Love's Rhythm

by Lexxie Couper

  “You can’t mess with him, Nick.”

  The level statement jerked Nick’s attention back to Lauren. She stood still, her arms folded over her chest, her eyes worried.

  “He’s too great a kid to mess with. I won’t let you do that to him. I know how hard it is to get over you. I won’t let you do that to my son.”

  “Our son,” he said. “And you just heard me. I’m not going anywhere.”

  She studied him, her stare moving over his face as if she hunted answers to questions she hadn’t voiced.

  Ask them, Lauren. Please ask them.

  “Don’t do this to me again, Nick,” she whispered. “Don’t make me believe in something that can’t happen.”

  He took a step toward her. “Why can’t it? We’re both older now. Wiser. Why can’t we have what we always wanted?”

  She didn’t answer. Instead, she let out a sigh and turned away from him. “I’m going to make toasted cheese sandwiches,” she said over her shoulder as she began walking. “You still take yours with double cheese and Vegemite?”

  He swallowed, forcing a smile to his face. “You better believe it.”

  “Just like your son,” he heard her mutter with a shake of her head. And then she laughed, a soft little chuckle, and his heart soared.

  He followed her into the kitchen, taking in the tidy counter tops, the organized clutter. On the fridge was a collection of drawings, some on paper browning with age, Josh’s name scrawled on the top corner, some on newer paper with other names. Those had pictures of a woman with long pink hair and a big happy smile accompanied by words like, To Miss Robbins, love Thomas. Dear Miss, From Chloe. My best teacher, by Heidi. Drawings of a beloved teacher by students lucky enough to spend five days a week with her. He studied those artworks, his lips curling into a smile. He was jealous of those students. Insanely jealous.

  “Can you pass me a knife, please?”

  He turned away from the fridge and crossed the kitchen, stopping beside Lauren at the counter. She was pulling thick slices of brown bread from a loaf, her back to him. He looked around, finding what he thought must be the utensils drawer. It was, and he wrapped his fingers around a butter knife and turned to her.

  Her lips met his before he could pass her the knife, her hands snaking up around the back of his neck, her fingers threading into his hair. She kissed him, her lips and tongue taking searing, slow, sensual possession of his mouth. She kissed him, and just as he slid his arms around her waist, just as his cock pulsed with eager want and he pulled her hips to his, she stopped and slipped from his hands, turning back to the waiting bread.

  Nick sucked in a long breath, fighting for calm. He studied her profile, his balls swelling, his lips still wet from her kiss. “What was that?”

  She didn’t take her attention from the sandwich she’d started to fix. “An itch scratched.”

  He raised an eyebrow, his body on fire. It would be so easy to snake his arms around her and haul her against him right now. Crush her mouth with his, slip her buttons free and capture her breasts with his hands. So easy. But with Josh likely only minutes away from finishing his shower, he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. When he told Josh he was his dad, it was going to be face-to-face, calm and steady and certain. Not busted feeling up his mum in the kitchen.

  Later maybe, months perhaps, being busted by Josh feeling up his mum wouldn’t be so much a problem, would be par for the course in a family home populated by a couple blissfully in love, but at the moment…no, not the way to break the news to him.

  So he placed the knife on the counter beside the loaf of bread and jar of Vegemite and retrieved the cheese from the fridge. He wouldn’t let himself consider the possibility of such a euphoric, utopian happy-ever-after not eventuating. He would make it happen. How could Lauren kiss him like that if she didn’t feel for him what he felt for her? What she’d felt for him so many years ago?

  She couldn’t. He just had to show her that.

  By making this lunch together perfect.

  Five silent-stretching minutes later, Josh came bounding into the kitchen, hair dripping, gangly limbs hidden by baggy jeans and an AC/DC T-shirt. He carried a CD and black Sharpie with him, and Nick noticed the nervous energy radiating from him again. “Are you sure you’re okay with signing it?” He handed the CD case to Nick, a shy smile at the edges of his mouth. “I’m not going to sell it on Ebay or anything. I promise.”

  Nick laughed. “Oh, well, in that case.” He placed the case on the counter and looked at its cover artwork. He stared at himself, sixteen years younger than he was now, his face a pouty mask of smoldering torment and contempt. His first album.

