Muscle for Hire Read online

  “I’m not a member of the union. Film folk are very particular about their unions.” She smiled, a hint of her dimple making Aslin’s gut clench. “And thank you. I think I would too. Next question?”

  “Huntley? Hemsworth? Which is the real name?”

  Rowan picked up the sauce bottle, squeezed a steady stream of the condiment onto half the chips and then plucked one from the bowl. “Hemsworth. But when Chris went to register his name with the Screen Actors Guild there already was a Chris Hemsworth.”

  “The current Thor.”

  She nodded, popped the chip into her mouth and selected another one. “The current Thor. So Chris went with Huntley, which was our mother’s maiden name.” A stillness fell over her and her gaze lost focus for a moment. A heartbeat. Long enough for Aslin to see a raw pain in her eyes.

  And then she grinned, as if the shadow had never been there, and tossed another chip past her lips. “These fries are really good.”

  “I’m glad you like them.”

  “The perfect texture, the perfect length—” she plucked a long chip from the bowl, dipped its end into some tomato sauce and held it up for inspection, dimple denting her cheek. “—sweet but a little salty.”

  As Aslin watched, she placed it—end first—into her mouth, and then sucked the salt from the tips of her fingers. A groan threatened to escape him. Low and deep in his chest. His balls tightened. Christ, why did he imagine it was his dick sinking past her lips, not the potato?

  He jerked his stare from her mouth to her eyes, his jaw bunching.

  Rowan stared back at him, unmoving. Motionless.

  Fuck. He wanted her. Right at this sodding moment, he wanted her more than breath. On a carnal level. On a filthy level. He wanted to bury his cock in her pussy and fuck her until she screamed his name with release. He wanted—

  “I don’t want to be attracted to you.” Her voice was steady. Direct.

  Aslin sucked in a sharp breath, her abrupt statement like a punch to the guts.

  “Being attracted to anyone isn’t part of my plans,” she continued as if discussing the weather. “I don’t have time for it. But…” She stopped, her teeth catching her bottom lip.

  “You are,” Aslin finished for her, his groin a thick knot, his heart pounding. “You are attracted to me.”

  Rowan nodded, her gaze holding his. “Yes. Very. I’ve tried to play it cool, but I’ve spent most of the night thinking about what it would be like to fuck you. To be fucked by you.”

  The thick tension in Aslin’s groin throbbed. Hard. Urgent. Demanding attention. He swallowed, every muscle in his body coiled. “And?”

  “And I think the best course of action is to find out. As soon as possible.” She paused. For a heartbeat. “If you’re interested.”

  If you’re interested.

  The question hung on the air. Aslin stared at her. Was she kidding? It was all he could do not to shove the table between them away, snare her ponytail in his fist and crush her mouth with his. His cock was a pole of rigid agony. His blood roared in his ears.

  If you’re interested.

  “Well? Are you?” Her soft voice played over his scorched nerve-endings. Her American accent sent fresh lust into his balls.

  Without a word, he rose to his feet and rounded the table to stand before her. Curling his fingers around her firmly toned upper arm, he hauled her off her feet with a single tug and captured her lips in a searing kiss.

  He plundered her mouth straight away. He didn’t care they were in a public bar. He didn’t give a sodding rat’s arse. He wanted her. She wanted him. It was simple.

  Her tongue lashed over his, hungry and aggressive. He groaned, the sound a testament to his desire. Rowan raked her nails down his chest, her hands exploring his torso before returning to his pecs. She brushed her fingers over his nipples, sending shards of wet electricity into his groin. His cock pulsed in his jeans, and Rowan moaned into his mouth, pushing her hips harder to his.

  Aslin’s head swam. He tore his lips from hers, holding her arms with a firm grip as he stared down into her eyes. “My hotel is—”

  “I can’t wait that long,” she cut him off, her voice a rasping breath. “I need…”

  He didn’t let her finish. He spun on his heel and strode through the club, heading for the back door. He’d spent enough time escorting Nick from frenzied venues to know every club and bar had one. He also knew this area of Sydney well enough to know the back door of the Buckshot Saloon would lead directly to a narrow alley.

