Muscle for Hire

by Lexxie Couper

  Aslin’s gut clenched. He controlled his frown. “Am I?”

  Rowan nodded, her teeth no longer worrying her bottom lip. “This is too much, Aslin. Too much too quickly. I want you, but I realized on the ride here I need to take a breath. To think.”

  Beside her, the valet cleared his throat. “Shall I—”

  Aslin didn’t move his focus from her face. “It’s just sex, Rowan.”

  She shook her head, her eyebrows pulling into a brief frown. “No. It isn’t. And that’s the issue.”

  The parking valet mumbled something and then, head down, cheeks red, hurried away.

  Aslin ground his teeth. She was correct. It wasn’t. He knew it, and so did she.

  Rowan let out a sigh. “I wasn’t ready for this. It’s a problem I’m not prepared for, and I don’t know what to do next.”

  “Fuck me,” Aslin growled. “And let me fuck you. Simple.”

  She chuckled. “Not simple at all. And I can see through your bluster, soldier boy. You’re as freaked out by this whole thing as I am.”

  His gut knotted. That she could read him so well already should have angered him. It didn’t. It only highlighted exactly what she was saying—what was between them had the potential to be so much more than sex. And he could tell it scared her.

  And it doesn’t you?

  “Rowan,” he began, but she shook her head and took a step backward, hugging his helmet to her breasts. “Goodnight, Rhodes. I’ll see you tomorrow on set.”

  And before he could utter another word, she turned and strode through the hotel’s glass doors and into the foyer.

  Leaving Aslin to watch her go.

  Chapter Six

  Fifty laps of the hotel’s swimming pool hadn’t helped her. Working out in the hotel’s twenty-four-hour gym hadn’t either. Masturbating in the shower had achieved fuck all and consuming ice-cream sundaes smothered in hot chocolate fudge sauce from room service while watching in-house movies back to back did little but make her feel guilty for charging so much to Chris’s hotel bill.

  It didn’t matter what Rowan tried through the agonizingly long hours after Aslin left to when the sun broke the eastern horizon—six hours that felt like forever—she couldn’t stop wishing she hadn’t told him to go.

  Now here she was after maybe two hours of restless sleep, sitting on the spacious balcony of Chris’s suite feeling drained. Coffee in hand, she watched the morning’s golden light flow over Sydney Harbour and the Opera House, turning a simple thing like morning into a stunning spectacle. The sight pissed her off to no end. All she could do every time she looked at it was wish the Brit was here with her so she could smile at him and share the moment.

  And then ask him to take her inside and fuck her brains out.

  She lifted what was left of her croissant—her third of the morning, this one slathered with strawberry jelly and cream—and popped it into her mouth. If she hadn’t, she would have let out a very disgusted snort.

  Oh yeah, she was definitely well on her way to solving the Aslin Rhodes problem, wasn’t she? Ice cream, movies, exercise and masturbation. The perfect tools needed to decide what to do about him.

  She sighed.

  Somewhere around four a.m., she’d decided she was going to sleep with him. After she got that out of her system, she was going to see if she could spend more than fifteen minutes in his company without thinking about sex.

  Now however, in the light of day, she wasn’t sure if that was a wise move.

  For starters, what if he was a hopeless lover?

  Rowan did snort this time. And then coughed around the remains of her croissant she’d yet to swallow.

  Huh. It wasn’t possible. With the way he kissed? With the arrogance of his touch? The mastery of her pleasure?

  A shiver rippled through her. A tight, hot, delicious ripple. She had no doubt whatsoever that Aslin Rhodes would be an amazing lover. What she did doubt was her ability to walk away when it was over. Because a British bodyguard, or whatever he was now, wasn’t exactly part of her plans for her future. Looking after her brother was her plan for the future. Making sure people didn’t take advantage of his far-too-easygoing nature.

  Aslin Rhodes did not fit into that plan at all.

  Which is why you haven’t stop thinking about him, right?

