Getting Played (Heart of Fame #7)

by Lexxie Couper

  Elated delight flowed through Jax. He held out his hand, palm up. “Keys?”

  With another sigh, this one far more sarcastic than the previous, she leant forward and pressed a button on the dash.

  The Mini kicked into life. Jax laughed, put the car in drive and, with a wave at the people gawking and snapping photos of him on the sidewalk, pulled out into the street. “That was fun.”

  They were through the first intersection before Nat replied. “Why were you there?”

  He squeezed the wheel, shot into a space in the next lane and wriggled deeper into the driver’s seat. “I was out getting coffee.”

  “At the exact café I was having coffee?”

  He nodded. “Speaking of which, where is the Minister? Did you realize you were with the wrong guy when you saw me?”

  An ambiguous expression pulled at Nat’s lips. “The wrong guy…” Closing her eyes, she traced her eyebrows with her thumb and index finger before sighing for the third time. “I told Jeremy I had to go save you because you’re a patron of the Con.”

  “Oh, it’s Jeremy now? This afternoon in your office it was just Minister. And by the way, I saw him put his hand on your butt.”

  “He did not put his hand on my butt. And what business of yours is it if he did?”

  The tight knot of tension Jax didn’t want to analyse or acknowledge twisted tighter in chest. Tossing Nat a smirk, he turned a corner. “Until you deliver on the Nick Blackthorne replacement, your body is very much my business.”

  Nat burst out laughing, a sardonic sound that scraped at Jax’s nerves. “Is it now? I don’t remember that being part of the deal. All I remember is I give you potential singers, you give me orgasms. There was nothing about the rights to my body. What I do with my body, and who I do it with, isn’t really any of your concern.”

  Once again, the disconcerting knot in Jax’s chest twisted. “So Jeremy I’m-too-hip-for-my-suits Craig is part of your sexual world?”

  He flicked Nat a look just in time to see her pull a face.

  “Ha!” He grinned, squeezing the wheel with relish. “Of course he isn’t. There’s no way the Nat I know would be banging someone like Craig.”

  “Who says I’m still the Nat you know, Jaxon? It has been twenty-one years since we parted company. I’m the Dean of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. You don’t think that requires someone with a certain level of decorum and restraint? Perhaps I like dating men who don’t believe in fucking on park benches, or using food items as sexual aides. Perhaps men like Jeremy—who I might add was voted as this country’s sexiest politician by Cosmopolitan Magazine—might be exactly what floats my boat these days. Perhaps men like Jeremy who—”

  “Like Celine Dion,” Jax cut in, lips twitching even as his gut churned.

  “Who want to have a conversation before sex is the ideal banging partner.”

  Jax snorted. “Trust me, Boxhead, the only thing Craig is thinking about while having a conversation with you is sex.”

  A heartbeat of silence followed his proclamation. A proclamation the unsettled prickling heat crawling over his scalp suggested hadn’t sounded quite the way it was meant to.

  “So what you’re saying,” Nat said, her tone ambiguous, “is that I’m not good for anything but fucking?”

  Jax winced. “No. What I’m saying is you’re so fucking hot and sexy and incredible and gorgeous a guy wouldn’t be able to think about anything but losing himself in your body, about making love to you while he had the chance before the world discovered it had messed up the natural status quo by giving someone as unworthy as him any hope of being with you and righted the situation.”

  Another beat of silence stretched between them. Long enough for Jax to shoot Nat a quick look.

  Their eyes met. Confusion swam in hers. Confusion and something else. Something Jax couldn’t decipher.

  “Damn you, Campbell,” she muttered, turning her head forward. “Why do I get suckered in by your shit?”

  Warm pressure wrapped Jax’s chest. His body thrummed. He opened his mouth to tell her every word he’d just said was the truth. To tell her, years too late, he was sorry for hurting her. Sorry for not letting her know how special she was when they’d been together, when he’d had the chance.

  To tell her he wished he could go back in time, to the moment she told him it was over, to the moment he walked away with nothing more than a shrug and her cherished AC/DC album.

  His phone rang, the sombre sounds of “The Funeral March” telling him it was Bruce.

