Lust's Rhythm (Heart of Fame Book 10) (10 page)

He didn’t.

It wasn’t the sun streaming through the window that woke him who knows how many hours later, nor the enthusiastic chatter of the two news anchors discussing something about the Grammys on the still-running television.

What woke Jed was the constant thumping of what could only be the side of a fist on the suite’s door.

Three sharp raps, followed by a voice—a
male
voice, with a distinct Australian accent—calling Chloe’s name, and three sharp raps again.

Jed squinted at the light, his body more than a little stiff on the floor, his head more than a little fuzzy with disturbed sleep.

“Tell whoever it is to go away,” Chloe mumbled against his chest, wriggling closer to him, her thigh draped over his legs, her arm doing the same over his ribs.

Closing his eyes, he curled the arm she was lying on up around her back. “Go away,” he ordered, raising his voice as much as his dry throat and tired mind would allow. “We’re sleeping.”

Those three raps on the door came again, louder this time. Faster.

On the television, one of the anchors said, “He doesn’t look happy, does he?”

Smoothing his fingers over Chloe’s bare shoulder, Jed wished he had the ability to turn the damn thing off with his mind. He wasn’t moving and Chloe had obviously gone back to sleep. All he wanted now was silence and his wife’s warm body against his as sleep reclaimed—

“Open the bloody door, Brody,” that male voice on the other side of the suite’s door commanded, somewhat muffled by the wood. “Before I kick the fucking thing—”

Jed’s eyes snapped open.

Accent. Australian accent. Male.

Fuck, Chloe’s brother was on the other side.

Or worse still, her father.

“Shit.” His heart smashed into his throat. His pulse thumped in his ears, louder than any drum beat he’d played to. “Shit.”

On his chest, Chloe mumbled an inarticulate, sleepy complaint.

“Babe.” He patted her shoulder with a gentle hand, trying to shift beneath her and wake her fully all at once. “Chloe, wake up. I think your brother—”

The lock on the suite’s door made a mechanical clanking sound a second before the door swung open.

Josh Blackthorne stormed into the room, glare locked instantly on Jed.

Jed scrambled on the tousled bedding on the floor, watching one of his idols, one of his musical influences, head straight for him, black rage etched on his face. Chloe mumbled again in protest, the sound thick with sleep. She didn’t move as he patted her shoulder and tried to reach—unsuccessfully—for something,
anything
, to cover their nudity.

“Chloe,” he repeated, stare locked on Josh as he stomped closer, closer. In the open doorway, Jed could make out a very nervous maid. “Honey, you need to wake—”

“I warned you to stay away from my sister, Brody.”

At Josh’s cold snarl, Chloe jerked awake.

She sat bolt upright, her palm landing on Jed’s solar plexus with a solid smack, her knee dragging over his groin as she did so.

It dawned on him he was sporting a very impressive morning hard-on, and that Josh was getting an eyeful of what clearly had been rubbing at the inside of his sister’s thigh, and then Chloe was on her feet and shoving her hands against Josh’s chest.

“Get the hell out of here, Josh!” she demanded, indignant rage not just in her voice, but in the violent force with which she struck him.

She tripped on Jed’s leg as he was trying to get to his own feet, and stumbled sideways. He caught her, steadying her with hands pressed firmly to her backside and belly.

Murderous fury ignited in Josh’s eyes and, ignoring Chloe, he balled his fist and came at Jed.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Jed scrambled backward, heels slipping on the silken duvet, one hand held in front of his body, the other desperately seeking traction.

“I told you I would beat the shit out of you if you came near my sister, Brody,” Josh declared.

Chloe shoved at his chest again. Hard enough he actually staggered back a step. “Josh, you’re being a dick.”

He flicked her a quick look. “Put some clothes on, sis. Now. So I can get you as far away from this prick as I—”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she snarled back. “And this prick is my
husband
—and if you say another bad thing about him, I will smack the hell out of you.”

Josh’s stare swung back to Jed, just as Jed straightened completely to his feet to meet his glare. “It’s true? What they’re saying everywhere? You got married?” His eyes narrowed. “Oh dude, you are in for a world of pain.”

“Oh, for fuck sake, Josh.” Chloe shoved at him a third time. “Stop being a dick!”