  Pulling the marker’s lid off with his teeth, he stared at the case, pen poised in his hand.

  “Josh, can you grab Nick a drink, please?” Lauren’s voice played over Nick’s senses. “There’s apple cider in the fridge in the garage and lemons in the fruit bowl.”

  A soft beat fluttered at Nick’s temple and a smile spread his lips. She remembered his favourite drink—cider and lemon—and was making his favourite lunch.

  He looked at the CD case lying on the counter before him, bent slightly at the waist and wrote, Josh. Play it loud and play it often. I’ll deal with your mum when you do. Promise. He paused for a second, and then signed Nick.

  The smell of melting cheese and toasting bread seeped into the long breath he pulled, and with it came an onslaught of memories and images and sensory ghosts. How many toasted cheese sandwiches had Lauren made for him in their life together? Too many to count. How many had he had in the last fifteen years? None.

  “Heads up, Nick,” Lauren said, and he turned and saw her place two fully stacked plates on the table. She graced him with a quick smile, the thick curtain of her hair—still tousled from sleep and his hands and their earlier lovemaking—tumbling over her shoulder. The desire to feel those cool silken strands sliding against his skin once more was a palpable taunt. To use her very phrase—an itch that needed scratching. And so he did. He crossed to her in three quick steps and combed her hair away from her temple with a single gentle stroke of his fingers.

  Her eyes fluttered closed. She turned her face to his hand and pressed her mouth to his palm.

  “Drinks,” Josh called out, and Nick jumped. But not as violently as Lauren. She jerked away from him, spinning back to the counter to retrieve the last plate of toasted sandwiches just as Josh loped into the kitchen, two bottles of apple cider in one hand and a lemon in the other.

  He deposited them on the counter beside his mum and then hurried over to where Nick had left the CD.

  “Dude.” His laughter bounced around the small room. “I am so going to hold you to that.”

  “What?” Lauren frowned at him, flicking Nick a sideward glance.

  Josh grinned at her, holding up his signed CD case. “He promised to deal with you every time I play this album.” He laughed again, his grin widening as he turned to Nick. “Which means you’re pretty much going to have to move in, Nick, cause I plan on playing it every day.”

  Nick dropped into a chair and reached for the sandwich sitting on the plate in front of him. “You know what, Josh?” He bit into the grilled cheese, the warm gooey cheddar, salty Vegemite and toasted bread the second most delicious thing he’d tasted all day. “I’m completely down with that plan.”

  Josh dropped into the chair beside him and scooped up his own toasted delicacy from its plate. “You see, Mum? I told you you’d find a boyfriend this year. Who woulda thought it’d be Nick Blackthorne?”

  Nick choked on a mouthful of toasted bread and cheese. Lauren sat in the chair opposite, her face calm and completely unreadable. She gave Nick a crocked smile, one eyebrow cocking as she lifted her sandwich to her lips. “Lucky me,” she said, and took a bite.

  Chapter Eight

  Lunch was wonderful. Damn it.

  Nick was funny, relaxed, casual, self-effacing and charming. He regaled them both with tales of his life, painting lavish d
etails about tantrums thrown by other recording artists. Recording artists that, according to Nick had “to remain nameless for fear they will hunt me down and slice my…ahems…off”. He told them wild stories about tour mishaps, about some of the more bizarre fan mail he’d received. He spoke about the nervous anticipation he would endure every time he was up for an award. He had them both in stitches as he showed them his practice routine for the perfect oh-crap, I-didn’t-win-it-but-I-have-to-still-look-happy face. He sang them a rather twisted version of “Gotta Run” he’d learnt while touring India, his Indian accent atrocious, his smile infectious.

  He talked about growing up in Murriundah with the only cop in town for a father and then told them highly exaggerated stories of Lauren’s supposed adventures when they were school together, even informing Josh in a loud whisper about the time she was put on detention for kissing a boy behind the sports equipment shed. He left out that the said boy was him.

  That Lauren’s heartbeat tripled at the memory of that kiss—their first—made her want to smack him. But she couldn’t. Not when he made her laugh so much. Not when her face ached from smiling, damn him. He entertained them both, and answered every question Josh threw at him, even one about groupies.

