Tropical Sin: Bandicoot Cove, Book 3 (2 page)

The reasoning made little sense. Write trash to stop writing trash? But McKenzie wouldn’t let herself analyze it any more. If there
was
more to the way her belly was behaving, she’d deal with it later. Nick Blackthorne was in front of her and Aidan was beside her. Currently, the two most important men in her life.

Huh. You really are one for the dramatic, aren’t you?

Shut up. Focus. You’ve got a story to write. How exactly are you going to do that, Ms. I’m-Such-A-Clever-Serious-Journalist?

Her eyes, of their own accord, slid to Aidan and her belly flip-flopped again. She grabbed at her bottom lip with her teeth, an idea coming to her.

If the rumors about Nick Blackthorne
were
true, she had the most perfect,
perfect
bait to get her story. Now, all she had to do was convince Aidan of that.

Do you really want to do that, McKenzie? Ask him to…

She cut the thought dead. She wouldn’t just ask him to do it for a story. She would ask him to do it for fun. Aidan had always been one to leap into life. Hell, he’d taken her kicking and screaming on more than one harebrained adventure. Why should this be any different?

Yeah, but you’re going to ask him to…

“I still can’t believe I’m doing this.”

Aidan’s low grumble played over her senses and she started, her stomach tightening again. And not just her stomach this time, but all sorts of other parts of her anatomy: parts of her anatomy that had no right getting tight over Aidan Rogers.

“I remember when you’d do anything for fun, Rogers.” She shoved him with her shoulder, giving his arm a squeeze at the same time. Seriously, when had he become so muscular?

“Fun I can do. Fun I like doing. Stalking celebrities—” he gave her a steady and very pointed sideward stare, “—not so much fun.”

She flashed a grin at him. “You’re looking at this all wrong, Aidan. All you’re doing is walking through a hotel in the same direction as another guy. That’s not stalking.”

“Is this how you live with yourself, McKenzie Wood?” He turned his attention back to the foyer and the broad back of the world’s most Googled rock star. “Delude yourself into believing you’re
not
being a horrible creep?”

“Yep.”

Her one word answer made him snort, but for a brief second McKenzie glimpsed a hint of a dimple in his left cheek.

Bingo! She had him.

“Just go with me on this one, will you?” She turned her own stare to Blackthorne, her stomach knotting. This time the physical reaction was from nervous excitement. “All I’m going to do to start with is say g’day.”

Aidan snorted again. “Why do I not believe you?”

McKenzie laughed. “I have no idea.”

Nick Blackthorne weaved his way through the smattering of guests milling around the Bandicoot Resort’s massive reception area, a small smile curling at the corners of his mouth. It wasn’t the fact he was here, at the soft opening of the resort, that made him happy, nor the fact he was walking around without a minder or bodyguard or groupie to be seen. It was simply because the woman laughing behind him had a delightfully throaty, infectious laugh.

He stopped himself from shooting a look over his shoulder, concentrating instead on finding the correct passageway that would lead him to the Oasis Bar. He was a touch jetlagged and needed something more than coffee to wake up.

A touch? You’ve been on one plane or the other for the last three days. You’re more than jetlagged, you’re jet-fucking-dragged-through-the-turbines stoned. Besides, the need for something more than caffeine has nothing to do with jetlag. You just want to sit out in the sun and pretend you’re a normal person for a short while, don’t you?

He smiled wider. The truth was always less sensational. It had been a long time since he’d been able to sit at a bar and relax. When his agent had offered him the chance to attend the resort’s soft opening he’d jumped at it. Minimum number of guests, all hand-picked by the hotel’s manager, all—his agent assured him—too discreet or important in their own rights to worry about him being in their presence. A nice change from where he’d just been, that was for sure.

The thought made his smile falter. A little. He wasn’t going to let his mind turn to where he’d just been. Not when he was walking through Eden.

Ah, so the romantic you used to be is still buried in that craven pit you call a soul, is he?

Behind him the woman laughed again, another low, throaty chuckle and, before he could help himself, Nick turned.

Whoa.

