Table of Contents
BANGED
Copyright
LUST’S RHYTHM
AUTHOR’S NOTE
DEDICATION
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
MORE FROM LEXXIE COUPER
OTHER TITLES BY LEXXIE COUPER
ABOUT LEXXIE COUPER
THE ROCK STAR’S SECRET BABY
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
EPILOGUE
MORE FROM ZARA KEANE
OTHER BOOKS BY ZARA KEANE
ABOUT ZARA KEANE
THREE NIGHTS WITH A ROCK STAR
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
EPILOGUE
MORE FROM AMBER LIN & SHARI SLADE
OTHER BOOKS BY SHARI SLADE
OTHER BOOKS BY AMBER LIN
ABOUT SHARI SLADE & AMBER LIN
FORBIDDEN ROCK STAR
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
MORE FROM MADELYNNE ELLIS
OTHER BOOKS BY MADELYNNE ELLIS
ABOUT MADELYNNE ELLIS
PAINKILLER
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
EPILOGUE
MORE FROM CARI & TARYN
OTHER BOOKS BY CARI & TARYN
ABOUT TARYN & CARI
DIRTY
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
MORE FROM AINSLEY BOOTH
ABOUT AINSLEY BOOTH
MORE THAN MUSIC
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
MORE FROM ELIZABETH BRIGGS
OTHER BOOKS BY ELIZABETH BRIGGS
ABOUT ELIZABETH BRIGGS
RESISTOR
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
MORE FROM MADELYNNE ELLIS
OTHER BOOKS BY MADELYNNE ELLIS
ABOUT MADELYNNE ELLIS
BANGED
(Rock Stars, Bad Boys & Dirty Deeds)
Featuring the bands:
Black Halo
Broken
Confetti Underground
Half-Life
Paradise Kiss
Rebel Rage
Tabitha Leyton
and
Villain Complex
Banged. First Digital Edition. November 2015
“Forbidden Rock Star” Copyright © Madelynne Ellis 2015.
“The Rock Star’s Secret Baby” Copyright © Zara Keane 2015.
“Dirty” Copyright © Ainsley Booth 2015.
“Lust’s Rhythm” Copyright © Lexxie Couper 2015.
“Painkiller” Copyright © Cari Quinn & Taryn Elliott 2015.
“Three Nights with a Rock Star” Copyright © Shari Slade & Amber Lin 2014.
“More Than Music” Copyright © Elizabeth Briggs 2014.
“Resistor” Copyright © Madelynne Ellis 2015.
Cover Art by Zoe York toodles
Enquiries: www.madelynne-ellis.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or to events or places is coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.
License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase additional authorized copies. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the authors.
Lust’s Rhythm
(A Heart of Fame Book)
by
Lexxie Couper
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LUST’S RHYTHM featuring BROKEN ~
She's the daughter of rock royalty. He's been warned off her by her famous father. But Jed Brody has lusted after Chloe Blackthorne for four years, and when Chloe lets him know the lust is entirely mutual, nothing will stop the bad boy of rock claiming her as his.
Career be damned.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Dear Readers, Lust’s Rhythm is part of the Heart of Fame series. It can be totally read as a standalone, but if hot, sexy rock stars are your thing the Heart of Fame series is full of them ☺
DEDICATION
For my husband, who is supportive and loves me for exactly who I am…no matter how much I frustrate the hell out of him.
ONE
She was death on two long, sublime, sexy legs.
She was shattered dreams and sinful desires.
She was a career destroyer.
She was unobtainable.
Untouchable.
Fuck, he wanted her.
Had for a long time. Years. Since the first time they’d come face to face, at a gala event honouring her father, Jed had wanted her.
She’d
been twenty-one at the time. Already making a name for herself in the music world, although not the world he existed in. She’d looked incredible, her hair a mass of copper-red curls that hung to the middle of her back, her creamy skin flawless, her lips luscious and glossed with a candy-pink he immediately wanted to taste. Lick. Bite.
Chloe Blackthorne. The only daughter of Nick Blackthorne, a man who had once been the world’s hottest rock star. A man with more influence and clout in the music world than anyone else, even now.
A living phenomenon.