  Flicking Nat a sideways glance, he thrust his hips up a little. “That’s my phone. Can you get it out of my front pocket please?”

  “Are you serious?”

  He flapped his elbows up and down a few times. “I can’t take my hands off the wheel. It’s a safety thing.”

  “Bullshit.”

  He threw her a grin. “Serious. C’mon, it’s just in my pocket.” He shoved his hips a little higher. In his pocket, his phone continued to ring.

  Letting out a ragged sigh, Nat leant over the Mini’s centre console and slipped her fingers into his left hip pocket.

  “Deeper,” he instructed, twisting his hips toward her a fraction.

  She pushed her hand farther into his pocket. Her fingers stroked over his cock and balls through the thin cotton of his jean’s pocket as she searched for his phone, each inadvertent touch sending hot licks of childish pleasure through Jax.

  “Where the hell is it?” she muttered, her fingers bumping and nudging his very receptive groin.

  Removing his right hand from the wheel, he shoved it into his right pocket and withdrew his phone. He flashed her a wide grin. “Sorry. Wrong pocket.”

  Nat rolled her eyes, settled back into her seat with a huff and shook her head. “You’re perverted.”

  With a wink, he slid his thumb over the screen of his phone and pressed it to his ear. “Bruce.”

  “Are you safe, sir?”

  Jax flicked Nat a look. “Am I safe?”

  “Barely. I may just kill you.”

  “Nat tells me she’s going to kill me,” Jax told his bodyguard.

  “I know a good supplier of second-hand coffins. No questions asked.”

  The unexpected and completely uncharacteristic quip took Jax by surprise. “Holy fuck, Bruce. Did you just make a joke?”

  “No, sir. I didn’t. Now do you want me to come get you?”

  Warm nerves flowed through Jax. He cast Nat another quick look. “No. We’re good. Take the rest of the night off, Bruce. Again.”

  His bodyguard let out a rare laugh and ended the connection.

  “Where are we going, Jax?”

  Forcing his stare to stay on the road—he was driving after all—Jax smiled. She hadn’t told him to take her home. She hadn’t told him to pull over and let her drive. She hadn’t told him to pull over and get out. Instead, she’d joined them together in her question. There were no words to describe how much that pleased him. “I don’t know,” he said, an unfamiliar tension claiming him. “Where do you want to go? Feel like more coffee somewhere? Want to catch the ferry to Manly and share an ice cream on the esplanade? Or I reckon I could get us into the zoo. It would only take a phone call. They do this awesome thing where you get to sleep under the stars on—”

  “Take me back to your hotel suite, Jax.” Nat’s low instruction silenced his suggestions, suggestions—he was surprised to discover—that had nothing to do with sex and were far more enticing than he imagined possible.

  Confusion gnawing at the edges of his normally sex-obsessed sanity, he frowned. “My hotel suite?”

  “There’s a window to be fucked against,” she replied, her voice low. Husky.

  For the first time in Jax’s life, the idea of making love to Nat seemed…wrong. Because at that point in time, all he really wanted to do was—God help him—have a conversation with her.

  A conversation.

  What the fuck was going on with him?

&nbs
p; Chapter Eight

  You’re a masochist.

  Nat unclipped her seatbelt before the Park Hyatt’s valet could open her door. Her heart pounded. So did her pulse. Her pussy throbbed. Her nipples ached. Ached, for Pete’s sake.

  A masochist. Or an idiot. Or both.

  Pulling a slow breath, she risked a glance at Jax. He was already out of the Mini, waving at the paparazzi lurking on the other side of the street, no doubt taunting them.

  The Sydney Park Hyatt had a zero-tolerance policy toward paparazzi and uninvited members of the media. Nat knew this due to the number of distinguished special guests she’d arranged to speak or perform at the Con over the years. It made for happier celebrities and disgruntled media. It also made booking special guests easier.

  “Campbell!” one of the paparazzi’s number shouted from the gutter, camera raised. “Oi, Campbell. Who’s the chick?”

  Jax capped his hand behind his ear and made a show of puzzled confusion. “What?” he shouted. “I can’t hear you?”

