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

McKenzie let out a soft breath, the sound ragged, and he flicked her a quick look, frustration stabbing into him. Whatever expression had been on her face when she sighed, it was no longer there, replaced instead with a wide grin as she watched Mason walk toward them.

What do you think it was, Rogers? Do you really think she wanted you to kiss her? The whole reason you never have is ’cause she’s never shown an iota of sexual interest in you. What would change that? Manhandling her like you did? Hardly.

“Aidan, you bloody bastard,” Mason continued, throwing him a laughing glower, “you turned your mobile phone off.”

His balls throbbing and his cock an aching rod, Aidan turned toward McKenzie’s twin. “You think I wanna clean that boat of yours so early in the morning?”

Mason gave him a wide grin, his eyes as blue as McKenzie’s—and just as full of irrepressible charm. “Hey, what else are you going to do?”

What else indeed?

“I can tell what
you’ve
been doing,” Aidan said, knowing very well the statement would shut Mason up in a heartbeat. McKenzie’s twin was in a rather unusual…relationship…with his best friend, Trent and the cute little Canadian pastry chef they’d met a while ago, but he wasn’t overly forthcoming about it when he was around McKenzie. In fact, Aidan would say Mason was doing everything he could to keep his sister in the dark.

For a quick second, panic flickered across the other man’s face and then he gave them both another patented Mason Wood smirk. “Don’t try and wheedle out of it, Rogers. You owe me a boat clean-up.”

“What
have
you been doing all morning?” McKenzie asked, giving her brother a curious look. “We didn’t see either you or Trent at breakfast.”

A very faint pink tinged Mason’s cheeks as he looked everywhere but at his sister. “Err, housekeeping.”

“That’d be right.” She rolled her eyes. “In your hotel room for less than an hour and it’s already a mess. I hope you’re not making Paige clean it up. She’s far too nice to be doing your dirty work.”

Mason didn’t say a word, but Aidan noticed his cheeks got a little pinker.

“How long has she been going out with Trent for?” McKenzie asked, and Aidan had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself bursting out laughing. It seemed that while he may be the only one not scoring, at least he wasn’t the only one feeling awkward at the moment—Mason’s cheeks were almost red.

“Did you know Josh Lye is here? Installing the resort’s IT system.”

Mason’s hurried question made Aidan blink. And McKenzie laughed. “Josh Lie-With-Si? Really? Does Sienna know he’s here? She’s going to freak when she finds out. Especially now she’s finally starting to live her life again.” A wide grin pulled at her lips and she rubbed her hands together. “Wow, I just remembered I still owe that bugger a thump in the arm.”

Mason rolled his eyes. “You’re not
still
holding a grudge over the AFL Grand final are you? Bloody hell, sis, that was
twelve
years ago.”

McKenzie jutted out her chin, the stubborn action making the pit of Aidan’s gut tighten and his balls—still throbbing from their earlier unintended stimulation—ache anew. Jesus Christ, he was pathetic. “Doesn’t matter,” she said. “Josh’s team lost. I get to thump him. That was the bet.”

Mason gave her an exasperated look. “How old are you?”

“Same age as you. So shut up.”

“No, you’re not,” he shot back, lips twitching. “I’m five minutes older.”

“Freak.”

“Lunatic.”

“Maniac.”

“Girl.”

It was Aidan’s turn to roll his eyes. “Alright you two, break it up.”

Mason poked his tongue out at his sister before giving Aidan a firm stare. “I need you at the yacht in a couple of hours, mate. Don’t be late.”

Aidan raised his eyebrows.

“Okay, okay.” Mason shrugged. “
Please
can you come to the yacht, Aidan? Trent and I are taking Paige out later this evening and we need your help.”

McKenzie laughed. “You mean his muscles?”

Mason flicked Aidan a quick look, a small grin pulling at his lips. Aidan resisted the urge to shuffle his feet. The way McKenzie’s twin was looking at him made Aidan wonder if the way he felt about her wasn’t as secret as he thought.

His gut knotted. If Mason suspected he had a thing—a
big
thing—for his sister, what would the guy do? Hit him? Hug him? Tell him to fuck off?

