Blame It on the Bass (30 page)

Settling into her seat and hiding her wince of pain in a husky laugh, she smiled at him. “Hush, Stan. And get in the back. I want to get home so I can have a shower without some nurse or doctor coming in to check on me. I swear they were only doing it so they could sell their story to the media.
‘
I Scrubbed Sonja Stone’s Back. Details on page three.’”

“Yes, ma’am,” Levi grunted, softening the response with another kiss before closing her door with a gentle push.

Thirty minutes later, Sonja walked into their apartment and let out a sigh. “Shower time.”

“Not quite,” Corbin murmured in her ear.

“Something to show you first,” Levi said, his grin wide as he made his way—in a jaunty backward step—through the apartment.

Frowning, she followed, allowing Corbin to help her. She’d give them both a day or two to play doctors and then she was going to kick their arses if they tried to wrap her up in cotton wool. She was especially going to bring the pain if they thought they weren’t going to be making love to her soon. If nothing else, she was going to make them perform for her tonight. It had been two weeks, for fuck sakes. She was horny.

When they stopped at a door painted pink with a tiny spray of delicate flowers, she narrowed her eyes. “What’s this?”

With a smile, Levi reached behind him, turned the knob and swung the door wide.

Sonja hobbled into the room and stopped.

A glass desk sat facing the massive window, on top of which sat her laptop. On the wall to the left of the desk were five framed images, all covers of the five books she’d edited that had hit the
New York Times
Bestseller list.

And to the right, sitting on the floor beside a microphone in a golden stand, was a hip-high amplifier. A black and red one with the words
Karaoke King
emblazoned across the mesh speaker.

“For you, Sonny,” Levi extended his hand toward the room. “A welcome home present.”

She ran her gaze over the karaoke machine, the microphone, the desk with her laptop and the framed book cover images. Thought about what they meant, being here now. Catching her bottom lip with her teeth—gingerly, it was still sore after all—she turned to Levi. “This was Isabella’s room.”

He nodded. “And now it’s yours. Because you
aren’t
just our band aid. You’re our life. Our future.”

She dragged her gaze back to the objects in the room, possessions that made the space so very much hers. Mouth dry, she swallowed. “Are you sure?” She looked back at Levi. “Really sure? I mean, I kinda did what a band aid was meant to do, didn’t I? While I was imprisoned in hospital, you two got your act together and now you’re both…”

Chest tight, heart fast, she slid her attention to Corbin at her other side and back to Levi. “Not broken,” she finished with a small shrug. “If we continue with the band-aid metaphor, surely that means it’s time to rip me off?”

Levi chuckled. “Did you
really
think we were kidding when we said you were coming home with us?”

“I thought…” She stopped. Let out a wry snort. “Well, I thought I’d stay around for a while longer and then eventually let you guys be in peace.”

Levi shook his head. “You’re not going anywhere, Sonny. You’re where you’re meant to be. With us. For the rest of our lives. No arguing. You, me and Cor in one bed, every night. From now until we’re old and grey.” He narrowed his eyes, affecting a stern look that sent a wicked thrill of anticipation through her. “Understand?”

Sonja let out a shaky, melodramatic sigh. “If I must.”

He laughed. “You must.”

With his own laugh, Corbin smoothed his hands over her hips and drew his warm body closer to her. “Now that’s taken care of,” he murmured, resting his chin on her shoulder. “Do you fancy singing a few songs with us? I know this really hot bass player who’s just been aching to seduce us both with his voice.”

About the Author

Lexxie Couper started writing when she was six and hasn’t stopped since. She’s not a deviant, but she does have a deviant’s imagination and a desire to entertain readers with her words. Add the two together and you get romances that can make you laugh, cry, shake with fear or tremble with desire. Sometimes all at once. When she’s not submerged in the worlds she creates, Lexxie’s life revolves around her family, a husband who thinks she’s insane, an indoor cat who likes to stalk shadows, and her daughters, who both utterly captured her heart and changed her life forever.

Contact Lexxie at
[email protected]
, follow her on Twitter
www.twitter.com/lexxie_couper
or visit her at
www.lexxiecouper.com
where she occasionally makes a fool of herself on her blog.

Look for these titles by Lexxie Couper

Now Available:

The Sun Sword

Tropical Sin

Triple Dare

Dare Me

Sunset Heat

Suspicious Ways

Party Games

Suck and Blow

Twister

Heart of Fame

Love’s Rhythm

Muscle for Hire

Guarded Desires

Steady Beat

Lead Me On

Savage Australia

Savage Retribution

Savage Transformation

Principatus

Dark Destiny

Dark Embrace

Coming Soon:

Heart of Fame

Getting Played

Blackthorne

He never missed a beat...until she taught him a whole new rhythm.

Steady Beat

© 2013 Lexxie Couper

Heart of Fame, Book 4

Back when he was playing drums for rock star Nick Blackthorne, it was easy for Noah Holden to focus on the sticks in his hand. Now that the band is getting back together, he’s excited—and worried. His ADHD has made every minute of his post-Blackthorne life a chaotic mess.

His apprehension is blown away when a bar waitress makes him a proposition—and not the kind this king of drums is used to.

When Pepper Kerrigan overhears the band talking reunion, she pushes her self-doubt aside, calls on her encyclopedic music knowledge and challenges Noah Holden to a trivia contest. Her prize should she win? An audition. His? A kiss. Their smoking sexual chemistry guarantees victory—for them both.

