Getting Played (Heart of Fame #7)

by Lexxie Couper

  Rising to his feet, he shoved her jacket from her shoulders and tugged the hem of her shirt free of her skirt’s waistband.

  She shuddered, her belly hitching, her breath ragged.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, forcing himself to lift his stare from the sight of her breasts framed by the bunched lace of her bra. This was her place of work after all. And she was the dean. He didn’t want to put her career, her job in jeopardy.

  And yet if she said no, if she told him to stop…fuck, he didn’t think he could. Not now. Not knowing what he did. Not after finally realizing, too many years too late, what she meant to him. Really meant to him.

  “Are you sure?” he repeated, stroking his thumbs over the side swell of her breasts.

  She nodded. “I couldn’t be surer.”

  He snaked his hands behind her, found the zip of her skirt and lowered it, gazing into her face the whole time.

  Her skirt shimmied down over her hips, pooling at her feet. She shifted slightly, stepping out of the material and pushing it away with the toe of one cherry-red stiletto.

  Jax ran his stare over her body, his cock throbbing at what he saw.

  She stood before him, the skimpy lace triangle of her G-string covering her pussy, lace-topped suspender-less stockings covering her long legs, her open shirt hanging from her shoulders in the most seductive way, like an emerald frame of silk either side of her full, round breasts still cupped by the underwire of her bra.

  “Jesus, Nat…” His mouth went dry. His cock pulsed. “You are the most gorgeous, beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”

  She smiled. “Thank you.”

  He reached out a tender hand, tracing the five notes tattooed near her sex. “Tell me what they play?”

  She closed her eyes. “You’ll laugh at me.”

  He shook his head, body thrumming. The scent of her pleasure filled his very breath. Her heat radiated from her. Fuck, he needed to be inside her soon. Otherwise, he’d fucking come in his jeans. “I won’t,” he promised, the words raspy.

  Her breasts rose and fell as she pulled a slow breath and then opened her eyes and looked at him, her gaze steady. Direct.

  Vulnerable.

  “They were the first five notes of a love song I was writing for you between classes, back when we’d first moved in together,” she said, her voice husky. “I’d had the foolish notion it would one day be our wedding song.”

  Jax’s heart stopped. His blood roared in his ears. He swallowed, his cock no longer hard but a rigid pole of agony and arousal.

  A shy chuckle fell from her lips. “I got it done on the morning of the day we…we separated. It was meant to be a surprise, but you never got the chance to—”

  He yanked her to his body and crushed her lips, unable to hold off any longer. Kissed her, ravished her mouth.

  She returned his wild passion, fumbling with his belt, his fly. Undoing his jeans until his cock sprang free, jutting upright.

  She dropped to her knees, took him in her mouth, sucked his length, licked it. He groaned, a ripple of searing tension blooming at the base of his spine.

  Fisting his hand in her hair, he tugged her to her feet, assaulting her mouth again as he toed off his boots and shoved his jeans down his legs.

  She took his cock in her hand, pumped his length. Kneaded his balls. Dragged her lips down over his chin, his throat. Captured a nipple and sucked.

  He let out a strangled shout, the painful pleasure filling his dick with molten urgency.

  Not long now.

  “Fuck,” he rasped, staring at the ceiling as if he could see the sublime sounds of their moans and cries rising to it. “Fuck, Nat, I need to be inside you.”

  He lowered his head, snared her chin in a firm grip and slashed his tongue into her mouth, thrusting his hips forward, grinding his cock to her belly.

  “Now,” he damn near growled, squeezing her butt cheek as he pulled her harder to his groin. “Or I’ll come all over you and the floor.”

  She laughed, her eyes hazy with lust and pleasure, her breath shallow. She stepped away from him, moving to the side of the baby grand. She bent over it, spread her legs, arched her back, her butt facing him, her pussy glistening with her juices. “What are you waiting for, Campbell?” she asked over her shoulder, lips curling.

  He moved. Fast. Grabbed her wrist and spun her around. “I want to see your face when we come, gorgeous,” he murmured. “I want to look into your eyes and drown in the pleasure I see there. Our pleasure. Pleasure only we can give each other. Pleasure only we create in each other.”

  She closed her eyes with a whimper. A tormented frown pulled at her eyebrows. “Christ, Jax…” She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “I want that as well. So much.”

  Heart wild, blood on fire, he scooped her up from the floor and deposited her on top of the baby grand. He parted her thighs and licked her pussy in two slow, lingering strokes before moving to the stool and crawling onto the top with her.

