Aussie Rules

Chapter 17

Funny thing about wanting justice and revenge, about being so filled with grief that you couldn’t reason-it was hard to maintain that level of fury.

In Bo’s case, it turned out he was far more human than he’d thought, and because he was, it was also harder than he’d imagined to look directly into the eyes of the person you planned on hurting.

Especially now that he’d kissed Mel, touched her. Yeah, she was still keeping secrets-a white-hot poker stabbing into his chest-but he dreamed about her. Dreamed about more than just kissing, about what would have happened the other night if they’d both been naked, if they hadn’t been interrupted. He’d have had her on that soft couch, on the floor, in her bed.

A loud crashing noise woke him. It was the hangar doors sliding open, which sent sharp sunlight slanting across his face, completely eradicating the erotic dreams.

He blinked, realizing he’d fallen asleep the night before while snooping through more boxes in the hidden storage area. Sprawled on the cold floor, he looked up at the outline of a woman above him in the doorway, the obnoxious sun behind her throwing her body in bold relief.

A hot body that kick-started his for the morning.

Mel came down the stairs. He would have have known it was her just by the sheer attitude of her boots as they clicked, clicked, clicked toward him.

She came to a stop and stood, hands on her hips. “Still snooping?”

He closed his eyes against the glare and cleared his throat. “Yeah. It’s what happens when the people around you keep their thoughts and secrets to themselves.”

She muttered something, then vanished, and he lay there, still a little undone by his graphic dreams, and then his not-so-graphic reality.

He was hard.

Then the boots clicked again, and a hot mug of coffee was set before him. He turned his head and stared at it.

Was he dreaming again?

Mel crouched at his side. Her hair was lit like fire as she looked him over from head to toe and back again, her gaze slowing at his thighs, and in between-skidding to a halt there. Her pupils dilated slightly, and unconsciously, or maybe not so unconsciously, she licked her lips. “You find anything else?” she asked a little hoarsely.

It took him a moment to go from thinking about sex to why he was here in the first place. “Not yet. There’s a lot to look through.”

She nodded, her gaze again landing on the button fly on his jeans as if she couldn’t help herself. “Yeah, it’s hard-um, tough work.” Her face went beet red. “It’s tough work going through all this stuff.”

He couldn’t help it. He grinned. “You said hard.”

And she put her hands to her cheeks. “Did not.”

“Did.”

She whirled away. “I don’t know why I try with you.”

“Really? You’re trying?” With a groan, he rolled to his feet. “I must have missed that part.”

She began to walk to the door, but he pulled her back around.

“You’re so good at annoying me I nearly missed it,” he said, staring into her tight face. “What’s wrong?”

She was quiet for so long he figured she wasn’t going to speak. “I’ve received three e-mails,” she finally said. “One from LeaveItAlone, one from BackOffOrElse, and the last this morning, from You’reNotLeavingItAlone. Happy now?”

“Ecstatic,” he said grimly, and held firm when she would have shoved free. “Have you had them tracked?”

“Working on it.”

He traced a finger over the worry groove between her eyes. “Leave it alone?”

“Yeah.” She lifted a shoulder. “Thought maybe at first it was you.”

For a moment he couldn’t figure out how to speak without losing it. “Jesus,” he finally said. “You think so highly of me, I don’t know what to say.”

“Logic prevailed, all right? I figured leaving it alone is the last thing you want me to do.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“Look, I don’t want to do this now.” She pushed away. “I have shit to do and…” She cast another quick glance over his body, but he wasn’t aroused now, he was tense with frustration, anger, and worry.

“Any more secrets you want to reveal?” he asked tightly.

She turned away. “I’ve got a flight.”

So there were still more secrets. Fuck. He listened to the sound of her boots as she walked away. For distraction, he inhaled the coffee she’d brought him, in desperate need of the caffeine. Then he closed up the hangar, entered the lobby, and accepted the usual fuck-you glare from Dimi. He didn’t care. He helped himself to Mel’s office and the shower in her bathroom there, which meant that he smelled just like her.

He could smell himself all damn day as he flew to LA to see a man with a fleet of antique Beechcraft. Not a 1944 in the bunch…Bugger it all to hell.

By the time he got back to North Beach, it was late afternoon. He was with Danny in maintenance, looking on the Internet for parts when Char called. “Danny, get your cute buns into the lobby, please.”

“What’s up?”

“Just hustle.”

Danny looked at Bo hopefully. “Maybe it involves food.”

On the chance it did, Bo tagged along.

They walked into the café and Char hurried them behind the counter. “Quick, duck!”

Bo ducked down without knowing why until one moment later when Mel walked in off the tarmac, hot and irritated and gorgeous, and everyone leapt up and yelled “Happy B-day!”

