: Chapter 3

Bailey groaned as the bright light pierced through the delicate skin of her eyelids. Her head was pounding and her mouth was dry, but her body felt wonderfully satiated. She blinked her eyes open cautiously, squinting at the offending sunlight and it took her a moment to remember where she was. She looked around the room, slowly remembering the events of last night and she smiled to herself. As far as rebound sex went, that was pretty awesome and she wouldn’t mind another round with him.

She felt the warmth stirring in her belly at the memory of those intense green eyes and the way his beard felt against the inside of her thighs and how it brushed against her waxed mound. She squeezed her thighs together, relishing the throb of desire and stretched languidly.

The suite was quiet and she wondered where he was. The bed beside her was cold, although the indentation on his pillow assured her that he had slept there. She sat up and listened, straining to hear any noise that might indicate that he was still there, but the suite was quiet. She couldn’t even hear the sound of the traffic outside and disappointment settled over her. He’d snuck out while she slept.

With a sigh, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and reached for the glass of water on the bedside. She noticed the pills and smiled and then she saw the note with ‘Blue’ scrawled across its surface. She took the pills, swallowing the water with big, thirsty gulps and then lifted the note.

He had nice writing, curvy and clear, easy to read. She unfolded the piece of hotel stationery and ran her finger over the lines of hand written text.

Blue,

I’m sorry I had to leave. There is nothing more I wanted to do than to wake you up with my beard between your thighs and my tongue on your pussy, but duty calls. I had an early plane to catch and I will be in back to back meetings all day, otherwise I would be telling you this in person.

You are an incredible woman and I had a wonderful time with you last night, both in the bar and in bed. I would really like to see you again and get to know more of you…like your name.

The room is paid up until tomorrow, so stay as long as you like. Unfortunately, I won’t be back for a few weeks, but here is my phone number. Call me if you want to get together and get to know me a little better too. I’m not going to give you my name as an incentive…you will need to call me to find out what it is.

And as a little bit more incentive, know that I will be thinking about you all day. I will be reliving every moment of our little tryst, the way you tasted as I sucked on your clit and the way you felt as I sunk my cock into your wet pussy. I will also be thinking of all the other things I want to do to you when I see you again.

Call me.

Irish

She shivered with the dirty things he’d written and it made her wet and needy. God, she would really have loved one more time with him. He’d been the only thing that had managed to banish Nick from her thoughts.

Thinking about Nick was like being doused with ice cold water. Her arousal fled as she realised that what she had done to Irish was cold and callous. He had been a rebound fuck. A really good rebound fuck, but a rebound none the less. Her heart wasn’t free. She was still desperately in love with Nick, and it wouldn’t be fair to Irish to pursue something when her heart was broken.

She flopped back on the bed with a sigh and breathed in the scent of him that wafted up from the sheets. If she was going to fall in love with anyone else apart from Nick, Irish would certainly be a good candidate. He’d looked hot in his expensive suit and, oh my God, that beard! But when he had undressed and she’d gotten a good look at his body, she’d nearly swooned. In fact, she was pretty sure she drooled a little.

His skin was naturally a dark honey colour and so smooth and soft. He had gorgeously rounded shoulder muscles and plump biceps, a weakness of hers. Other women liked abs and pecks, but Bailey was a shoulders girl. Give her a nice set of wide shoulders and muscled arms and she was half way wet without anything else. She also liked a nice rounded butt on a man, none of those flat bottomed prissy boys. And Irish had the goods. He also had an impressive cock and she regretted not getting her mouth around it while she had the chance.

His chest had been dusted with dark hair and his happy trail was like a lighted path leading the way to his junk. The tattoos that wound their way over both shoulders and down both arms, ending at his wrists, added to his dangerous look and she wished she’d studied them more closely. She wasn’t normally a beard and tattoo girl – she liked a bit of scruff and maybe the odd bit of ink – but on Irish, the thick, dark beard and full sleeve tattoos were hot as fuck. She’d even liked the little dark stud that he had in his ear.

But as gorgeous as he was, and as amazing as he was between the sheets, he wasn’t Nick, more’s the pity. Nick was who she wanted, had always been who she wanted. Nick thought that she’d had other boyfriends, but there had been no one but him for a while. She had lived for their weekends together and spent way too much time planning their annual week-long vacation.

Well, that wouldn’t be happening anymore. Nick might be able to swing a weekend here and there to spend with her after he was married, but there was no way he would be able to give her an entire week. And really, was she pathetic enough to settle for his scraps?

