A second of silence past before Nick cleared his throat again. “I have to perform at Evoke in a few minutes.” He uncrossed his leg and shifting in the chair until he seemed so far removed from leaving Aidan wondered if he’d misheard him. “But before I go, I have McKenzie’s exclusive to tell.”
McKenzie stiffened against Aidan, her hands coming to rest on his stomach as she gave her head one sharp shake of disagreement. “No, I don’t want it. The world doesn’t need to know why you were—”
Before Aidan’s jaw could drop, Nick interrupted her with a laugh, holding up his palm. “It’s okay, Ms. Wood from Goss Weekly. I want to tell you.”
McKenzie stood very still in Aidan’s arms. Her heart thumped against his chest, quick, rapid. She caught her bottom lip with her teeth, gnawing on it as she considered Nick’s offer. The sight of such uncertainty sent an irrational surge of pride through Aidan. Here was the woman who less than twelve hours ago wanted to spill the beans on whatever dark secret Nick Blackthorne was harboring. But now…
“Truly, Mack,” Nick said from his chair, the use of her nickname sending an inexplicable ribbon of happiness through Aidan.
McKenzie turned her gaze to Aidan for a moment, long enough for him to see her waiting for his reaction. A slight frown pulled at her eyebrows.
He shrugged. “You’re a journalist, Mack.” He gave her a nudge and slight push away, letting her know exactly what he thought of the situation. “Could I stand back and watch a house burn down?”
With a nod, she crossed to Nick, retrieving her dress from his fingers as he offered it to her. She shimmied into it, the fabric falling over her slim body like black liquid. Aidan pulled in a slow breath. Yep, there wasn’t a hope in hell he was ever getting used to being in love with her. Not a hope in hell.
“Okay,” she said, and he had to chuckle at the sudden brusque tone of her voice—all business and no-nonsense and serious. “Give me my exclusive.”
Chapter Eight
“Two years ago I learned I was adopted.”
Nick’s calm statement made McKenzie blink. That wasn’t what she’d been expecting at all. She’d expected…what? Actually, she didn’t have a clue. After the last day, nothing about Nick Blackthorne was what she’d thought it was.
“Two years?” Aidan said behind her, and she glanced over her shoulder, noting he’d propped himself against the edge of the table with his ankles crossed. The pit of her belly tightened and she fought the urge to smile. Damn, he looked hot. Hot and fuckable. “Around the time your parents were killed in that car accident?”
The time frame made McKenzie blink again. Her journalist’s mind scrambled to connect the dots.
“Yeah,” Nick answered, his voice uncharacteristically emotionless. “My adopted status was revealed to me during the reading of their will. Along with the fact I had a brother three years younger than me.”
McKenzie’s breath caught in her throat. Thirty-five years of not knowing. Thirty-five years of thinking you were one person only to discover you weren’t? And then discovering you had a brother you knew nothing of? The tightening in her belly turned to a churning lurch. She thought of her brothers—all six of them. Sure, she’d wanted to kill more than one of them growing up, Mason the most, but not having them in her life? Not knowing about them…? No. She couldn’t even begin to comprehend it.
“Jesus.”
Aidan’s barely audible murmur whispered behind her, but she couldn’t take her stare from Nick.
He gave her a wry grin. “To say it was a shock is a bit of an understatement.”
Aidan snorted.
“Apparently my parents—” Nick paused, a frustrated frown pulling at his eyebrows, “—my non-biological parents tried to adopt him too but the application was denied. I don’t know why. It wasn’t mentioned in the will and I could never find out.”
McKenzie crossed to the seat next to Nick’s and lowered herself onto it, perching on its cushioned edge. “But you found out everything else?”
He let out a sigh. “It took me eighteen months of battling red tape but I did. My birth name is Nicolas Schulze, my birth mother was a young German illegally living in Australia and my brother’s name is—” he let out another sigh, the breath a harrowing gush of air, “—was, Derek.”
“Was?”