And if you die before she finds out? What does that achieve?

“No,” Mason drawled, a gleam in his eye that made Aidan’s stomach knot some more. “We need his firefighting skills.” He gave McKenzie a “duh” look. “Of course his bloody muscles, you moron.”

It was McKenzie’s turn to poke her tongue out at Mason. “I don’t like you. Go away, please.”

Mason grinned again, the smile so like his sister’s it was a little freaky. “Gladly. Places to go, people to do.”

McKenzie pretended to make herself gag. “You’re disgusting.”

With a wave and another uncomfortably ambiguous smile at Aidan, Mason left them alone, swinging open the nearest exit door in the glass-walled passageway and ambling through the gardens outside.

“I’ve always wondered what sex on a boat would be like?”

The question was out before Aidan realized where his mind had taken him. Or that he’d spoken aloud.

“Who’s having sex on a boat?” McKenzie turned her head, tracking her brother with a narrowed-eyed stare through the glass until the tropical gardens swallowed him up.

“Err…”

She turned back to Aidan, giving him a disgusted look. “Mason? Really? Sex with Mason? Who would have sex with Mason?” She pulled a face. “That’s just gross.”

Aidan cocked an eyebrow. “Not that it’s any of my business, but I’m pretty sure your brother has a dick and you know what we blokes are like—have dick, will use it.”

For a very brief moment, McKenzie’s gaze slid down Aidan’s chest, over his stomach to his groin before, with an almost imperceptible shake of her head, she looked up into his face again. A faint frown pulled at her eyebrows and she caught her bottom lip with her teeth again. “Umm…there’s something I need to ask you.”

Aidan’s throat slammed shut. He stared down into her clear blue eyes, his dick—all too easily remembering what it had been worked up over only a short while ago—growing hard again. His blood roared in his ears and he tried to swallow, his mouth dry. “What?” he asked, more than a little dismayed at how croaky his voice came out.

“Something kinda…odd,” she continued, the frown pulling deeper at her eyebrows until a tiny crease formed in the middle of the smooth space between them. “But important.”

Aidan drew a slow breath through his nose. This couldn’t be happening, could it? What he’d hoped for, for so bloody long? Had McKenzie Wood finally seen him as something other than—

“Will you hit on Nick Blackthorne for me?”

McKenzie waited for Aidan to say something. He didn’t.

Not straight away.

“Umm…”

“I know I’m asking a lot.” She placed her palms on his broad chest and gave him a crooked smile. “But it’s just one little conversation with the guy at a bar.”

He looked down at her, an expression she had no hope of deciphering falling over his face. “Ummm…”

Oh, my God, Wood. Are you really doing this?

“Please?”

Yes. It seemed she really was.

You’re pathetic, you know that?

No. Pathetic she wasn’t. Confused. That’s what she was. Confused about the new and totally unexpected way her body was reacting to Aidan.
Aidan
. Her best friend. The guy who’d held her hand after every break-up she’d ever had. The guy who’d helped pick out what she was going to wear on just about every first date she’d ever had. Aidan freaking Rogers. She didn’t get horny over Aidan Rogers. She didn’t.

Yeah, that’s why the second he uttered the word “dick” you wondered what his was like. And don’t go pretending you didn’t feel it when he was holding you against his body earlier. In fact, don’t go pretending you weren’t squirming against him more than you needed to. You liked the way his dick got hard rubbing against your arse. You liked it a lot.

“Let me get this clear.” His voice was just as unreadable as his expression. “You want me to try and pick up the world’s biggest rock star so you can get a story?”

McKenzie’s belly flip-flopped. She wanted to take it back. She wanted to say,
No, it was just a joke, what I want you to do is kiss me
.

The unexpected thought hit her. Blindsided her, in fact. Made her pussy clench and her pulse pound.

She nodded, not trusting herself to say or do anything else.

Aidan’s jaw bunched. His nostrils flared. “If I do this, will you do something for me?”

McKenzie nodded again. A quick single nod of her head.

“Quit Goss.”