She was only a few feet behind, grinning up at a guy almost half again her height, her long, strawberry blonde hair a flaming halo in the sun’s warm rays, her pink lips stretched in a grin that said very clearly, “Yes, I am completely in charge of this situation.”

Nick let his gaze flick to her companion, noting with an experienced eye the man’s latent strength in his six-foot-plus form, his fluid, steady movements, and his utter adoration for the woman gripping his arm.

Fuck, they were a sexy couple. Damn sexy.

His prick twitched in his jeans and he scowled, turning away from the young lovers. There was a time he’d have walked straight on up to them and suggested something far more depraved than either could probably imagine. Something very dirty and very enjoyable. That time had passed, however.

The woman laughed again, the delicious sound accompanied by a lower, deeper chuckle. The guy’s laugh. Relaxed. Easygoing. Coming up from his chest to slip past his lips in a humored rumble. Equally as infectious as hers.

Nick’s cock gave an eager spasm, rubbing with a certain amount of pleasant insistency against the denim of his favorite jeans.

He drove his nails into his palms and scanned the lush gardens on the other side of the glass wall. Where the hell was this bar? Somewhere outside beside a pool? He needed a drink.

No, not a drink. You need—

A face of an angel with filth on her mind,

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

The words—lyrics of a song he hadn’t written yet—whispered through Nick’s head and he raised his eyebrows, his heartbeat quickening. Just as it had been too long since he could relax in public, it had been even longer since words of music came to him. Whoever the redhead was, she stirred something in him.

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.

Nick came to a halt, the unexpected lyrics floating through his head. It seemed they’d
both
stirred something in him he hadn’t felt for a long time, not just the woman.

The whisper of a rhythm teased him and he closed his eyes, a familiar sensation stirring in the pit of his gut. Carnal thoughts and lyrics? Coming to Bandicoot Cove really was a good—

“Excuse me, but can I ask you a question?”

The soft, husky voice speaking beside him could only belong to one person. Opening his eyes, Nick turned around, leaving his sunglasses firmly in place as he fixed his gaze on the flame-haired woman smiling up at him. This close she wasn’t just sexy, she was stunning. Stunning and gorgeous. As was the man standing next to her, his expression unreadable, that sleeping strength radiating from him in waves of…

Like a sinner I will burn in his fire,

I will die in his fire and beg her for—

“You’re Nick Blackthorne, yes?”

The woman’s question took Nick by jarring surprise. It shouldn’t have, but with the words of a hidden song taunting him and the unexpected lick of sexual interest teasing him, he wasn’t prepared. Especially for what she said next.

“I’m McKenzie Wood from Goss Weekly.” Her clear blue eyes turned direct. Intent. “I’m wondering if you’d like to comment on your stay at the
Vergnügen
sex clinic in Germany?”

Chapter Two

Biting back a groan—damn it, she said she was going to be subtle!—Aidan watched Blackthorne stiffen. No, not just stiffen. Every muscle in the man’s body coiled, as if he were about to attack. And why wouldn’t he? He was minding his own business when out of nowhere, bam, a little thing with beguiling blue eyes and an attitude the size of Uluru smacks into his peace with a question about his sex life. If it were Aidan in the rock star’s shoes, he’d stiffen too.

But it wasn’t Aidan, and the little thing with the beguiling blue eyes and attitude was McKenzie. Which meant Blackthorne was in a world of pain if he so much as raised his hand to her.

“No.” The singer’s voice was a liquid-smooth purr. “I don’t think I do want to comment.”

A strange accent—not quite Australian anymore but not quite American either—made the words sound tight. Strained.

“So, nothing about the rumors you checked in to
Vergnügen
to try and cure your—”

Aidan reached out and pressed his hand over McKenzie’s open mouth, grabbing her around the waist and tugging her against his body as he did so. He looked at the tall man standing stock still before him, eyes still concealed by pitch-black sunglasses, body still tense.

“Sorry,” he said, ignoring McKenzie’s attempts to disengage herself from his hold. It wasn’t easy—she was the only daughter of seven offspring. She knew how to get herself out of a death grip if she needed to. He, on the other hand, was a firefighter. And he’d been wrestling with McKenzie—in some way or another—since before his balls dropped.