  With another snort, she pushed herself to her feet and turned from the breathtaking vista of the harbour and its architecturally weird opera house. She needed to call the hospital, find out when Chris was going to be discharged and order a taxi so she could get there before hand. Then she’d have another shower, dress and ring Nigel McQueen and let him know she was collecting her brother.

  She didn’t have the time to sit and ponder her inconvenient pre-occupation with Aslin Rhodes. Maybe if she was lucky when she next saw the British soldier-cum-bodyguard-cum-whatever he was now, she’d be over him. After all, it wasn’t like she’d never had a man make her moan with pleasure before.

  Just not on the back of a Ducati. In plain view of anyone who might come along.

  Her pussy contracted in an almost painful throb.

  Letting out a huff, Rowan crossed to one of the suite’s many phones and had hotel reception connect her to Sydney Royal North Shore Private Hospital. Ten minutes later, having been told by the nurse that she could not divulge any information about Chris Huntley over the phone no matter how many times Rowan insisted she was Chris’s sister, she walked into the opulent bathroom, stripped off her PJs and stepped into the shower.

  Only to have the suite’s many phones burst into ringing life the second the warm water started streaming over her naked body.

  “Damn it.” She killed the water, wrapped the fluffiest towel in the world around her torso and hurried to the closest phone. “Hello?”

  “I’m waiting in the lobby.” Aslin’s deep voice caressed her senses through the connection, his British accent making her sex throb again. And her nipples pinch tight.

  Her heart leapt into her throat. Her lips parted in a silent gasp. She gripped the hand piece, her knuckles popping.

  There was a soft chuckle, most likely at Rowan’s complete failure to respond to Aslin’s statement. “Don’t forget my helmet.”

  He disconnected before she could say anything. Which really pissed her off.

  Damn him. Who the fuck did he think he was?

  The guy who made you whimper and beg to be fucked on the back of a Ducati last night after only knowing you for twelve hours, that’s who.

  Still, she wasn’t going to play his game. Damn him.

  Returning to the shower, she washed her hair. Twice. And then conditioned it. And then snared Chris’s razor—conveniently perched on the soap rack—and shaved her legs and under her arms. Then she stood under the warm water, palms to the marble wall, head down, eyes closed, lips parted and counted to one hundred. Twice.

  You’re playing with fire, woman.

  The thought made her heartbeat quicken. Her pussy contracted. She imagined Aslin kicking the door to the suite open, his nostrils flaring, his expression promising pain and pleasure.

  She pictured him storming across the lush carpet to the bathroom. Saw him closing the distance between the door and the shower with long, steady strides. Felt his hand circle her wrist as he pulled her from the water and yanked her against his chest. Felt his erection grind against her belly.

  Her head swum at the delirious fantasy. Her breath grew shallow. Ragged.

  She opened her eyes and raised her head.

  Just as the shower cubicle’s steam-fogged glass door opened.

  She gasped, staring at the man standing on the other side, her pulse detonating in her throat.

  “You do know Sydney is experiencing a drought at the moment?” Aslin’s dark brown eyes revealed nothing. “A thirty-five-minute shower is a might excessive, even if you are trying to avoid me.”

  Rowan gazed at him. Her breasts ached. She knew she should smack the shit out of him. She knew she should at lea
st tell him to fuck off. Instead, she stared at him, her nipples way too hard, her pussy prickling with eager want.

  “How did you…” She stopped.

  The smallest of smiles pulled at one side of Aslin’s mouth. “Nick stayed here whenever he was in Australia. He and his wife spent their wedding night here.”

  Rowan drew a deep breath, pushing herself from the wall. The water continued to stream over her body. Down between her swollen breasts, over her belly, between her thighs, over the seam of her sex… “So what? You know the manager?”

  Aslin inclined his head. Not once did his stare waver from her face.

  “And he just let you come on up?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wasn’t that nice of him.”

  Another single nod of his head.

  She swallowed. Straightened her spine. Tilted her chin. “And now you’re here, what do you plan to do?”

  His nostrils flared. His jaw bunched.