  An alley was perfect for filthy, carnal fucking.

  Raw, primitive sex.

  Warm, slender fingers threaded through his as he pushed open the door to the staff area. He didn’t need to turn to know it was Rowan. He’d felt those fingers on his body once already today and he recognised their fierce strength. Five steps later, he shoved open the kitchen door. No one stopped him. No one ever did. His height, his build, his expression…all of it spoke of certain pain if anyone tried. It was one of the reasons he’d been such an effective bodyguard. He radiated deadly promise.

  Behind him, Rowan followed, her hand holding his, her strides long and purposeful. He could feel it in the way she kept pace with him.

  It was a powerful aphrodisiac. Knowing she was as capable as he. His cock throbbed and jerked in his jeans, straining for release.

  Five more steps later, without a word or even a glance at any of the surprised nightclub staff, Aslin flattened his hand on the Buckshot’s kitchen door, pushed it open and stepped through it into the alley beyond.

  Two steps after that, he heard it slam shut, plunging the alley back into shadowy darkness again. Just as he turned and snared Rowan’s waist with one hooked arm.

  Their lips came together, hard and savage and brutal. The kiss was wild. He crushed her to his body and fucked her mouth with his tongue, her moans of rapture heating his lust. She clung to him, her fingernails scraping at the back of his neck as he drove her backward to the brick wall behind her.

  She cried out, throwing her head back, wrapping her right leg around his thigh. He dragged his lips down the column of her throat, biting, sucking as he went. Her flesh was soft and smooth, velvet beneath his tongue, lips and teeth. He couldn’t get enough. He wanted to feel more of her. All of her.

  Driving his hand under the hemline of her shirt, he captured her breast, cupping it with punishing force. She whimpered, grinding her sex to the bulge in his jeans. The pressure almost undid him. He pinched her erect nipple through the satin of her bra, reveling in the raw moan falling from her at the course touch.

  “Fuck, yes,” Rowan panted, wrapping her leg tighter around the backs of his thighs. “That feels good.”

  He pumped up against her spread pussy, his mind telling him they were still fully clothed, his lust telling him he was sinking into her heat. His cock ached. His balls were rock hard and swollen. Every thrust he made drove him closer to the edge. Every scoring rake of Rowan’s nails on his shoulders, his neck, pushed him closer.

  He crushed her lips with his again, plundering her mouth with his tongue before capturing her bottom lip with his teeth. She groaned, ramming her sex to his constrained erection, raking her hands down his chest.

  A sharp tearing sound, followed by a second of displaced cool air, told Aslin she’d ripped his shirt open. He didn’t care. Not when her fingers found his nipples and pinched them. Hard.

  Pain sheared through him, exquisite and primal. He sucked in a sharp breath, teeth clenched, eyes closed. And then let out a low moan as Rowan closed her lips and teeth around one tight nipple and sucked on it.

  Hot steel flooded his already engorged dick. He fisted his hand around her ponytail and yanked her head upward, tearing her mouth from his flesh. She gazed up at him, her lips wet and pink, her eyes fogged with desire.

  “If you want to stop,” he ground out, his heart hammering, “now’s the time to say so.”

  Rowan shook her head. “Shut the fuck up and fuck me, soldie
r.”

  He smothered her command with his mouth, snaring the back of her bent leg with a firm grip and yanking it higher. Holding it there as he took what he wanted from her mouth—his pleasure, her need. Every time he swiped his tongue over hers, she whimpered. Every time he thrust into the wet well of her mouth, she rolled her sex against his erection. It was exactly what he’d known it would be—carnal and filthy.

  It was perfect. And yet, he wanted more.

  Not just to be inside her, but more…

  Later. Later.

  The thought purred through his head, like the licking caress of a whip. He broke their kiss again, pulling away just enough to watch as his hand bunched up her shirt and revealed her breast to him.

  She let out a raspy, “yes”, her head rolling on the brick wall, her lips parted and moist with his saliva. “Suck it,” she whispered. “Suck it.”

