She heard herself whisper, “Please,” and realised she was virtually begging him to kiss her again, but she didn’t care so long as she could have his touch. His mouth was impossibly close to hers, the scent of him, fresh woodchips and cinnamon, filling her head. When the lift touched ground, and the doors pinged open, Jake brushed her lips with feather light finesse, all tease. But he reached forward, poking the close-door button, all command, not waiting for it to take effect, clamping down on her mouth possessively.
In the building foyer, Ross Rowland, waiting for Jonathan said, “Whoa,” as the lift doors closed on Jake and Rielle.
A courier standing beside him said, “That who I think it is?”
“Yep,” said Ross, “but she’s kissing the wrong guy.”
Jonathan didn’t need to be told. He arrived in the foyer with a head of steam and blazed past Ross, charging for the street and a waiting hire car.
Ross caught up to him as he heard the driver say, “Not yours mate.”
Jonathan said, “I think Rielle is on with Reedy.”
“Yep,” said Ross, “I reckon she is.”
“How do you know?” Jonathan snapped. But Ross didn’t have to give his eye witness account. Rielle and Jake came clattering out the door and onto the street, holding hands and laughing.
Jake helped Rielle into the back of the limo, said “Fellas,” gave Jonathan and Ross a salute and slid in beside her.
Jonathan looked at Ross. “Fuck.”
He wasn’t talking about their missing ride.
In the back of the hire car, Rielle’s breath was coming fast. She had wild eyes.
Jake slid up next to her. “What do you want?” He put his arm around her shoulder, his lips against her neck and felt her shiver.
“Hotel.” She closed her eyes, curving her neck so he could get closer.
“You have that magazine shoot.”
She groaned. “Blow it off.”
“Only take an hour.”
“Too long.”
“I’d like to watch.”
She opened her eyes. “Okay, but then it’s just you and me.”
“Assuming you don’t change your mind.” It’d kill him for sure if she did.
“Then don’t make me,” she said, licking his ear.
They took the car to a photographic studio where the fashion editor of Now was waiting. He whisked Rielle away to dress for the shoot, leaving Jake to cool his heels watching the photographer set up.
He didn’t want to think too much about what he and Rielle were doing. So many reasons why it was a bad idea, but be damned if he wasn’t going to let it run its course, so long as she still wanted to and there was no predicting what she’d do. The shoot was a time out, a chance to see if the madness was still running free in both of them or if it was just another brain snap, glorious but momentary.
He was having coffee with the photographer when Rielle re-entered the room in a cotton dressing gown. Her makeup was dark and smoky, her lips red, her hair pinned up high and artfully tousled with a host of jewelled butterflies nestled in it.
They positioned her on a plush red velvet 1930s style chaise lounge, in front of a distressed brick wall. The richness of the soft, round-edged lounge contrasted with the scratched rawness of the wall behind it. The robe was discarded. Jake saw a flash of pale flesh. And when the photographer and the editor stepped back, Rielle was naked but for a creamy gold satin sheet falling between her bare legs and held scrunched in one hand over her breasts.
He swallowed hard and reached out for the edge of the wall to steady himself. This wasn’t a time out. It was foreplay.
“Beautiful, darling. Drop your chin, lift your eyes,” said the photographer, down on her knees in front of Rielle. “Gorgeous. Now tilt your head to the left. Let the sheet go, just, ah that’s perfect, just there.” She snapped away furiously, scrambling lightly across the floor boards to change her angle.
“Now give me that look you give your lover when he’s done something especially nice,” she said.
Rielle closed her eyes and let out an audible sigh, her shoulders softened. She leant further forward, let more of the sheet slide through her fingers, showing more of the swell of her breasts, the curve of her shoulders and one hip. She stretched her lips into the softest smile and then opened sleepy, heavy eyes.