He caught her wrist before she finished the push. “I’m not the dick here, sis,” he growled, shucking his other arm out of his jacket even as he still held her wrist. If the moment weren’t so surreally horrific, Jed would have laughed at how ridiculous and awkward his actions were. “Brody’s the dick for—”

Chloe smacked her palm against her brother’s cheek.

The sound cracked through the room. Josh froze. So did Chloe.

Jed’s gut rolled. He stared at them both for a heartbeat before he snatched up one of the discarded robes either he or Chloe had been wearing and wrapped it around her body.

Josh’s jaw bunched and he stepped towards Jed, fists curled.

“If you’re going to beat the shit out of me, Blackthorne,” Jed stood straighter, holding Josh’s glare, “at least let me put my jeans on first.”

“You think this is funny, Brody?”

Jed couldn’t help but bark out a dry laugh. “Kinda do. Anyone would think I’ve kidnapped your sister and planned to defile her sweet innocence with the way you’re carrying on.”

Cold contempt curled Josh’s lip. “I’m pretty certain that’s exactly what’s been happening.”

“Josh,” Chloe snapped, positioning herself between her brother and Jed. Jed didn’t know if it was to protect him, or to stop her brother seeing his rapidly deflating wood. “You’re being ridiculous. It’s none of your fucking business who ‘defiles’ my ‘sweet innocence’. And by the way, I haven’t been
sweet
or
innocent
since I was sixteen.”

Josh gaped at her. “Jesus! I don’t want to know that.”

She rammed her hands to her hips. “Why not? You seem to think everything else about me is your business at the moment. Do you want to know how many times Jed made me come in the last twelve hours? I can tell you that as well, if you’d like?”

Disgust filled Josh’s face and he shook his head, holding up a hand as if to ward off an image too horrific to deal with. “That’s enough, Chloe. Enough. Listen to yourself. Twelve hours. You married him after
twelve
hours of being together? That’s insane!”

“Why?” Chloe shrugged. “You told me you knew you wanted to spend the rest of your life with Caitlin the second you saw her, and that was when you were eighteen and just looking at a photo of her. I at least
spoke
to Jed before I knew I was gone, hook, line, and sinker.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“I didn’t have sex with her the first time I spoke to her, that’s how.” He raked an angry gaze over them both. “My God, sis. What do you think Mum and Dad would say if they saw you right now?”

“Mum would congratulate me,” Chloe shot back. “She’d only need to take one look at me to see how freaking gloriously happy I am, how incredibly in love I am with Jed, how incredibly in love with me
he
is, and she’d take me in her arms and hug me and tell me she was happy for me. It’s only you and Dad, you dick, who behave like I’m some precious, naïve virgin who doesn’t have the ability to know what’s in my own heart.”

“Dad and I are only trying to protect you,” Josh snarled, flicking Jed a black scowl. “Your husband isn’t exactly the nicest, most stable guy on this planet. And he’s a—”

“If you say a ‘rock star’, Josh,” Chloe cut him off, “I will slap you again. Harder. What makes him so different from you and Dad?”

“He’s violent, Chloe. Very violent. He beat up a—”

“Paparazzo?” Jed finished before Josh could. Snatching up the other robe from the sofa, he shoved his arms into it and fixed it closed around his waist, staring at Josh the whole time. “Sure, I beat up a paparazzo. Five years ago. After the bastard called my mum a whore, and said she asked for the raping my drunken father gave her. They kept that little tidbit out of the media, but that’s why I did it. Tell me, Blackthorne, what would
you
do if someone accused your mum of such a thing?”

Josh grew still, an unreadable expression falling over his face.

“I’ve got a pretty sordid past,” Jed went on, wrapping his arm around Chloe with instinctual ease when she pressed to his side. “I know that. And yeah, it’s a violent one as well, and Chloe knows it all. I’ve told her everything. And again, I ask you, if you came home to discover your father beating your mother, would
you
just turn away?”

Josh studied him.

“And while we’re on the whole let’s-pull-apart-the-bad-guy-rock-star’s-past, I’m pretty certain I recall some less than stellar stories in
your
history, Josh. Your days at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music involved some impressive drug use, some serious sexual activity and—if I remember correctly—you were almost expelled for screwing a teacher’s aide on the con’s eighty-thousand-dollar grand piano, yes? Nick had to step in to keep you there.”

“You did what?”

The stunned disbelief in Chloe’s voice almost made Jed laugh. Almost.

