Getting Played (Heart of Fame #7) (13 page)

Jax didn’t argue. Not because of the rising madness around him, but because he’d finally got a good look at the woman in the green shirt on the other side of the street feeling up the guy with her. The woman that
wasn’t
Nat.

The woman who
was
Nat walked the footpath a few feet in front of the woman not Nat. And her hand was nowhere near Jeremy Craig’s butt. Thank fucking—

Someone grabbed him.

Wild hands grabbed at his wrist, yanking him forward, pulling him downwards. Wild hands that quickly snared the back of his head as wet lips locked on his.

A cheer split the night. A tongue lashed at his lips. Hands tore at the front of his shirt.

Bruce let out a roar a second before the lips and hands were torn from Jax’s mouth and body. Fresh squeals filled the air. Jax staggered backwards, blinking—shocked and befuddled—at the excited woman doing her best to climb over Bruce, her frenzied stare fixed on Jax as she told him over and over again she was his biggest fan. Biggest.

He swiped his hand at his mouth, the taste of cigarettes and Juicy Fruit tainting his lips and tongue.

In front of him, Bruce struggled with the fan. Around him, people snapped shot after shot with their smartphones.

He dragged his hand over his mouth again, a distant part of his mind aware his shirt was torn. Holy fuck, how had this happened?

How had this happened? And was Nat seeing it?

Jesus, please tell me she’s not seeing this. Please, don’t let her find out I was here. Please don’t—

A warm hand wrapped his wrist and, before he could register what was going on, he was being pulled through the crowd.

Pulled away from Bruce and the maniacal, gibbering fan.

Stumbling over his own feet, he swung his stare to his savior-slash-possible abductor currently dragging him through the ruckus.

He stumbled again.

Nat tossed him a harried glare over her shoulder, her grip on his wrist tightening. “You’re going to explain why you were here later, Campbell.”

Heart pounding, warm joy flooding his chest, he grinned. “What? You think I was stalking you?”

She rolled her eyes and quickened her pace, shoving people aside with a determination that would have impressed Bruce as she continued along the footpath.

He let her pull him along, enjoying her hand wrapped around his wrist, loving the way her hips swayed as she elbowed pedestrians out of her way.

Surprisingly, no one argued with her. Jax decided it was the absolute authority she oozed—the same authority he’d witnessed back in her office at the Con. It was as sexy as hell. And intriguing. And appealing.

And wonderful. Damn wonderful.

She was wonderful. Not just sexy, but wonderful. Someone to cuddle in bed, to wake to every morning, to be proud of as she presented students their graduating degrees at the Con. Someone to adore.

A ribbon of unrest unfurled in his gut and he sucked in a breath. Adore? Proud?

Cuddle?

No, that wasn’t the relationship he had with Nat. They fucked each other silly. They enjoyed each other’s bodies. They reveled in each other’s flesh. That was it. Nothing so cloying and clichéd as adoration, pride and…and…hugging.

Jesus. What the—

A woman on his right thrust a bra at him, begging him to sign it.

Behind them, way behind them, Bruce let out a shout. Jax couldn’t make out the words but they didn’t sound happy. Bruce hated maniacal, frenzied fans. With a passion.

Without slowing her pace, Nat pivoted on her heel, snatched the red satin item of underwear from the beseeching woman and threw it into the crowd. “Go. Away.”

Jax forced out a chuckle before giving the now bra-less woman a chagrinned smile. “She’s a tad jealous.”

“She’s a tad pissed,” Nat snarled. “And inclined to leave you here if you don’t hurry the hell up.”

He winked at the swooning fan, gave those around her a friendly nod and then caught up with Nat with a comical leap when she yanked on his wrist again. “As if you’d leave me here,” he murmured in her ear, shielding his face from the curious and excited crowd massing on the footpath. “If you didn’t want to be with me, you wouldn’t have ditched the Minister of Draw Something.”

Nat didn’t answer. Her grip around his wrist however, constricted to a painful vise.