  Lauren had sat motionless for that answer, pretending to study her apple cider, her fingers gripping the sweating glass, her heart doing its damndest to thump its way into her throat. It had been there so much since Nick returned she suspected the deluded organ believed that’s where it was meant to be.

  “Groupies are like chocolate, Josh,” Nick said, mirth still threading through his words. His eyes however… Lauren could feel them on her, serious and contemplative. “A stupid man will think he can gorge himself on them with no consequences. But then he turns around and discovers they’re just empty calories. They’ve just messed up his life when the only thing good for him was what he’d already been eating all along.”

  Josh raised his eyebrows, the action so like Nick’s that Lauren’s belly clenched. “And what’s that?” Josh asked, voice almost a bated breath.

  Nick held up the last of his lunch. “Toasted cheese and Vegemite sandwiches,” he answered and popped the final corner into his mouth with a grin.

  Lauren wasn’t surprised to see Josh was utterly, completely enthralled. So much so, that when Rhys called and asked him to come over for a game of Rock Band, he said no. She’d never known her son to turn down his best friend. It should have petrified her. It didn’t. It made her heart sing. And her soul weep. Even more so when Nick rose to his feet, gathered up the dirty dishes and began washing them in the sink.

  Finally, Aslin returned, the bodyguard moving about Lauren’s small kitchen like the proverbial bull doing his best to keep the proverbial china shop accident and breakage free. “Got rid of Holston,” he said, lowering himself into the last seat at the table. “Although I don’t think he likes me much anymore.”

  Nick laughed and Josh asked what Aslin had done. Lauren found herself warmed by such contented enjoyment that she stopped breathing for a second, her heart stilling. And then Nick smiled at her, just a simple smile, and it started again. Fast. Hard.

  It was too much. Too much to take. Too much to comprehend, and she’d turned her back on the disquieting scene. Now, here she stood at the counter, her back to them all, trying to steady her heart’s rapid beat with slow, steady breaths in the guise of making a cheese sandwich without the Vegemite for Aslin.

  “How do you think he knew you were here, Nick?”

  It was Josh who asked the question, his voice part awe, part consternation. Lauren pulled another steadying breath. Her son was falling under Nick’s easy charm and the excitement of his celebrity. How did she return life to normal after this?

  You can’t. You know that. You know that and a part of you doesn’t want to. A bigger part than you would have yourself believe. And you know that as well.

  “I’m guessing it was someone at the pub last night.” A relaxed humour threaded through Nick’s answer. “Most in there seemed like locals, but I must admit, the barkeeper didn’t look like it.”

  “He’s not. He’s from Tamworth. He moved here a year ago. Asked Mum out a couple of times.”

  Lauren scrunched up her face, giving up any hope of slowing her heart. Of course Josh would have to reveal that little tidbit of information.

  “And what did your mum say?” Nick asked, the laugh in his voice sounding over emphasised. She closed her eyes. Just what she needed, a jealous rock star.

  “No,” Josh answered. “Even when he asked if she wanted to go to your latest concert in Sydney. He bought tickets and everything.”

  “The concert I haven’t done yet? The one that’s only just gone on sale? The one that doesn’t happen until March next year?”

  Josh laughed. “That’s the one.”

  “The tickets to that only went on sale, what, three days ago, am I right, Aslin?”

  “That’s right, Nick.”

  There was a pause. “So this bloke asked your mum out three days ago?”

  Lauren heard Josh chuckle. “Yep.”

  “And she said no.”

  “Yep.”

  “What do you think she’d say if I asked her to the concert?”

  Try as hard as she might, Lauren couldn’t stop the grin pulling at her lips. She turned, leaning against the counter with Aslin’s sandwich held out before her. “I think she’d say maybe.”

  Nick smiled up at her, his wholly kissable lips curling, his eyes telling her quite clearly what he thought of her maybe. Her stomach did a nice little flip-flop thingy at the heated intensity in his gaze. Her sex did a nice little fluttering thingy too. And her nipples got tight. She licked her lips. Oh boy, she was insane.

