by Nicola Marsh
His eyebrows shot up. ‘You think this guy’s going to be a star?’
‘It’s not about being a star. It’s about being heard...’ She trailed off, remembering using the same words to convince her parents why she had to follow her dream.
They’d scoffed and berated and lectured, completely clueless that her passion for music stemmed from more than teaching, that she too ultimately wanted to be heard.
Not for fame or stardom, but for the simple fact that if one person got as much pleasure from listening to her music as she had from Harry’s, she’d feel vindicated.
Harry had understood. It was why he’d fostered her talent and love of music. Or maybe that had been more about his desire to plagiarise her songs than any real interest in furthering her musical career. Bastard.
‘There’s a story in there somewhere, right?’
She nodded. ‘I’m classically trained. Attended the best music conservatory in Paris. My folks expected me to return to England and take up a position in a world-class orchestra they would’ve used contacts to get me into.’
‘You didn’t want that?’ His intense stare unnerved her. Why didn’t he down his beer and leave? If she’d found the rugged tradesman sexy, this softer, intuitive guy had the power to make her unravel.
‘No, I wanted freedom. To be my own person. To make my own choices. To follow my own dreams.’
‘I can understand that.’ Tension bracketed his mouth and he swiped a hand over his face, but not before she glimpsed pain. ‘So this recording studio you’re setting up is the real deal?’
Rather than bristling at his suggestion she was doing nothing more than dabbling, she took a sip of her drink. ‘Yeah, it’s real. I want to record my songs and songs like this guy is playing. Not for the masses, but for the simple listening pleasure for people who enjoy the indie scene.’
He tilted his head, studying her as though he couldn’t figure her out. ‘You’ve already proven you’re not stereotypical, but what made you change from the classics to this?’
He wrinkled his nose and gestured at the guitarist, who’d moved onto a soulful ballad of loss and heartbreak. The lyrics spoke of untold sadness and she could identify. She’d been despondent once, to the point of losing her appetite and her focus. She’d trusted Willem, incredibly starry-eyed and optimistic in the throes of first love, and he’d upended her well-ordered life.
He’d deliberately targeted her, not that she’d known it at the time, and made her fall in love. It had been a magical, whirlwind three months that had come crashing down when she’d discovered the truth.
That he’d never loved her; that he’d used her as a means to an end; that she was expendable.
Music had been her saviour. It hadn’t been the first time she’d turned to music for comfort but in those weeks following the break-up with Willem it had provided her with the impetus to get out of bed in the morning. She’d written songs, listened to her favourites on repeat for hours and spent days watching Harry jam with his band, when she hadn’t been moaning about her imploded relationship, that was.
Harry had known what Willem had meant to her, had known what those songs she’d written soon after represented. Yet he’d betrayed her regardless.
Her eyelids grew hot, her throat scratchy, as she quashed the memory of lost love and shattered friendship. Tears burned the backs of her eyes and she blinked. This wasn’t good and she had to give Logan something so he’d stop studying her so intently.
‘There was a guy...’
His lips compressed and his eyes narrowed slightly, and for a moment Hope wanted to laugh at the thought of a guy she barely knew being jealous. It was nothing more than a typical male reaction, needing to be dominant and front and centre in her mind.
‘Harry was like a dad to me.’ She bit her bottom lip to clamp down on the urge to bawl. ‘When my parents said no to me learning drums, Harry taught me on the sly. He was an old rocker who lived in a village near us and his band toured the country playing at pubs like this.’
She swallowed, willing the urge to cry to subside. ‘He got me hooked on the indie movement, the kind of music that doesn’t conform, the kind of music that can change things.’ She thumped a fist over her heart. ‘In here. It’s magic.’
She’d been so caught up in the euphoria and the way Harry had brought music to life that she hadn’t seen him for what he was—a clever liar—until it had been too late.
Even now, all these years later, she couldn’t fathom how he’d been able to do that to her. How he could have taken four of her original songs and passed them off as his own.