  Not waiting for the inevitable reaction from across the street, he turned and grinned at Nat. “Want me to tell them?”

  Rolling her eyes, she climbed out of the car, dug her keys from her clutch purse and handed them to the hovering valet. “No.”

  With a laugh, he ambled over to her and smoothed his hands around her waist. “Let’s at least give them a show. Or would the Minister for Etch-A-Sketching get—” he yanked her hips to his, “—jealous?”

  On the other side of the street, the lurking paparazzi let out a cheer. Camera flashes detonated like a firework eruption.

  Nat’s pussy contracted, the thought of being watched not only by the photographers but the subsequent viewers of the images they took sending a wickedly excited thrill through her. Her nipples pinched, already anticipating Jax’s touch. The old her—the pre-dean Nat—wanted nothing more than to grab Jax’s arse and fuck his mouth with her tongue right there. She grew wet just thinking about it. Wet and horny and impatient and—

  Breath hitching in her throat, she separated herself from his cinching embrace and turned her back on the paparazzi.

  The old Nat was allowed out to play tonight, just this once, but not here on the street for the world to watch. The Nat she was now couldn’t risk her job for a cheap thrill like that. “Take me up to your suite, Campbell,” she rasped, cheeks hot.

  Dark eyes regarded her, an ambiguous expression crossing his face once again. Like he wanted something, or was thinking something that irked him.

  Nat’s heart thumped fast. She didn’t want to consider what that something might be. It was foolish and naïve and would only lead to tears. She didn’t cry over Jax. She hadn’t before when they’d ended their relationship and she sure as hell wasn’t going to this time. Arching an eyebrow, she gave him a mocking smirk. “The window? Sex?”

  With a melodramatic shake, Jax smirked. “Window. Sex. Gotcha. Let’s go.”

  He snared her hand, tossed the valet something that looked like a crumpled one-hundred-dollar note, and then, with a jaunty wave at the paparazzi capturing their every moment, dragged her into the Hyatt.

  He didn’t say a word to her as they crossed the opulent foyer. He called out a hello to the concierge, following the greeting with a casual, “Two bottles of Moet, a bucket of ice, a can of aerosol whipped cream and some chocolates, Renee. To my suite. Wait at least forty, forty-five minutes though.”

  Prickling heat flooded Nat’s cheeks at his very loud order. Thick, impatient heat did the same in her pussy. Aerosol whipped cream. Oh man, they used to have some fun with aerosol whipped cream back in the day.

  As if sensing her thoughts, he tossed her a grin over his shoulder. “Remember that time you turned my cock into the abominable snowman with whipped cream?”

  Nat’s pussy throbbed and flooded with fresh, wet heat. She did, indeed, remember that time.

  With a chuckle, Jax stopped at the lift doors and jabbed the top button. He turned to her and, eyes glinting wicked promise, snaked his hands around her hips and yanked her to his body.

  He was hard. Hard and thick and very erect. His jeans did nothing to contain the impressive presence of his arousal rammed to her belly.

  Nat’s heart beat faster. Her pulse thumped in her neck. Her sex constricted. “This is not the window, Jax,” she pointed out, her voice a raspy whisper.

  “I can’t wait for the window,” he murmured, lowering his head to hers. “And neither can you. Admit it.”

  She flicked a sideways glance at the Hyatt’s staff and guests doing their best to appear like they weren’t taking in every second.

  “People are watching.”

  That same ambiguity fell over his face again. “We could always go for coffee instead. Or catch the ferry to the zoo.”

  Tight confusion twisted in Nat’s belly. An unexpected, unnerving desire to go to the zoo with Jax played with her sanity. As did a mental image of them strolling through the fairy-lit tourist attraction’s pathways hand in hand.

  Fuck, what was wrong with her?

  “The window, Campbell,” she said, pressing her palms to his chest. “Now. Before I call Jeremy and tell him to meet me at my—”

  The lift door dinged open, saving her from uttering the ridiculous threat.

  Nostrils flaring, gaze holding her prisoner, Jax pulled her into the lift and slammed her to the wall, grinding his erection to the curve of her sex before the doors started sliding shut.