The unfortunate answer was yes, because thinking of a life without Nick in it was like looking out over drought ridden plains and knowing that there was no rain coming anytime soon. Nick was her everything, he was her breath and her life blood. She loved being with him, loved the way he touched her and kissed her and cherished her. Bailey wasn’t naïve enough to think that he hadn’t been with other women. She knew that he had been, but she was his only constant. No matter who else came into his life, she was always the one he returned to time and again. The two of them ending up together was inevitable. She just had to stick it out. He might be marrying Ainsley, but he would always belong to her.

She flicked open Irish’s note and gazed at the loops and swirls of his hand writing. Could she have a little fun with him while she waited for Nick to get with the program? If she was honest and upfront with Irish, right from the start, would he want to pursue a no strings attached sexual relationship with her? It was the dream of most guys, wasn’t it?

She sighed. No, it wouldn’t be right. She could never offer him more than her body and Irish seemed like the type that would get jealous and possessive of her. She needed to steer clear of any entanglements like that so that she would be ready and willing when Nick came to his senses. Eventually he would realize that he really wanted her in his life, not some society chick with good connections.

She folded up the note again, a prick of disappointment stabbing her gut. If she was free and clear to date, Irish would definitely be her first choice, but leading him on when she really wanted someone else wasn’t fair. No, she would have to go without another one of those spectacular orgasms. At least she’d had two.

It felt disloyal to admit that the orgasms she’d had last night were better than the ones she’d had with Nick, but it was true. Maybe it was the tequila and her enhanced state of relaxation that made her climaxes feel so much more. She had always been completely satisfied with Nick in the past. He’d been the best sex she’d ever had…well…until Irish.

But it must be an anomaly. Irish was different and it had been a long time since she’d had sex with anyone other than Nick. It had to be the novelty of it that made it seem better. She and Irish had had an intense connection and a sparking sexual attraction from the moment he sat down next to her, but you couldn’t build a relationship on that. It was just sex. Really, really great sex, but just sex all the same.

Plus, she was in love with Nick. Wholly and solely in love with Nick. So, until Nick told her they could never be together again, he was it for her and she would keep her heart open for when he was ready to see her as more than just his best friend.

In the meantime, Irish would just be a fairytale, a sweet memory, a fantasy to relive when she was lonely. He wasn’t perfect – no guy was – but he could remain the perfect guy in her imagination, someone she could look back on fondly and remember the one hot night they’d shared. And when Nick finally rode in on his white horse to sweep her off her feet and declare his everlasting love to her, she would let the fantasy fade like a wonderful, but forgotten dream.

Hunter waited all day for her call. He checked his phone compulsively, willing it to ring or for her to at least send him a text. He couldn’t get thoughts of her out of his head and he was distracted and moody all day. Flashes of memories from the night before assaulted him throughout the day and by the end of it his cock was hard and his balls ached for release, preferably buried deep within Blue.

He continued to wait all week for her call and as the days wore on he got increasingly harder to work with and be around. His assistant, Madeline, had had to step in to prevent him from firing some of his best employees because they’d said or done something to piss him off.

Hunter was known for his quick temper, but it was also known that his bad moods blew over just as quickly as they appeared. He wasn’t one for slow burning anger or letting resentment build. Not hearing from Blue was driving him to distraction. Why the fuck hadn’t she called?

Even the news from CASA that he’d been given the green light hadn’t improved his mood and by Friday he was ready to punch holes in something. If he’d been home in Melbourne he would have headed straight to that bar and staked it out hoping to see her again. Unfortunately, he was stuck in the nation’s capital until CASA had signed off on everything, which would still be a few more weeks. They might have green-lighted his planes, but there were still hoops to jump through.

So, he buried himself in work. A week had come and gone and she hadn’t called, so he came to the conclusion that she wasn’t going to and he couldn’t waste anymore mental real estate thinking about her. He knew she was on the rebound before they’d headed up to his suite, as she’d told him she’d been dumped. He’d been a rebound fuck and he’d gone into it with his eyes wide open. No use bitching about it now.

But he had a hard time believing that she would be happy with the arrangement that her jerk of a boyfriend had offered her. Blue was spectacular and any guy who didn’t want to come home to her every night was a moron. Why settle for only having her once a month?

Hunter sighed and pinched his eyes. They felt gritty and dry and he was bone tired. It had felt like days since he’d slept and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten.

As if summoned by his empty stomach, Madeline knocked on his office door lightly before walking in and placing a wrapped sub on his desk. He looked up and thanked her with a tired smile. She was a good – no, great – assistant and knew him better than he knew himself most of the time.

“There’s an email from the PR firm in Melbourne that I need you to look over and your mother is on line two.”

“Thanks Madeline,” he replied. “Are our flights home booked for tomorrow?”

She nodded and smiled. “Yes, the pilot has been notified and we are cleared to take off at five. Your last meeting is scheduled for three-thirty and a car will be waiting to take us straight to the airport as soon as it wraps up.”

