Tropical Sin: Bandicoot Cove, Book 3 Read Online Free PDF Page A

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.”
    A face of an angel with filth on her mind…
    The song lyric came to him, lilting and soft, a teasing caress on the part of him he’d thought long dead, and with it came an image of McKenzie Wood, her entirely kissable lips curled in a challenging smile, her direct gaze presenting its own challenge.
    His prick moved in his jeans, an eager spasm he felt both in his balls and at the base of his spine. What he wanted right now…right at this very moment…
    Aidan cleared his throat, and as if someone had released a valve somewhere on his well-built body, a fluid ease rolled through him. “Didn’t think I was.”
    “So, what are you going to tell her?”
    A frown pulled at Aidan’s eyebrows. “How do you know it was Mack who put me up to this?”
    Nick shrugged, Aidan’s answer confirming more than one suspicion. “Who else would it be? You’re here at the resort with a tabloid journalist. A journalist with the balls to ask me straight out about Germany.”
    “That doesn’t really answer my question.” Aidan’s gaze was direct. “Who’s to say I didn’t find you attractive back in the corridor?”
    Nick laughed again. “I do. I saw the way you looked at her, even when you were trying to shut her up. You don’t write over twenty rock ballads about unrequited love without being able to recognize it.”
    He waited for the man to say something, wondering if he should also point out the way Aidan had looked when the little journo with the brass balls and sexy-as-sin body squirmed against him?
    Before he could, though, Aidan shook his head, another one of those self-deprecating snorts escaping him. “Unrequited love. Yeah. That’s one way of putting it.”
    Nick chuckled. “Ever thought of telling her?”
    “About a million times a day.”
    “And instead you’re here?”
    Aidan let out a huff. “Yeah. I’m here. Of course, she’ll accuse me of not trying to pick you up hard enough.” He tilted his head a little, casting Nick a gaze part curious, part uncertain. “What were you doing in Germany, if I might ask? If not