Getting Played (Heart of Fame #7)

by Lexxie Couper

  As always when he played the piano, a wave of pure rightness rolled over him. He’d been born to play the instrument. His parents had identified the skill at an early age and encouraged it. His mum took him to every piano concert and professional performance in their small country town she could. When he’d declared at the tender age of ten—after attending a Billy Joel concert in Sydney with his family—that he wanted to be a rock star, his parents hadn’t batted an eye. They’d sold the camper van sitting in the backyard they rarely used and bought the best electric keyboard they could afford. By the time Jax was a senior at high school, he’d already performed backing keyboards on more than one professional sessions album for various rock singers.

  When Nick Blackthorne’s record producer approached Jax to perform on Nick’s second album, way back in the time of Jax’s life when all that really mattered to him was when he was going to make love to Nat again, history was made.

  He loved playing a keyboard, loved it. But tickling the ivories as his dad called it, moved him in a way the electric instrument didn’t.

  In the same way fucking a beautiful woman didn’t compare to making love to Nat. Both were highly enjoyable but one was more…right than the other.

  The reflective notion stroked at the edges of his mind as he let his soul connect with the cool keys through the tips of his fingers. He closed his eyes and let the melding flow through him, saw the keys become the hammers, the hammers resting on the strings, saw the strings contained by the dampers.

  He drew a slow breath, a part of him aware Nat sat and watched him, silent. Aware, for the first time that he’d spent the length of his career imagining her there every time he performed, whether on stage, in a recording studio or a rehearsal space.

  Aware he’d left his heart with her, even as he’d left with her AC/DC album.

  Aware, truly aware, he’d made the biggest mistake of his life letting her end the best thing of his life—them. Together.

  Raw regret twisted in his soul, threaded through the music waiting to be played. Drawing another slower breath, he began to play.

  The song—at this point still titled “Lily’s Song”—fell from his lips. Samuel’s tormented lyrics of aching for something beyond hope wrung his regret. Levi’s music, profound and haunting, soothed his remorse. The song was still a work in progress, Samuel tweaked the lyrics often, just as Levi reworked chords and riffs and time beats. But the bones of the piece of music were there and, in Jax’s opinion, it was one of the finest songs they’d ever created as a band.

  He didn’t open his eyes. He never did when he played the piano. Instead, he gave himself over to the power of the music, the lyrics. He wasn’t a singer, but his fingers, his soul and his heart knew exactly how to give voice to music.

  He played, the lyrics leaving him with husky rawness, his fingers finding the notes of Samuel’s guitar in the keys, of Levi’s bass, dancing to the building rhythm of Noah’s beat.

  He played and lost himself—as he always did—to the beauty and rightness of making music. Of living it as it flowed from him.

  And when he played the last note, as always, a part of him regretted the dying moment even as he reveled in its fading sound. Cherished it and ached for it again.

  Hunched over the keys, fingers still resting on their cool surface, he listened to his soul return to his body as silence filled the void.

  His heartbeat returned to its normal pace and, a soft wry laugh vibrating in the back of his throat, he straightened on the stool and opened his eyes.

  Nat regarded him from the piano’s side, her cheek and chest resting on the raised lid, her eyes roaming his face, her pupils dilated. “That was incredible,” she declared on a breathless whisper. “I’d honestly forgotten how amazing you are.”

  He forced a cocky grin to his lips. “Ten out ten?”

  For an answer, she slid between the keyboard and the stool and straddled his thighs.

  Wild heat poured through him. Pooled in his groin, his soul. He gazed up at her, the warmth of her pussy nestled against his jeans-clad arousal. His heart quickened, his balls ached. He reached up and parted the loose V formed by her robe, smoothing his palms across the velvet skin on her chest and shoulders until the garment fell from her arms to the keyboard. A discordant collection of faint notes sounded in the air, a soundtrack to their past he remembered well.

  She drew a slow breath, lashes shuttering her eyes for a moment before she looked down at him again.

  Desire burned in her gaze. Undeniable and fathomless.