Josh narrowed his eyes at him. But gone was the murderous rage that had burned in their grey depths when he’d first barged into the room. Now, Jed could see hesitance. A contemplative uncertainty.

Jed drew a slow breath, smoothing his hand up Chloe’s back to tug her closer to him. “That’s just a small part of your history, Josh,” he went on. “But none of that mattered at all, did it, when you met Caitlin?”

At the mention of his own wife, Josh’s chest swelled.

“Because love,” Jed continued, “
real
love—the kind of love I feel for your sister, the kind of love she feels for me, and I’m guessing the kind of love you feel for your wife—doesn’t care about who you
were
. What matters is who you are
now
, and who you’re going to be
together
.” He stopped. Held Chloe close. Stared at her brother. “And when you meet the person who you know with all your heart is the one true person for you, you know you’re going to be absolutely incredible together in that very first moment of being with them. Tell me I’m wrong…if you think I am.”

Josh’s eyes narrowed again. His jaw bunched. And then he let out a shaky sigh and shook his head. “Dad’s going to kill me,” he muttered, dragging his hands through his hair. He directed a disgruntled frown at Chloe. “And
you’re
not going to fare much better, but your
husband
is right.”

“Of course he’s right.” Chloe slid her arms tighter around Jed’s waist. “And Dad can go suck a lemon.”

Josh’s eyebrows shot up. In that one expression, he looked so much like a younger version of Nick, Jed’s mind couldn’t process it. “I am so going to tell him you said—”

From the vicinity of his back pocket, the sound of the Wiggles theme song burst into joyous life.

Chloe grinned up at Jed. “Speak of the devil.”

He frowned. He felt like he’d just ridden the most insane roller coaster in existence. And yet, at the same time, he had never been happier.

Mischief filled her face. “Kiss me.”

He did exactly as she asked without question, brushing his lips over hers even as he continued to frown.

She grinned when he raised his head. “Just to warn you, I’m telling Dad you were wearing a Blackthorne T-shirt when we got married. And that I ripped it off you in my haste to get in your pants after.”

Jed rolled his eyes. “And here I was thinking it was going to be easy being his son-in-law.”

Her grin stretched wider. “I love you, Mr. Jedidiah Fucking Rabbit,” she whispered.

“I love you twice as much, Mrs. Jessica Rabbit,” he whispered back.

“Yeah, yeah, Dad.” Josh’s voice drew Jed’s attention. “They’re here. Yeah, they’re really married.” Josh paused, flicking Jed a smile that took Jed by surprise. “No, he’s still standing. No, I’m not going to…yeah…yeah, okay, I’ll put him on.”

Josh held out the phone to Jed. “Ready?”

Jed looked at the phone in Josh’s hand. Looked up at him. Looked at Chloe.

Chloe grinned. “Hurry up and tell him you don’t care what he says, you’re going to love me for the rest of your life and be the best husband ever, so we can get back to the defiling he and Josh have been worried so much about.”

Josh groaned. “Really, sis?”

Jed took the phone, his gaze dancing with Chloe’s, and pressed it to his ear. “Hello, Nick,” he said, not looking away from Chloe.

“I bloody well warned you what I would do to your career if you so much as
thought
about my daughter, Brody,” Nick growled on the other end.

“Do what you have to,” Jed said with a grin. “I don’t care, I’m still going to love your daughter for the rest of my life and be the best husband ever.”

Chloe put her finger and thumb together in the
okay
position and then kissed them with a noisy pucker.

Still holding her gaze, he drew her closer to his body, smoothing his hand down her back to cup her butt. “And I will gladly give up my career, my money, my fame, to spend the rest of my life with her, making her happier than she’s ever been.”

Silence greeted his declaration.

And then, tone completely ambiguous, Nick said, “Put my daughter on the phone, Jed.”

Jed handed Chloe the phone.

She took it, a slight frown dipping her eyebrows. “Hi, Dad. You pissed you didn’t get to walk me down the—”

She stopped. Chewed her bottom lip. Stared at the base of Jed’s throat for a moment.

Beside them, Josh let out another shaky sigh. Jed wanted to look at him, to see his expression, but he couldn’t pull his stare from Chloe.

What was Nick saying?

Whatever it was, she nodded. “I do.”

Nick said something else. Jed could just discern the deep tones of his voice in the room’s silence.