“God!” groaned Jake. He bit his tongue to stop articulating his need so blatantly. He imaged that look—sultry, seductive, rip-your-heart-out-hot—was for him. The editor gave him a curious look and moved away, and Jake was glad he’d had enough presence of mind to check the swear word he’d wanted to utter. He thanked heaven Trish Reed had instilled a veneer of good manners in him.
“Perfect,” said the photographer. “Hold that.”
They shot another half dozen poses, each one sexier than the last, a blistering barb sent to test his patience. He couldn’t get Rielle out of here quick enough. While she was changing, the photographer let him see the shots on her computer. He struggled to maintain any semblance of composure. Rielle seemed to be reaching out of each frame and into his heart.
“Did you like that?” she asked when she had dressed again and joined him.
“No,” he rasped. “It was torture.”
She laughed, and it was musical, and like everything about her—driving him mad.
They made it back to the hotel in record speed, trying not to give their driver too much reason to be watching them and not the road. Not succeeding. They all enjoyed the ride.
In Rielle’s big suite there was no turning back, no hesitation and no second thoughts. They came together like fire on ice, scorching, shocking, stinging and melting each other. Rielle’s sharp breaths and high whimpers made Jake all but lose it before they’d even undressed. He couldn’t remember ever being so desperate, so short on control. He was sick with it. Bent all out of regular shape and normal behaviour.
This was happening. Really happening. He’d get to learn Rielle though her body. He’d get to love the rock star and the real girl inside the performance.
And she wanted it as badly as he did.
His touch made her tremble so fiercely her knees collapsed under her, but he held her tight and scooped her up, carrying her the short distance to the bed and throwing her down on it.
“What do you want?” He stood over her, fumbling in the darkened bedroom with the catch on her shoe, his voice tense, crackling with excitement. When he’d asked her that in the car, he’d never expected to end up here. Now he was mad from expectation.
“Everything.” She lifted her shirt over her head, snapping the hook on her bra.
Perhaps it was the build up, the anticipation running too high. Perhaps it was just not meant to be. After the steamy promise of their play, their lovemaking was tight, anxious and unsettled. They had no rhythm together or sense of each other’s need.
Once they lay together, in the light-starved luxury of the suite, there was a distant, fretful quality to Rielle’s movements that Jake could not break through. She closed her eyes to him, turned her head and went somewhere else and he couldn’t find a way to bring her back. Not stroking her beautiful body, not speaking softly, not calling her name. She checked out on him, and it was devastating.
It confused him, made him angry. He changed his approach, got a little firmer with her, a little less gentle. He worked a little harder, and felt her body respond, moving with him, rising to him, opening and folding around him. But her mind stayed closed. All her earlier vocalisation fell silent, smothered somewhere, kept from him. It made him worried about hurting her, not loving her right, not pleasing her. It made him conscious and deliberate when he’d wanted to be lost.
“Where are you?” he said, bearing down on her, feeling her glorious heat, but not the light of her mind. While her body thrashed under him, her soul was locked tightly away. He might have been anyone. She might have been anywhere. She wasn’t here with him. All that remained, writhing in his hands, was a facsimile of her prese
nce.
He tried not to care, to take his pleasure selfishly. And he was so worked up, so primed and she was so incredibly sexy, it was easy to do. But it wasn’t what he wanted. It was fraught and cheap, and as meaningless as any encounter he could have any night on tour, with one of a dozen girls backstage.
And that would’ve been more fun.
Gone was the provocative rock diva, the sultry songstress, the celluloid siren and the sex kitten who’d had him acting like an impatient teenage boy in the back of a car. In her place was an ice queen, beautiful, tempting, remote and chillingly cold. He was sorely tempted to grab his clothes and quit the room, leaving her to whatever she was thinking. But when she opened her eyes, he saw pain, confusion and sadness, so he rolled over beside her and reached for her hand.
“Tell me I didn’t hurt you, Rie?” Watching her face he was no longer sure he hadn’t pumped his frustration as well as his desire into her.
