by Jill Shalvis
She stared down at the rusty bolt. “You win.”
Due to all his blood still pooled behind the buttons on his Levi’s, he was only working on two cylinders and didn’t follow. “Huh?”
“You win.”
“Just to be clear,” he said warily. “I win what?”
He didn’t know what he expected, but it sure as hell wasn’t that she’d stalk toward him, grip his arms, and slam her mouth over his.
Chapter 12
Mel’s kiss left Bo staggered by a barrage of sensations. First, her mouth. God, that mouth. It was the mouth of wet dreams across the land. Warm, eager…She tasted like everything missing from his life, things he hadn’t even known existed.
So shocked by that, he let out a dark sound, a bit staggering in its neediness, and braced himself as he hauled her up, kissing her hungrily, frantically, unable to stop himself. Her breasts, covered in that wet sheer bra and by his own shirt, smashed into his bare chest. Her thighs entangled with his. Her heart drummed a staccato beat against him, so fast and heavy it was amazing that people didn’t come running to see what the racket was. Or maybe that was his heart. Hell, he didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. Then she pulled back, leaving him gasping for air, painfully aroused.
Her cinnamon eyes dropped to his mouth before lifting once again to meet his. In them was a confusion, a heat, and a temper he wanted to snarl right back at. Or soothe…
“What the hell was that?” she asked, her voice low and husky. “I mean what the hell?”
“You’re asking me?” Risking life and limb, he fisted one hand at her back, gripping the material of his shirt low on her spine. He sank his other hand into her wet hair, tugging her head back, looking into her eyes…
“All I know,” she said shakily, “is that you need to keep your shirt on always.”
“Why?”
“Like you don’t know how ripped you are.”
“Again,” he decided.
“Um…what?”
“This. Again.” And he kissed her this time.
Harder.
Wetter.
Deeper.
He did it to keep her quiet, because damn, he liked her quiet. He liked her just like this actually, mouth fixed to his, little whimpery pants escaping her as if she couldn’t get enough. Then she sucked his tongue into her mouth and he couldn’t think at all because his heart was going to leap right out of his chest.
Her hands ran up his sides, over his ribs, her fingers sinking into his pecs painfully enough to make him suck in a breath. She tasted hot and sweet and felt even better, and she was wet all over, with a hot little bod he definitely needed more of. He was quite certain there would be a price to pay for this glimpse of pure, unadulterated pleasure, there was always a price, but not caring at the moment, he backed her up to the Hawker, pressed her up against the cool steel and took his mouth on a cruise over her throat. Nudging the shirt off her shoulder wasn’t a problem, and the wet, sheer bra wasn’t, either. He simply tugged it down, groaning when a breast popped out, her nipple pebbled and thrust upward, as if begging for his attention. “Mmm,” rumbled from his chest, and he took it in his mouth.
“Ohmigod.” Mel’s fingers sank into his hair, fisting it, doing her best to make him bald before he hit middle age.
He didn’t care. He sucked hard, then flicked her nipple with his tongue. She gasped, and her head fell back, thunking against the plane, dislodging a few tools she’d set around the opened engine compartment. As they rained to the ground around them, clanging and clattering, Mel jerked, then stared up at him, eyes huge, mouth open as if she needed it that way just to breathe.
God, she looked like heaven standing there, his shirt off her shoulders, caught on her elbows, opened to reveal her breasts, one nipple wet from his mouth. “Mel—”
“This isn’t happening,” she said. “Is. Not. Happening.” Her eyes were dilated, her mouth a little swollen. And he’d left a slight whisker burn on the underside of her jaw that he wanted to press his lips to.
In fact, he did, he leaned in and kissed her there, or tried to, but she slapped a hand to his chest and held him off. “Guess you got another airport quickie,” she said. “Only in the hangar this time, not the closet. Oh, and not with a blonde.”
Wow. Her opinion of him was even lower than he’d thought, and he had to remind himself that he didn’t care. “A quickie implies that I got off.”