There was a huge cake, with decorations hanging over their heads and helium balloons. They pushed Mel onto a chair and sang “Happy Birthday” to her. Ritchie offered to spank her, and then Kellan shoved him and said he’d do it, and then Al hit them both upside the back of the head while everyone gathered in like the tight unit they were and talked and laughed and talked some more.

Al took pictures. Char refilled soda glasses from a frothy pitcher in her hand. Danny kept reaching out to the boom box to change the music from Def Leppard to Green Day, but Char kept laughing and changing it back.

Kellan picked up each present on the table and shook it in turn, stopping at one in particular. “This one sounds like a vibrator,” he said hopefully.

“Yeah? Hope it comes with batteries,” Mel responded, which had Bo frozen to the spot, his mind caught on the image of Mel using a vibrator on herself. Good God, the image seared his brain, so much so that when Al asked him a question, he could only stare at the man…struck deaf, blind, and mute.

Ritchie helped himself to one helium balloon at a time, sucking in the gas, amusing himself and the others by singing along to the radio in a high-pitched squeal.

Mel had a smile on her face, a real one that Bo hadn’t seen before, and it stopped him cold. Her eyes were lit, sparkling with life. She wore a pair of jeans and two tank tops layered over each other, black and white. Her hair, all that long, thick, glorious red hair, hung over her shoulders and down her back, and he knew just how it would smell if he buried his face in the silky strands because he’d smelled just like her all damn day long.

She glanced at him once, her gaze briefly dropping to the buttons on his Levi’s.

She was thinking about this morning, about his morning erection, and what a horny little secret keeper he was, and he waited until her gaze lifted before he arched a daring brow.

She blushed. Blushed. He’d had her naked and writhing in his arms, he’d watched her come all over him, and she was blushing, after being caught looking at his package. “I don’t have a present,” he said to her. “I didn’t know it was your birthday.”

She shook her head. “I don’t expect a present from you.”

Right. Because he wasn’t part of her life. He didn’t fit in, she didn’t even want him to. All around him was an easy affection, even love, and he felt a pang. A deep, dark pang that he didn’t understand. All he’d wanted was to get his father’s money and get out of here. He hadn’t wanted to belong. Or like these people.

So how had it happened that though he wanted the first he had already done the second?

Char lit the twenty-seven candles on the huge cake, decorated with-what else?-a plane.

“Blow hard,” Char suggested.

Mel glanced at Bo and blushed, once again giving away her thoughts. Blow hard.

In his dreams.

“Don’t forget to wish!” Dimi told her.

“I won’t,” Mel said, eyes still locked on Bo, thinking…what?

He didn’t know but he’d have paid a lot to find out.

Mel sliced up the cake, extremely aware of Bo on the outer edge of everyone, looking in but not really a part of the party.

Everyone took a piece of cake but him, and with the gang talking and laughing and occupied, she stepped close and offered up a plate.

He hesitated so briefly she couldn’t be sure she hadn’t imagined it, then took the plate. He stabbed a bite with his fork, but brought it to her lips.

Over his fork, their gazes met, the air charged. No need to wonder what he was thinking, it was there in his green eyes-a desire so potent it rocked her world. As she opened her mouth and took a bite, licking off a dollop of frosting from her lips, his eyes flamed some more.

God. Her knees shook. What was she doing? Having no idea, she turned away, but he came up behind her.

She knew it was him by the sheer heat that flooded her body. He pressed close, his shoulders brushing against her back, his thighs to hers, a big, warm hand setting low on her spine.

“What did you wish for?” he asked, his voice a low murmur, his lips grazing the sensitive skin just beneath her ear.

A set of delicious shivers chased each other down her spine and she told herself to get a grip. He was hardly touching her. Her body was just overreacting. She turned her head to meet his eyes. A mistake, as they were still on fire. “World peace.”

His mouth twitched. “And?”

“And for the answers to my fave TV show, Lost.”

“And?”

“If I tell, it won’t come true.”

He looked at her for a long beat, his fingers very slowly gliding beneath her tank top to stroke her bare skin just above the waistband of her jeans.

Then those clever fingers dipped just beneath, toying with the elastic on her panties.

Yeah, that pretty much dissolved the bones in her legs. With him this close, the view of everyone else was blocked out by his broad shoulders, so that all she could focus on was him; his solidness, his scent, the way he was looking at her.

It did something funny to her tummy, and longing twisted and coiled through her. Longing. For this man.

Hadn’t she already talked to herself about this? He was a bad idea.

