Tropical Sin: Bandicoot Cove, Book 3 (13 page)

“Jesus,” Aidan muttered, making McKenzie jump. She blinked, her eyes prickling, her mouth dry. “There’s a happy ending to this?”

“There is.” Nick turned away from the window. “You two.”

“Excuse me?”

She’d asked the question before she realized it. She and Aidan? How could she and Aidan be the happy ever after to this tale?

Nick smiled, the first truly relaxed action she’d seen from him since he started her “exclusive”.

“You two. I’d lost any sense of life, of happiness, you see. Fuck, I couldn’t see any color in the world, I couldn’t hear any music in the days until I saw you together this morning. I was broken. I doubted real love, real joy existed.” He let out a sigh and a soft chuckle. “Your obvious love for each other has mended me and for that, I will never be able to thank you enough.”

“Wow.” McKenzie couldn’t think of anything else to say. Not a thing. Luckily, Aidan could.

“No worries, mate. Remind me to send you the bill later.”

The unexpected quip made Nick laugh. Really laugh. He shook his head, grinning at Aidan. “Deal, although I’m pretty certain I can think of something better.” He turned back to McKenzie, unfurling from his seat with loose-limbed ease to stride over to her. “And there you have your exclusive, Ms. Wood. All on the record. Just do me a favor?”

She nodded, still unable to find her voice. That Nick had shared that with her and Aidan. That she and Aidan could have affected him so much. That their love for each other…

“Don’t write it for Goss.” He gave her a look she could only describe as knowing. “I did a quick Google search of your stuff before coming to your suite this morning. Write it for Time Magazine or Rolling Stone. It’s where you deserve to be.”

McKenzie’s mouth fell open. She stared at him, for the third time in twenty-four hours lost for words.

Beside her, Aidan chuckled, the sound a low, easy rumble of content. “She will. Trust—”

The phone rang.

“Shit.” Nick shot the watch on his wrist a quick look. “I’m meant to be at Bar Evoke.” He looked back at Aidan, giving him a wide grin. “I know the urge to stay here and make long, mad passionate love to the woman is probably fucking overpowering, but promise me you’ll control yourself for just another hour or more? You both need to be at this soft-opening party, okay?”

Ignoring the still-ringing phone, he held out his hand to Aidan, who took the long slender fingers with his own strong, callused ones in a firm shake.

“Deal.” Aidan nodded, and those green eyes of his slid to McKenzie, his gaze so hot her pussy constricted with an eager throb. “But only for an hour. After that, I’m taking her back to our suite and making love to her until the sun comes up.”

Nick laughed, and with a soft kiss on McKenzie’s lips, he turned and strolled from the room, scooping up a battered guitar case from the bungalow’s plush leather sofa as he made his way to the door.

McKenzie watched him swing the door shut behind him, the faint sound of his humming tickling her ears before the room was silent once again.

“Well.” Aidan’s hands smoothed around her waist, his arms tugging her slightly backward until she nestled against his large, hard frame. “You promised me the trip of a lifetime, McKenzie Wood,” he murmured in her ear, his lips grazing her skin, “and you sure as hell delivered. Remind me never to doubt you again.”

Closing her eyes, she leaned into his firm embrace. “Can I have that in writing?”

He laughed, a healthy, contented snort. “Not on your bloody life.”

She twisted in his arms, regarding him with a cocked eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

For an answer, his lips brushed hers, his hands finding their way to her backside to cup it in a not-so-gentle caress. “C’mon,” he growled, raising his head enough to stare down into her face, “I promised the world’s most famous rock star I wouldn’t make love to you for an hour and if we don’t leave this very room now I’ll be forced to break that promise.”

And—as McKenzie’s pussy began to throb anew with hungry want at his statement—he spun her on her heel and pushed her away from him.

Nick Blackthorne walked up onto the small raised level Kylie Sullivan had provided to act as a stage, his fingers curling loosely around the handle of his guitar case. Around him, the nightclub thrummed with the sounds of people enjoying the soft opening’s offerings—fine food, fine wine and the most stunning vista on the island.

