Tropical Sin: Bandicoot Cove, Book 3 (12 page)

He looked at Nick.

Nick looked at him. He didn’t say anything, not a word, but Aidan knew what he was going to do. With a smile Aidan could only ever call joyous, the world’s most famous, desired rock star lifted his hand to McKenzie’s face, cupped her jaw in his palm, and then stepped backward.

Aidan took his place immediately. Silently. He lowered himself to his knees, pressing his lips to McKenzie’s flat stomach, exploring her belly button with a series of tiny nips and nibbles.

She hitched in a gasp, and another one when he dragged his lips down farther, his tongue flicking out once to touch her soft, damp folds.

“Oh,” she whispered.

Did she know who was touching her now? Aidan didn’t care. All he wanted to do at that very moment was fill her with the purest pleasure he could. Give her his heart, his soul, in a simple touch.

He stroked her folds again with his tongue, and again she uttered that whispered word. “Oh.”

With gentle hands, he parted her thighs, opening her pussy up to his mouth. He lapped at her cleft, passing his tongue over her clit. Again. Again.

He heard he whimper, a shaky cry that barely left her throat.

He tasted her pussy with his tongue and lips, sucking on her sweetness with gentle pressure before laving her clit once more.

“Oh, yes.”

Her moan sent a surge of hot blood to his groin. His balls rose up. He dipped his tongue into her sex again, reveling in the wet heat of her feminine cleft. She tasted… divine.

And he wanted more.

His fingers skimmed over her hips, squeezing her firm arse cheeks for a brief second as he blew a gentle stream of cool air on her flushed, swollen folds.

“Please…” she begged on a trembling breath, rolling her hips forward.

He stroked his tongue over her clit, with a touch more force this time.

A slight shudder rocked through her, vibrating through his hands, down his arms into his chest.

“Please…” she begged again, her voice husky. “Oh, please, please I need to…”

He dipped his tongue deeper into her sex, lapping at her juices.

“I need to…”

The words fell from her in a hitching moan.

He rolled his tongue over her clit, flicked it, sucked on it.

“Oh, oh.”

He drew the sensitive nub into his mouth, capturing it with his teeth a split second before suckling on it once more.

“Oh God, please…”

He sucked harder. Flicked his tongue over it. Delved deep into her creamy heat and then sucked on her clit again.

“Oh, please, please.”

Her hips bucked forward. Her arse cheeks coiled. He heard her breath turn rapid, shallow pants that turned his balls to excruciating globes of urgent need.

He stroked his fingers over her hips, up her belly, feathered his fingertips over the swell of her breasts, teasing her erect nipples and then returning his hands to her hips. He swiped his tongue over her clit, swirled it around the tip and sucked it past his lips.

“Oh, please.” The moaned supplication was barely more than a breath. “Please.”

He smoothed his hands back to her thighs, spread her legs wider, granting his fingers, his mouth, greater access to the very center of her heat, and flicked his tongue over and over and over her clit. He slipped his fingers into her drenched channel and stroked the sweetest spot of her walls within.

She came. With a keening cry and a jolting shudder.

Aidan closed his eyes, pressing his face to her center, drinking her release as it wept from her.

He would never tire of this, of giving her this unconditional pleasure. He would never…

“I love you, Aidan.”

McKenzie’s voice caressed his heart. He opened his eyes, hardly daring to draw breath.

She bent her face toward him, the scarf hiding her beautiful, cheeky, expressive eyes from him.

He didn’t move. Did he hear correctly? Did he?

“Did you hear me, Rogers?” she murmured, her lips curling in a slow grin. “I love you. I love you so bloody much I won’t thump you for taking so long to tell me you love me back.”

Before he could stop himself, Aidan leapt to his feet, a whoop of delight—or some such sound—bursting from him as he swept McKenzie up into his arms and claimed her lips with his.

She kissed him back, her tongue mating with his, fierce and demanding and ferocious. Everything McKenzie-ish. And everything McKenzie-ish was everything he loved.

He kissed her until his head spun and his groin throbbed, and when he feared he would drop her, he lowered her feet to the floor and slipped the scarf from her face. “I love you too, Mack, just in case you haven’t picked up on that yet.”

She rolled her eyes. “A girl would have to be pretty bloody dense not to.”

He laughed, pulling her closer. “Yeah, dense is a good word.”