She’d been young, naïve and starting in an industry that terrified as much as enthralled. She’d trusted him implicitly, especially after the balls-up of her relationship with Willem, another narcissistic liar.
Those songs after the break-up with Willem had been good. Heck, she could say objectively they were brilliant. Harry had thought so too, enough to steal them and obliterate her trust in people once and for all.
‘It may sound corny but music doesn’t just inspire me, it’s my life,’ she said, her voice wavering with emotion and she hurriedly cleared her throat.
Logan stared at her, wide-eyed, the silence filled with the guitarist’s crooning. He leaned forward to whisper in her ear, ‘You have no idea how turned on I am right now by your passion.’
It was just the distraction she needed from her mawkish thoughts and this time, when she nibbled on her bottom lip, it was to stop herself from nibbling on him.
‘I love what I do,’ she said with a bashful shrug. ‘Not many people understand the dream. They see me as some rich bitch dabbling in music because I can. They don’t take me seriously because I have the money to back me if I fail.’
His eyes blazed with fierceness. ‘Don’t let the dickheads drag you down. You have a dream. You go for it.’
His unexpected protectiveness made her want to snuggle into his arms, so she defused the situation. No good could come of wanting to get closer. ‘And I will, if your company is as good as you proclaim at getting the job done right.’
‘I’m the best.’ He winked, as if sensing her need to lighten the mood. ‘As I’m sure you can attest to.’
‘We’re not talking about your construction skills any more, are we?’
‘There can be a tool belt involved next time if you want.’
She arched an eyebrow, deliberately provocative. ‘There’s going to be a next time?’
‘Only if you’re lucky,’ he murmured, trailing a fingertip down her bare arm, leaving a trail of goose bumps.
Their eyes locked and in that moment, with the heat from their earlier encounter still pulsating through her body, the guitarist’s soft melody filling her with yearning, and Logan’s teasing touch, she really wanted to get lucky again.
CHAPTER NINE
LOGAN HAD PICKED up the phone to call Hope over the weekend because the passion she’d shown at the pub four nights ago intrigued him.
Not solely because of the alley sex, which had been beyond hot, but because he’d never seen a woman so into her work. She’d practically glowed when she’d talked about her music. This, after he’d watched her listen to that guitarist, transfixed, eyes wide, mouth open, like she couldn’t get enough. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told her it was a turn-on. Seeing her so completely in the moment, after the sensational sex, ensured he’d been hard every time he thought about it. Which had been too often over the weekend.
When they’d parted at the pub, he’d sensed her withdrawal. She’d been cool and aloof, shaking his hand after he’d walked her to her car. Shaking his fucking hand, as if he was some inconsequential acquaintance. Considering the way she’d come onto him in the first place, then later shared all that stuff about her music, he’d expected more.
He’d got bupkis.
After the way they’d hoo
ked up he’d expected her to call, and when she didn’t he wanted to. Three times. More. So he’d settled for a text, a brief greeting with a ‘How are you?’ kind of thing. She’d responded with a terse ‘Fine, see you Tuesday’, which had put him firmly back in his place.
It surprised him, her ability to have sex like a man. Then again, what did he really know about her? She’d been cool initially, had morphed to hot, then reverted to cool again. Maybe this was a game she played with all guys? More to the point, why did he care?
He had to be thinking with his dick. The sex had been phenomenal so he wanted more of it; it stood to reason. But he couldn’t ignore his insistent voice of reason that made him remember how much he’d enjoyed seeing her light up while listening to that dude in the pub, meaning she intrigued him beyond the sex.
Dawn streaked the Melbourne sky as he pulled up outside Hope and Harmony. His team was arriving at seven so he’d made sure he got there at six. Stepping from his ute, he shrugged into a suit jacket and adjusted his tie. He hated getting dressed up, preferring the good old days when he’d been on the tools, wearing shorts, a T-shirt and a high-visibility safety vest. But he always arrived on the first day of any job in a suit, intent on being the model CEO instilling confidence in the clients, and this job would be no different.