  A camera flash fired in the foyer just as the lift closed.

  “You know that’s going to be all over the internet within the next minute, don’t you?” he whispered, snaring her other hand and pinning her arms to the wall above her hand. He rolled his hips, stroking his trapped erection up and down her mons with languid intent. “What’s Jeremy going to say when he sees those images? Can’t really say you were just doing your job as dean, can you?”

  Nat swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. “Jealous?”

  His lips drew closer to hers. His hips ground harder to hers. His grip on her hands tightened. “Fucking oath.”

  “Why?” The question fell from her dry lips on a breath.

  “Because…” He stopped. Stared into her eyes. Coiled tension claimed his body. Nat could feel it and it scared her. Because it meant Jax was heading in a direction she couldn’t let him go. They’d done their thing once before. They’d played around with falling in love and it hadn’t ended well. She’d given him her heart and he’d walked out of her life with it and her AC/DC record.

  They were only ever meant to be sexual partners. That was it.

  Even if she wanted him to be so much—

  She captured his lips with hers before the unnerving thought could finish forming in her mind. She wiped her tongue into his mouth, swirled it over his.

  She had to bring the night back on course. Wild sex against a window. That was all. Nothing else.

  Never anything else.

  With a strained moan, Jax returned her kiss.

  He slid her arms higher up the wall as he plundered her mouth with his tongue. He nipped at her bottom lip, sucked on the tiny bruise and nipped again. She whimpered, giving herself over to the base physical pleasure of the moment.

  Lifting her right leg, she wrapped it around his hip, aligning her sex to the rigid pole of his trapped erection. The steely girth rubbed against her folds and clit and she whimpered again, deepening the kiss.

  Jax groaned, raked his hands down her arms and captured her breasts. He pinched her nipples through the fabric of her shirt and bra. Liquid need flowed through her, pooling in her sex. She bucked her hips forward, grinding herself harder to his cock.

  God, she wanted that cock inside her. Right now. Confusion and conflicting emotions and possibly tears be damned. She wanted Jax to make love to her.

  Tangling her fingers in his hair, she broke their kiss. “I don’t think I can wait until we get to your suite, Jax.”

  Jax studied her, jaw bunching. Ar
ound them, calm muzak piped into the lift, a surreal soundtrack to their wild passion. “Natalie…” he said, voice strained. Hesitant. “I—”

  The lift doors slid open.

  She didn’t let him finish. She couldn’t. Not when she feared what he was going to say. Grabbing his wrist, she pulled him from the lift and strode to the ornate door of his suite on the top floor.

  Leaning against the wall, she watched him pull a keycard from his back pocket. Dark eyes moved to her face, that unfamiliar uncertainty back in their depths.

  Nat raised her hand to her bra strap exposed by her shirt and slowly inched it over her shoulder.

  His nostrils flared.

  It was dirty play. She knew he wanted to talk to her. She couldn’t let him. She had to distract him. This had to be just sex.

  Letting her eyes partly close, she slipped her scarf from her neck, let it drop to the floor and trailed her fingers down the swell of her breast to linger at her nipple.

  Jax’s Adam’s apple jerked up and down his throat. “That’s cheating.”

  For an answer, she traced a slow circle around her nipple—now poking in a puckered point against her clothing—before lowering her hand to the waistband of her leather pants.

  Jax swallowed again, pulled a deep breath and plunged his keycard into the door’s lock.

  The faint whir of the electric locking mechanism releasing filled the silence.

  With a lopsided smile and a throaty chuckle, Nat pivoted on her heel, flattened her palm to the door and swung it open.

  She crossed the threshold, heart racing, mouth dry, pussy throbbing.

  She didn’t wait to hear the door close behind her before hooking her fingers under the hem of her shirt and stripping it up over her head.

  Nor did she turn around to see if Jax was following her as, walking toward the floor-to-ceiling window on the far side of the room, she let the silky garment slip from her fingers.

  Giving her head a little shake, she encouraged her hair to tumble down her back in a cascade of black waves that brushed the curve of her butt in a move she knew drove Jax crazy.