  Staring into that inferno, Jax skimmed his hands over the curve of her hips, the subtle dip of her waist and up the curve of her ribcage until his palms grazed over her full, heavy breasts. Her nipples puckered instantly at the slight caress. Her belly hitched.

  Sliding one hand behind her back, he held her motionless as he feathered his other hand over each breast, charting the exquisite perfection of each swell of heavenly flesh and its rock-hard, dusky-pink tip.

  She made a soft noise of pleasured surrender. Rolled her hips. Arched her back. The move drew her nipple closer to his lips and he took it in his mouth and sucked without hesitation.

  “Oh, yes,” she moaned, writhing on his lap. Her elbow, or maybe it was her robe again, played new notes on the piano. The sound danced on the silence, at once delicate and a testament to their passion.

  He suckled her nipple harder into his mouth, moving his palm at the small of her back lower until he cupped her arse cheek. With a gentle squeeze, he pulled her closer to his erection, needing to feel her heat on his engorged length.

  She arched farther, raking a hand through his hair as she ground herself to his trapped cock.

  Growling, he scored a line of nipping kisses across her chest to her other nipple, feasting on it even as he shifted on the stool, desperate to be inside her.

  Once again, random notes sounded, treble and bass. More forceful and louder this time. Nat’s palms, anchoring her to the piano as he worshipped her breasts. She moaned and rolled her hips so her pussy stroked his dick through the taut denim of his jeans. “I love…” she panted. “Oh Christ, I love…”

  Jax’s heart tripped a beat. He froze, tongue on her nipple, lips sealed around her flesh.

  You. Say it, Nat. Say. I love you. Fuck me, Nat, please say I love…

  “…the way you suck my tits,” she finished, voice a throaty whimper. “It feels so good.”

  Disappointment rushed over him, as potent as the pleasure consuming him at her sublime body pressed to his. He groaned against her breast and squeezed her butt, wanting to punish her for denying him what he hadn’t known he wanted to hear.

  She groaned and grasped at the piano’s keyboard again. New notes reverberated through the room, erratic and frenzied.

  The sound fed Jax’s frustration and his desire. He mauled her butt and sucked deeper on her nipple. She cried out, clawing at his shoulder with one hand, her thighs gripping his hips.

  Her damp heat seeped into his groin, pushing him closer to the brink.

  Grabbing Nat’s arse in both hands, he jolted to his feet and shoved her onto the keyboard.

  A flurry of notes sounded from the piano, the most erotic music he’d ever heard. He flattened his palms to her inner thighs and spread her legs, swiping his tongue up the seam of her moist pussy with a hungry stroke.

  “Fuck, yes,” she moaned, planting the soles of her feet on his shoulders, a tinkle of notes accompanying the move.

  He lapped at her pussy again, lingering at her clit for a moment before returning to her seam. His head swum, intoxicated by the taste of her. So sweet and musky and distinctly her. He’d spent a lifetime chasing after her exquisite taste, never finding it in any of the groupies and starlets he’d slept with.

  Straightening from between her thighs, he ran his hands up the side of her body, over her ribs, her breasts, to cup her jaw in his palms. “I didn’t realize how much I’ve craved the taste of your pleasure,” he murmured, tracing
her bottom lip with his thumb. “Until now. How much I’ve missed it. Longed for it. Hungered for it.”

  She parted her lips and touched his thumb with the tip of her tongue, her eyes grey pools of shining desire. And something else, something that made his heart quicken.

  Need.

  “And it’s not just the taste of you either, Nat,” he continued, his very existence thrumming to that need. His very soul calling out to it with equal want. “It’s everything you are. I never want to be without—”

  She kissed him, a jumble of notes replacing his unfinished confession as her tongue swiped past his lips.

  He groaned, at once dismayed she’d again stopped him telling her his heart, and undone with hot arousal by her willingness to taste her own juices on his lips and tongue. Driving his engorged cock to her spread sex, he ground against her softness, deepening the kiss. Her thighs squeezed his hips, strong and inescapable. Her hands roamed his back, his hair.