However, as he knocked softly on the glass door and glimpsed Hope moving through the shadows at the back of the shop, he knew he was kidding himself. The instant hardening of his cock and the accelerated heart beat meant that seeing her again after what they’d done in that alley behind the pub ensured this job was different.
She unlocked the door and let him in, locking it behind him. ‘Did you have to get here at the crack of dawn?’
Even bleary-eyed and frowning, with her hair caught up in a messy ponytail and a raspy voice that wouldn’t win any singer of the year contests, she was gorgeous with that just-tumbled-out-of-bed look that had him hankering to take her back there.
‘Not a morning person, I see,’ he said, resisting the urge to kiss her cheek as the faintest waft of her rose fragrance tickled his nose.
‘I’m a muso. We keep late hours. What do you think?’ She continued grumbling under her breath as she stalked ahead of him, doing some weird stretching thing with her arms and shoulders. ‘Coffee’s on if you want some.’
‘Would love a cup.’ He followed her, checking out her ass. She wore grey yoga pants and a matching hoodie. But what captured his attention was the VPL. A visible panty line meant she didn’t go commando all the time. Or was she trying to send him some unspoken signal that what had happened between them had been strictly a one-off?
‘Help yourself,’ she muttered as they entered a small kitchenette and she pointed to a state-of-the-art coffee machine tucked into the corner of the narrow bench top. ‘I need to inhale this caffeine otherwise I’m not fit to be around humans.’
She sat at a table for two, picked up a mug and cradled it between her hands. She lifted it to her face and inhaled the steam first before taking a slurp. ‘Ah...so good...’
Logan gritted his teeth and turned away before she spotted his boner, her appreciative moan for coffee eliciting a clear memory of how appreciative she’d sounded when he’d made her come.
He poured himself a large coffee and joined her at the table. The thing was tiny and their knees jostled, before she surreptitiously slid her chair back a fraction. That subtle movement away from him confirmed it. She wanted to re-establish distance between them despite going at him behind the pub. Fine, he could do cool and aloof too, and as they sipped in silence he inwardly cursed his stupid expectations that in arriving early they might get back on solid ground.
When she’d emptied the mug, she set it down and eyeballed him. ‘Right, now that the caffeine has jump-started my brain, what are you doing here so early?’
He couldn’t admit the truth—that a part of him had hoped to take the edge off his usual morning boner—so he settled for ‘I always scope out a job on the first day before the tradies arrive.’
‘Bollocks,’ she said, the English version of ‘bullshit’ making him grin. ‘And why are you wearing a suit?’
Damn, he liked how she wasn’t backward in coming forward. Most women he’d been involved with casually would hedge around questions and play stupid mind games that made him lose his shit. Hope was different, but he’d already figured that out considering the way they’d fucked in an alley.
‘I’m the boss.’ He flicked an imaginary fleck of lint from his lapel in mock fastidiousness. ‘It pays to make a good impression with the clients.’
‘You’ve already done that,’ she murmured, meeting his eyes without qualm, the jade flecks glowing with unexpected fervour.
‘Do tell.’
He threw it out there as a challenge, wanting her to articulate how good they’d been together up against that alley wall, and how badly she wanted to do it again, like he did. Instead, her gaze slid away and he quelled his disappointment with a gulp of coffee.
‘Are we still on track for the job to be finished in two weeks?’ She reverted to coolly distant and he wanted to rattle her out of her deliberate temerity so much his teeth ached.
But he settled for an equally sedate ‘Absolutely. My men are the best and when we give timelines we stick to them.’
She toyed with a crumb on the table top, her forefinger pushing it around. ‘Will you be here every day?’
‘No.’
Fuck this; he never played games and he wasn’t about to start now. His hand snaked across the table and covered hers. She jumped and her startled gaze flew to his. ‘Unless you want me to be.’
