by Rhian Cahill
His jaw locked. He hated the emphasis on sex every reporter took when it came to writing about The Tuesdays. “We’re not talking about that.”
“How can we not? Night after night you’re on stage—the consummate rock god—all sexy, toned muscles, belting out lyrics designed to make the female population think about you and sex.”
He turned the tables. “Is that what you think about? Me? Sex? Me and sex?” Jet leaned forward and switched her digital recorder off. “Let’s get it out there, Charlie.”
“Get what out there? Why did you switch that off?”
Sliding along the couch, he pressed his thigh to her bent knee. “We’re off the record.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m done playing this game with you.”
“W-what game?” Her bottom lip quivered.
“The one where you want me close, but pretend you don’t.” He wasn’t wrong about her holding back these past few weeks. “No more on the record until we sort out the off.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She folded her arms across her chest. The move was defensive, but all it did was push those firm tits of hers together and up.
“I’m talking about the beat of lust that thumps every time we’re in the same room. Fuck. It pounds through me even when you’re not around.” He leaned right in. Brought his face centimetres from hers. “I’m talking about the sizzling chemistry that has us both off kilter. And before you open your mouth to deny it, let me point out your breathing is shallow. Your cheeks are flushed. The pulse at the base of your throat is fluttering like a butterfly on speed and if I glance down…”
Jet pointedly dropped his gaze. Smiled.
“I’ll find the sweetest pair of hard nipples I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
She sucked in a breath, her tits rising up towards him. Tempting. Teasing.
“Jesus.” He tried to regulate his breathing. Keep his hands off her. He wasn’t even going to think about the hard-on tenting his pants.
“We can’t do this,” she whispered.
It was difficult, but Jet managed to take his eyes off Charlie’s gorgeous rack and bring his gaze up to meet hers. “Yes, we can.”
“No.” Before he blinked she was on her feet, pacing back and forth. “I’m not going to ruin everything I’ve worked for by falling into bed with you.”
She’d lost him. “How is having sex with me going to ruin everything?” Jet was genuinely intrigued by Charlie’s doomsday thinking.
“I won’t be accused of sleeping with you to get an interview.”
“Whoa. Wait. Who the hell would say that?”
“My peers would eat me alive. Instead of reporting, I’d be the reported.” She continued to move and Jet found himself fascinated with the way her hair flowed around her shoulders with each step. The sway of her hips, the sweet curve of her arse… “I’d never use sex to get what I want.”
“Us having sex has nothing to do with this interview.”
“Ha!” She stopped. Hands on hips. “You’re an idiot if you believe that.”
Jet slowly got to his feet. His fists clenched tight at his sides. “Are you implying I won’t answer your questions if you don’t sleep with me?”
“What? No.” Charlie shook her head. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then explain it to me because I’ve never forced a woman to have sex with me in my life.” Jet held his temper with the barest thread. He might want Charlie, but he wasn’t going to blackmail her into bed.
“No. I don’t think that, but everyone else will.”
“How the hell is anyone going to know we’ve had sex, Charlie? You planning to put it in your article? Take some pictures on your phone? A video to upload on YouTube?” Jet’s words shot out like shards of glass.
She took a step back, her eyes popping wide and her mouth dropping open.
Jet stared at her. Prayed her shock wasn’t because he’d exposed her true motives. “Well?”
“I can’t believe you’d even think that.” She ran her fingers through her hair, tucked it behind her ears.
“It wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to use sex with me to make money.”
Her back straightened. “I don’t know what you’re referring to or why you’re accusing me of it, but I can guarantee that out of the two of us, any leaked info about us being together would be more damaging to me. God. Even a rumour would be enough to bury my career.”
He arched an eyebrow.
“You’re expected to be a manwhore. It comes with the territory.”
And there it was. The thing that drove him crazy. Another label.
From the very beginning he’d strived to be different. To break the stereotype that said he had to be an oversexed deviant who immersed himself in the pit of groupies that followed his band around. Never mind the whole tear-his-shirt-off on-stage persona he’d somehow found himself portraying.
Shit.
Okay, he could see where she was getting the manwhore idea from.
He drew in a deep breath. Let it out slowly. “You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover or believe everything you read.”
The worst part was she’d been the band’s shadow for three months. She knew he wasn’t the sexpot the press made him out to be. Although he would admit the rest of the guys—including the crew—made up for his lack of sexual exploits.
Jet watched as more emotion cross Charlie’s face than he’d seen in the whole time he’d known her.
She brought a hand up to rub her forehead before dragging her fingers through her hair, pushing the wavy mass away from her face. “I’m sorry.” The words came out on a rushed breath.
“For?”
“For…” She waved her hand in front of her, not really indicating anything in particular. “Look. Let’s just get back to the interview then I can go and leave you alone.”
A bark of laughter left his throat, the sound sharp—harsh—as it echoed in the large room. “Charlie, you never leave me alone even when you’re not around.”
“I…um…” Her mouth continued to work, but no words came out. Then she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and sent a bolt of lust straight to Jet’s balls. He wanted to take a bite of that plump flesh.