She thumped her fist against his chest, giving him a mock glare. “Hey!”

“How did you know it was me?” he asked, gazing into her eyes.

She grinned. “Who else would make me feel like that?”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Like what?”

Her grin stretched wider. “Like nothing else mattered in the world but me?”

A soft cough to Aidan’s left made him start and he swung around, more than a little embarrassed to discover he’d completely forgotten Nick’s presence in the room.

The rock star sat in one of the bungalow’s low, leather chairs, ankle resting on bent knee, one arm slung casually over the back of the chair. His body was loose and calm, his lips curled in an easy smile. Across his lap lay McKenzie’s dress, his fingers dancing over its soft fabric as if it were the strings of a guitar. “Now that was a thing of beauty.”

McKenzie laughed, resting her cheek against Aidan’s chest. His heart rate kicked up a notched at the simple intimacy and he wondered if he would ever get used to the wonderful sensation of being touched by her. Unlikely. Hell, he didn’t
want
to. Not ever.

He bent his head and kissed the top of hers, for no other reason than he could.

His heart rate tripped over itself again. Christ, he felt amazing.

Nick it seemed, recognized his sheer joy. The man’s smile twitched, his eyes sparkling bright grey happiness. “I think I’m allowed to say I told you so at this point, Aidan?”

Aidan smoothed his hands down McKenzie’s arms and, with a quick fumble of the scarf on her wrists, released her of her silken binds, gazing down into her upturned face. “Yeah, I guess you can.”

A second of silence past before Nick cleared his throat again. “I have to perform at Evoke in a few minutes.” He uncrossed his leg and shifting in the chair until he seemed so far removed from leaving Aidan wondered if he’d misheard him. “But before I go, I have McKenzie’s exclusive to tell.”

McKenzie stiffened against Aidan, her hands coming to rest on his stomach as she gave her head one sharp shake of disagreement. “No, I don’t want it. The world doesn’t need to know why you were—”

Before Aidan’s jaw could drop, Nick interrupted her with a laugh, holding up his palm. “It’s okay, Ms. Wood from Goss Weekly. I
want
to tell you.”

McKenzie stood very still in Aidan’s arms. Her heart thumped against his chest, quick, rapid. She caught her bottom lip with her teeth, gnawing on it as she considered Nick’s offer. The sight of such uncertainty sent an irrational surge of pride through Aidan. Here was the woman who less than twelve hours ago wanted to spill the beans on whatever dark secret Nick Blackthorne was harboring. But now…

“Truly, Mack,” Nick said from his chair, the use of her nickname sending an inexplicable ribbon of happiness through Aidan.

McKenzie turned her gaze to Aidan for a moment, long enough for him to see her waiting for his reaction. A slight frown pulled at her eyebrows.

He shrugged. “You’re a journalist, Mack.” He gave her a nudge and slight push away, letting her know exactly what he thought of the situation. “Could I stand back and watch a house burn down?”

With a nod, she crossed to Nick, retrieving her dress from his fingers as he offered it to her. She shimmied into it, the fabric falling over her slim body like black liquid. Aidan pulled in a slow breath. Yep, there wasn’t a hope in hell he was ever getting used to being in love with her. Not a hope in hell.

“Okay,” she said, and he had to chuckle at the sudden brusque tone of her voice—all business and no-nonsense and serious. “Give me my exclusive.”

Chapter Eight

“Two years ago I learned I was adopted.”

Nick’s calm statement made McKenzie blink. That wasn’t what she’d been expecting at all. She’d expected…what? Actually, she didn’t have a clue. After the last day, nothing about Nick Blackthorne was what she’d thought it was.

“Two years?” Aidan said behind her, and she glanced over her shoulder, noting he’d propped himself against the edge of the table with his ankles crossed. The pit of her belly tightened and she fought the urge to smile. Damn, he looked hot. Hot and fuckable. “Around the time your parents were killed in that car accident?”

The time frame made McKenzie blink again. Her journalist’s mind scrambled to connect the dots.

“Yeah,” Nick answered, his voice uncharacteristically emotionless. “My adopted status was revealed to me during the reading of their will. Along with the fact I had a brother three years younger than me.”