She spoke whisper soft. “No, you didn’t hurt me. I’m sorry. This is my fault. It was just too intense.”
He propped up on his elbow. She was across the bed from him, staring at the ceiling, the sheet pulled up under her arms, her hair a wild tangle.
“I don’t understand. You didn’t like what we did?” He knew her body had liked it, the evidence was in her response, rocking, twisting, rolling beneath him. But that wasn’t enough.
She sighed and turned her head to look at him. “It was too much. I can’t feel like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m going to be blasted apart. Shatter into a million pieces and never find my way back.”
He wanted to smile, relieved. He’d have thought she was kidding, but her eyes were hooded under a frown and her mouth turned down. “Rie, that’s the best part.”
She shook her head, closed her eyes to him. “You don’t understand. No one has ever made me feel like that. It’s out of control. I can’t feel like that ever again.”
He sucked in a breath. “No, I don’t understand.” It was as thorough a rejection as he’d ever experienced. More cutting because he thought he might really feel something for this incredible, complex girl.
Jake got up and dressed quickly. She watched him from the bed, tumbled amidst the sheets, her eyes red-rimmed, her expression unfathomable.
“Please don’t hate me, Jake.”
He leaned across the bed and kissed her gently, feeling her lips tremble under his. “I couldn’t hate you, Rie. I sure as hell don’t get you, but I think you’re the sexiest and most talented thing I’ve ever seen.”
If only.
When Jake closed the door, Rielle let the tears rack through her. This thing with Jake was a sickness, come on so fast, striking so hard. She’d needed to sweat it out quickly before it sent her mad, and the only way to do that was to get skin to skin with him as fast as possible.
But he asked too much. He wanted all of her and that wasn’t something she could give. Because if she let him see her real self, he’d know her for the insecure, superficial person she was. Too scared to ever drop her guard, take her armour off and be herself, because that self died years ago on a strip of road three hours out of Sydney, and it wasn’t worth knowing anymore.
22. Bases Loaded
The insanely catchy beat of Foster the People’s Pumped up Kicks was rolling through Rand’s head. Why was it that pop songs and advertising jingles were the hardest to get free of? But it seemed an appropriate tune for watching kites flying over the beach and pretending not to watch Harry. Or at least not to freak her out by getting caught watching her.
It was hard to take his eyes off her. It’d been an inspired idea to play hooky. He remembered trying to talk her into jigging school, but she never would. She would wave to him through the school gate. But she’d never skive off and join him at the beach when she should’ve been in class. Today was a rest day for Harry, but Rand was definitely absent without leave. He figured Rielle would give him what for about it, but whatever hell she stirred up was worth it, to win this time to be with his girl.
He couldn’t help but think of Harry as his girl. Even though that had a very school yard ring to it—it fit. She wasn’t yet his lover and she was more than a passing infatuation, so that made her girlfriend material as far as he was concerned. And didn’t that feel grown up. Not very rock and roll, but he liked it.
Harry wore a big brimmed, straw sun hat that shaded her face and shoulders. She was eating an ice cream, trying to lick the drips off the cone before they trickled down her hand.
He sat forward. “Let me help.” He took her hand and brought it towards his mouth. He licked a little river of peppermint as it slid down the cone, starting from the bottom and moving up to where her fingers were wrapped around it, and on towards the scoop at the top. When his tongue flicked across her fingers she sucked in her breath. She would’ve jerked her hand away had he not been holding it.
“Get your own.” She wrenched the cone away and he laughed to see her flush under her hat.
Harry thought the coming sunset was sad. It was pink and orange and framed the city in a misty firelight, but it meant the day was coming to an end, and she didn’t want it to. They’d played tourists in the city, and had a wonderful day just being together. Rand got recognised a couple of times, but the fans were cool and once they’d had their moment with him, were happy to move on. It was a very Brisbane thing, laid back and no worries.
