Muscle for Hire (24 page)

“Oh God.” She fell back from the door, her gut a ball of knotting fear, her chest so tight breath refused to come. “Oh God, no.”

She stumbled backward, her feet moving her from the door even as she stared at it through the blurring heat of her tears.

The backs of her knees collided with the edge of the bed and she collapsed onto it, unable to stay on her feet.

Unable to tear her stare from the door. The fucking door and its fucking doorknob.

Oh God, what was wrong with her? What was—

The door opened.

“Rowan?”

Aslin stood in its frame, filling it with his muscled strength, his undeniable power.

She swiped at her eyes, forcing a smile to her lips. “Hey, I was just coming to you guys.”

He stepped into the room, pocketing his keycard as he let the door swing shut behind him. “What’s wrong?”

Rowan shook her head. “Nothing. Just hurt myself doing up my shoes.”

He walked over to her, his gaze locked on her face. “I don’t believe you. Tell me what’s wrong.”

The laugh she gave him was brittle. She knew it, and by the way Aslin’s eyes narrowed, he knew it as well. “Seriously. I’m okay. I wished I’d packed a pair of flip-flops though. Lacing these up—” she lifted a foot off the ground and pointed her Chuck-encased foot to show him what she was talking about, “—was a bitch.”

He crouched before her, his hands smoothing up her legs to come to rest on her thighs, a slight pressure on her elevated leg returning her foot to the floor. “I don’t believe you.”

“Of course you don’t.” She grinned at him, wishing to hell her heart would slow the fuck down. “It’s your nature to be suspicious. Now shut up and kiss me. My lip is almost better and you owe me one for taking off this morning while I was still asleep. How is Chris by the way? I thought you were guarding him while he surfed. Is he finished?”

Aslin didn’t reply, his inspection inscrutable as he studied her face, his palms warm on her bare thighs.

She resisted the urge to fidget. “What about lunch?” she asked, trying to distract him. The last thing she wanted was him knowing she was too freaking pathetic and scared to open the door. “Aren’t you going to follow him to the restaurant?”

“What restaurant?”

“The revolving one on top of some tower.”

Aslin’s inescapable scrutiny turned into a frown. “Chris is not having lunch at 360 Bar and Dining. Jeff just dropped him back at his suite. He’s planning on spending the rest of the day preparing for the scene being shot when filming recommences.”

A tingling pressure slid up Rowan’s spine. “Tilly said he’d booked out the entire restaurant. He and the guys were eating then climbing the Harbour Bridge after. And then there was a party tonight at some club.”

“Guys?”

“McCreedy and Jeff.”

Aslin shook his head. “No. No lunch. No bridge climb. Just a quick surf this morning before the normal Bondi crowd arrived. And your brother is too worried about you to go to a party. Warren mentioned one, but Chris said he wasn’t interested.”

Rowan chewed on her bottom lip and then flinched when her teeth pressed on the tiny split there.

“That hurt?”

Aslin’s voice—deep and laced with gentle humour—played with Rowan’s senses. She met his gaze, her belly twisting at the love she saw in his eyes. Everything else may be a confused mess at the moment, but she could not doubt what he felt for her. What she felt for him.

“Tilly had it right,” he suddenly said, his hands skimming over her hips in a caress that made Rowan’s heart quicken. “I think lunch somewhere special is a perfect idea. Especially when you are wearing the sexiest bloody outfit I’ve ever seen. There’s this quirky little café in Paddington I’d love to take you to. The locals guard it like a national secret from the tourists and, unless they’ve changed the chef since Nick ate there last, they make the best macadamia-crusted swordfish. How’s that sound? Do you think your beat-up, broken body can take it?”

She nodded, willing the butterflies in the pit of her belly away. “That would be lovely.” She’d call Tilly later. Ask why the young woman had implied Chris was falling back into his old ways. There had to be a reason. Whatever it was, it better be a goddamn good one or Rowan would give her a piece of her mind.
 

