Blackthorne: Heart of Fame, Book 8

by Lexxie Couper

  The only calls she took now were those from Zach, her parents, her uncle and Josh.

  A day hadn’t passed since she’d asked Josh to leave her apartment that they hadn’t spoken.

  She’d called him that evening, asking for details about the performance. They’d talked long into the night, first about the unplugged concert he’d planned, then about the article Mackenzie Rogers was writing, and then about…stuff. Just stuff. Before she knew it, it was almost two a.m. and they were still talking. Somewhere in the hours between her saying hello to him and bringing the conversation to an end, she must have done some serious smiling, because her cheeks had ached when she’d plugged her phone in to charge.

  The next day, she’d called him about when the article was going to be published. Three hours later, she’d ended the call promising she would watch his favourite movie, Shaun of the Dead. She’d almost asked him to join her. Almost. The invitation had danced on the tip of her tongue, but then she’d remembered the way he’d pulled away from her kiss on the footpath outside the Chaos Room, remembered the unreadable expression in his eyes as he’d told her she had to grieve, and she’d bitten back the words.

  The next day, he’d called her, asking her what her favourite non-Synergy and Blackthorne songs were. When she laughingly told him anything by Justin Bieber, he’d told her he was never speaking to her again and hung up.

  She’d laughed, counted to one hundred and called him back. “Okay,” she’d chuckled. “Anything by Miley Cyrus.”

  They’d played that game for the day. She would make an outlandish claim, he would hang up in mock horror. He would declare the unthinkable—her favourite was that Zac Ephron was a better actor than Joseph Gordon-Levitt—and she would end the conversation with a gasp. By that night, as she settled on her sofa to watch Shaun of the Dead, she realized she hadn’t thought of Matt once.

  And so the ten days went that way.

  Ten days of being hounded by the media and paparazzi, of being harassed by them so much she didn’t dare go to work, of letting her answering machine take her calls until she’d finally decided it was better to just disconnect the damn thing.

  Ten days of her mum and dad wanting to come and comfort her, of her dad telling her Matt was in a better place, that it was time to move on. Ten days of him calling often to subtly tell her he didn’t approve at all of her seeing a musician. “Not that you are, Caity,” he’d say halfway through each conversation. “I know you have better taste than that, but all these gossip magazines keep talking about the fact he was in your club, and showing photos of you talking. I know you’ve been lonely, and now that Matt…well, I know you’re not interested in that Blackthorne guy, but you know, people talk…”

  Ten days of that, and ten days of Uncle L calling her to tell her he loved her and to not give a rat’s arse what the media was saying about her. “They’re vicious, kiddo,” he’d remind her. “Don’t let them hurt you. The people who care about you, who love you won’t believe or care what the bastards say. They’ll still care for you, still love you, okay?”

  Ten days of sympathy cards sent to her by friends who’d heard of her loss and, just like Uncle L said, didn’t care what the media were saying about her and Josh.

  Ten days of talking to Josh on the phone.

  Talking with him.

  Laughing with him, despite the distance between them.

  Ten days.

  Caitlin was going insane.

  Which was why, on the eleventh morning, she stood in front of her bathroom mirror, her hair wet, water beading on her body, and made a decision.

  Walking from her bathroom, she crossed to her mobile where it sat beside her bed, picked it up and dialed Josh’s number.

  “Caitlin,” he answered on the second ring, the smile in his voice warming her heart.

  She grinned. The junction between her thighs throbbed. Her nipples grew hard. “What are you doing tonight?”

  “As far as I know,” he said, curious hesitancy drawing out the words, “watching reruns of Sleepy Hollow on the telly. Why?”

  Caitlin closed her eyes. The throb between her thighs increased. Of course he would be watching her favourite show. Of course. She swallowed. Her heart beat faster. “Would you like to watch them here? With me?”

  Silence stretched through the connection.

  Caitlin’s heart thumped faster. God, what if he said no? “While eating lasagna?” she added, wincing at the uncertainty in her voice.