  He captured her tongue, sucked it and then dragged his mouth down the column of her throat before feasting on her breasts. She scraped at his shoulders, rubbed her pussy to his length. The piano’s tinkling notes filled the room, a sublime backing track to their moans and shallow breaths.

  When she raked her hands down his chest to the open V of his fly and the length of his cock poking out of his parted jeans, he damn near exploded.

  “I want you fucking inside me, Campbell,” she rasped, scoring her nails over the tip of his erection. “I can’t wait any—”

  He hauled her off the piano, knocking over the stool behind his knees as he did so. She laughed, the throaty sound as wonderful as the notes their wild passion had made moments earlier.

  Grinning at her, he shuffled past the overturned piano stool with awkward lurches.

  She laughed again, eyes twinkling. “We couldn’t have done it on the piano?”

  He shook his head, squeezing her butt as he crossed the suite toward the bedroom. “Remember the last time we fucked on a piano? It took weeks for my balls to recover from the constant slamming into the keyslip.”

  The corners of her lips twitched. “The last time we fucked on a piano…wasn’t that the upright Bechstein in the Tudor Hotel?”

  “In Tamworth.” He nodded, carrying her to the bed. “We were visiting my parents for Mum’s birthday. It was during the Country Music Festival and you bet me a blowjob I couldn’t get a rock star on the front page of the paper the next day.”

  She giggled and then let out a happy squeal as he threw her on the bed. “I must admit, I hadn’t expected you to do it quite so…sensationally,” she said, adjusting herself on the mattress as he wriggled out of his jeans.

  Kicking them away, he planted one knee on the end of the bed between her ankles. “You know I only ever do things sensationally, Boxhead.” He smoothed a palm up the inside of her thigh, inching her legs farther apart. “I must admit I only wanted the pub’s owner to tell everyone—including the paper—I’d paid him a fucking fortune to clear the place out so I could screw you silly, not photograph it.”

  Nat spread her thighs more, a soft whimper slipping from her when Jax lowered his head and blew a fine stream of cool air on her pussy.

  “Sure you did,” she mocked, voice a hitching groan. “You’ve got a thing for being photographed or filmed while fucking. Admit it.”

  He wanted to correct her, to say he was only interested in being photographed or filmed while fucking her, but the memory of why she’d ended their relationship all those years ago—the string of footage of him fucking models and singers and God knows who else on the top of hotels around the world—haunted him.

  It had all been before he and Nat had moved in together. Before he discovered he didn’t really want to fuck anyone but her. But by then it was too late. The footage was out there, she’d told him it was over and he’d shrugged it off and taken her AC/DC record.

  Jesus, he’d been a wanker.

  The thought traced a cold finger down his spine and his gut tightened. He never wanted to hurt her or treat her like that again. Wouldn’t. Period.

  Swallowing at the thick lump in his throat, he raised his head and gazed at her down the length of her beautiful body. “I’ve got a thing for you,” he declared. “Big time. And if you let me, I’m going to make you forget all those other photos and videos of me with other women.”

  She stared at him, a stillness falling over her body, her eyes unreadable. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Jax,” she murmured.

  He covered her body with his, supporting his weight on his elbows as his cock nudged her moist folds. “I’m not. Consider it the next challenge.”

  He kissed her before she could dismiss his proclamation. He knew she fought what was happening between them. Knew she wanted only sex. But it was so much more. His soul told him so, and he always listened to his soul. His brain may not always make the brightest of suggestions, may not always lead him in the right direction—the casual way he’d left her life all those years ago was evident of that, but hey, he was just a keyboard player in a rock band. Who said he had to be smart? But his soul…when his soul spoke to him, he listened, and his soul had been playing the same music, singing the same song since he’d walked into Nat’s office yesterday.

  Undeniable, elemental happiness.

  There was no fucking way he was going to ignore it this time.