  He did. Cupping the swell of her flesh with his hand, he bowed his back and took her nipple in his mouth, suckling on its distended form through the black satin of her bra.

  “Fuck, yes!” She bucked against him, her nails scraping over his shoulders beneath his gaping shirt. “That’s it. Harder. Harder.”

  Her feverish demands drove him wild. His blood surged through his veins in rivers of molten lust and desire. Throbbing through his cock.

  He lashed her nipple with his tongue. Sucked it. Bit it. She whimpered, her hands tugging on his hair, tight fistfuls that sent wicked ribbons of pain through Aslin’s scalp.

  Christ, gonna…close…

  The unhinged thought tore his mouth from her breast. Or maybe it was the frantic tugging of her fingers on his belt buckle.

  He straightened, flattening his hands on the wall either side of her head as he stared down into her eyes. He gazed into her face as she released his belt, popped the button of his fly and then lowered its zipper.

  His pulse pounded in his ears. His heart smashed fast in his chest. He drew a slow breath, biting back his groan as Rowan’s talented fingers parted his fly, allowing his cock—thick and stiff and swollen with desire—to spring free of his jeans.

  “So the commando goes commando does he?” she murmured, the realization he wore no briefs or boxers making the dimple in her cheek flash.

  “The commando does.”

  “Does the commando have a condom in his wallet?”

  Aslin’s heart thumped harder. “The commando—”

  The recorded sound of Chris Huntley shouting, “Answer your freaking phone, sis!” cut Aslin’s answer short.

  He blinked, the actor’s voice yelling the same words again a cold blade stabbing at the inferno of his need.

  Rowan’s eyes widened. Her body tensed. And then she was pushing at Aslin’s chest. No, not just pushing at it, shoving it. Driving him backward, her cheeks suddenly pink, her hands—only a second earlier undoing his belt and fly—now scrambling at her pocket, Chris’s recorded voice shouting Answer your freaking phone, sis! coming from her hip.

  Aslin stood motionless, his blood roaring in his ears, and watched her pull a mobile phone from her pocket. Her gaze flicked to his, her cheeks red, and then she turned away, swiping her thumb across the screen of the phone before ramming it to her ear. “What’s up, Chris?”

  Whatever her brother said next, Aslin didn’t hear. What he did hear was Rowan say, “Nothing, I’m not doing anything. Don’t leave until I get there, okay?”

  And when she turned back to him, the woman that faced him was the same woman he’d met back on the film site. The same woman who had put him on his back and dismissed him like a gnat.

  That woman looked at him, tucked her shirt back into her snug leather pants and said, “Dinner was lovely, thank you. Mind zipping your fly now. I’ve somewhere else I have to be.”

  Chapter Four

  Rhodes insisted on taking her to the hospital, which really was damn annoying because her body still burned with the memory of his touch. Still craved for more.

  Sitting behind him on his bike, she held onto the rear grab handles in a death grip, determined not to lean into his back. She couldn’t risk any more body contact with him. Not if she wanted to keep her sanity. And dignity.

  All it would take was the feel of his strong muscled back pressing to her breasts and she would be gone.

  So she clung to the Ducati’s rear handles, anchored her weight to the pillion-passenger seat with her inner thighs and prayed for a smooth, red-light-free journey.

  What was only a twenty-five-minute trip felt more like a lifetime of exquisite torture, her body thrumming with sexual need, the powerful vibrations from the motorcycle between her spread legs sinking into her already stimulated clit. By the time they pulled into the hospital’s parking area, she was damn near on the cusp of an orgasm.

  She practically threw herself from Aslin’s bike, her pussy throbbing, her pulse pounding, her nipples so hard they hurt.

  Thank God Chris was waiting for her in the ER. If it weren’t for that simple fact, she’d probably do something completely stupid like beg Aslin to fuck her there and then.

  Again.

  She didn’t bother to slow down as she hurried toward the hospital’s access elevator. Nor did she check if Aslin was following her. He was. She not only heard his footfalls behind her on the concrete—long strides that echoed around the underground parking area like a slow tattoo—she felt his gaze on her back. Steady. Direct.

