“I want to make sure she’s okay, and that she wasn’t a victim.”
“And…”
“And nothing,” she said. “That’s all.”
Jaw tight, he shook his head but didn’t say another word. The truce, if there’d ever really been one, was over. Tentative trust shaken if not gone completely.
The next day, in between charter flights, a broken tow, fuel deliveries, and filing a police report for the e-mails and notes, Mel pulled out the local phone book and picked a private investigator.
Matt Thomas promised to investigate Sally’s whereabouts, which should have made her feel good but instead left her feeling like she’d betrayed her own mother.
The next two days moved like a blur. Bo took a flight to test-fly an old Douglas he was looking at in Los Angeles. Mel stopped what she was doing to watch him take off, wondering when things would ever get back to normal.
Or if he’d ever want her again…
One afternoon, Char fed her, standing in her small kitchen fanning air with her shirt as she grumbled about the heat.
“It’s not that hot,” Mel said.
“Well, you’re not facing early menopause, are you?” Char lifted her top. “Look at me.”
“Um…” Mel couldn’t help but take in Char’s slightly curved belly and full breasts straining to escape a black cotton bra. Her skin was flushed beet red and dewy. “Maybe you could open the window-”
“It doesn’t matter. I could take the roof off, I’d still be too hot.”
“Charlene, Jesus.” Al came around the corner and blocked the view of his wife’s breasts and belly. “What are you doing?”
“Didn’t you hear me? I’m hot! Hot, hot, hot-”
“You’re flashing the customers!” He craned his neck to the tables, found them empty, and lost some of his bristle. “Okay, fine, there are no customers.”
“Hey,” Mel said. “I’m right here.”
“You don’t count.” Char smiled up at Al. “You don’t want to share my breasts.”
“Nope. All mine,” Al murmured, and pulled her against him.
Mel rolled her eyes and hightailed it out of the den of love. The hot den of love.
She stayed late that night, working on the Hawker. When she was done, she hopped into the shower in her office bathroom, closing her eyes in bliss, letting out a long breath as the tension finally began to drain from her body.
“That sounded like a loaded sigh.”
With a startled squeak, she blinked one Bo Black into focus.
One soon-to-be-dead Bo Black.
The walls of the shower were glass, clear glass. He could see everything of her. “What are you doing?”
“Same as you.” Eyes on hers, he kicked off his shoes.
“Oh, no.” Even though she still had shampoo in her hair, she slammed off the water. “Go away!”
He pulled off his shirt, and her gaze dropped to his shoulders and chest, gilded from the sun, the sleek flesh delineated with long, sinewy lines of muscle.
An undeniable surge of anticipation coursed through her.
He reached for the waistband of his jeans.
“Don’t you dare!” she said.
“Now what have I told you about daring me?”
“We just had sex a few days ago.” She eyed his unmistakable hard-on. “You’re still mad at me. You can’t want it again.”
“I’ve got a part of me that says otherwise.”
“Well, you’re not supposed to think with that part.”
“It’s how us men are made, darlin’. Ridiculously easy.” Pop, pop, pop went the buttons on his Levi’s.
Boom, boom, boom went Mel’s heart. “Stop.”
To his credit, he did. Thumbs hooked in his opened jeans, he lifted his head, a specimen so magnificent he took her breath. Her body quivered for more. Just looking, she told herself. That’s all, just looking. “Fine,” she relented, already breathless at the thought of his nude body. “Go ahead and get naked, then. That’ll make us even.”
“Even is good.”
“But we’re not doing anything.” She tore her gaze off his body and looked into his eyes, which were lit with humor and heat. Gulp. Lots of heat. “I mean it, Bo.”
“Remember the other night?” he asked.
Remember? She could do little else!
“Yeah, you remember,” he said. “You know it was off-the-charts amazing. You’re off-the-charts amazing.”
“Are you trying to butter me up?”
At that, his eyes positively smoldered. “Do you have butter?”
“Oh, my God, you are so male!”
“I’d think you’d be grateful for that.” His smile was slow and wicked and did things to her belly, not to mention her nipples and between her thighs.
“Oh, this is ridiculous.”
He merely turned away to make sure the door was shut.
Um, yikes. “Bo…We don’t even trust each other, so-”
“I want to trust you. Can you say the same?”
She absorbed those words as he slid the bolt home, the click echoed in the bathroom. “I’m naked here,” she said. “Which surely displays a certain level of trust.”
“I’m looking for more than that.”
More? What more?
“Finish your shower,” he said, leaning against the door. “You need the relaxing.”
“I’d loosen up if you’d get the hell out of my bathroom.”
“You asked so nicely, but no. Sorry. Careful, you’re going to get that shampoo in your eyes. And don’t use all that hot water.”
“You’re ever so romantic, you know that?”
He grinned. “I’m not trying to romance you, Mel. Trust me, if I was, you’d already be panting my name.”
“Ha ha.” The shampoo was beginning to burn her eyes. “Stay right there.”
He lifted his hands innocently. “Staying.”
Incredibly aware of his gaze on her, she ducked her head back beneath the spray to rinse off the shampoo. Everywhere the suds slid down her body felt like a caress; over her shoulders, her breasts, her belly, her thighs…
Then the shower door opened, and she squeaked, opening her eyes. “You cheated!”
That devastatingly slow, sure smile stretched across his mouth as the water sprayed him. “I’m an Aussie. We don’t cheat. We just take advantage of any given situation.” Gaze still holding hers, he shoved down his jeans.
Oh, my. Oh, my my. He was aroused. Extremely aroused. Hugely, extremely aroused. She tried not to look, honestly, she tried, but her eyeballs appeared to have a mind of their own, and took themselves on a happy tour.
As she already knew, Bo Black really had it going on.
He stepped into the shower with her, not cockily, but completely unselfconsciously, easily showing her everything he had as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do so.
He’d always done that, from the very beginning, shown her everything.
For a moment that truth hit her so hard she couldn’t even breathe.
His smile faded. “Mel?”
“I’m okay.”
“Yeah, you are. Let me in,” he urged softly, stepping close. “I’m getting cold. Certain things aren’t pretty when they get cold, Mel.”
“Bo-”