  “Josh?” Aslin suddenly asked, and Lauren blinked, the hypnotic pull of Nick’s complete attention shattered by the bodyguard’s clipped, strong voice. “Have you been in a helicopter before?”

  Josh pulled his patented are-you-kidding face, the kind reserved for questions from adults all teenagers knew to be pointless. “No.”

  Aslin gave him a nonchalant look. “Would you like to?”

  The question hadn’t finished before Josh was on his feet, staring at Lauren with an open-mouthed excitement she hadn’t seen since…well, since he’d discovered Nick Blackthorne in his home. “Can I, Mum? Please?”

  Her belly twisted again. If she said yes, did that mean she would be left alone with Nick? Would she be strong enough to resist him, to resist herself, if that was the case?

  “What about your friend—Rhys, is it? Would he like to go too?” Nick asked, enjoying his son’s happiness.

  If possible, Josh’s mouth fell farther open. “Are you fucking—I mean, are you serious?” He held out his hands to Lauren, his face beseeching her as only a teenage boy can do. “Mum? Ya gotta say yes? Please? Please?”

  Nick’s bodyguard turned to her, a smile she could have sworn was conniving on his menacingly handsome face. “It’ll only be a couple of hours, Ms. Robbins. And I’m a fully licensed pilot. He’ll be safe, I promise.”

  She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry.

  “Aslin’s an ex-British SAS commando, Lauren,” Nick piped up, his body loose and relaxed in his seat. “I trust him with my life every day.” His eyes grew serious. “And I’ll trust him with Josh’s as well. Every day. Any time.”

  The significance of the last part of his statement wasn’t lost on Lauren. Nick was telling her—and Josh, even though Josh didn’t know it—that Josh’s safety was equally as important as his own. And that as far as Nick was concerned, now part of his responsibility.

  A heavy vice wrapped around her chest and squeezed. God, she should be furious about that. She should be, but she wasn’t. Truth be known, she had no bloody clue how she felt.

  Messed up, Lauren. Messed up, confused and petrified. And horny. So bloody horny since Nick showed up.

  “Mum?”

  It was the desperate note in Josh’s voice tha
t undid her. The small-town kid given a chance to experience something completely outside his known world and half-convinced his mother was going to ruin it all.

  She fixed him with a stern stare. “Okay, but—” She had to stop and wait for him to finish making whooping noises and jumping around the kitchen. “But Mr. Rhodes is in charge and he has my full permission to break you in two if you don’t behave.”

  “I will.” He laughed, still leaping around the small room. “I mean, I won’t, I won’t.”

  She let out a sigh. “Try not to fall out of the thing, okay?”

  Josh did something totally unexpected then. He grabbed her in a bone-crunching hug and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You’re bloody brilliant, Mum.”

  “That she is,” Nick murmured, his gaze on her face. Lauren doubted Josh heard him. He was too busy grinning and bombarding Aslin with questions about the flight, the most important being when?

  The massive man swallowed the last of his sandwich and then rose to his feet. “How’s now sound?”

  “Epic.”

  Lauren’s pulse leapt into overdrive. Now? She wasn’t ready. She wasn’t…

  But it was too late. Before she could utter another word, Josh was digging his mobile out of his jeans’ pocket and running for the front door. “Rhys, get your arse to the helicopter. Now!”

  Aslin laughed. So did Nick, but to Lauren’s ears it sounded strained, as if he was just as on edge about the approaching situation as she.

  Nervous? Why the hell was she nervous?

  She licked her lips, her mouth dry. She watched Aslin nod to Nick, a single nod that seemed to speak volumes. Nick nodded back, and then the bodyguard was gone, leaving her along with her ex.

  Her heart thumped harder in her chest.

  “You should have told me, Lauren.”

  His reproach was soft and gentle, as was his gaze. Not what she expected at all. But then, the Nick that had come back to Murriundah wasn’t the Nick who had left her in Sydney. There was something different about him, and it wasn’t just the age in his face. Something…deeper. She frowned, wrapping her arms around her ribcage. Her legs were cold, her toes the same. That had to be why her nipples were tight and her breath shallow. It had nothing to do with the confusion knotting in her belly.