Getting Played (Heart of Fame #7) (18 page)

Jax’s heart tripped a beat. He froze, tongue on her nipple, lips sealed around her flesh.

You. Say it, Nat. Say. I love you. Fuck me, Nat, please say I love…

“…the way you suck my tits,” she finished, voice a throaty whimper. “It feels so good.”

Disappointment rushed over him, as potent as the pleasure consuming him at her sublime body pressed to his. He groaned against her breast and squeezed her butt, wanting to punish her for denying him what he hadn’t known he wanted to hear.

She groaned and grasped at the piano’s keyboard again. New notes reverberated through the room, erratic and frenzied.

The sound fed Jax’s frustration and his desire. He mauled her butt and sucked deeper on her nipple. She cried out, clawing at his shoulder with one hand, her thighs gripping his hips.

Her damp heat seeped into his groin, pushing him closer to the brink.

Grabbing Nat’s arse in both hands, he jolted to his feet and shoved her onto the keyboard.

A flurry of notes sounded from the piano, the most erotic music he’d ever heard. He flattened his palms to her inner thighs and spread her legs, swiping his tongue up the seam of her moist pussy with a hungry stroke.

“Fuck, yes,” she moaned, planting the soles of her feet on his shoulders, a tinkle of notes accompanying the move.

He lapped at her pussy again, lingering at her clit for a moment before returning to her seam. His head swum, intoxicated by the taste of her. So sweet and musky and distinctly
her
. He’d spent a lifetime chasing after her exquisite taste, never finding it in any of the groupies and starlets he’d slept with.

Straightening from between her thighs, he ran his hands up the side of her body, over her ribs, her breasts, to cup her jaw in his palms. “I didn’t realize how much I’ve craved the taste of your pleasure,” he murmured, tracing her bottom lip with his thumb. “Until now. How much I’ve missed it. Longed for it. Hungered for it.”

She parted her lips and touched his thumb with the tip of her tongue, her eyes grey pools of shining desire. And something else, something that made his heart quicken.

Need.

“And it’s not just the taste of you either, Nat,” he continued, his very existence thrumming to that need. His very soul calling out to it with equal want. “It’s everything you are. I never want to be without—”

She kissed him, a jumble of notes replacing his unfinished confession as her tongue swiped past his lips.

He groaned, at once dismayed she’d again stopped him telling her his heart, and undone with hot arousal by her willingness to taste her own juices on his lips and tongue. Driving his engorged cock to her spread sex, he ground against her softness, deepening the kiss. Her thighs squeezed his hips, strong and inescapable. Her hands roamed his back, his hair.

He captured her tongue, sucked it and then dragged his mouth down the column of her throat before feasting on her breasts. She scraped at his shoulders, rubbed her pussy to his length. The piano’s tinkling notes filled the room, a sublime backing track to their moans and shallow breaths.

When she raked her hands down his chest to the open V of his fly and the length of his cock poking out of his parted jeans, he damn near exploded.

“I want you fucking inside me, Campbell,” she rasped, scoring her nails over the tip of his erection. “I can’t wait any—”

He hauled her off the piano, knocking over the stool behind his knees as he did so. She laughed, the throaty sound as wonderful as the notes their wild passion had made moments earlier.

Grinning at her, he shuffled past the overturned piano stool with awkward lurches.

She laughed again, eyes twinkling. “We couldn’t have done it on the piano?”

He shook his head, squeezing her butt as he crossed the suite toward the bedroom. “Remember the last time we fucked on a piano? It took weeks for my balls to recover from the constant slamming into the keyslip.”

The corners of her lips twitched. “The last time we fucked on a piano…wasn’t that the upright Bechstein in the Tudor Hotel?”

“In Tamworth.” He nodded, carrying her to the bed. “We were visiting my parents for Mum’s birthday. It was during the Country Music Festival and you bet me a blowjob I couldn’t get a rock star on the front page of the paper the next day.”