For a moment, Aslin didn’t move, studying her from his crouch between her thighs with an unwavering inspection. To Rowan, it felt like he was seeking something deep within her soul. And then, before she could confess everything—how angry she was at feeling so weak, how confused she was by Tilly’s words—he dipped his head and brushed his lips over hers in a kiss so light she barely experienced its physical touch.

But her heart, already beating too fast, leapt into a rapid pace and her breath caught in her throat.

She watched him rise to his feet and hold out his hand to her. Just one. “C’mon,” he murmured. “Let’s go pretend we’re normal people for a while.”

“As opposed to what?”

He grinned. “As opposed to the number-two trending topic on Perez Hilton’s blog. Have you
seen
the images of us making out on my bike posted there?”

She laughed and allowed him to help her to her feet. She even let him see the slight wince that escaped her when her ribs protested at her shift in position. With another kiss even more tender than the first, he crossed to the door, his fingers threaded through hers.

He stopped when she stiffened the second his hand closed over the doorknob.

Not again. Not again.

Aslin turned to her, slowly, his fingers never releasing hers. “What’s wrong?”

She drew a deep breath, fighting to keep her heart under control. “I…” She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t say she was apprehensive.

Scared.

Studying her for a silent minute, his body as still as hers, he finally released his grip on the doorknob and turned to face her fully. “Perhaps room service is a better idea.”

Prickling anger sliced through her. Anger at her woeful state. Anger at the unknown person who’d made her this way. Anger at her inability to deal with it. She drove her nails into her palms and ground her teeth. “You think I’m scared? That I can’t walk through the door?”

Aslin shook his head, closing the small distance between them with a single step before framing her jaw with his hands. “I think you’ve forgotten what I once was. A soldier. I’ve been in more than one explosion, Hemsworth. I was in a Pinzgauer in Afghanistan that hit a mine and flipped three times, almost killing us all in the process. I know about PTS. It took me for sodding ever to climb back into a truck after that without breaking out in a sweat and having heart palpitations. But I did. And I know you will open a door. You’re too strong, too stubborn not to.” He stroked his thumb over her bottom lip, his gaze holding hers. “But until you’re ready, I’m not remotely interested in what’s on the other side of that door.”

A choking lump filled Rowan’s throat and she sucked in a soft breath, her chest aching. “I feel so…so…”

“Shhh,” he whispered, a gentle smile playing with the corner of his mouth. “It’s not important right now.”

Rowan frowned, wishing to fuck she could stop shaking. Oh God, where did this wonderful man come from? And how was she so lucky he fell in love with her? “What is important?”

His smile grew into a slow grin and he lowered his head closer to hers. “Making love to you. Stripping you out of these sexy-arse shorts and boots and making love to you. Not doors and whether they are opened or not. Doors and what’s on the other side have no bearing on what really matters—us. Understand?”

He kissed her before she could respond. A little harder this time, but not much.

Not enough for Rowan. She slid her palms up his chest, tangled her fingers in his hair and parted her lips to his mouth, deepening the kiss.

A low growl rumbled in Aslin’s chest. He stole his hands around her waist, bunching the material of her shirt at the small of her back. He swiped his tongue over hers, once, twice, and then he pulled away and stared down into her upturned face, his breath shaky. “Gentle, love. You’ll hurt your—”

“Fuck gentle.” She fisted her hands tighter in his hair and pressed her hips to his. “I’m done with gentle. I want you inside me. And I don’t want you to hold back. Understand, soldier boy?”

Aslin claimed her lips again, and this time there was nothing tender about the kiss. He feasted on her mouth, his tongue wild as it mated with hers. She groaned, the pleasure of his touch already a salve to the minute pain in her lip. She dragged her hands down over his shoulders, across the broad expanse of his chest. His pec muscles coiled beneath her palms, a reflex action that flooded her pussy with eager moisture. She dragged her thumbs over his nipples, loving the way he groaned in response. He swirled his tongue over hers, smoothed his hands down to her butt. With steady pressure, he began walking, guiding her backward as he continued to worship her lips with his kiss.