She stared at him. “I’m a damn idiot,” she muttered and brushed past him. Hauling open the closet with more force than necessary, she pulled out another set of coveralls, shoving her legs through one at a time while he eyed the peek-a-boo hints he got of her panties and belly as his shirt rose high on her thighs.
“You have three more rusty bolts,” he said. “I could—”
“I can take it from here.”
Of course she could. “Because God forbid you actually lean on someone, right?”
“I lean plenty.”
“Prove it. I know there’s something going on here, Mel. So prove it—lean on me. Let me help.”
She hesitated, as if she just might decide to actually trust him, but in the end she slowly shook her head and walked away, leaving him hot, wet, still turned on…and disappointed. Extremely disappointed.
Wayne took Dimi out to the fanciest restaurant in town, and then they drank and danced for hours before going to a five-star hotel and roughing up the sheets.
So one would think she’d wake up with a smile on her face, but instead she drove into North Beach feeling hungover and…empty.
Intent on getting over herself, she entered the lobby head down, searching through her purse for her favorite lip gloss as she went, then plowed right into Danny. “Oomph,” she said, teetering on her heels.
He put his hands on her hips until she gained her balance, then pulled back immediately, leaving her with the oddest sense of loss.
“Someone on your tail again?” he asked.
She looked into his face, void of its usually friendly smile. He smelled like the coconut wax he’d probably used on his surfboard that morning, and the scent was so familiar she felt a little rush of comfort, despite his distant expression. “No. Thanks.”
“I was going to ask how you are, but let me guess. You’re fantastic, right?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
He gazed at her for a long moment, as if maybe he wanted to say something, but in the end, he simply nodded and let her pass.
She shrugged off the encounter with a big mug of tea and sat at her desk. Because the afternoon before she’d left off in a great part of her book, she dove right back in, and it was thirty minutes before the phone bothered her. After transferring the call to Mel, she sipped her tea and realized someone had left a small box in her top drawer, wrapped in pretty pink paper.
Lifting her head, she looked around. No one. She opened the box and pulled out a small but beautiful candle, decorated with seashells and scented like a glorious summer day. It put a smile on her face as she searched for a card, a signature…nothing.
She looked around again, expecting to see someone watching her—Mel, Char, one of the early-bird customers—but no one was paying her any attention at all.
Hmmm…She lit the candle and went to work. But after a few moments, the smile was gone and worry weeded its way through her as she called Mel’s office.
“Hey,” Mel answered, sounding a little breathless.
Dimi frowned. “What are you doing in there?”
“Eating bonbons and watching Oprah. How about you?”
“Funny. I’m going through the billing.”
“Yeah? About time—”
“Yeah, yeah. Look, it’s a good news–bad news sort of thing. Good news: you’ve got a message from a few of your receivables, money is coming in the mail for Anderson Air. Bad news: somebody else has been here.”
“Customers are good.”
“Stick with me, Mel. Somebody has been in my billings for North Beach.”
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Suddenly she had Mel’s full attention. “Doing what?”
“Not sure,” Dimi admitted. “But the date these files were last accessed was yesterday morning, and…”—she hated to admit this—“I haven’t worked on them since the day before yesterday.”
“It was Bo. He told me you’d left your accounting up on the screen when he sat at your desk to help with the phones.”
“To help with the planes, not help himself to my files! Bastard.”
“Yeah. But Dimi, Jesus. You must have left your computer on all night. You can’t leave that stuff up and available to anyone with two eyes.”
“Two eyes, and our deed.” Dimi rubbed the tense spot between her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I’m just…stressed.”
“I know.”
“What if he stays?” Dimi asked softly. “What if he fires us? God, Mel, what else could I even do for a job? I’m uniquely suited for nothing!”
“Look, let’s not borrow trouble, okay? We don’t even know if the deed’s legit.”
“Right. It isn’t. It can’t be.”