  “What time?”

  The question set off a frisson of base joy inside her. “Six okay?”

  “Five would be better.”

  “Get here any time after four,” she answered. Her belly knotted. Her breasts grew heavy, round with impatient need.

  “What about any time before four?”

  She caught her bottom lip. Pressed her thighs together. “Now would be perfect.”

  Another stretch of silence filled the connection.

  Caitlin swallowed. “Josh?”

  “I’ll bring the garlic bread.”

  And before she could utter another word, he hung up.

  Nerves shot through Caitlin. A ribbon of tension unfurled through her. Fear, apprehension and excitement made it hard to breathe. She placed her phone on the bedside drawer, stared at it for a moment, rubbed her palms on her damp thighs and swallowed.

  He was on his way. Josh Blackthorne was on his way here.

  A thumping lump filled her throat.

  Oh God. What…what had she done?

  What if she…it had been so long. Over eight months…and she…

  “Oh God,” she murmured.

  Spinning on her heel, she ran back to the bathroom.

  With a whimper of desperation, she snatched up her toothbrush, stared at it. No, she’d already cleaned her teeth. She needed to…

  Her stare moved to the mirror, her chest heaving from her ragged breaths.

  Her reflection watched her, horrified and bemused excitement burning in her eyes.

  “Oh God,” she groaned. “What am I…?”

  Eight months.

  Eight months since anyone but herself had seen her undressed. Eight months since any hands but her own had touched her.

  Pulse pounding, she ran a gaze over the naked woman looking back at her from the mirror.

  She wasn’t a twig. She had flesh on her, curves. And muscle under those curves. In the last eight months she’d done a lot of working out…and a lot of chocolate eating. What if Josh didn’t like…what if he…

  Her gaze fell to the dark nest of curls at the junction of her thighs and a soft cry escaped her.

  Oh God, when was the last time she’d trimmed?

  She looked like a hairy gorilla.

  Another cry slipped from her.

  Oh God, what was she doing? What was she doing?

  With a hard stare at her reflection, she yanked open the vanity cabinet’s second drawer, withdrew a new razor and then, jaw bunched, turned on her heel and crossed to her shower.

  A few minutes later—eight, to be exact, a strangely appropriate amount of time, when she thought about it—she stepped from the shower. She crossed to the window, wiped away the steam clouding the surface with a swipe of her hand and inspected her work.

  “Okay,” she whispered. “Okay.”

  Her belly knotted. Her breath grew shallow. Her breasts seemed to grow rounder, heavier. Her sex throbbed.

  She met her eyes in the mirror. Saw her fear in their depths.

  Saw her excitement.

  “Okay,” she murmured.

  With a slow, deep breath, she left the bathroom.

  It took her longer to decide what to wear than logic dictated. She discarded more than one set of underpants and bra. She rejected more than one pair of shorts and T-shirt, more than one summer shift, more than one maxi dress.

  When a knock sounded on her apartment door, she was still standing in her underwear, glaring at her open closet.

  She froze. A horde o
f insane butterflies took flight in her tummy. Her pussy contracted.

  “Oh no.” The words fell from her on a breath.

  The knock came again.

  She snapped her stare back to her closet. At the clothes within it.

  “Fuck,” she ground out. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  What was she doing?

  At the sound on knuckles once again rapping on her door, she reached into the closet, grabbed the first thing her brain registered being in there—a simple emerald-green sleeveless shift that hugged her breasts and hips and fell in soft waves to her mid thighs—yanked it over her head and ran from her room.

  Why she had not yet exploded into a frenzied mess of nerves and excitement and terror was beyond her.

  “Caitlin?”

  At the sound of Josh’s voice—laced with concern—coming from the other side of the door, she hissed in a breath.

  “Are you there?”

  She stopped. Closed her eyes. Centred herself. Straightened her shoulders, rolled her neck, shook out her hands.

  Okay. You can do this…

  Opening her eyes, she closed her fingers around the doorknob and opened her door.