The one-word question felt like dust on McKenzie’s tongue. This was not the exclusive she imagined. That Nick was sharing it with her, on the record, made her throat thick. God, how had the world not known this?
“Eighteen months to find him?” Aidan asked softly. “So, six months ago from today? That was the time you cancelled your world tour.”
Nick nodded, giving Aidan a wry grin. “You got a Nick Blackthorne timeline in your head, mate?”
Aidan chuckled. “I bought tickets. Was going to surprise Mack with them.”
Nick pulled a face. “Well fuck, ’ey. I hope you got your money back?”
Aidan gave him a grin. “Yeah. Bought tickets to U2 with it.”
Nick’s laughter bubbled up his chest. “Good, Bono could do with the extra cash.” He laughed again, and yet McKenzie couldn’t help but notice the mirth didn’t quite reach his eyes. They were still…haunted.
“What happened to Derek, Nick?”
Nick’s chest heaved with a silent breath. He looked away, his attention seemingly focused on the sweeping views outside his bungalow’s open deck doors. McKenzie doubted he saw the Pacific Ocean. “I finally did find Derek in Germany. It took many weeks to establish any kind of relationship with him at all. It would seem our mother—long dead of a drug overdose by this time—hadn’t been the most loving of parents. Nor the best role model. Derek grew up being dragged from one commune to another. By the time he was sixteen, he’d been sexually assaulted by more than one of our mother’s partners.”
The air left McKenzie’s lungs in a sharp gasp. She didn’t know what to say. Neither, it seemed, did Aidan, who studied the singer with a clenched jaw and flaring nostrils, his arms crossed over his broad chest, coiled and hard.
Nick moved his gaze from the open doorway and the calm, dusk-painted ocean beyond. “He was working the streets in Berlin. He was addicted to just about every fucked-up drug a pusher can sell and fucking anything that offered him a hit.”
His voice was flat. He stopped. Swallowed.
“I’m sorry, Nick.” McKenzie caught her bottom lip with her teeth. “You don’t have to tell me anymore. I’m not—”
He shook his head. “Shush, Mack. There is a happy ending to this tale, I promise.”
McKenzie found it hard to believe him. Happy? No wonder the last two years had been filled with reports of Nick Blackthorne acting surly and aggressive. No wonder he’d cancelled all live performances. Shit, with this to deal with?
She frowned at him.
“I did everything I could to help him,” Nick went on, holding her gaze. His strength staggered her. “He got cleaned up as much as he could, kicked as many addictions as he could, except…” He wiped at his mouth with his hand. “Derek was bisexual, but one of his so-called ‘fathers’ tried to beat it out of him at the age of eighteen. A month after finding Derek I had to return to the U.S.—contractual obligations with my record label. By the time I returned to Germany, Derek had admitted himself into the Vergnügen sex clinic. He was convinced he was a sick, perverted sex-addict who needed to be cured. Nothing I or the doctors said would change his mind. I spent my days and nights with him in the clinic, doing everything to help the brother I’d never known I had see there was nothing wrong with his sexual choices.”
He stopped and looked out the window again. “He committed suicide two weeks ago. I found him in a pool of his own blood on the floor of his room after returning from a meeting with his doctors.”
“Jesus,” Aidan muttered, making McKenzie jump. She blinked, her eyes prickling, her mouth dry. “There’s a happy ending to this?”
“There is.” Nick turned away from the window. “You two.
”
“Excuse me?”
She’d asked the question before she realized it. She and Aidan? How could she and Aidan be the happy ever after to this tale?
Nick smiled, the first truly relaxed action she’d seen from him since he started her “exclusive”.
“You two. I’d lost any sense of life, of happiness, you see. Fuck, I couldn’t see any color in the world, I couldn’t hear any music in the days until I saw you together this morning. I was broken. I doubted real love, real joy existed.” He let out a sigh and a soft chuckle. “Your obvious love for each other has mended me and for that, I will never be able to thank you enough.”
“Wow.” McKenzie couldn’t think of anything else to say. Not a thing. Luckily, Aidan could.