Her older brother, Josh—also rock royalty—had walked beside her along the red carpet leading into the Sydney Opera House, earning just as many squeals of adoration and delight as Nick, who’d flanked her other side, but Jed had only had eyes for Chloe.
Her smile for the cameras and the screaming fans of her father and brother had been sincere and warm.
Her body had been the stuff of sexual fantasies—nubile and encased in a shimmering, silvery slip of curve-hugging fabric that trailed behind her on the carpet and exposed her right thigh in a slit that stopped just below her hipbone.
Nick had jokingly tried to close that slit often when she posed for the cameras at various stages. Her mother had rolled her eyes every time.
Jed hadn’t been able to move.
He’d watched the slow progression up the steps, a distant part of him aware his name was being shouted by fans and photographers, that more than one of the camera flashes lighting up the dusk sky were illuminating his face.
He was, after all, if Rolling Stone magazine was to be believed, one of the “Hottest New Rockers of the Decade”.
He should have been acknowledging the fans, the cameras.
Instead, he’d watched Chloe mount the steps leading up to the Sydney Opera House with her family.
Their eyes had clashed when she’d reached the top.
Barely a few feet from where he’d stood, she’d looked his way. It was as if an invisible jolt of liquid electricity had sunk into his very existence.
He’d smiled.
She’d smiled back.
He’d stepped forward to introduce himself, to say hello to Nick—a man he’d spoken to a few times at various events…when he’d managed to pluck up the courage to do so, that was.
Nick had steered Chloe away. Had given Jed a quick glance as if to say, not a hope in fucking hell, dude.
He and Chloe had never been within speaking distance at the same time since. They’d been in the same city, the same hotel. He’d even gone to one of her performances, the one where she’d played his first single as her encore. She’d looked up from her cello during the performance and found him sitting in the second row. Their eyes had connected, and she’d gone back to playing.
They’d been on each other’s horizons for a long time, but never close enough to speak.
Until now.
Four years later.
Four years of lusting after her from afar as their respective careers took off. Went stellar. In Chloe’s case, stratospheric.
She was not only recognized as the world’s best cellist, her music had been piped into outer space by the crew on the International Space Station.
The darling of the classical music world. The Untouchable.
If he spoke to her now, at the post-Grammys party hosted by her brother, would he wake up tomorrow to discover his career in tatters? That’s what her father had threatened last year. When Jed had asked of her at the Billboard Awards, Nick had looked him straight in the eyes, his smile relaxed, and said “Jed Brody, if you even think of coming near my daughter, I will make sure you never sign another record contract again.”
Protective-father vibes had radiated from him. A tsunami’s worth of them.
Jed understood. His reputation wasn’t exactly the kind fathers approved of; especially fathers who had lived the life Jed currently lived. Nick Blackthorne had existed in the world Jed existed in now. He knew exactly what that world was like, and Jed was known to live it large. Wild.
Sex, drugs, rock and roll.
Save for the drugs, that was Jed’s life. The drugs didn’t enter the equation, thanks to a mother who’d raised him to know what shit was good for him and what wasn’t. Drugs, all kinds, fell into the latter category. Fuck, he didn’t even drink coffee.
But that didn’t stop his reputation getting wilder and wilder. He was the epitome of a rock star. His agent made sure of it. With every Number One hit Jed released, the stories of his excesses and extravagances grew.
Some of them were true.
Most of them.
Some of them haunted him…
Through the writhing throng of partygoers, Jed watched Chloe kiss her brother on the cheek, her smile warm.
He saw her lips—just as luscious as the first time he’d seen them—form the words I’m heading off.
Jed’s gut knotted.
They’d circled each other all night, never speaking, but finding each other’s gazes often.
Enough for Jed to now find himself in a permanent state of semi-arousal. Enough for his date—some rom-com starlet his agent had suggested he take—to ask if he and Chloe wanted to get a room. “I’ll go down on her, if you like,” she’d offered.
Going. Chloe was going. Leaving.
And he hadn’t—
She turned away from her brother and looked at him.
Straight at him.
Eyes the colour of the ocean during a storm regarded him, an undeniable question in their grey depths: Well?
The knot in his gut twisted. His balls throbbed. His cock did the same.