The request was like a physical slap. And not because he’d asked her to give up her job, a job she didn’t want anymore. Because he hadn’t asked her to…

What? Kiss him? Sleep with him? Marry him?

Oh, for Pete’s sake. What the hell was going on with her?

For the third time, she nodded.

Aidan’s nostrils flared again. “And when he turns me down?”

She looked up at him, her sex constricting, her heart hammering. “He won’t.”

Because who in their right mind would?

Chapter Three

Nick studied the sweating glass in his hand, his stare following the paths of individual beads of water even as his mind played seven lines of lyrics over and over again.

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—

What? What did he beg for?

He didn’t know yet. He didn’t know and it pissed him off. And intrigued him.

As did McKenzie Wood from Goss Weekly and her unnamed, completely enamored male companion.

Intrigued? Is that the word you’re going with?

It was for now. When he finished his drink, however…

“Is it just water?” A familiar male voice spoke beside him and Nick twisted on his barstool, watching as McKenzie Wood’s unnamed, completely enamored male companion slid onto the stool beside him. “Or something a little stronger?”

Nick swung his attention back to the glass in his hand, regarded it for a second and then turned back to the man next to him. “Water. Very icy.”

His new friend perched himself on the edge of the stool, and Nick couldn’t help but note how tense he was. Every muscle in his body seemed sculpted from rock, lovingly carved by a master artist, each one sublime in that latent strength he’d noticed earlier, but rock all the same. Whatever was going on, the man was on edge.

Nick waved a finger at the barkeeper, keeping his gaze on McKenzie Wood’s companion as the woman dressed in little but a string bikini and lip gloss hurried over to them. “Give my friend what I’m having. Straight up.”

The man flinched at the word “straight”, a barely-there tightening of the corners of his eyes, and Nick chuckled. He took a sip of his drink, let the cool water slide down his throat and then turned back to his new friend. “Can I ask a question?”

If it was even possible, the man’s muscles coiled tighter. “Sure.”

“What’s the first thing to come into your head when I say, ‘I will die in his fire and beg her for…’”

“A chance.”

The two words passed the man’s lips without hesitation and Nick chuckled again. Yep. Here was a love story ready to be told. Or sung about.

He straightened back to the bar, closed his eyes and held up his glass. “
A face of an angel with filth on her mind
,” he sang, his voice low.
“I pray to burn in her fire, I pray to die in her arms.”

He heard the man shift on the stool, but he didn’t open his eyes, the words and the rhythm—far more haunted than anything he’d created before—claiming him for the 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 more.

“Like a sinner I will burn in his fire,

“I will die in his fire and beg her for a chance.”

It worked. On more levels than Nick expected.

A chance? Isn’t that what you’ve been looking for, for the last lifetime? A chance at something else? Something you once had?

He ignored the ambivalent question, opening his eyes instead and holding out his hand to the man beside him. “Nick Blackthorne.” He smiled. “But you already know that. Who might you be?”

The man closed firm fingers around Nick’s grip, his skin callused. “Aidan Rogers.”

“And what do you do for a living, Aidan Rogers? Apart from boating marlin and helping tired rock stars write song lyrics.”

Aidan snorted, the sound far more self-deprecating than Nick believed he intended. “I’m a firefighter.”

“Dealing with enflamed situations a specialty, ’ey? But today, you’re on a different mission? Feeling the heat for a different reason?”

Aidan cocked an eyebrow. “What makes you say that?”

Nick grinned. “You’re here to ask me out.”

Silence followed his statement. Stretching silence. He shot Aidan a quick look, taking another drink as he did.

The man studied him, his expression steady. For all intents and purposes, Nick could have said Aidan was here to sell him a fire extinguisher. Nothing about his face registered any kind of shock or reaction. “So,” the man finally said, his voice steady. Calm. “Can I buy you something stronger than water?”

Unable to help himself, Nick burst out laughing. “Oh, mate.” He clapped a hand on Aidan’s very broad shoulder—what did the guy do? Shoulder-press Mack trucks in his spare time? “You have no idea how far from my type you are.”