Free Muscle for Hire by Lexxie Couper

into the shadows.
    “She can do better,” Rowan muttered beside Aslin. He looked down at her, noticing the frown pulling at her eyebrows.
    “Trouble?”
    “Just a bit of a loser.” She pulled a face. “He used to be part of Chris’s entourage. Now he’s the key grip on the film. I think Chris got him the job because he felt sorry about ending his gravy train.”
    Aslin returned his scrutiny to the place Tilly and the key grip had disappeared into the night. The hairs on the back of his neck still tingled.
    He didn’t like it. His gut told him something was wrong.
    “Can you give me a lift to Chris’s hotel, please?”
    Rowan’s question drew his attention back to her. She stood on his right, the black bag Tilly had passed to her now hanging over her shoulder, his helmet in her left hand. Those blue eyes of hers seemed to shimmer with an emotion he couldn’t read, a tension stealing through her body once more.
    He understood. Twice they’d been interrupted. Twice she’d been given the opportunity to question her actions. He knew she fought what she was feeling for him—the base, physical attraction—and he also knew a thirty-minute bike ride to the Sydney Park Hyatt would only evoke her sexual need again. Holding on to him, her sex pressed to his arse, her breasts crushed to his back…
    His cock throbbed.
    Christ, his sexual need was well and truly evoked just thinking about it.
    Then do something about it. Once and for all.
    “I can,” he said, stepping to stand directly in front of her. He gazed down at her, the subtle scent of her perfume, the delicate kiss of her body heat teasing his senses. “But tell me, what’s going to happen when we get there?”
    For a moment, it looked like Rowan wasn’t going to answer. She looked away, her jaw bunched, her stare fixed on the shadows behind her brother’s trailer. “I don’t know,” she finally said, her voice a low husky whisper.
    The urge to capture her lips with his almost undid Aslin’s control. He stood motionless, his blood roaring in his ears, his heart hammering in his chest. “You can’t fight this forever, Rowan.”
    She let out a strangled chuckle. “I’m not in Australia forever.”
    “All the more reason not to fight it.”
    His answer was arrogant. Dominating. He knew that. But Christ, his control was being pushed to its limit. He studied her profile, watching the conflict raging war on her mind and body pull her eyebrows in a deep frown. He almost kissed her, just to ease her stress.
    But stopped, just as the muscles in his lower back began to flex.
    No. He couldn’t. Not while she was so torn. Not while he was so aroused. If he kissed her now, he wouldn’t stop.
    Straightening, he turned and crossed the dimly lit stretch of pavement to Chris’s trailer. Another urge was twisting through him, one that had everything to do with Rowan and nothing to do with sexual hunger. He wanted to enter her brother’s on-set residence first. He’d spent his life listening to his gut and his gut was telling him there was something off.
    He hadn’t let himself think about the disturbed trailer steps. Hadn’t allowed himself to ponder the fact they’d been moved on purpose. His concentration had been too distracted by Rowan. But now he was here…
    Pausing at the steps, he ran a narrow-eyed inspection over them.
    “Someone had to unscrew them,” Rowan said beside him, her voice low. Serious.
    He inclined his head, casting her a quick look.
    “I had the same thought you did when it first happened.” A soft snort escaped her. “In fact, I was pissed about that fact. Still am. A little.”
    Aslin cocked an eyebrow at her.
    She shrugged. “I’m competitive. What can I say?”
    He suppressed the smile wanting to play with his lips. “Do you know anyone who would want to hurt your brother?”
    She shook her head.
    Aslin’s gut clenched. Without another word, he climbed into the trailer.
    It looked the same as it had the last time he was in