Bar Evoke was, if nothing else, evocative. The resort’s main nightclub was lit with warm, muted lights that made the steel and polished wooden surfaces look like liquid gold. One entire wall was made of glass, providing the crowd already gathered in the club an uninterrupted view of the calm Pacific and the deep, purple sky beyond.

Nick wasn’t remotely interested in any of it.

He crossed to the lone stool waiting for him in the center of the small stage, placing his guitar case on the floor beside it. It had been almost two years since he’d held any kind of musical instrument, let alone the old acoustic twelve-string guitar resting within the case’s battered walls. Two long years. He placed his hands on the closed lid, the darkness of the as-yet unlit stage providing him the concealment to study the guests spread out around him, currently unaware of his presence.

He wasn’t interested in them either. Well, not all of them.

A loud cheer broke out to his right, followed by a loud “’Bout bloody time, Rogers,” and an equally loud “Good on ya, mate”. Nick smiled, watching as two men—one who surreally looked a lot like a male version of McKenzie—slapped Aidan Rogers on the back, the McKenzie carbon-copy reaching up to scruff up Aidan’s hair.

Nick let out a soft laugh. “My sentiments, exactly,” he murmured, his heart growing heavy when Aidan’s lips stretched into a wide grin. The large firefighter ducked his head, and Nick couldn’t help but notice Aidan never tore his gaze from McKenzie.

He chuckled, flipping open the latches of his guitar case. Love. Such a raw, inescapable, ungovernable emotion. Complicated and fraught with great moments of absolute terror, love was the single most wonderful gift a person could experience. And for someone like him—the most elemental muse. Who would have thought his muse would take the form of two soul mates born to be so much more? Friends to lovers. A song waiting to be sung.

He watched as McKenzie lifted her face to Aidan’s. Watched as the journalist with his life in her talented hands reached up and tugged Aidan down into a kiss that was both cheeky and full of promise.

“
A face of an angel with filth on her mind
,” he whispered, the words sliding over a rhythm found deep within his soul.

Lifting the lid of his case, he touched his fingertips to the steel strings of his old guitar—tracing the line of one down the neck until he reached the sound hole. The almost imperceptible friction of skin on stretched steel filled him with a deep warmth, his balls rising up, his heart rate quickening before, with a steady confidence, he closed his fingers around the guitar’s neck and withdrew it from its worn velvet bed.

A low thrill rippled through him.

He stood and perched himself on the edge of the stool, enjoying the anonymity the dark shadows afforded him. Cradling his guitar on his lap, he sat motionless, watching the guests move around the club, listening to the sounds of them enjoying their meals as they relaxed into one another’s company. Time and again, his attention returned to Aidan and McKenzie where they sat with a small group of people, drawing something akin to comfort from their distant presence. His time with them was over, but he would never, ever forget them. They had given him music again.

Given him hope after he thought hope no longer knew his name.

He closed his eyes and let the ambience of the night roll over him, hearing the songs in the guests’ conversations, hearing the rhythm in their laughter and the music in their movements.

Ten, fifteen minutes later—he wasn’t really sure—he opened his eyes and nodded to a silent man waiting to the left of the stage. With hurried grace, the man stepped up onto the stage, positioned a microphone a few feet away from Nick and then scurried off the stage.

Nick’s heart thumped once. Hard into his throat.

He touched his fingertips to the strings of his guitar once more, stroked them and then, with a low clearing of his still-thick throat, tucked the musical instrument’s familiar wooden body under his right arm.

A single beam of light revealed his presence on the stage, a hush falling over those selected by Kylie Sullivan to experience the resort’s soft opening as they realized he was sitting on the stage.

He heard his name whispered by a dozen voices or more.

He heard his blood roar in his ears.

He heard his heart pound in his chest.

He heard the voice of a ghost from a lifetime ago murmur his name in pleasure, heard the goddess ask him to
sing, sing for me, lover
.