“Excellent,” he said, unwrapping the sandwich. “Thanks.” She nodded and left the office.

Green Aviation had offices in Canberra and Melbourne and he split his time between the two, taking Madeline and other key staff members with him. His father had started the company with one private plane and his pilot’s license. Hunter had expanded the operation and they now had forty-seven luxury charter planes catering to the rich and famous who didn’t want the continually draining expense of owning their own private plane and pilot. His next step was to provide first class air travel domestically and eventually internationally. Australia currently had two major airlines that serviced their domestic market and they were overfilled sardine cans. Hunter’s planes were fitted with large, comfortable leather seats and seated no more than eighteen passengers. This wasn’t economy air travel and it wasn’t cheap, but he knew the market was there.

He swallowed the last bite of his sandwich and picked up the phone, punching line two to talk to his mother.

“Hi mum,” he said cheerily. She could scent tiredness and stress like a bloodhound and the last thing he wanted was for her to worry.

“Hunter Green,” she admonished, “have you been avoiding me?”

“No, Mum,” he said with a sigh. “I’ve just been really busy. CASA has been making ridiculous demands, but I’m happy to say that it looks like we’ve got it all ironed out.”

“Congratulations,” she said and he could hear the smile in her voice. “I have good news too.”

“Oh, really?” he asked as he clicked on his laptop and opened the email that Madeline had asked him to have a look at.

“Your brother is getting married,” she said cheerily.

“Stepbrother,” he corrected.

Hunter’s mother, Maree, had gotten remarried to a property developer in Queensland a few years after Hunter’s father had died from a terminal illness. He didn’t hate his new stepfather, but he really didn’t like his stepbrother Nicholas. The guy was a sleazy playboy wannabe who seemed to have a revolving door on his bedroom.

“Nick is getting married,” she said again, her cheerfulness forced, “and he wants you in his wedding party.”

Hunter couldn’t help the snort, but tried to cover it with a cough. “He what?”

“He wants you to be one of his groomsmen,” she repeated.

“Why?”

“Hunter, don’t be like that.”

Hunter sighed and tried again. “Mum, look, Nick and I aren’t exactly close. We don’t even like each other, so why would he need me in his wedding party?”

“He’s doing it for me,” she said softly. “I really want you here and I know that if you don’t have an ironclad reason, you won’t be.”

He closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose. “He doesn’t want me to be his best man, does he?”

“No,” she said.

“Okay,” he replied, “I’ll be there.”

“Thank you, Hunter,” she said quietly. “I miss you.”

“I know,” he replied, “I miss you too.”

They were silent for a moment and then he heard her take a breath.

“So, is there anyone special in your life?” she asked.

He immediately thought of Blue and felt the stab in his gut knowing that he wouldn’t ever see her again.

“No,” he replied, “I’ve been too busy.”

“Maybe there’ll be someone at the wedding to catch your eye,” she enthused. “Ainsley has some lovely friends.”

He chuckled, “We’ll see,” he replied.

“Okay then. The wedding is a couple of months away and we’ll need your measurements for the suit. It would be really great if you could be here for the week before the wedding. Ainsley and Nick have organised a few different get togethers over the week and then there is the bachelor party, of course.”

“Of course,” Hunter replied, “but it’s probably better if you send all the details to Madeline. You know how bad I am at remembering things.”

She chuckled softly into the phone and he felt a pang of missing her. He really did love his mother and he was glad that she had found someone to spend her life with. God knows he was too busy for even his own social life to take care of her.

“All right then,” she said. “I’ll speak to Madeline and between the two of us we’ll get it all sorted.”

“It was really great to hear your voice mum,” he said softly. “I’m already looking forward to spending some time with you.”

“It has been far too long,” she agreed. “Okay, I’ll let you get back to work. Put me back through to Madeline and I’ll fill her in on the specifics of the wedding.”

“Thanks mum,” he said before transferring the call back to Madeline’s desk.

He loved the work he did, but it was hell on his private life. It had been months since he’d seen his mother and then it had only been a flying visit. He’d been honest when he said it would be good to see her again.

He turned his attention back to the email from the PR company that they had contracted to handle their media releases and marketing. It was a small boutique firm, a bit like his airline, and he liked what they had produced so far. He hadn’t yet met Bailey Sheppard, the account manager assigned to Green Aviation, but her emails and the work she had done so far were knowledgeable and innovative. All going well, they could make this an ongoing partnership.

He read through the email and hit reply answering her questions and adding some other insights that might be helpful to her. He also added an open-ended invitation for her to fly with them when the airline was officially off the ground. If everything went according to plan, he would be able to fly one of the first flights north to his stepbrother’s wedding.