“Exactly.”
Dimi drew a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll try to maintain. Oh, and thanks for the beautiful candle.”
Mel paused. “Uh…not me.”
Dimi looked at the flickering wick, inhaled the incredibly soothing scent. “No?”
“No.”
Dimi shook her head as the phone began to ring. “Gotta go.” She switched lines. “North Beach.”
“Dimi.”
Hmmm, deep, mysterious male voice. So far so good. “Yes,” she said. “Can I help you?”
“It’s Todd.”
Todd. She didn’t know a—
“From the other night.”
Dimi went still.
“I came in on my brother’s jet with some other guys, and we—”
“I remember.” Previously Gorgeous Guy.
“Did you like the candle?”
Leaning forward, she blew out the candle, watched the thin line of smoke rise into the air. “I’m hanging up now. Don’t call me again.”
“Wait—I just wanted to apologize, and—”
“Apology accepted. Good-bye.” She clicked off and tossed the candle in the trash. Then, on second thought, pulled it out and left it on the corner of her desk as a reminder that she made bad decisions, and in light of that…no more men. Not a single one.
Mel sat at her desk and stared at her phone. Today was the day she’d hear from her attorney, and knowing that had her body quivering with a high level of awareness.
Or maybe that was just from yet another long night of sensual dreams in which she’d let Bo strip off more than her coveralls, in a world where he could press her naked up against the Hawker and take her….
Jeez, the porno dreams had to stop! She’d managed to avoid Bo this morning by sheer luck, because he’d flown out early and had stayed out. A good thing because he was so damn potently, outrageously, dangerously sexy, she could hardly stand it.
He had customers waiting for him. Turned out he was a popular guy, and had a lot of connections.
Not only that, but he’d brought business into North Beach, a lot of it. Every day someone new stopped by—someone he’d recommended the place to, for fuel or maintenance…or to hire him to find them an antique aircraft. He was single-handedly saving North Beach. She didn’t really want to think about that, so instead she went into the café for something bad for her.
Charlene was there, gushing all over one of her customers, a woman with a young baby, both of whom had come in on a flight and were waiting on maintenance. The baby was wailing away, little arms and legs bicycling like crazy, her face bright red from the efforts.
“Wow,” Mel said, realizing the kid was actually putting out more decibels than Van Halen on the radio, and that was saying something. “She’s got a set of lungs.”
The mother, looking a little harassed, blew out a breath. “Got that from her daddy. She likes to listen to herself all night long.”
“Give her here.” Char cuddled her close. “Ah, look at you,” she cooed with a smile. “You’re such a pretty thing.”
The full-out wail lessened slightly. “Yeah, that’s it,” Char murmured, stroking her fingers over the baby’s forehead. “That’s it. You’re nearly all done now, aren’t you?”
And unbelievably, the crying stopped.
They all stared at the baby, who looked up at Char with huge, soaked eyes and trembly rosebud mouth.
“My God,” the mother breathed. “Whatever you’re doing, don’t stop.”
Char smiled down at the baby. “Oh, look at you, you’re so precious.”
Al came out of the kitchen, saw the baby in his wife’s arms, took in the look on her face, and sighed. “Ah, man.”
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Char asked him.
“Beautiful, now give her back.”
Char chuckled. “Isn’t he silly?” she asked the baby. “Go away, Al.”
“It’s that look in your eyes,” he said uneasily. “Like you want another.”
“Because I do.”
Al went pale. “Okay, seriously. Give the baby back, Char.”
She just kept cuddling the baby, a secret smile on her face.
“Honey? We’re past all this baby stuff, remember,” Al said, sounding a little desperate. “No diapers. No midnight interruptions. Life’s good, Char, really good. We’re in the home stretch, in the clear, you know?”
“I’m just holding her, Al.”
“Okay,” he said, then nodded. “Okay, then. That’s good.” He nodded again, hesitated, then went back into the kitchen.