  Intense.

  It made her pussy squeeze. Damn it.

  A childish part of her wanted to break into a sprint, dash to the elevator door and get inside before Aslin could join her. It would be easier than standing in the small, confined space with him.

  She didn’t know what unsettled her more, the way her stupid body was behaving around him, or that he hadn’t tried to broach the subject of what had occurred in the alley between them before Chris called.

  Either was bad enough.

  For Christ’s sake, woman. Control yourself.

  Easier thought than done, especially when his hard, tall body brushed against her back, his oh-so-perfectly muscled arm extended past her and his index finger depressed the elevator button just as she was about to jab at it.

  She sucked in a sharp breath.

  Control. She needed to find her control. And her focus. Her brother had called for help. That’s what she needed to concentrate on, not Rhodes and his sexy-assed muscles, sexy-assed accent and sexy-assed…everything else.

  It wasn’t until the door closed, imprisoning them both in the small metal space, that she realized she was still holding her breath. Or maybe it was when Aslin moved with silent speed to stand directly in front of her, both hands pressing to the wall behind her head, his intense dark stare capturing her.

  “This isn’t finished, Rowan.” His British accent sent shards of wet tension into her sex. “So don’t think it is.”

  She swallowed, the pit of her belly a churning, twisting mess that had nothing to do with the elevator’s rapid ascent to the ER level. “W-what isn’t?”

  His nostrils flared. “What started in the alley. It’s not finished.”

  Before she could respond, the elevator bounced to a halt, a soft chime screamed through the heavy silence and the door slid open with a clunking jolt.

  The smell hit Rowan first—the stinging odor of disinfectant. She stiffened, the memory of the night her parents were killed slamming into her like a fist. Five hours waiting in the ER after the break and enter that changed her and Chris’s lives, covered in her mother’s blood as the doctors tried to save the unsavable, Chris sitting beside her, shell-shocked, a cop doing his best to get answers from Rowan that weren’t coming—who did it, what they looked like, how it happened.

  Aslin’s stare on her face narrowed. For a heartbeat. And then he turned and, with a gentle pressure she didn’t realize she wanted until it was there, smoothed his hand to the small of her back and walked them from the elevator into the ER’s waiting rooms.

  “Hey, is that Nick
Blackthorne’s bodyguard?”

  Aslin’s hand grew firm on her back at the muttered question, a second before a blinding flash detonated to Rowan’s right. And another. Rowan flinched. Which was stupid given how many times she’s been photographed while out with Chris.

  “Enough,” a female voice ripe with contempt rose over the sounds of the crowded floor. “I told you scavengers to bugger off already. Stay and I’ll order colonoscopies for the lot of you.”

  Rowan jerked her attention toward the nurse storming toward her and Aslin, her mouth falling open. Now there was an intimidating woman. Five eight plus, one hundred and seventy pounds at least, and scowling like a grizzly with a sore tooth.

  Rowan heard Nick Blackthorne’s name uttered again a second before another flash fired, and then the nurse wasn’t just storming towards the scurrying photographer, she was running. If Rowan hadn’t been so damn flustered with the whole situation, she would have been impressed.

  But she was flustered.

  On every level imaginable.

  Worried. Turned on. Out of control. Haunted.

  Why the hell had she come to Australia in the first—

  “He’s here, Rowan.”

  Rowan snapped her stare to her left, finding Nigel McQueen standing at an open door under a sign that clearly said Medical Staff Only.

  “He’s fine—” Dead Even’s director held up his hands—palms out—as if to placate an expected tirade before it began, “—but word must have leaked to the public he was here, because by the time the doc was ready to discharge him the paps had arrived.” He flicked Aslin—towering over Rowan on her left—a quick look. “I’ve never seen so many supposedly injured paparazzi in one place. Thank God you came, Rhodes.”

  The obvious relief in Nigel’s voice at the Brit’s presence pissed Rowan off. She ground her teeth and stepped away from the man. His fingers slipped from the base of her spine, a loss of contact that should have made her glad.