  Josh smiled at her from the other side, looking like every sexual fantasy she’d ever had.

  He wore black jeans and a T-shirt adorned with a Mohawk-sporting R2-D2. Both emphasized the muscular perfection of his body beneath. His hair hung around his face, an artful mess of dark waves, the dark stubble of his five o’clock shadow highlighting the squareness of his jaw, defining lips she ached to feel on her own. His eyes smoldered with open desire.

  “You look beautiful,” he stated.

  She smiled, heat filling her cheeks. “Thank you.”

  He didn’t say anything else. Didn’t move.

  Inside Caitlin’s belly, the butterflies whipped about in a crazy flurry. She stared at him, the open hunger in his eyes sending waves of tight urgency into her sex.

  Dropping her gaze to his empty hands, she frowned. “Did you bring the garlic bread?”

  He shook his head. “No. I brought this instead.”

  With a single step, he crossed her threshold, snaked his arm around her waist and pulled her to his body, crushing his lips to hers.

  He swept his tongue into her mouth, clicked his teeth against hers. She whimpered, burying her hands in his hair as she opened up to him completely.

  Liquid heat pooled in her core. She pressed her hips to his, the rigid length of his arousal nudging her belly making her head swim.

  When Josh balled his hand at the small of her back, bunching her dress in a tight fist as he kicked the door shut behind him, it was all Caitlin could do not to crumple in a puddle of wanton delight at his feet.

  His desire for her turned the air in her lungs hot. The ferocity of his kiss sent raw need through her veins.

  He walked deeper into her apartment, his lips never leaving hers. She went with him, willingly trusting him as he propelled her backwards into her living room. Her arse struck the back of her sofa, the sturdy piece of furniture bringing them to a halt.

  Josh didn’t stop his assault on her lips however. He nipped them with his teeth, sucked on her bottom lip, plundered her mouth with his tongue. She groaned, wave after wave of exquisite heat rushing through her. She scraped her nails over his scalp, meeting his fervor with her own. The soft scratch of his beard on her chin and tip of her nose sent shards of wicked delight into the pit of her belly, a primitively carnal reaction to a thoroughly masculine contact.

  Josh’s hand left the back of her dress, raking over her hip, up her ribcage, to her breast. He palmed the heavy swell of flesh, dragging his thumb over her erect nipple so many times Caitlin forgot to breathe.

  God, it felt so good. So good, so right, so perfect.

  Nipping at her lips again, he moved his other hand—previously tangled in her hair—down to her thigh. His fingers skimmed the back of her leg, a teasing caress that became a possessive grip as he tugged her knee high to the side of his hip.

  Without delay, he ground his jeans-trapped erection to her newly spread sex, journeying his mouth up to her ear as he continued to knead and massage her breast.

  Eyes closed, Caitlin clung to him, drowning in pleasure far more intense and absolute than she’d been prepared for. How could she have ever been prepared for this?

  Nothing could have prepared her for rapture like this.

  “I’ve ached for you for so long, Caitlin.” Josh’s breath fanned the side of her throat, the words a rasped groan against her skin. “I know it makes no sense, but it’s true.”

  Caitlin groaned, head back, breasts heaving, belly hitching.

  “And now,” he went on, scraping teeth over the curve of her shoulder, thumb and forefinger pinching her nipple through her dress, the solid pole of his arousal hard against her folds, “I finally get to show you…”

  He plundered her mouth again, showing no mercy. She didn’t seek any. She wanted everything he was giving her. Needed it. Every coarse brush of his fingers on her breasts, every squeeze of the back of her thigh by his hand sent charged energy through her. Every stroke of his tongue on hers, every groan deep in his throat filled her, not just with pleasure, but with life.

  She raked her hands across his shoulders, over his back, up into his hair again.

  When he tore his lips from hers and yanked her other foot from the floor to wrap her leg around his hip, she didn’t stop her cry of delight.

  Perched on the back of the sofa, she fixed her stare on his, letting him see her need for him as he ground his erection to her sex in slow up-and-down strokes.