Jet smiled and took a step towards her. “I think about you every minute of every day and have since the first moment I laid eyes on you.”
She shivered. “Oh.”
He moved closer. Watched her eyes dilate, her breath hitch. “Want to know what I think about you?”
Charlie swallowed, her tongue flicking out to wet her parted lips. “We shouldn’t do this.”
Jet’s smile grew. She’d gone from can’t to shouldn’t. An improvement. “No one will know what happens between you and me. Ever.”
She trembled when he trailed his fingertips up her arm. “Jet.”
His name on her lips was more moan than word and he couldn’t deny either of them any longer.
Dipping his head, he slanted his mouth over hers.
***
Charlie couldn’t think beyond the overwhelming need consuming her.
Jet didn’t touch her anywhere except her mouth. He didn’t demand. Didn’t rush.
Instead he led her on a sweet ride of slow, caressing strokes that shouldn’t inflame her to crave more so quickly—so deeply.
With trembling fingers, she gripped his shirt. The soft cotton scrunched in her fists as he growled and walked her backwards until she came up against something hard. Something equally hard pressed into her front.
Jet.
God. He was hard and hot and so fucking good at kissing.
One kiss and he sent weeks of simmering desire into boiling, bone-melting need. Curling her fingers tighter, Charlie tugged him closer, rocked her hips into him and revelled in the pleasure shooting through her when his hard cock pressed against her.
A sound somewhere between growl and moan rumbled in his chest as he tore his mouth from hers. “Tell me aga
in we shouldn’t do this.”
Charlie couldn’t verbalise a denial. Not when her body was screaming for him to keep going.
“If I was any other guy, would you hold back?” Jet’s gaze locked with hers—dared her to tell the truth.
Words escaped her. But her brain managed to get a signal to her muscles and she shook her head.
“Say it.” His nostrils flared, air rushing in and out in quick succession. “I need to hear you say it, Charlie.”
“No. If you were any other guy or the situation were different, I wouldn’t hold back.”
Jet’s grin turned devilish. It spoke of carnal pleasures. Of erotic indulgences Charlie could no longer refuse.
“Give me what I want.” His demand, that gravelly rock god voice, made her shiver.
“What do you want?” She needed to be clear. If she was going to do this—and God help her, she was—she at least wanted to go in with her eyes open.
“Everything.”
Charlie searched his eyes, looking for anything that might make her walk away. All she found was hunger that blazed brighter than any she’d seen directed her way before.
But she needed a few things straight first. Needed to draw the lines that would keep her safe. As safe as she could be, tangling with the music industry’s current bad boy king.
She swallowed, her throat thick with the arousal Jet inspired. “One night. And no one can ever find out.”
Jet nodded. “If that’s what you’ll give me. At this point I’ll agree to anything to get my hands and mouth on you.” He followed words with action and slid his fingers into her hair, his head lowering to hers.
“Wait.” She splayed her hands on his chest, locked her elbows and tried to keep some distance between them. Breathing space. “We do the interview first.”
His jaw moved the barest bit and she would swear she heard his teeth grinding. “Fine.” He let her go. Stepped back. “But you give me the next three days, not one night.”
She shook her head. “That’s not—”
“If you don’t want me to pick you up and carry you to bed now, then that’s the deal. We do the interview then we spend the rest of my time in the US naked in my bed.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, drawing her attention to the thick biceps stretching the soft cotton of his t-shirt. She’d dreamed of those arms wrapped around her. Nightly.
He’d gotten under her skin—in her blood—inciting a response no one ever had and Charlie couldn’t deny herself a taste of him, no matter how dangerous getting involved with him was to her career.
It was a bad idea. A monumental, career-ending, bad idea, but she couldn’t retreat now. Not with the rush of lust flooding her veins and obliterating anything other than the thought of getting naked and rubbing herself against him.
“Not your bed,” she said.
“What?”
“No one can find out. It’s too risky to stay here.”
“Where then?”
Charlie’s stomach flipped, her throat all but closing as her nerves drew taut. “My place.”
He arched on eyebrow.
“I live in Chicago. My place is out of the way. In a quiet neighbourhood.”
Jet smiled. That devilish tilt of his lips had Charlie’s breath quickening, her pulse thudding. He nodded. “Okay. Your place.”
Grabbing her hand, he pulled her back to the sofa and used his grip to urge her to sit. He snatched up her recorder and placed it between them as he took a seat.
Charlie took a deep breath and reached over, her finger hovering over the record button. “Ready?”
“Let’s get this done.”
She knew what direction she wanted to take the interview. She’d done it with the other band members, their manager, and crew, and Jet was the final piece of the puzzle. Her editor had been concerned at first, but she’d managed to convince him to let her take the article in a different direction to the typical rock reveal. He’d loved everything she’d sent so far.
She only hoped she could push aside the desire saturating her brain long enough to ask questions that didn’t include can I lick you all over. Taking another deep breath she cleared her mind of all thoughts of getting naked with Jet.
“What do you do to prepare for a show? Any superstitions you adhere to?”
Jet shrugged. “Not that I’m aware of.”