  Grab my wrist. Grab my wrist and yank me to your body. Kiss me. Fuck me. Please. Please do that. Oh God, please…

  “Tell you to bloody well hurry up.” His voice was a rumble, like distant thunder.

  She caught her bottom lip with her teeth. And bit back a groan of protest when he turned and walked from the bathroom.

  Her heart hammered. Her sex pulsed and throbbed and squeezed a cock that wasn’t there.

  She stared hard at the closed bathroom door, willing him to walk through it. Willing him to take away any choice she had.

  But he didn’t.

  Throat thick, disgust licking through her, she snapped off the water and stepped out of the shower stall.

  She dried herself with savage force, the world’s fluffiest towel an instrument of punishment in her hands as she rubbed it against her skin like a frenzied house painter sanding the walls.

  When she knew drying herself had dragged into hiding out in the bathroom, she wrapped the towel around her chest, raked her fingers through her damp hair and exited the room.

  Aslin stood on the balcony, his back to the suite. His legs were braced apart, his hands planted on the steel railing.

  Rowan studied his wide back, her gaze charting a journey over the sculpted strength of his shoulders, his lats, down to the bunched perfection of his gluteus maximus.

  Day-um, he had a gorgeous ass.

  “You’ve got ten minutes, Rowan.” She flinched at the low statement thrown at her over his right shoulder without looking at her.

  “For what?” she asked, for some reason feeling the need to clutch the towel more tightly to her breast.

  “To get dressed before I come in there and do what we both want me to do.”

  Rowan’s heart punched up into her tight throat again. Damn it, she’d never met a man who flustered her so quickly and easily.

  She toyed with the idea of letting fate take over. Of keeping her feet in place and dropping the towel to the floor.

  What got her moving was Aslin’s growling, “And I won’t be gentle.”

  She all but ran for the suite’s bedroom and her overnight bag.

  Five minutes later, dressed in cut-off denim shorts, a retro Bruce Lee T-shirt and her favourite cowboy boots, her heart far too fast, her expression as calm as she could force it to be, she walked back into the suite’s living room.

  Aslin still stood on the balcony, his back to her. He was talking on a phone, his voice nothing but a low rumble of indecipherable sounds rolling with that sexy British accent of his. Rowan couldn’t make out the words, but she could tell from his body language he wasn’t happy. At all.

  “Okay,” he suddenly said, louder. He turned to toward her, the rising sun casting him in silhouetting shadows that hid his face from her. “I’ve got to go. Let me know what you find out.”

  He didn’t seem to wait for whomever he was talking with to answer. Sliding his cell phone into his back pocket, he crossed the balcony threshold and strode over to her, his expression unreadable.

  “You’re really going to wear shorts on the back of a motorbike?”

  Rowan tilted her chin. “You want me to take them off?”

  A dark fire flickered in his eyes. “I want to rip them off, Rowan.” His matter-of-fact response made her pulse thump fast and her palms prickle. “Along with the rest of your clothes. I want you naked and coated in sweat as I bring you to the wildest orgasm of your life. But your brother is waiting, and he refuses to start filming until you’re on set.”

  At the mention of Chris’s name, Rowan’s heart slammed into her throat. Oh God, here she was flirting with a man that left her utterly discombobulated and her brother was still in hospital?

  She swallowed, guilt and shame heating her cheeks. “How do we pick him up on your bike? Isn’t that going to be a physical impossibility?”

  Aslin scooped up his helmet from where she’d left it on the coffee table the night before and handed it to her. “He was discharged at six this morning and Nigel asked if I would collect him. I dropped him off at the barracks before coming here.”

  A finger of irritation stroked down Rowan’s spine. Aslin had collected her brother? Aslin? A man Chris had known for less than a day?

  She narrowed her eyes. “Of course you did. That being your purpose in life and all. To look after celebrities and be at their beck and call?”

  The moment the insult was past her lips Rowan regretted it. It was petulant and childish.