Four steps later, Rowan’s calves bumped the edge of bed.

She knew what Aslin was going to do without needing to ask. His lips moved from hers, trailing a path of wicked kisses down her throat as he slowly lowered her back to the mattress. A small part of her wanted to demand he throw her on the bed, the way he would if she wasn’t still recovering, another more rational part loved that he didn’t. He was giving her what she wanted and still caring for her. There was nothing better, more perfect than that.

As soon as her back rested on the bed, he captured her breasts with his mouth and hands. He suckled on one erect nipple through the cotton of her shirt as his fingers pinched and rolled the other. She moaned, her eyes fluttering closed at the pleasure radiating through her.

Overwhelming her.

“More, Aslin,” she murmured. “I need more.”

He complied. Before the plea finished falling from her lips, he’d nudged the hemline of her shirt high with a firm hand, his kiss exploring the flat plane of her belly he’d revealed. She hitched in a breath and pushed her hips upward.

A slight tug on her fly told her he’d done what she ached for him to do. As did the cool air flowing over her newly exposed pussy mound. He covered the curve of her mons with a rain of tiny kisses, working her hotpants over her hips with his hands.

“M-my boots,” she whispered, shifting enough on the mattress to aid his removal of her shorts and thong.

“Can stay on,” he rumbled back, flicking his tongue over the sensitive area of flesh where her thigh became her groin. “They’re too fucking sexy to take off.”

She laughed at his growled statement. And then whimpered when his tongue dipped into her folds to lap at her clit.

He made love to her sex with his mouth, licking and nipping at her clit, delving into her slit over and over again. Three times, the surging heat of an orgasm approached her. Every time, Aslin pulled away, returning to her swollen breasts and straining nipples until she was begging him to make her come.

Three times.

Three times, he explored her sex with such fierce, thorough purpose until she was on the brink of a detonation and yet each time he denied her that release.

When he rose to his feet, she glared up at him, her heart an insane hammer in her chest, her pussy a constricting world of need. “What are you—”

Her protest died as he stripped his clothes from his body without a word.

Oh boy.

She’d never seen him so erect, so engorged. His cock jutted upright from his dark pubic hair, its thick venous length a sublime arc crowned with a bulbous head of the deepest blood-red purple. Tiny beads of moisture anointed the tip. Rowan’s mouth grew wet with saliva at the sight even as her pussy flooded with liquid warmth.

“I know you don’t want me to be careful, love.” Aslin’s husky rumble drew her gaze to his face and she swallowed at the raw desire in his eyes. “And I know you’re tough, the toughest person I’ve ever known, but I won’t be able to live with myself if I hurt you.” He snared his jeans from the ground, removed his wallet from a pocket and withdrew a condom. “So I’m going to do this
my
way.”

“Aslin…” she began, her pulse pounding.

“My way,” he repeated, sliding the latex sheath over his erection before slipping a hand beneath her right leg as he stepped back between her thighs.

He bent over her, drawing her right leg up to hook her knee over the crook of his elbow, his forearm protecting her ribs from her thigh. He placed his other elbow on the bed beside her, the action allowing his cock to nudge her parted folds. She drew in a swift breath, the pressure on her clit almost too much to survive. Her body was on fire. So attuned to his. So aware of the moment about to—

With one slow, fluid thrust, Aslin sank into her.

She cried out, arching into his deep penetration, scraping her nails at the muscled perfection of his shoulders.

“Fuck, I can’t…” His breath was ragged. “You feel so fucking good, love. So fucking…”

He slowly withdrew, to the distended rim of his cock’s head, and then filled her once more, stretching her pussy lips to their limit, protecting her rib with his position and strength.

She cried out again. Louder this time, the orgasm he’d denied her three times rushing at her. Mounting pressure sent shards of exquisite tension up her spine, into the pit of her belly. Building heat that squeezed her anus tight and filled her aching breasts with swollen want.