“You don’t wear a particular pair of socks?” Charlie smiled. “Underwear?”
“No. I don’t wear underwear.” Jet chuckled as Charlie sucked in a breath, her lips parting. He had nothing on beneath those sweat pants?
Her gaze dropped to his groin. There was no denying the man was aroused. Heat washed over her, pooling low in her belly. “I…um…”
“I have worn the same pair of Chucks the entire tour.”
Chucks? Oh! Right. Shoes. Gathering her wits, and pulling her gaze from the impressive bulge in Jet’s pants, she managed to ask, “But not the same pair since the band formed?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Bought them in LA when we arrived in the US.”
She breathed easier as she guided them back onto safer ground. “What about food? Do you have a particular meal you eat before going on stage?”
“Food and performing don’t go hand-in-hand for me. Before or after a show.”
“Oh?”
“Adrenaline runs too high to keep anything down. I learned early on not to eat a few hours before or after a gig.”
“So no star-demands for your dressing room then.” She smiled, already knowing Jet was the least demanding man on tour, unless it had to do with putting on the show. Then he expected one hundred per cent from everyone around him.
He cocked his head to the side. “These aren’t the type of questions I expected you to ask.”
“How so?”
“Usually a reporter wants to know who I’m fucking and how much I’m fucking.”
Charlie swallowed. Her pulse jumped. She’d like to know that too, but not for interview purposes. She wanted the answers for personal reasons. Not that she should. It wasn’t as though they were entering into a relationship. They’d agreed to three days. After the interview.
“I’m taking a different approach with this article.”
“So you’re not interested in how many women I’ve had sex with?”
“I…ah…”
“No one has been in my bed in a year and a half, Charlie, and I had a full physical six months ago, before the tour began, so I know I’m clean. You have nothing to worry about.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Yes you were.” He stroked a fingertip down her cheek. “Next question.”
A shiver went through her, lifting fine hairs and leaving an army of goose bumps in its wake. She couldn’t think of another question. Not when he touched her. It was as though he had a direct link to her brain. One caress and her circuits were diverting all thought processes to those only concerned with pleasure.
“Charlie?”
“Um…” Giving herself a mental shake, Charlie erased the images her mind had conjured up. Question…next question. She cleared her throat. “What was the first song you learned to play on the guitar?”
“Happy Birthday.”
“Really?” That surprised her. “I would have thought it would be a classic rock song.”
Jet laughed. “I was three, remember.”
“You learned to play Happy Birthday at three?”
“And sing it. In key.”
“Child protégé.”
He shifted in his seat. “I’m not comfortable with using that term. I always imagine some poor kid being forced to play the violin for twenty hours a day.”
Charlie smiled. “And you can’t play the violin.”
Jet grinned at her. “Oh, I can play it. Just don’t like it.”
“Wow.” She had to admit—if only to herself—she was impressed. “What else can you play?”
“Tambourine,” he said with a straight face.
&
nbsp; Charlie laughed. “Seriously. What else can you play?”
“I am being serious.”
She could see the mirth in his eyes. And his sexy little smirk. He might be able to play the tambourine, but he was joking with her. “Okay. Guitar, violin, tambourine, what else?”
“Most instruments. Although I will admit the bagpipes are definitely not in my play-well column.”
“The bagpipes?” Was there no end to his talent? “What possessed you to try the bagpipes?”
He shrugged. “I’ve tried pretty much everything. It’s the sounds they make. Whether under the hands of a skilled musician or not. The music, good and bad, is what draws me.”
An image of Jet’s hands on her—playing her—burst in Technicolor brilliance in her head. Her mouth went dry, her throat constricted, and her heart hammered in her ears. Prickly heat erupted all over her as though every nerve ending detonated at once.
“You okay? You look a little flushed. Is it too hot in here?”
Charlie’s gaze met Jet’s. There was no disguising the naked desire in his eyes. Or that he knew the cause of her sudden warmth. But she couldn’t let it distract her. They needed to get this interview done.
Fine. She needed to get it done. Throwing away her career for hot sex—and there was no doubt in Charlie’s mind that it would be hot—wasn’t on her life plan.
She needed to remind herself of the plan. Of her future. Of where she wanted to go. And it didn’t include Jet Stone beyond the next few days no matter how much her body wanted to argue.
Settling herself as best she could, Charlie ignored the lust throbbing beneath her skin—in her core—and got back to what was important. The interview and the article that would cement her as one of the rock world’s top journalists.
“With all those instruments in your repertoire, it’s surprising you’re the lead singer in a rock band who rarely plays one,” she pointed out.
“Not really. We play to our strengths and while I can play most instruments well enough to perform, my forte is definitely my voice.”
“Tell me about the songs. I know you write all of The Screaming Tuesdays songs yourself. What inspires them?”
“I don’t write them on my own. We collaborate.”
“And yet your band mates say it’s all you. You’re the lyricist.” Charlie had discovered in her questioning of those involved in The Tuesdays’ machine that everyone thought of Jet as the leader. The bandmaster if you will. And the genius wordsmith behind their smash hits.