  Aslin’s stare never left her face. Nor did his ambiguous expression change. “Rowan, at this point in time, my purpose in life is to get you to the set of Dead Even. But if you insist on standing here trying to antagonize me, it will very quickly become to teach you a lesson.” He bent at the waist—just enough to make her shift her feet to maintain her glare on his face. “And trust me, I have no problems telling Nigel McQueen and your brother filming was delayed because you provoked me into throwing you on the bed and fucking you senseless. Is that what you’re hoping to achieve?”

  His calmly delivered words slammed into her like a fist. Her breath caught in her throat and her pussy squeezed tight with urgent need. She drew in a steadying breath, wishing her nipples would stop pinching into hard peaks. He was correct of course. She was antagonizing him. He’d thrown her carefully controlled world into chaos since the second she’d met him, and she had no freaking clue how to deal with that.

  She either wanted to fuck him or beat the shit out of him. Sometimes both at the same time.

  It was messing with her head.

  Wrapping her fingers around his helmet where he still held it out between them, she all but snatched it from his grip. “I’m not changing out of my shorts,” she muttered.

  The edges of Aslin’s lips curled. A little. “I didn’t think you would.”

  She stared at him, wishing she could think of something to say. Something smart and full of sass. Hell, even something funny. But Chris had got all the funny in their family. She had got the…

  What? Ability to beat someone in a fight?

  It was a bleak thought, one she couldn’t deny. Since her parents’ murder, she’d honed herself into a fighting machine. She didn’t need sass or wit. She had her fists and her feet. She made her living being the best fighter on the circuits. On the mat, in a dojo, there was no need for snappy comebacks or droll comments. On the mat there was just punishing pain and victory.

  A thick lump filled her throat and she turned away from Aslin.

  “C’mon,” she snarled, storming for the door. “I want to see my brother.”

  If Aslin noticed her abrupt shift in mood, he didn’t comment. She almost wished he would. If he did, if he tried to cajole it out of her in the elevator ride down to the hotel foyer, it would give her an excuse to slam him against the wall and tell him to back the fuck off. Instead, he stood beside her, silent. His towering presence made her feel small and woefully vulnerable even as his undeniable maleness made her ache for his touch and wish he’d carried out his threat and stripped her bare back up in
Chris’s suite.

  Oh God, she was messed up.

  She refused to cling to him on his bike. It was tricky. For one thing, they were moving through the Sydney streets during rush hour traffic. Aslin was constantly accelerating and braking, the G-forces throwing her backward and forward on the pillion passenger seat. For another, he smelled so damn good. This close, with her breasts brushing at his broad back, she breathed in the subtleness of his scent—sandalwood soap, leather and something else. Something perfect, intoxicating, addictive and uniquely him.

  Even with the helmet’s visor down, she could smell him.

  It infuriated her.

  It aroused her.

  When they finally drove through the gate at the film site, pausing briefly as Aslin flashed their security passes at the waiting guard, she was damn near giddy with sucking in breath after deep breath.

  He’d barely brought the bike to a halt in front of Chris’s trailer when she threw her leg over the back and hurried for the open door of her brother’s on-site abode.

  She tried to tell herself it was anxious impatience to see Chris that made her behave so ridiculously.

  Aslin’s laugh behind her—low and far too knowing—told her she wasn’t fooling anyone.

  She drove her nails into her palms and vaulted up into the trailer, determined to ignore the annoying Brit. Only to discover Chris wasn’t there.

  “He’s on set, Rowan.” Aslin’s deep voice played over her senses, his breath warm on the side of her neck as he entered the trailer after her. “On the other side of the site in the old convict dormitories. No doubt waiting for us.”

  She spun to glare up at him, her heart racing too damn fast for her liking. “Then why did we come here?”

  “So I could do this.”

  Before she could do anything—and with reflexes as fast as hers, she should have been able to do something—his hands came up to cup her face and he brushed his lips over hers.

  She froze, the gentle beauty of the simple kiss stealing any ability in her to move.

  When he straightened, her breath caught at the raw desire in his eyes. There was nothing arrogant, dominating, threatening or confusing about it. Just pure desire.