He laughed. “Did I touch a nerve?”

Once again, she didn’t answer. What she did do was extend her hand toward a shiny black convertible Mini parked a few feet away and press a button on a set of keys.

The Mini’s blinkers flashed once, a chirpy little beep sounded and she gave him a pointed expression. “Get in.”

“Yes ma’am.” He ran around the Mini’s nose to the driver’s side, yanked open the door, dropped into the seat and smirked up at Nat.

She glared at him.

Around them, smartphones and cameras continued to flash. The footpath swelled with curious and excited passerbys. Jax’s name rose above the noise on a chorus of voices.

Jax gave Nat an innocent, wide-eyed gaze. “Coming, Boxhead?”

Down the street, Bruce bellowed something that sounded like, “Get ’im outta here.”

At the front end of the Mini, Nat scowled.

“Now!” Bruce’s shout tore at the ecstatic onlookers.

Nat startled, blinked, glowered at Jax some more and then, with a highly audible sigh, hurried to the passenger side, pulled open the door and slid into the seat.

Elated delight flowed through Jax. He held out his hand, palm up. “Keys?”

With another sigh, this one far more sarcastic than the previous, she leant forward and pressed a button on the dash.

The Mini kicked into life. Jax laughed, put the car in drive and, with a wave at the people gawking and snapping photos of him on the sidewalk, pulled out into the street. “That was fun.”

They were through the first intersection before Nat replied. “Why were you there?”

He squeezed the wheel, shot into a space in the next lane and wriggled deeper into the driver’s seat. “I was out getting coffee.”

“At the exact café I was having coffee?”

He nodded. “Speaking of which, where is the Minister? Did you realize you were with the wrong guy when you saw me?”

An ambiguous expression pulled at Nat’s lips. “The wrong guy…” Closing her eyes, she traced her eyebrows with her thumb and index finger before sighing for the third time. “I told Jeremy I had to go save you because you’re a patron of the Con.”

“Oh, it’s Jeremy now? This afternoon in your office it was just Minister. And by the way, I saw him put his hand on your butt.”

“He did not put his hand on my butt. And what business of yours is it if he did?”

The tight knot of tension Jax didn’t want to analyse or acknowledge twisted tighter in chest. Tossing Nat a smirk, he turned a corner. “Until you deliver on the Nick Blackthorne replacement, your body is very much my business.”

Nat burst out laughing, a sardonic sound that scraped at Jax’s nerves. “Is it now? I don’t remember that being part of the deal. All I remember is I give you potential singers, you give me orgasms. There was nothing about the rights to my body. What I do with my body, and who I do it with, isn’t really any of your concern.”

Once again, the disconcerting knot in Jax’s chest twisted. “So Jeremy I’m-too-hip-for-my-suits Craig is part of your sexual world?”

He flicked Nat a look just in time to see her pull a face.

“Ha!” He grinned, squeezing the wheel with relish. “Of course he isn’t. There’s no way the Nat I know would be banging someone like Craig.”

“Who says I’m still the Nat you know, Jaxon? It has been twenty-one years since we parted company. I’m the Dean of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. You don’t think that requires someone with a certain level of decorum and restraint? Perhaps I like dating men who don’t believe in fucking on park benches, or using food items as sexual aides. Perhaps men like Jeremy—who I might add was voted as this country’s sexiest politician by
Cosmopolitan Magazine
—might be exactly what floats my boat these days. Perhaps men like Jeremy who—”

“Like Celine Dion,” Jax cut in, lips twitching even as his gut churned.

“Who want to have a conversation before sex is the ideal banging partner.”

Jax snorted. “Trust me, Boxhead, the only thing Craig is thinking about while having a conversation with you
is
sex.”

A heartbeat of silence followed his proclamation. A proclamation the unsettled prickling heat crawling over his scalp suggested hadn’t sounded
quite
the way it was meant to.

“So what you’re saying,” Nat said, her tone ambiguous, “is that I’m not good for anything but fucking?”