Her tongue darted out to moisten her bottom lip and his cock twitched. He glimpsed excitement in her eyes before she snatched her hand out from under his. ‘No, that’s fine, I was just wondering.’
Now it was his turn to call bullshit. ‘What’s up with you?’
She focussed on the cupboard above his right shoulder. ‘Nothing.’
‘Okay, have it your way.’
Disappointed, he stood and headed for the sink, where he dumped the rest of his coffee and rinsed the mug before placing it upside down on the rack to drain.
‘Hey.’ Her hand touched his waist and he resisted the urge to spin around, lift her onto the sink and bury himself in her. ‘I’m sorry for being an idiot.’
‘Maybe you can’t help being one,’ he said, turning to find a smile playing about her mouth.
‘At the risk of sounding like the idiot you think I am, I don’t do well with unexpected outcomes. I’m a planner. I have clear goals and lists. Having sex with you disrupted my plans and my sleep and now seeing you again today makes me flounder and I don’t like feeling out of control—’
He slanted his mouth across hers, a soft, tender kiss when he wanted to devour her. But she needed the reassurance and he wasn’t an emotionless dickhead who took advantage of a situation.
Because he didn’t know her well enough, he’d had no idea her aloofness was the result of confusion. He’d pegged her for a reserved ice princess at the start and assumed she’d reverted to type. If he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head all weekend, maybe she’d been the same.
She made a soft mewling sound and slipped her arms up around his neck, angling her mouth to give him better access. She tasted of coffee with a hint of vanilla. Delicious and enticing and addictive.
When she pressed against him he claimed her mouth with deeper precision, his hands drifting to her ass, loving the way the globes filled his palms.
She eased away too soon. ‘I have a room, a miniature recording studio off the main teaching area.’ Her eyes glittered with intent. ‘It’s soundproof,’ she added.
Not that it mattered. While it was only the two of them here, he had every intention of making her scream.
‘You know I didn’t come here early just for
this,’ he said, taking her hand when she offered it. ‘I wanted to make sure everything was okay between us after what happened at the pub.’
‘Liar. You wanted to get laid as badly as I do.’ Mischief twinkled in her eyes. ‘But don’t sweat it. We’ll be respectable by the time your crew arrives.’
Grateful for her bluntness, he made a grand show of glancing at his watch. ‘So that means I have forty-five minutes to allow you to disrespect me?’
‘And I intend on making every one of those minutes count.’ She squeezed his hand and led him out of the kitchenette.
He’d meant it when he’d said he hadn’t come here early for sex—though the thought had crossed his mind several times since waking with a boner and knowing he’d be seeing her shortly—but having her clearly articulate she wanted to fuck made him glad he’d arrived before his tradesmen, as she led him past the grand piano and into a tiny room that could barely fit them.
‘This is snug,’ he said when she nudged him to one side in order to close the door.
‘That’s the whole idea.’ She grabbed the lone chair and turned it around before guiding him to sit. ‘All the better to be closer to you.’
‘What are you, the big, bad wolf?’
‘Yeah, and I’m going to gobble you all in one go.’
She knelt at his feet and reached for his zipper. He imagined her mouth wrapped around him, those lips moving over his cock, sucking him...
‘Wait.’ He stilled her hand and tugged her up until she straddled his lap. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I love a blow job like the next bloke, but I’ve fantasised about being inside you all weekend so that’s what I want.’
Her lips parted and her tongue darted out to moisten her bottom lip as she gave a brief nod. ‘Okay.’
He liked this about her—no fuss, no need for extraneous explanations—as she stood and shimmied out of her yoga pants, taking purple panties with them, leaving him a glorious view of her neatly trimmed pussy at eye level. The alley sex had been hot but he liked this way too, being able to see her. As if sensing his need, she unzipped the hoodie and slipped it off, revealing small, pert breasts with perfect pink nipples. No bra. Nice.