  “Josh,” she whispered his name.

  “Fuck, babe.” He closed his eyes, his nostrils flaring, his chest heaving. “Just the feel of your heat…there…against mine…fuck.”

  She let out a wobbly laugh. “If you keep that up, I think I’ll come.”

  His eyes snapped open, his nostrils flaring again. A low growl tore at his throat. “Jesus, woman. Do you have any idea what hearing that does to me?”

  Caitlin’s heart stilled. She frowned, her tummy knotting. “I didn’t mean…”

  He shook his head and thrust his length harder to her pussy. “It drives me wild, Caitlin. Wild.”

  He took her mouth again, each stroke and swipe of his tongue a testament to his desire for her. For long, delirious moments, he worshipped her mouth and throat and breasts with his lips and hands.

  Caitlin balanced not just on the back of the sofa, but on the edge of detonation. Pleasure took utter possession of her body, wrought by the mastery of Josh’s touch. She whimpered and writhed, undone by it all.

  And even as she teetered on the precipice, her body awash in elemental sensations, she wondered how she was to survive it all when he truly touched her. When his lips touched her bare nipples, when his fingers parted her folds…

  How would she survive that when she was drowning already?

  Did she even want to survive?

  “I can’t…” Burying his face in the curve of her neck, he let out a muttered curse and rammed his erection to her sex, trembles wracking his body. “Fuck, babe, I can’t wait any longer.”

  Belly fluttering, breath shallow, she squeezed his hips with her thighs, dragging her hand down to his chest. The feel of the hard point of his nipple beneath her fingertips sent a jolt of electricity in her core. “Then don’t.”

  With a growl, he hauled her off the sofa, spun around and carried her, legs wrapped around his hips, stare locked with hers, to the kitchen.

  He deposited her on the counter, raking his hands up and down her thighs.

  She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Here?”

  He let out a wobbly chuckle, his cock pressing to her folds with a sudden spasm. “The bedroom’s too far away.”

  She laughed, the desperate urgency in his eyes and voice turning her own need into something carnal. “That it is.”

  He captured her laugh with a savage kiss, fisted one hand in he
r hair, the other palming her breast.

  She arched into the touch, sucking in the subtle scent of him as she pressed her heels to the small of his back. She wanted him inside her. Oh God, did she want him inside her.

  Tearing her lips from his, she pressed her hands to his chest and gave him a little shove.

  He stumbled backwards a step, just one, and then let out a groan when she hooked her hands around the hem of her dress and yanked it up over her head.

  “Fuck, Caitlin…” His voice left him on a shaky breath, his gaze roaming what she’d revealed to him.

  She sat motionless, suddenly nervous.

  The realization she was almost naked in front of a man who wasn’t Matt slammed into her. A man who, she suspected, had seen many stunning women in his fame-filled life.

  She caught her lip. “I know I’m not—”

  “Don’t you fucking dare say perfect,” he growled, stepping back to her, sliding his hands up the outsides of her thighs.

  Heat filled her cheeks.

  He gazed into her eyes. “Because you are.”

  Concentrated joy and pleasure flowed through her. “Josh—”

  “Everything about you is perfect,” he went on. He skimmed his hands up her ribcage, barely touching her breasts—now heavy and swollen with need and straining against the lace of her skimpy red bra. Her nipples responded to the touch, puckering into harder points.

  “Your breasts.” He brushed his thumbs over each tip. “Your neck.” He feathered his palm up the column of her throat. “Your lips.” He traced the line of her bottom lip.

  She stared at him, captured by the raw desire burning in his eyes. At the reverence in his voice and the tender restraint in his touch.

  “Your belly.” He trailed his fingers down over the curve of her breasts, over her ribcage to her navel. Her tummy hitched at the teasing touch. Her sex throbbed.

  “Your pussy.” He stroked his fingers over her seam through the fabric of her panties.

  Caitlin moaned, the caress sending dire want into her very being. She closed her eyes. Her clit, her pussy ached with heavy need.