He caressed the strings one more time before lifting his head and gazing out at the quiet crowd. “For McKenzie and Aidan.” He smiled at the two people who had changed him forever. “Who showed me love and gave me life. This, ladies and gentlemen, is ‘Tropical Sin’.”

His fingers found the notes on his guitar, a simple and yet intricate melody, and then the words found his tongue.

A face of an angel with filth on her mind,

I pray to burn in her fire, I pray to die in her arms.

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 more.

Like a sinner I will burn in his fire,

I will die in his fire and beg her for life.

Beg her for soul, beg her for heat.

I will die in his fire and beg her for life.

Beg her for soul, beg her for heat.

And the waves sing their song as endless as time,

And the ache in my heart is so sweet.

Like a sinner I will burn in her fire,

I will die in her fire and live in their love.

Live in their love

Until I find you. Again.

About the Author

Lexxie’s not a deviant. She just has a deviant’s imagination and a desire to entertain readers with her words. Add the two together and you get darkly erotic romances with a twist of horror, sci-fi and the paranormal.

When she’s not submerged in the worlds she creates, Lexxie’s life revolves around her family, a husband who thinks she’s insane, a cat determined to rule the house, two yabbies hell-bent on destroying their tank and her daughters, who both utterly captured her heart and changed her life forever.

Contact Lexxie at
[email protected]
, follow her on Twitter
http://twitter.com/lexxie_couper
or visit her at
www.lexxiecouper.com
where she occasionally makes a fool of herself on her blog.

Look for these titles by Lexxie Couper

Now Available:

Death, The Vamp and his Brother

The Sun Sword

Triple Dare

Savage Series

Savage Retribution

Savage Transformation

Coming Soon:

Suck and Blow

Dare Me

Fate is a wind that can change at the drop of a heart…

Paradise Found

© 2011 Vivian Arend

Bandicoot Cove, Book 2

Paige has enjoyed every no-strings-attached minute with her two Australian lovers, Trent and Mason. Over the past eleven months, they’ve surfed, hiked…and explored their seemingly limitless sexual chemistry.

Her lovers’ invitation to the opening of a new resort comes at the ideal time, because in a few days she’s returning to Canada. It’ll be a fitting swan song for their easygoing relationship. A chance to fulfill a few fantasies and then escape before her men realize she’s broken the rules by falling in love with them both. Better to take flight than be forced to choose.

Unaware of Paige’s self-imposed deadline, Trent and Mason scheme to get Paige on their yacht for a once-in-a-lifetime voyage with one goal in mind: break the news that they’re ready for something more than casual—and hope she doesn’t run like hell.

It’s a delicate operation that’ll require close attention to which way her emotional winds are blowing. One wrong word, and their paradise-perfect arrangement could be lost in an instant.

Warning: This book starts with the heat turned way up high. Two men entirely focused on one woman’s pleasure. One woman stepping outside the box to please her men. An exotic resort suite featuring an erotic piece of furniture that makes ménage a trois even hotter than usual. Really.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Paradise Found:

Paige stared him in the eye. “Sex in a pan.”

He laughed. “That’s the dessert?”

“The name is a mutation from six in a pan, for the original six layers, but the taste is downright orgasmic, if you make it right.” She ran a finger along the edge of the bowl, scooped up a smear of the chocolate sauce onto her fingertip and offered it to him.

He swallowed hard.

“This isn’t a good time for you to stop what you’re doing, is it?” He forced the words past a throat suddenly tight with need.

She shook her head.

Fuckit
. He sucked her finger into his mouth and moaned. The dessert was tasty, but having her finger to suck and tease, to be able to watch her eyes widen and hear her breath catch as he twirled his tongue around the digit? Torture.

He let her pull back, her finger escaping with a
pop
. He shook off the haze of lust threatening the production of the delicacies.
Hold off, caveman.

Instead, he grinned at her. “If they’re individual sex servings, does that make them masturbation pies?”

Paige rolled her eyes. “
God
. You are not helping me name them.”

“Jerk tarts?”