She wanted more days like this with him, just to get to know him properly beyond her school girl memory. But it was all getting very serious, moving too fast, and if she didn’t want Rand in her bed and all over her life, very soon—even tonight—she had to do something to slow things down.
As if to remind her how hot things had become, Rand sat forward again and kissed the back of her neck, his tongue making little circles, causing shivers to cascade down her spine.
“You might want to cool your jets,” she said, moving out of his reach.
“Is that an instruction?”
Was it? Gosh no, she didn’t want anything they were doing to stop, but it was too fast for comfort. “No, it’s just a suggestion.” She paused to see how he’d react and when he didn’t say anything, she asked, “Would you take an instruction from me anyway?”
She heard him snort. “I’d take anything from you.”
She sat forward. “That’s what I mean.”
“Ah,” he said, and she could tell by the tone of his voice he was digesting that.
A red and yellow arrow-shaped racing kite was dipping and weaving in front of them, making a buzzing sound as it carved through the air. It turned against the wind and suddenly lost power and direction. It started drifting, floating, slack-stringed, like a falling autumn leaf. Its owner pulled hard on the strings and raced about on the shoreline trying to catch the current and keep it afloat, but it tipped nose-first, picked up speed, and crashed into the sand.
Were they like that kite, Harry wondered. Buzzing around one minute but destined to lose momentum and hit the deck hard? That’s not what she wanted. Rand had gone quiet and she couldn’t stand not knowing what he was thinking. She dared not ask him in case he was reconsidering things, so she filled the silence by saying, “It’s a beautiful day.”
He was statue still beside her. Maybe now he saw a good reason to slow things down? Then he ran his hand slowly down her back from the bare skin at her neck to her waist. “It’s not the only thing that’s beautiful.”
She shifted on the bench seat and turned back to him. “I’m flattered, but you know the beauty thing is very superficial.”
He ducked down to see under the brim of her hat. “I was gone on you when you were a skinny, awkward ugly duckling with train tracks on your teeth.”
She gasped and dropped her head lower. “Ah.”
“Yeah. So be nice, ‘cause now that you’re a friggin’ swan, what do you think it’s doing to me?”
She said, “Ah,” again, and curled her toes, trying to hold on to th
e sound of his voice, a low growl, best savoured cuddled close in the dark—not here in a public place with joggers, cyclists, kids on skateboards and people walking dogs all around them.
“Given the swan thing, I was thinking I’d like to renegotiate on the bases,” he said.
“Really”
“Yeah. Since things went so well with the combo first and second base, I was wondering how you’d feel about combining third and fourth base.”
Harry exhaled.
Rand said, “I was thinking it would be an inconvenience to get you all naked and then have to stop. I mean, it would be downright rude. It makes sense to keep going, don’t you think?”
She knew there was probably a smartarse line she could deliver, to keep things light, drag the temperature back down. Bantering with him was like another form of dancing. It was sexy and stimulating and drove her senses wild, but it was time to get serious about her terms. She took her hat off and ran her fingers through her slightly damp hair.
“Uh oh,” he said, swivelling to face her, seeing her frown. “I went too far, yeah?”
She shook her head. “No, it’s just this whole thing between us is fast. I’m not sure where it’s going to leave me.”
“Where do you want it to leave you?”
She groaned, “I don’t know the answer to that. But I do know there is stuff I don’t want.”
“Tell me what you don’t want.”
“I don’t want to be a notch in your belt.”
Rand tangled his hand in her hair, following the movement she’d made seconds ago. “Curious expression that.”
His fingers were at the back of her neck now, massaging gently.
“But you know what I mean. I don’t want to be another conquest of the famous Rand Mainline.”
“What else?”
“I don’t want you to think you have to sleep with me because we started this. I don’t what you to be nice.”
He flattened his hand on her shoulder. “You don’t want me to be nice?” he said, the inflection in his voice rising.
Getting Real Page 15
