Getting Played (Heart of Fame #7) (14 page)

For the first time in Jax’s life, the idea of making love to Nat seemed…wrong. Because at that point in time, all he
really
wanted to do was—God help him—have a conversation with her.

A conversation.

What the fuck was going on with him?

Chapter Eight

You’re a masochist.

Nat unclipped her seatbelt before the Park Hyatt’s valet could open her door. Her heart pounded. So did her pulse. Her pussy throbbed. Her nipples ached. Ached, for Pete’s sake.

A masochist. Or an idiot. Or both.

Pulling a slow breath, she risked a glance at Jax. He was already out of the Mini, waving at the paparazzi lurking on the other side of the street, no doubt taunting them.

The Sydney Park Hyatt had a zero-tolerance policy toward paparazzi and uninvited members of the media. Nat knew this due to the number of distinguished special guests she’d arranged to speak or perform at the Con over the years. It made for happier celebrities and disgruntled media. It also made booking special guests easier.

“Campbell!” one of the paparazzi’s number shouted from the gutter, camera raised. “Oi, Campbell. Who’s the chick?”

Jax capped his hand behind his ear and made a show of puzzled confusion. “What?” he shouted. “I can’t hear you?”

Not waiting for the inevitable reaction from across the street, he turned and grinned at Nat. “Want me to tell them?”

Rolling her eyes, she climbed out of the car, dug her keys from her clutch purse and handed them to the hovering valet. “No.”

With a laugh, he ambled over to her and smoothed his hands around her waist. “Let’s at least give them a show. Or would the Minister for Etch-A-Sketching get—” he yanked her hips to his, “—jealous?”

On the other side of the street, the lurking paparazzi let out a cheer. Camera flashes detonated like a firework eruption.

Nat’s pussy contracted, the thought of being watched not only by the photographers but the subsequent viewers of the images they took sending a wickedly excited thrill through her. Her nipples pinched, already anticipating Jax’s touch. The old her—the pre-dean Nat—wanted nothing more than to grab Jax’s arse and fuck his mouth with her tongue right there. She grew wet just thinking about it. Wet and horny and impatient and—

Breath hitching in her throat, she separated herself from his cinching embrace and turned her back on the paparazzi.

The old Nat was allowed out to play tonight, just this once, but not
here
on the street for the world to watch. The Nat she was now couldn’t risk her job for a cheap thrill like that. “Take me up to your suite, Campbell,” she rasped, cheeks hot.

Dark eyes regarded her, an ambiguous expression crossing his face once again. Like he wanted something, or was thinking something that irked him.

Nat’s heart thumped fast. She didn’t want to consider what that something might be. It was foolish and naïve and would only lead to tears. She didn’t cry over Jax. She hadn’t before when they’d ended their relationship and she sure as hell wasn’t going to this time. Arching an eyebrow, she gave him a mocking smirk. “The window? Sex?”

With a melodramatic shake, Jax smirked. “Window. Sex. Gotcha. Let’s go.”

He snared her hand, tossed the valet something that looked like a crumpled one-hundred-dollar note, and then, with a jaunty wave at the paparazzi capturing their every moment, dragged her into the Hyatt.

He didn’t say a word to her as they crossed the opulent foyer. He called out a hello to the concierge, following the greeting with a casual, “Two bottles of Moet, a bucket of ice, a can of aerosol whipped cream and some chocolates, Renee. To my suite. Wait at least forty, forty-five minutes though.”

Prickling heat flooded Nat’s cheeks at his very loud order. Thick, impatient heat did the same in her pussy. Aerosol whipped cream. Oh man, they used to have some fun with aerosol whipped cream back in the day.

As if sensing her thoughts, he tossed her a grin over his shoulder. “Remember that time you turned my cock into the abominable snowman with whipped cream?”

Nat’s pussy throbbed and flooded with fresh, wet heat. She did, indeed, remember that time.

With a chuckle, Jax stopped at the lift doors and jabbed the top button. He turned to her and, eyes glinting wicked promise, snaked his hands around her hips and yanked her to his body.

He was hard. Hard and thick and very erect. His jeans did nothing to contain the impressive presence of his arousal rammed to her belly.

Nat’s heart beat faster. Her pulse thumped in her neck. Her sex constricted. “This is not the window, Jax,” she pointed out, her voice a raspy whisper.

“I can’t wait for the window,” he murmured, lowering his head to hers. “And neither can you. Admit it.”

She flicked a sideways glance at the Hyatt’s staff and guests doing their best to appear like they weren’t taking in every second.

“People are watching.”

That same ambiguity fell over his face again. “We could always go for coffee instead. Or catch the ferry to the zoo.”

Tight confusion twisted in Nat’s belly. An unexpected, unnerving desire to go to the zoo with Jax played with her sanity. As did a mental image of them strolling through the fairy-lit tourist attraction’s pathways hand in hand.

Fuck, what was wrong with her?

“The window, Campbell,” she said, pressing her palms to his chest. “Now. Before I call Jeremy and tell him to meet me at my—”

The lift door dinged open, saving her from uttering the ridiculous threat.

Nostrils flaring, gaze holding her prisoner, Jax pulled her into the lift and slammed her to the wall, grinding his erection to the curve of her sex before the doors started sliding shut.

A camera flash fired in the foyer just as the lift closed.

“You know that’s going to be all over the internet within the next minute, don’t you?” he whispered, snaring her other hand and pinning her arms to the wall above her hand. He rolled his hips, stroking his trapped erection up and down her mons with languid intent. “What’s Jeremy going to say when he sees those images? Can’t really say you were just doing your job as dean, can you?”

Nat swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. “Jealous?”

His lips drew closer to hers. His hips ground harder to hers. His grip on her hands tightened. “Fucking oath.”