Char smiled at Mel. “Yeah, I’m just holding her.” She leaned in. “And wanting another one.”
Mel glanced at Al in the kitchen.
“Oh, don’t worry about him. I’ll promise him sex every night, he’ll be fine. He’s a great daddy…”
Mel’s brain had caught and snagged on sex every night. She imagined herself with someone, making love every night, and before she could stop the thought, her brain plugged Bo into that equation.
Whoa.
Momentarily struck by that image, she had to shake it off, but it took her an embarrassingly long time to do so.
“Mel? What’s the matter?” Char asked.
“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.” Mel fanned air in front of her face. Sheesh. “Gotta go.” And she took herself and her letter to the post office. Unfortunately, it was lunchtime, and the rest of the free world was there, too. She had to park around the block, and by the time she got inside she was panting from the heat, sweating unattractively, and felt like her heart no longer fit inside her chest.
The same guy was behind the counter and he looked as unhappy at his job today as he had yesterday. He glanced at her and sighed. “He’s got the flu, lady. You’ll have to come back.”
“Are you kidding me? No one else can run the machine? How hard can it be?”
“Hard.”
“Look, can I see the manager?”
“I am the manager.”
Great. Perfect. She drove in the heat back to North Beach and faced yet another unpleasant surprise as she walked in the door.
“Line one,” Dimi called out. “Attorney.”
Their eyes met. Mel’s heart stopped. “I’ll take it in the office,” she said as if her world hadn’t just stopped spinning. She ran down the hall, skidded to a stop in front of her desk, then stared at the phone as if it were a spitting cobra. “Grow up,” she told herself, and picked up the phone.
“Got news,” Greg said.
Mel couldn’t breathe and her legs felt like rubber. “Okay.”
“You should probably sit.”
Right. She fell into her chair. “Sitting. Go.”
“The deed Bo Black has in his possession is legit.”
Dimi burst into the office, took one look at Mel’s face, and sank to a chair.
“Sally deeded North Beach,” Greg continued. “And all its possessi
ons, except for what’s in the individually rented hangars, to Eddie Black. When Eddie Black died, everything he owned went to his sole beneficiary—Bo Black.”
“How long ago?” Mel asked.
“Ten years.”
She’d been working for Bo for ten years. Worse, Sally had known all this time…Every time she’d called, she’d known. Every time she’d drained the accounts, she’d known. Every time she’d asked Mel how things were, she’d known…“How did you find out?” she asked hoarsely.
“City records. Not that hard to find, actually. In fact, anyone could look this sort of thing up and get answers.”
Mel thought of the e-mail note and the letter she’d received. “Can anyone figure out that I went looking?”
“These days, with computer trails and such, yes.”
Mel nodded, then realized he couldn’t see her. “Thanks,” she managed, hung up, and thunked her head to the desk. “My God.”
“There has to be a reason,” Dimi said. “He threatened her. Something.”
“Maybe.”
“Definitely.”
Bo was still away on his flight, but Mel knew she’d have to face him eventually. Knowing it felt like torture. For the next few hours, her pulse beat unevenly, and she kept breaking out into a sweat.
The deed was legit.
Life as she knew it had changed forever, but she was nothing if not a survivor. She had plenty of smiles in her arsenal, and she pulled them out now, pasting on the “I’m Fine” smile for everyone who looked her way. And she’d leave it there until she knew for sure what the hell had happened, and why.
The next e-mail came in just before closing. Mel stared at it: BackOffOrElse. As before, the body of the e-mail was blank, but this time there was a subject line.
I mean it.
Mel felt the tingle go down her spine and knew she was getting close. To what, she had no clue.
Chapter 13
Mel waited for Bo until 5:30, then couldn’t handle it anymore. She grabbed her things and left her office. Dimi was gone, she’d left much earlier, without a word, making Mel’s chest tighten with worry. Mel had loved Sally, but Dimi had positively worshipped the woman, and so for her, this would be harder.