When the hell are you going to tell her how you—

“Sorry,” he said again, giving Blackthorne an embarrassed smile. “She kinda forgets not everyone’s open to her type of charm.”

The rock star didn’t say a word. Nor did the tension leave his body.

Aidan pulled McKenzie—still squirming in his arms—harder to his body. It was a bad idea, of course. The way her toned backside kept rubbing against his dick, the way her full breasts kept pushing against his forearm, he was going to be in a rather stiff situation any second now. Better that, however, than Blackthorne taking a swipe at the tabloid journalist bugging him on his holiday. If that happened, Aidan was likely to do something very foolish. Knocking out the world’s most famous musician wasn’t on his bucket list.

Telling McKenzie how you feel? That’s on your bucket list though, isn’t it? Ever since you almost—

“Like your last album, by the way,” he burst out, shutting the unnerving thought down. Far too unnerving when the woman in question was writhing against his crotch in an attempt to break free. Jesus, he could feel his semi already. With every wriggle and squirm from McKenzie the damn thing got bigger. “Wasn’t that fussed on track number five, though.”

Oh, you bloody moron. Has all the blood from your brain gone south?

Blackthorne didn’t move. “Savage Lust? Not one of my favorites either.”

Aidan laughed, the man’s answer surprising him.

They stood looking at each other for a second, McKenzie’s muffled protests filling the awkward silence. “Well,” Aidan finally said, his cock now so hard there wasn’t a hope in hell McKenzie could miss it, “I better boat this marlin and mount her on my wall.”

An image of McKenzie—naked and waiting for him on all fours—flashed through Aidan’s head and he bit back a groan. Fuck, that’s what he got for trying to be funny. Why the hell did he have to use the word “mount”?

Another image of naked McKenzie popped into his head—this one of her bent over a black velvet cube with her wrists cuffed to her—

“I’m sure that will be…entertaining.”

Blackthorne’s strangely accented drawl jerked Aidan’s mind from the wholly arousing and unsettling image. The man looked at him, black sunglasses hiding whatever was going through his mind. His expression never changed, his body never relaxed.

Just get her outta here, Rogers. Take her as far away from him as you can. Now. Before she bites your hand or you come on the small of her back.

It was the last thought that did it. With a nod and an embarrassingly sheepish grin, Aidan hauled McKenzie off her feet and carried her in the opposite direction of Blackthorne. Jesus Christ, what a debacle.

He strode through the foyer, ignoring the curious glances and questioning stares of the resort’s guests and staff. Thank God Mason wasn’t about. The guy knew what his sister was like. He’d probably offer to lend Aidan a hand and that’d end them all up shit creek.

No, what he needed to do now was take her back to her room, deposit her on her bed and then—

Fuck her senseless?

—go find Kylie and apologize in advance for harassing one of her guests. After that, he’d find a bar and order himself a bloody stiff drink. To go with his bloody stiff dick.

Two seconds later, McKenzie did what he suspected she’d do much earlier. She bit his palm. Hard.

“Oww.” He dropped her, shaking his hand before giving the bright red teeth marks indented in his skin an angry inspection. “That hurt.”

McKenzie glared at him. “Serves you right. What the hell were you doing?”

“Saving you from a lawsuit,” he shot back, shaking his hand again. Damn, she knew how to bite. “
And
saving your friendship with Kylie. Do you think she’d be happy you pissed off one of her guests? Not just one of them, either. Nick bloody Blackthorne. Think for a second here, Mack. Yeah, there may be a story to be had, but Christ, this is your friend’s job on the line. A soft opening like this comes with all sorts of expectations and conditions. You stuff up Kylie’s event and she’ll suffer, long after you’ve written your story and moved onto the next one.”

For the first time since he’d known her, McKenzie seemed lost for words. She stared up at him, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, her eyes wide. She looked confused. Fragile.

So completely kissable.

Do it. Do it now. For fuck’s sake, man, how long are you going to wait? Do you need to almost die in another fire before you tell her?

He took a step toward her.

“Where the hell have you two been?” a male voice boomed from behind Aidan, and he turned around, his gut sinking to find Mason approaching them both. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”