking point as himself. When he turned back to them both, he found two sets of eyes watching him, both ablaze with a desire so raw his cock jerked in his jeans. Precome leaked from its slit, its warmth slicking his taut flesh.

He walked back, stopping directly before McKenzie, the scarf dangling from his fingertips.
“A face of an angel with filth on her mind.”
The lyrics came from him in a low purr.
“I pray to burn in her fire, I pray to die in her arms.”

He reached up and laid the scarf gently on her forehead, holding her stare for a moment.

“Yet the arms of her lover reach out for more.

“Like a sinner I will burn in his fire,

“I will die in his fire as she pleads for…”

McKenzie lifted her chin. “More,” she whispered.

Aidan’s groan rumbled in his chest, urgent and strained, and it was too much for Nick. Too much.

He pulled the scarf down over McKenzie’s eyes, knotted it behind her head and crushed her mouth with his.

The very second Nick’s lips found McKenzie’s, Aidan’s lips found her throat. He tasted her perfume on her skin, he breathed in her clean, delicate scent. From the way McKenzie shifted against him, he knew she was already struggling to control the pleasure in her body. Her hands were balled as fists at the small of her back, her knuckles pressing to the flat plane of his belly, just above his groin. His dick jerked in his trousers, straining instantly and irrefutably for her flesh, her heat.

He smoothed his hands over her body instead, up the curve of her ribcage to the swell of her breasts. His thumbs found her nipples, his pulse quickening at the hitching moan he heard her make through Nick’s kiss.

The singer pulled away from her, his mouth journeying down her throat, over her breasts until he captured one of her nipples. Aidan felt Nick’s warm lips on his fingers, felt his tongue stroke at McKenzie’s flesh. He held her breast for Nick to suckle on it, the soft moans rising in her chest all the evidence he needed to prove she was succumbing to the sensations the man’s mouth wrought on her body.

His cock jerked with increasing need. And something else. Something like…

Jealousy?

The thought threw him off kilter. Jealous? Now? Why now? After everything…

Because you love her, Rogers. You love her with every fiber of your being. You always have and you always will.

A low growl rumbled in his chest and he ground his teeth. The idea of Nick making love to McKenzie, of touching her…

Aidan’s stomach knotted. Not anymore. Not anymore.

As if sensing Aidan’s sudden tension, Nick lifted his head from McKenzie’s breasts, sliding his gaze to Aidan’s face. They stared at each other for a steady moment, a question in Nick’s grey eyes.

Aidan drew in a slow breath, taking McKenzie’s scent into his being, feeling her soft body against him. She stood motionless, blindfolded and bound between them, and yet there wasn’t an iota of apprehension to her. Her trust in him was implicit. Unquestionable. Oh, Christ, he loved her. So damn much.