“No worries, mate. Remind me to send you the bill later.”
The unexpected quip made Nick laugh. Really laugh. He shook his head, grinning at Aidan. “Deal, although I’m pretty certain I can think of something better.” He turned back to McKenzie, unfurling from his seat with loose-limbed ease to stride over to her. “And there you have your exclusive, Ms. Wood. All on the record. Just do me a favor?”
She nodded, still unable to find her voice. That Nick had shared that with her and Aidan. That she and Aidan could have affected him so much. That their love for each other…
“Don’t write it for Goss.” He gave her a look she could only describe as knowing. “I did a quick Google search of your stuff before coming to your suite this morning. Write it for Time Magazine or Rolling Stone. It’s where you deserve to be.”
McKenzie’s mouth fell open. She stared at him, for the third time in twenty-four hours lost for words.
Beside her, Aidan chuckled, the sound a low, easy rumble of content. “She will. Trust—”
The phone rang.
“Shit.” Nick shot the watch on his wrist a quick look. “I’m meant to be at Bar Evoke.” He looked back at Aidan, giving him a wide grin. “I know the urge to stay here and make long, mad passionate love to the woman is probably fucking overpowering, but promise me you’ll control yourself for just another hour or more? You both need to be at this soft-opening party, okay?”
Ignoring the still-ringing phone, he held out his hand to Aidan, who took the long slender fingers with his own strong, callused ones in a firm shake.
“Deal.” Aidan nodded, and those green eyes of his slid to McKenzie, his gaze so hot her pussy constricted with an eager throb. “But only for an hour. After that, I’m taking her back to our suite and making love to her until the sun comes up.”
Nick laughed, and with a soft kiss on McKenzie’s lips, he turned and strolled from the room, scooping up a battered guitar case from the bungalow’s plush leather sofa as he made his way to the door.
McKenzie watched him swing the door shut behind him, the faint sound of his humming tickling her ears before the room was silent once again.
“Well.” Aidan’s hands smoothed around her waist, his arms tugging her slightly backward until she nestled against his large, hard frame. “You promised me the trip of a lifetime, McKenzie Wood,” he murmured in her ear, his lips grazing her skin, “and you sure as hell delivered. Remind me never to doubt you again.”
Closing her eyes, she leaned into his firm embrace. “Can I have that in writing?”
He laughed, a healthy, contented snort. “Not on your bloody life.”
She twisted in his arms, regarding him with a cocked eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
For an answer, his lips brushed hers, his hands finding their way to her backside to cup it in a not-so-gentle caress. “C’mon,” he growled, raising his head enough to stare down into her face, “I promised the world’s most famous rock star I wouldn’t make love to you for an hour and if we don’t leave this very room now I’ll be forced to break that promise.”
And—as McKenzie’s pussy began to throb anew with hungry want at his statement—he spun her on her heel and pushed her away from him.
Nick Blackthorne walked up onto the small raised level Kylie Sullivan had provided to act as a stage, his fingers curling loosely around the handle of his guitar case. Around him, the nightclub thrummed with the sounds of people enjoying the soft opening’s offerings—fine food, fine wine and the most stunning vista on the island.
Bar Evoke was, if nothing else, evocative. The resort’s main nightclub was lit with warm, muted lights that made the steel and polished wooden surfaces look like liquid gold. One entire wall was made of glass, providing the crowd already gathered in the club an uninterrupted view of the calm Pacific and the deep, purple sky beyond.
Nick wasn’t remotely interested in any of it.
He crossed to the lone stool waiting for him in the center of the small stage, placing his guitar case on the floor beside it. It had been almost two years since he’d held any kind of musical instrument, let alone the old acoustic twelve-string guitar resting within the case’s battered walls. Two long years. He placed his hands on the closed lid, the darkness of the as-yet unlit stage providing him the concealment to study the guests spread out around him, currently unaware of his presence.
He wasn’t interested in them either. Well, not all of them.