She giggled and then let out a happy squeal as he threw her on the bed. “I must admit, I hadn’t expected you to do it quite so…sensationally,” she said, adjusting herself on the mattress as he wriggled out of his jeans.

Kicking them away, he planted one knee on the end of the bed between her ankles. “You know I only ever do things sensationally, Boxhead.” He smoothed a palm up the inside of her thigh, inching her legs farther apart. “
I
must admit I only wanted the pub’s owner to
tell
everyone—including the paper—I’d paid him a fucking fortune to clear the place out so I could screw you silly, not photograph it.”

Nat spread her thighs more, a soft whimper slipping from her when Jax lowered his head and blew a fine stream of cool air on her pussy.

“Sure you did,” she mocked, voice a hitching groan. “You’ve got a thing for being photographed or filmed while fucking. Admit it.”

He wanted to correct her, to say he was only interested in being photographed or filmed while fucking
her
, but the memory of why she’d ended their relationship all those years ago—the string of footage of him fucking models and singers and God knows who else on the top of hotels around the world—haunted him.

It had all been before he and Nat had moved in together. Before he discovered he didn’t really want to fuck anyone but her. But by then it was too late. The footage was out there, she’d told him it was over and he’d shrugged it off and taken her AC/DC record.

Jesus, he’d been a wanker.

The thought traced a cold finger down his spine and his gut tightened. He never wanted to hurt her or treat her like that again. Wouldn’t. Period.

Swallowing at the thick lump in his throat, he raised his head and gazed at her down the length of her beautiful body. “I’ve got a thing for
you
,” he declared. “Big time. And if you let me, I’m going to make you forget all those other photos and videos of me with other women.”

She stared at him, a stillness falling over her body, her eyes unreadable. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Jax,” she murmured.

He covered her body with his, supporting his weight on his elbows as his cock nudged her moist folds. “I’m not. Consider it the next challenge.”

He kissed her before she could dismiss his proclamation. He knew she fought what was happening between them. Knew she wanted only sex. But it was so much more. His soul told him so, and he always listened to his soul. His brain may not always make the brightest of suggestions, may not always lead him in the right direction—the casual way he’d left her life all those years ago was evident of that, but hey, he was just a keyboard player in a rock band. Who said he had to be smart? But his soul…when his soul spoke to him, he listened, and his soul had been playing the same music, singing the same song since he’d walked into Nat’s office yesterday.

Undeniable, elemental happiness.

There was no fucking way he was going to ignore it this time.

Tearing his lips from hers, he brushed a strand of hair from her eyes with a trembling hand. His cock strained to feel her wet heat envelope it. He didn’t think he had the strength to move away from her long enough to retrieve a condom from the bathroom. “If I told you,” he whispered, the raw need in her eyes turning his heart into a punishing beat in his chest, “I am one hundred percent, doctor-certified clean, what would you say?”

She studied him, motionless beneath him, her pussy lips kissing the tip of his shaft. Didn’t say a word.

His chest constricted. The need to feel their bodies joined without latex separating them, to feel her inner walls slide over his flesh wasn’t just powerful, it was absolute. “I’ve never had unprotected sex with anyone but you, Natalie,” he said, his voice choked, his pulse pounding. “I know that sounds unbelievable, but it’s true. You’re the only person in my entire fucking life I’ve been inside without wearing a condom. The only one I’ve ever wanted to make love to without a barrier. The only one I’ve ever—”

“I would say,” she whispered, pressing her fingertips to his lips, “I need you inside me. Now.”

Heart detonating with joy, he rolled his hips in a slow thrust and sank into her tight wetness in a single stroke.

Time ceased to exist. He lost himself in her, to her. He worshipped her. Pleasured her. He didn’t care about his own pleasure, all he wanted was to give her more. He made love to her, gazing into her eyes, chest to chest, her heartbeat hammering in perfect sync with his, their hips moving as one.