Jax winced. “No. What I’m saying is you’re so fucking hot and sexy and incredible and gorgeous a guy wouldn’t be able to think about
anything
but losing himself in your body, about making love to you while he had the chance before the world discovered it had messed up the natural status quo by giving someone as unworthy as him any hope of being with you and righted the situation.”

Another beat of silence stretched between them. Long enough for Jax to shoot Nat a quick look.

Their eyes met. Confusion swam in hers. Confusion and something else. Something Jax couldn’t decipher.

“Damn you, Campbell,” she muttered, turning her head forward. “Why do I get suckered in by your shit?”

Warm pressure wrapped Jax’s chest. His body thrummed. He opened his mouth to tell her every word he’d just said was the truth. To tell her, years too late, he was sorry for hurting her. Sorry for not letting her know how special she was when they’d been together, when he’d had the chance.

To tell her he wished he could go back in time, to the moment she told him it was over, to the moment he walked away with nothing more than a shrug and her cherished AC/DC album.

His phone rang, the sombre sounds of “The Funeral March” telling him it was Bruce.

Flicking Nat a sideways glance, he thrust his hips up a little. “That’s my phone. Can you get it out of my front pocket please?”

“Are you serious?”

He flapped his elbows up and down a few times. “I can’t take my hands off the wheel. It’s a safety thing.”

“Bullshit.”

He threw her a grin. “Serious. C’mon, it’s just in my pocket.” He shoved his hips a little higher. In his pocket, his phone continued to ring.

Letting out a ragged sigh, Nat leant over the Mini’s centre console and slipped her fingers into his left hip pocket.

“Deeper,” he instructed, twisting his hips toward her a fraction.

She pushed her hand farther into his pocket. Her fingers stroked over his cock and balls through the thin cotton of his jean’s pocket as she searched for his phone, each inadvertent touch sending hot licks of childish pleasure through Jax.

“Where the hell is it?” she muttered, her fingers bumping and nudging his very receptive groin.

Removing his right hand from the wheel, he shoved it into his right pocket and withdrew his phone. He flashed her a wide grin. “Sorry. Wrong pocket.”

Nat rolled her eyes, settled back into her seat with a huff and shook her head. “You’re perverted.”

With a wink, he slid his thumb over the screen of his phone and pressed it to his ear. “Bruce.”

“Are you safe, sir?”

Jax flicked Nat a look. “Am I safe?”

“Barely. I may just kill you.”

“Nat tells me she’s going to kill me,” Jax told his bodyguard.

“I know a good supplier of second-hand coffins. No questions asked.”

The unexpected and completely uncharacteristic quip took Jax by surprise. “Holy fuck, Bruce. Did you just make a joke?”

“No, sir. I didn’t. Now do you want me to come get you?”

Warm nerves flowed through Jax. He cast Nat another quick look. “No. We’re good. Take the rest of the night off, Bruce. Again.”

His bodyguard let out a rare laugh and ended the connection.

“Where are we going, Jax?”

Forcing his stare to stay on the road—he was driving after all—Jax smiled. She hadn’t told him to take her home. She hadn’t told him to pull over and let her drive. She hadn’t told him to pull over and get out. Instead, she’d joined them together in her question. There were no words to describe how much that pleased him. “I don’t know,” he said, an unfamiliar tension claiming him. “Where do you want to go? Feel like more coffee somewhere? Want to catch the ferry to Manly and share an ice cream on the esplanade? Or I reckon I could get us into the zoo. It would only take a phone call. They do this awesome thing where you get to sleep under the stars on—”

“Take me back to your hotel suite, Jax.” Nat’s low instruction silenced his suggestions, suggestions—he was surprised to discover—that had nothing to do with sex and were far more enticing than he imagined possible.

Confusion gnawing at the edges of his normally sex-obsessed sanity, he frowned. “My hotel suite?”

“There’s a window to be fucked against,” she replied, her voice low. Husky.