“Why?” The question fell from her dry lips on a breath.

“Because…” He stopped. Stared into her eyes. Coiled tension claimed his body. Nat could feel it and it scared her. Because it meant Jax was heading in a direction she couldn’t let him go. They’d done their thing once before. They’d played around with falling in love and it hadn’t ended well. She’d given him her heart and he’d walked out of her life with it and her AC/DC record.

They were only ever meant to be sexual partners. That was it.

Even if she wanted him to be so much—

She captured his lips with hers before the unnerving thought could finish forming in her mind. She wiped her tongue into his mouth, swirled it over his.

She had to bring the night back on course. Wild sex against a window. That was all. Nothing else.

Never anything else.

With a strained moan, Jax returned her kiss.

He slid her arms higher up the wall as he plundered her mouth with his tongue. He nipped at her bottom lip, sucked on the tiny bruise and nipped again. She whimpered, giving herself over to the base physical pleasure of the moment.

Lifting her right leg, she wrapped it around his hip, aligning her sex to the rigid pole of his trapped erection. The steely girth rubbed against her folds and clit and she whimpered again, deepening the kiss.

Jax groaned, raked his hands down her arms and captured her breasts. He pinched her nipples through the fabric of her shirt and bra. Liquid need flowed through her, pooling in her sex. She bucked her hips forward, grinding herself harder to his cock.

God, she wanted that cock inside her. Right now. Confusion and conflicting emotions and possibly tears be damned. She wanted Jax to make love to her.

Tangling her fingers in his hair, she broke their kiss. “I don’t think I can wait until we get to your suite, Jax.”

Jax studied her, jaw bunching. Around them, calm muzak piped into the lift, a surreal soundtrack to their wild passion. “Natalie…” he said, voice strained. Hesitant. “I—”

The lift doors slid open.

She didn’t let him finish. She couldn’t. Not when she feared what he was going to say. Grabbing his wrist, she pulled him from the lift and strode to the ornate door of his suite on the top floor.

Leaning against the wall, she watched him pull a keycard from his back pocket. Dark eyes moved to her face, that unfamiliar uncertainty back in their depths.

Nat raised her hand to her bra strap exposed by her shirt and slowly inched it over her shoulder.

His nostrils flared.

It was dirty play. She knew he wanted to talk to her. She couldn’t let him. She had to distract him. This had to be just sex.

Letting her eyes partly close, she slipped her scarf from her neck, let it drop to the floor and trailed her fingers down the swell of her breast to linger at her nipple.

Jax’s Adam’s apple jerked up and down his throat. “That’s cheating.”

For an answer, she traced a slow circle around her nipple—now poking in a puckered point against her clothing—before lowering her hand to the waistband of her leather pants.

Jax swallowed again, pulled a deep breath and plunged his keycard into the door’s lock.

The faint whir of the electric locking mechanism releasing filled the silence.

With a lopsided smile and a throaty chuckle, Nat pivoted on her heel, flattened her palm to the door and swung it open.

She crossed the threshold, heart racing, mouth dry, pussy throbbing.

She didn’t wait to hear the door close behind her before hooking her fingers under the hem of her shirt and stripping it up over her head.

Nor did she turn around to see if Jax was following her as, walking toward the floor-to-ceiling window on the far side of the room, she let the silky garment slip from her fingers.

Giving her head a little shake, she encouraged her hair to tumble down her back in a cascade of black waves that brushed the curve of her butt in a move she knew drove Jax crazy.

The ensuing swift intake of breath told her she’d hit the mark.

Stopping at the window, she turned to face him, popping the button and lowering the zip of her pants as she did so to reveal the flat plane of her lower abdomen and the tattoo inked there.

She arched an eyebrow at him. “Well?”

Once again, Jax’s nostril flared. “When did you get the tat?”

She shrugged. She’d gotten it the morning of the day he’d left with her AC/DC album, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. Nor was she going to tell him the reason for the five music notes. That reason no longer existed. “A while ago,” she said instead, striving for enigmatic seduction.

Returning his stare to her face, with a hungry linger on her lace-cupped breasts, Jax began walking toward her once more. “I like it.”

She let out a husky, mocking chuckle. “I’m so glad.”

Stopping but an inch in front of her, he pressed his palms to the window either side of her head. “You do realize you’re playing with fire.”

She affected a puzzled pout, arching her spine enough to brush the curve of her sex against his groin. “What do you mean?”

He drew his head closer to hers, his breath a tickling caress on her lips. “Oh you know exactly what I mean, Boxhead.”

“Don’t call me Boxhead,” she whispered.

“Boxhead, Boxhead, Boxhead,” he murmured, a second before crushing her lips with his.

He ravished her mouth with his tongue. Bit her lip, tortured it with sucking pressure and plundered back into her mouth again, all without removing his hands from the window.

A rush of concentrated lust flowed through Nat, turning the blood in her veins to molten need. She smoothed her hands over his chest, down to his belt buckle.

He chuckled into her mouth and, without warning, broke the kiss and spun her around.

She steadied herself against the window, staring at the view of Sydney Harbour beyond the glass without seeing it. Behind her, his body melding to hers, Jax reached up and cupped her breasts.

She let out a hitching sigh and wriggled her butt to his swollen groin.

In response, he squeezed her breasts and nipped at her flesh, on the sensitive spot where her neck became her shoulder.

“Hmm…” she hummed. “I like that.”

He chuckled again, inching one hand down the flat plane of her belly to the parted opening of her pants. “I know. You also like this.” He slipped his fingers between her pants and the curve of her sex and parted her folds. “I can tell because you are already so wet.”

She shifted her feet, spreading her legs wider. Aching for him to penetrate her.

But he didn’t. Instead, he withdrew his hand and smoothed it over her right butt cheek before giving her arse a tiny slap.