  Tearing his lips from hers, he brushed a strand of hair from her eyes with a trembling hand. His cock strained to feel her wet heat envelope it. He didn’t think he had the strength to move away from her long enough to retrieve a condom from the bathroom. “If I told you,” he whispered, the raw need in her eyes turning his heart into a punishing beat in his chest, “I am one hundred percent, doctor-certified clean, what would you say?”

  She studied him, motionless beneath him, her pussy lips kissing the tip of his shaft. Didn’t say a word.

  His chest constricted. The need to feel their bodies joined without latex separating them, to feel her inner walls slide over his flesh wasn’t just powerful, it was absolute. “I’ve never had unprotected sex with anyone but you, Natalie,” he said, his voice choked, his pulse pounding. “I know that sounds unbelievable, but it’s true. You’re the only person in my entire fucking life I’ve been inside without wearing a condom. The only one I’ve ever wanted to make love to without a barrier. The only one I’ve ever—”

  “I would say,” she whispered, pressing her fingertips to his lips, “I need you inside me. Now.”

  Heart detonating with joy, he rolled his hips in a slow thrust and sank into her tight wetness in a single stroke.

  Time ceased to exist. He lost himself in her, to her. He worshipped her. Pleasured her. He didn’t care about his own pleasure, all he wanted was to give her more. He made love to her, gazing into her eyes, chest to chest, her heartbeat hammering in perfect sync with his, their hips moving as one.

  It was beyond fucking, beyond sex. Beyond anything he’d ever experienced. And when she came, calling out his name, her nails marking his shoulders, her sex sucking at his cock, he came with her. Pumping his seed into her with pounding strokes, filling her with his release.

  Claiming her as his, the way it was always meant to be.

  Neither moved when they finished. Nat didn’t utter a word.

  Unwilling to break the exquisite beauty of the moment, Jax pulled her into the crook of his body, pressed his lips to the top of her head and held her, his spent cock still buried within her pulsing walls.

  He heard her sigh, felt her relax in his arms. Felt her fall asleep.

  And only then did he let sleep claim him as well, knowing she would be the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes.

  The only thing he wanted to see.

  Except six hours later, when he woke from the deepest sleep full of dreams of Nat, the first thing he saw were crumpled sheets.

  Nat was no longer there.

  Chapter Eleven

  Pink’s catchy hit, “Wal
k of Shame”, was not normally a part of Nat’s breakfast playlist, but for some reason she’d felt the absolute need to hear it now.

  Sitting at her kitchen counter, Vegemite-smeared toast and espresso sitting forgotten beside her elbow, the pop singer’s lyrics wafting through her home, she stared blankly at her open laptop’s screen. The early morning winter sun streamed through the window over the kitchen sink, a weak heat that did little to warm her up. It wasn’t that her house was cold—she’d turned the heater on the moment she’d walked through the front door half an hour ago—it was that the chill of fleeing Jax’s hotel suite still lingered in her bones. She’d had to wait for the valet to bring around her Mini while wearing clothes not appropriate for an eight-degree morning, and the sight of the lone paparazzi snapping photos of her from the other side of the street had truly left her cold.

  She had no delusions what would accompany that image if it ever made it to the magazines or internet. The Dean of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music leaves rock star sex fiend’s hotel looking bedraggled and wearing the same clothes. The Con’s board would, no doubt, have something to say about it.

  The ice in her bones and soul hadn’t left her in the drive back to her place, nor during the hot shower she’d taken a few minutes after arriving home.

  It stayed with her even now, a surreal reminder that only sixty minutes ago she’d been in Jax’s bed, his warm body spooned against hers, his soft snores tickling the back of her neck.

  Sixty minutes ago, she’d been in blissful, dozing heaven. And then the reality of the situation had hit her, had woken her completely with a cold fist to the heart and she’d left.

  She couldn’t let herself stay there in Jax’s bed, in his arms. Staying there changed the status quo of their already perilous situation. Just sex, no matter how incredible, did not include sleeping beside each other. It didn’t. And she had to remember just sex was what she and Jax were engaged in. Nothing more.