With Pepper, Noah is finally able to control his stormy creative energy. But when his wild past catches up with him, he faces the fight of his life to keep from losing his smoky-voiced angel. The one woman who keeps his mind—and his heart—staying on rhythm.

Warning: There’s a thrumming primitive sexual energy in every rock drummer’s body just waiting to be released.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Steady Beat:

Noah couldn’t move. Which, given the fact he rarely sat still for more than a few minutes at a time, was pretty damn incredible.

He watched the woman opposite him, a tight coil of heat gripping his gut. He wasn’t joking. The very notion of thinking about answering music-trivia questions had deserted him. All he could think about was Pepper and her lush, full lips moving against his while the best drum solo he’d ever played filled the air around them.

Fuck, he’d love to discover every inch of her body while “Tempest Soul” throbbed from the speakers of a state-of-the-art sound system. It was the one true piece of music he called his own. It was truth,
his
truth. To this day he still couldn’t believe Nick put it on the album and would love him forever for doing so.

Knowing the gorgeous, contradictory woman sitting opposite him experienced her first sexual awakening to the rhythm born from his soul shook Noah to his very core. And stirred something even deeper.

He didn’t just want her now. He
needed
her. He needed to feel his rhythm in her body, to see if his soul was still there in her pleasure.

Christ, he sounded like Nick when the singer wrote lyrics. Why he was surprised by the fact was beyond him. All musicians had romance in them, even attention deficient drummers.

But what shook him more was how quickly he was growing ravenous for a woman he barely knew.

Drawing a deep breath, he waited for Pepper to say something.

Her blue eyes shone in the bar’s muted light, damn near luminous and completely mesmerizing.

Long moments stretched between them. A distant part of Noah’s mind noticed the women at the table behind Pepper were staring at him. He didn’t give them a second glance. They didn’t snare his focus. It was fixed on Pepper.

She frowned at him. Chewed on her bottom lip. Rubbed her elbows with her palms. “What do you mean, I win?” she finally asked.

“You win,” he answered, his voice strained. Probably because his throat was so bloody tight. “I can’t think about anything now except f…kissing you. Which means, you could ask me my middle name and I wouldn’t know it.”

“Rodney.”

His middle name fell from her lips in a hushed breath.

He chuckled, the sound equally soft. “Is it?”

She nodded. “So I get to audition? In front of the band?”

He nodded. A hot ball sat on his chest. His groin throbbed. He couldn’t look away from her. “You do.”

“And I don’t have to kiss you?”

He swallowed, the question shearing into the mounting ache for her. “You don’t.”

Fuck, harder words had never been spoken.

“What if I want to kiss you?”

He pulled a slow breath. Studied her. She studied him back, a pink tinge in her cheeks, her teeth pulling at her bottom lip. She was such a mix of confident calm and hesitant uncertainty. If it weren’t for the fact she’d approached him in a bar with such an unbelievable proposition he’d swear she struggled with being shy. Yet even that thought twisted the tight interest building in his groin. There was something about her. Something he really,
really
wanted to get to know.

Without uttering a word, he rose from his chair and lowered himself into the one beside Pepper. She frowned. And then gasped when he leant forward, bringing his face a breath away from hers. “Then kiss—”

She cut off his gentle command by brushing her parted lips over his.

Jolts of hot tension shot through Noah, sinking into his very soul. He groaned, the feather-light contact more electric than any kiss he’d experienced before.

Holy fuck, yes.

She moved away a little, her breath a rapid pant against his lips, but before she could straighten completely in her chair, he cupped her face in both his hands and captured her mouth with his.

He wanted more.

Swiping his tongue over the velvet softness of her bottom lip, he dipped into her mouth. She didn’t fight him. Her tongue met his, timid at first before taking control. He surrendered to her kiss, his head spinning, his gut clenching. Damn, if they weren’t in a bar, he’d—

She snaked her hands up his chest, behind his neck and into his hair, and Noah decided he didn’t give a fuck they were in a bar. He thrust his tongue deeper into her mouth, challenging her to meet his desire. She did, her teeth nipping at his bottom lip with fierce urgency.

Noah groaned again, snaring her hips with his hands and yanking her closer to him between his spread thighs.

She whimpered. He ravished her mouth. The heat of her bare knees so close to his balls—swollen and heavy with lust—drove him insane. Her hands tightened in his hair. She sucked on his tongue. Noah bucked his hips forward, aching for contact of her body with his groin, even if it was just her knees. Hell, he’d pay everyone to leave the bar right there and then if it meant her knees would press to his groin.

Hell, he’d fucking
buy
the bar if it meant he could press his groin to her—

She raked a hand down his chest, cupped his engorged cock through the denim of his jeans and Noah’s sanity shattered.

He tore his mouth from hers, struggling to control his breathing. “Jesus, you really know how to…” He stopped. Swallowed. His head spun. He stared into her eyes, reveling in the desire fogging their blue depths. “Come back to my hotel room with me.”

She didn’t move. Nor say a word.

He smoothed his hands over her outer thighs, unable to stop touching her. Her skin was soft and silken and warm. He liked it a fucking lot. “Please?”

Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment, long enough for Noah to notice she wore no colour on their lids, before she looked at him again. “No.”

His heart smashed into his throat with painful force. “Why not?”

She let out a shaky breath, her teeth catching her bottom lip. “I want to sing for you, not sleep with you.”

Noah’s heart thumped harder in his throat. “Not sleep with me? Bullshit. With the way you just kissed me, you want to sleep with me. Fuck, I can barely think with the sexual energy sizzling between us.”