Jesus fucking Christ, was Chloe Blackthorne giving him the—
A throaty laugh fell from Chloe’s curled lips, making its way to where Jed stood. She arched an eyebrow, raked a slow inspection over him, from head to toe and back to head again, and then turned to her right and began weaving her way through the party.
She didn’t look back at him. Not once.
Jed swallowed.
A prickling sensation razed his face; an unerring sensation someone stared at him.
Dragging his gaze from Chloe, he looked back to where her brother stood.
Josh Blackthorne, lead singer of Synergy, four-time Grammy winner, studied him for a long moment and then, face as close to calm menace as Jed had ever seen, slowly shook his head.
Jed sucked in a sharp breath.
Like his father, Josh had a lot of pull in the industry. He was well respected, had contacts everywhere, and knew everyone.
Including Jed’s agent and manager.
Josh wasn’t someone you wanted to piss off.
Drawing in another breath, Jed tapped the brim of an invisible hat on his head, flashed Josh a grin, and made his way through the party. In the opposite direction Chloe had headed.
Fuck, what was he doing?
He wanted her so much his balls ached. So why was he not going after her?
Because she is the Untouchable.
He bit back a growl and kept weaving through the crowd, his cock—now fully engorged—straining against his jeans at an uncomfortable angle.
The Untouchable.
Named as such by the media due to her unparalleled, incomparable talent on the cello. Named so in Jed’s mind due to Nick’s threat to destroy his career if he even looked at her.
The Untouchable.
He wanted to do more than touch her.
He wanted to bury himself between her—
Warm, slim fingers curled around his wrist, tugging him to a halt.
Fuck. The starlet. I forgot. What’s her name again? Jed thought as he turned, fake smile in place.
“I think we’ve waited long enough,” Chloe Blackthorne said, closing the small distance between them in a single graceful step. “Don’t you?”
Hot lust flooded Jed, a heartbeat before she threaded her fingers into the hair at his nape and pulled his lips down to hers.
The kiss didn’t last long, barely a few seconds, but it was long
enough to completely steal Jed’s sanity. And sense of decorum.
With a savage, hungry growl—fueled not just by his long-suppressed desire for Chloe, but shock at her unexpected action—he grabbed her arse and yanked her hard to his hips, taking full possession of her mouth.
He felt her laugh against his lips, felt her roll the curve of her sex against his trapped erection, and then she was pulling away from him.
Putting space between them.
Breath far choppier than it had been for quite some time, Jed studied her. “That’s it? After all this time?”
Her lips curled at his goading question. “I think we can firmly say no.”
He narrowed his eyes. His groin had turned into a throbbing world of impatient agony. “So, what makes tonight different? Why have we been waiting for four years?”
“Since the first time we first saw each other on the Sydney Opera House steps, you mean?”
“Since then, yes.”
Her smile grew wider. “At the big shindig to celebrate the awesomeness of my father?”
Jed nodded. Around them, the wild party continued. A part of him wanted to slide a look towards where her brother had last been standing, but the rest of him feared when he returned his attention to Chloe, she’d be gone.
“I was a good girl then,” she answered, a gleam in her eyes he suspected the devil would be jealous of.
“Then?”
It was her turn to nod.
Pulling in a slow breath, he deliberately raked a long, slow inspection over her. Turned the gaze into a visual, debauched undressing.
Let’s see if she’s still a good girl.
She didn’t squirm or fidget, despite the hungry way he looked at her.
His pulse kicked up a notch. His breath grew quicker. His balls…fuck, could they be any more swollen?
“And now?” he asked, closing the distance between them in a single step.
“Now I’m not.”
Jed held her stare. She didn’t blink.
“You’re playing with fire, Chloe,” he murmured.
She’s playing with fire? What happens if Josh sees this? If her father hears of it?
“I’m sure you’ve heard of my reputation,” he continued, drawing closer still. “And I’ve never been a good boy.”
That devilish glint danced in her stormy eyes again. “I call bullshit on your reputation. And I think good is the perfect word to describe you.”
Jed clenched his jaw. His pulse pounded in his throat.
Was she calling his bluff? Or did Chloe, a woman he’d never spoken to but whom he’d desired from afar, know him better than every other person in his life?
BANGED: Rock Stars, Bad Boys & Dirty Deeds Page 1