A loud cheer broke out to his right, followed by a loud “’Bout bloody time, Rogers,” and an equally loud “Good on ya, mate”. Nick smiled, watching as two men—one who surreally looked a lot like a male version of McKenzie—slapped Aidan Rogers on the back, the McKenzie carbon-copy reaching up to scruff up Aidan’s hair.
Nick let out a soft laugh. “My sentiments, exactly,” he murmured, his heart growing heavy when Aidan’s lips stretched into a wide grin. The large firefighter ducked his head, and Nick couldn’t help but notice Aidan never tore his gaze from McKenzie.
He chuckled, flipping open the latches of his guitar case. Love. Such a raw, inescapable, ungovernable emotion. Complicated and fraught with great moments of absolute terror, love was the single most wonderful gift a person could experience. And for someone like him—the most elemental muse. Who would have thought his muse would take the form of two soul mates born to be so much more? Friends to lovers. A song waiting to be sung.
He watched as McKenzie lifted her face to Aidan’s. Watched as the journalist with his life in her talented hands reached up and tugged Aidan down into a kiss that was both cheeky and full of promise.
“A face of an angel with filth on her mind,” he whispered, the words sliding over a rhythm found deep within his soul.
Lifting the lid of his case, he touched his fingertips to the steel strings of his old guitar—tracing the line of one down the neck until he reached the sound hole. The almost imperceptible friction of skin on stretched steel filled him with a deep warmth, his balls rising up, his heart rate quickening before, with a steady confidence, he closed his fingers around the guitar’s neck and withdrew it from its worn velvet bed.
A low thrill rippled through him.
He stood and perched himself on the edge of the stool, enjoying the anonymity the dark shadows afforded him. Cradling his guitar on his lap, he sat motionless, watching the guests move around the club, listening to the sounds of them enjoying their meals as they relaxed into one another’s company. Time and again, his attention returned to Aidan and McKenzie where they sat with a small group of people, drawing something akin to comfort from their distant presence. His time with them was over, but he would never, ever forget them. They had given him music again.
Given him hope after he thought hope no longer knew his name.
He closed his eyes and let the ambience of the night roll over him, hearing the songs in the guests’ conversations, hearing the rhythm in their laughter and the music in their movements.
Ten, fifteen minutes later—he wasn’t really sure—he opened his eyes and nodded to a silent man waiting to the left of the stage. With hurried grace, the man stepped up onto the stage, positioned a microphone a few feet away from Nick and then scurried off the stage.
Nick’s heart thumped once
. Hard into his throat.
He touched his fingertips to the strings of his guitar once more, stroked them and then, with a low clearing of his still-thick throat, tucked the musical instrument’s familiar wooden body under his right arm.
A single beam of light revealed his presence on the stage, a hush falling over those selected by Kylie Sullivan to experience the resort’s soft opening as they realized he was sitting on the stage.
He heard his name whispered by a dozen voices or more.
He heard his blood roar in his ears.
He heard his heart pound in his chest.
He heard the voice of a ghost from a lifetime ago murmur his name in pleasure, heard the goddess ask him to sing, sing for me, lover.
He caressed the strings one more time before lifting his head and gazing out at the quiet crowd. “For McKenzie and Aidan.” He smiled at the two people who had changed him forever. “Who showed me love and gave me life. This, ladies and gentlemen, is ‘Tropical Sin’.”
His fingers found the notes on his guitar, a simple and yet intricate melody, and then the words found his tongue.
A face of an angel with filth on her mind,
I pray to burn in her fire, I pray to die in her arms.
Yet the arms of her lover reach out for more.
Like a sinner I will burn in his fire.
I will die in his fire as she pleads for more.
Like a sinner I will burn in his fire,
I will die in his fire and beg her for life.
Beg her for soul, beg her for heat.
I will die in his fire and beg her for life.
Beg her for soul, beg her for heat.
And the waves sing their song as endless as time,
And the ache in my heart is so sweet.
Like a sinner I will burn in her fire,
I will die in her fire and live in their love.
Live in their love
Tropical Sin: Bandicoot Cove, Book 3 Page 10