McKenzie’s breath caught in her throat. Thirty-five years of not knowing. Thirty-five years of thinking you were one person only to discover you weren’t? And then discovering you had a brother you knew nothing of? The tightening in her belly turned to a churning lurch. She thought of her brothers—all six of them. Sure, she’d wanted to kill more than one of them growing up, Mason the most, but not having them in her life? Not knowing about them…? No. She couldn’t even begin to comprehend it.

“Jesus.”

Aidan’s barely audible murmur whispered behind her, but she couldn’t take her stare from Nick.

He gave her a wry grin. “To say it was a shock is a bit of an understatement.”

Aidan snorted.

“Apparently my parents—” Nick paused, a frustrated frown pulling at his eyebrows, “—my
non-biological
parents tried to adopt him too but the application was denied. I don’t know why. It wasn’t mentioned in the will and I could never find out.”

McKenzie crossed to the seat next to Nick’s and lowered herself onto it, perching on its cushioned edge. “But you found out everything else?”

He let out a sigh. “It took me eighteen months of battling red tape but I did. My birth name is Nicolas Schulze, my birth mother was a young German illegally living in Australia and my brother’s name is—” he let out another sigh, the breath a harrowing gush of air, “—
was
, Derek.”

“Was?”

The one-word question felt like dust on McKenzie’s tongue. This was not the exclusive she imagined. That Nick was sharing it with her, on the record, made her throat thick. God, how had the world not known this?

“Eighteen months to find him?” Aidan asked softly. “So, six months ago from today? That was the time you cancelled your world tour.”

Nick nodded, giving Aidan a wry grin. “You got a Nick Blackthorne timeline in your head, mate?”

Aidan chuckled. “I bought tickets. Was going to surprise Mack with them.”

Nick pulled a face. “Well fuck, ’ey. I hope you got your money back?”

Aidan gave him a grin. “Yeah. Bought tickets to U2 with it.”

Nick’s laughter bubbled up his chest. “Good, Bono could do with the extra cash.” He laughed again, and yet McKenzie couldn’t help but notice the mirth didn’t quite reach his eyes. They were still…haunted.

“What happened to Derek, Nick?”

Nick’s chest heaved with a silent breath. He looked away, his attention seemingly focused on the sweeping views outside his bungalow’s open deck doors. McKenzie doubted he saw the Pacific Ocean. “I finally did find Derek in Germany. It took many weeks to establish any kind of relationship with him at all. It would seem our mother—long dead of a drug overdose by this time—hadn’t been the most loving of parents. Nor the best role model. Derek grew up being dragged from one commune to another. By the time he was sixteen, he’d been sexually assaulted by more than one of our mother’s partners.”

The air left McKenzie’s lungs in a sharp gasp. She didn’t know what to say. Neither, it seemed, did Aidan, who studied the singer with a clenched jaw and flaring nostrils, his arms crossed over his broad chest, coiled and hard.

Nick moved his gaze from the open doorway and the calm, dusk-painted ocean beyond. “He was working the streets in Berlin. He was addicted to just about every fucked-up drug a pusher can sell and fucking anything that offered him a hit.”

His voice was flat. He stopped. Swallowed.

“I’m sorry, Nick.” McKenzie caught her bottom lip with her teeth. “You don’t have to tell me anymore. I’m not—”

He shook his head. “Shush, Mack. There is a happy ending to this tale, I promise.”

McKenzie found it hard to believe him. Happy? No wonder the last two years had been filled with reports of Nick Blackthorne acting surly and aggressive. No wonder he’d cancelled all live performances. Shit, with this to deal with?

She frowned at him.

“I did everything I could to help him,” Nick went on, holding her gaze. His strength staggered her. “He got cleaned up as much as he could, kicked as many addictions as he could, except…” He wiped at his mouth with his hand. “Derek was bisexual, but one of his so-called ‘fathers’ tried to beat it out of him at the age of eighteen. A month after finding Derek I had to return to the U.S.—contractual obligations with my record label. By the time I returned to Germany, Derek had admitted himself into the
Vergnügen
sex clinic. He was convinced he was a sick, perverted sex-addict who needed to be cured. Nothing I or the doctors said would change his mind. I spent my days and nights with him in the clinic, doing everything to help the brother I’d never known I had see there was nothing wrong with his sexual choices.”

He stopped and looked out the window again. “He committed suicide two weeks ago. I found him in a pool of his own blood on the floor of his room after returning from a meeting with his doctors.”