It was beyond fucking, beyond sex. Beyond anything he’d ever experienced. And when she came, calling out his name, her nails marking his shoulders, her sex sucking at his cock, he came with her. Pumping his seed into her with pounding strokes, filling her with his release.

Claiming her as his, the way it was always meant to be.

Neither moved when they finished. Nat didn’t utter a word.

Unwilling to break the exquisite beauty of the moment, Jax pulled her into the crook of his body, pressed his lips to the top of her head and held her, his spent cock still buried within her pulsing walls.

He heard her sigh, felt her relax in his arms. Felt her fall asleep.

And only then did he let sleep claim him as well, knowing she would be the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes.

The only thing he wanted to see.

Except six hours later, when he woke from the deepest sleep full of dreams of Nat, the first thing he saw were crumpled sheets.

Nat was no longer there.

Chapter Eleven

Pink’s catchy hit, “Walk of Shame”, was not normally a part of Nat’s breakfast playlist, but for some reason she’d felt the absolute need to hear it now.

Sitting at her kitchen counter, Vegemite-smeared toast and espresso sitting forgotten beside her elbow, the pop singer’s lyrics wafting through her home, she stared blankly at her open laptop’s screen. The early morning winter sun streamed through the window over the kitchen sink, a weak heat that did little to warm her up. It wasn’t that her house was cold—she’d turned the heater on the moment she’d walked through the front door half an hour ago—it was that the chill of fleeing Jax’s hotel suite still lingered in her bones. She’d had to wait for the valet to bring around her Mini while wearing clothes not appropriate for an eight-degree morning, and the sight of the lone paparazzi snapping photos of her from the other side of the street had truly left her cold.

She had no delusions what would accompany that image if it ever made it to the magazines or internet. The Dean of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music leaves rock star sex fiend’s hotel looking bedraggled and wearing the same clothes. The Con’s board would, no doubt, have something to say about it.

The ice in her bones and soul hadn’t left her in the drive back to her place, nor during the hot shower she’d taken a few minutes after arriving home.

It stayed with her even now, a surreal reminder that only sixty minutes ago she’d been in Jax’s bed, his warm body spooned against hers, his soft snores tickling the back of her neck.

Sixty minutes ago, she’d been in blissful, dozing heaven. And then the reality of the situation had hit her, had woken her completely with a cold fist to the heart and she’d left.

She couldn’t let herself stay there in Jax’s bed, in his arms. Staying there changed the status quo of their already perilous situation.
Just sex
, no matter how incredible, did not include sleeping beside each other. It didn’t. And she had to remember
just sex
was what she and Jax were engaged in. Nothing more.

She’d fled his hotel. Ignored the paparazzi. Refused to look at any of the morning papers in case she found herself in them. Attempted to wash Jax’s scent from her body in a long shower. Dressed herself in shapeless workout gear. Made herself breakfast and coffee despite her stomach being a churning mess. Found the perfect song on her iPod for her mood.

She’d done all that without thinking about the rock star she’d run away from.

With Pink singing about wild nights and possible regret, she’d deposited herself on a stool at the kitchen counter, opened her laptop and begun making a list of all the singers she knew—students and ex-students alike—who might have a chance at impressing Jax and the band.

However, that was fifteen minutes ago, and here she was still cold, still aching to be back in Jax’s bed. Still trying not to think about him.

Still trying to convince herself she’d been successful in her original goal—incredible sex with the bastard without her heart getting caught up in it all.

Yeah, right. Successful.

Not.

With a disgusted sigh, she let her elbow slide across the counter until she slumped sideways in her seat, her cheek pressed to the cool granite surface. She stared at nothing, stomach knotting over itself.

This state she was in now, moony and woeful, was why she’d intended
not
to be with Jax last night. And yet, when she’d discovered him being assaulted by fans and the public near the café where she’d had coffee with Jeremy, she’d swooped in and rescued him.