Luckily, Ernest distracted them all with his latest jar filled with an eight-legged occupant, and then Kellan juggled salt shakers while Danny polished off the rest of the cake, and Ritchie once again sang “Happy Birthday” in his helium-high voice, and then everyone was saying good-bye for the night.

Skin still burning from Bo’s touch, Mel gathered all her things and headed out.

The heat had softened with the setting sun, and as she walked toward her car, she was suddenly more exhausted than she could remember being in a long time, and that was saying something. All she wanted was a hot bath and bed-No. Remembering the other day’s bath fiasco, she decided to make it a shower.

With no unexpected company. She wanted to be alone.

Liar, liar, pants on fire…

In the parking lot, she fumbled through her myriad pockets looking for her keys, and when she lifted her head, her gaze locked with Bo’s.

Instant heat wave. Sweaty palms, dry mouth, the whole deal, and now that she was twenty-seven, this whole uncontrollable teenage hormone thing was really getting annoying.

He was leaning back against her car, arms and feet casually crossed, looking like trouble waiting to happen. More than just her hormones kicked in now, something deeper, and inexplicably unnerving.

The longing was a bummer, but she could live with that. He’d put his hands on her many times now and her body knew what they could do, and fact was fact: the man had it going on, and he could make her purr like a kitten.

But beyond that, beyond the physical, something else was happening. She was beginning to know him-that he liked Char’s music, always picked the chocolate donuts in the morning, and didn’t like tea but coffee, black and hot. More than that, he was an amazing aircraft mechanic, and also a sharp-as-hell business man, more than that, he missed his father, and was loyal to a fault. It was as if she could suddenly see beneath all of it, beneath the Aussie charm and wit, to a man who had as many questions as she did, and just wanted answers. There was hurt there, too, and if she looked even further, vulnerability.

The big, badass Bo Black felt every bit as off his axis as she did. And the knowledge staggered her.

He pushed away from her car. “I figured out your present.” He handed her what looked like a legal document, folded in thirds. “Happy birthday.”

Mel opened it, scanned the header, and went still. Oh, my God.

“It’s your lease for Anderson Air here at North Beach. I’ve renewed it at the same rate you’ve been paying for years.”

They both knew her rate had been highway robbery, and yet…“This says it’s a twenty-year lease-” She choked out a laugh, then stared at him. “My lease was only good for another six months.”

“I know.”

Her gaze was caught in his, and everything there. “You’ve done this so that if you sell I’d be okay,” she breathed.

“Maybe I did it so you’d take me home with you and show me how grateful you are.”

“Bo. Don’t ruin this by being stupidly male. My God.” She was blown away by the implications, by how much he cared about her future to have done this. “Bo-”

“If you’re suddenly overcome by a need to talk, you owe me your thoughts on that file I gave you.”

She also owed him an orgasm, if they were keeping score. That unspoken thought floated in the air between them. Her blush must have given her away because he said, sounding quite irritated, “Just a talk, Mel. Jesus. You don’t have to look like you’re going to the guillotine.”

She took in his tight jaw, his flat eyes, and felt herself soften toward him all the more. “My house,” she said softly. “Meet me there.”

He looked at her for a long moment, then opened her car door for her without a word. He followed her home, and she used the ten-minute drive to give herself a reality check. He’d probably renewed her lease for twenty years at the same price to ease his guilty conscience for having the deed in the first place, or for considering the possibility of selling.

But even if that was true, what he’d done went over and above the call of duty. The stability and security he’d given her would allow her to breathe easy, to take her charter business in any direction she saw fit.

He’d done this, asking nothing in return.

When she pulled into her driveway and got out of her car, Bo followed, waiting until they were inside and she’d flipped on a few lights before he spoke again. “Tell me what you really wished for.”

She turned to face him. “How do you know I wished for anything?”

“I saw you concentrating. You squeezed your eyes really tight, like it meant something to you.”

He saw a hell of a lot, more than the people in her life, more than she wanted him to.

“I watched you,” he said quietly. “And thought, there she goes, mate, wishing you’d never shown up here.”

She stared at him, feeling a totally unexpected and unwelcome lump rise in her throat, threatening to choke her. Yeah, she’d wished on the candles, but not for what he’d thought.

She’d wished for security, for stability, for a damn night without stress, without worry.

And with the lease, he’d just given that to her on a platter. What kind of a bad guy did that?

He stood there, unusually solemn, unusually not cocky. Watching her.

Not a bad guy.

She moved to the couch and sank down on it, pulling out the file he’d given her the other night. “You going to sit?” she asked.

“I’m thinking no.”

“Why not?”

“Because when we get close, our clothes tend to fall off.”

“My clothes,” she corrected. “You mean my clothes fall off. You have yet to get naked.”

His eyes blazed. “Don’t tempt me.”