  He moved over her. Pressed her to the piano’s smooth, glossed surface. Slid into her tight, wet heat. Buried himself inside her to the hilt.

  Possessed her.

  Not fucking her, but making love to her. Gazing down into her eyes as he made love to her.

  Love.

  Because he did. He loved her.

  There was no denying it anymore. No pretending he didn’t.

  He loved her.

  And he was going to spend the rest of forever doing everything he could to show her that. Every minute with her proving she was more than just the best sex of his life. Every minute proving those notes she’d inked into her skin weren’t a foolish notion, but a beautiful possibility.

  And hopefully, if he was fucking lucky, she’d never tell him it was time for him to go again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  For the next two weeks, Jax refused to look at any of the suggestions she presented to him for Nick’s replacement.

  Nat didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know whether to hit him or drown in the absolute pleasure of being with him.

  It wasn’t that he was dismissing the suggestions she made. He just wasn’t interested in even knowing about them. It didn’t matter how many times she brought the subject up, which she did every time she saw him—every single day and night—he either ended the topic by stripping her naked and fucking her senseless regardless of where they were. Inside the ladies loo in Sydney’s most exclusive restaurant had been the most exhilarating. Or he silenced her with a bone-melting, lingering kiss and changed the subject.

  For two weeks, it seemed he was less interested in finding a new lead singer for Synergy and more interested in being with her in any and every way imaginable. If she didn’t know Jax better, she’d think he was in love with her.

  Which was lunacy. He was Jaxon Campbell after all. Jax didn’t do love. Jax did sex.

  But damn, the last two weeks were so much more than sex.

  Two weeks of dinner dates. Two weeks of bringing her picnic lunches. Two weeks of taking her to art galleries and concert performances. Two weeks of relaxed conversation about mundane things and spirited discussion about the state of the world.

  Two weeks of love-making and hand holding and walks on the beach and everything wonderful and amazing and, goddamn him, perfect.

  Try as hard as she could—and she was trying damn hard—she could no longer deny he was wearing down her defenses, her resistance. Not her sexual resistance, but her emotional conflict. Hell, he only had to skim a hand up the inside of her thigh and she was his, lost to her desire for him.

  It was as if he’d come back into her life not with the purpose of finding a new singer for the band, but to seduce her. To make her want him more than it was humanly possible. Make her need him in her life.

  For fourteen days, she tried to keep the real reason for him being in Sydney front and centre with little luck.

  He just didn’t seem interested in finding a new singer. He only seemed interested in her.
/>   That made no sense at all.

  She’d heard him talk to the band on the phone about the song and the studio’s deadline for its completion. She’d heard him brush off the concerns of whoever was on the other end of the connection with casual ease, laughing at their stress.

  “It’s all good,” he said often. “I trust Boxhead to come through with the right person.”

  Every time she heard him make that claim, she reminded him he hadn’t listened to or even met any of her suggestions, a fact he also brushed off with a wave of his hand and a wink. “Don’t stress it, Nat. I have faith in you.”

  It was that faith, and the way she was growing to hunger their time together, that was worrying her.

  Determined to return to the original reason for their interactions, she decided to attempt subterfuge.

  She dragged him to rehearsal room four with the sole intention of forcing him to listen to one of her candidates, a final-year singing student who thankfully was not aware of his reason for being called out of class.

  Before Nat knew it, Jax struck up a conversation with the suddenly star-struck singer about the Sydney soccer team’s chances now Josh Blackthorne was no longer their key striker. He signed the young man’s guitar case and sent him on his way without ever hearing a note sung.

  She turned to Jax to berate him, but as always, he stole her frustrated confusion and anger with his lips and tongue.

  They made love right there on the floor of rehearsal room four, the same room they’d made love on the grand piano fourteen days ago. Jax brought her to orgasm twice with his mouth and fingers before, murmuring her name over and over, sank his length into her more-than-ready sex and coming with her as she climaxed a third time.

  When they left the room an hour later, Bruce was waiting for them opposite the door, a rare smile curling his lips.

  “Jesus,” she muttered, cheeks hot, tummy clenching. “How many times has your bodyguard heard me orgasm in the last two weeks?”

  “I thought you told me that room is sound proof?” Jax said, threading his fingers through hers as they walked away, Bruce a few steps behind.

  She whacked his stomach with the back of her hand. “That’s not the point.”

  Jax laughed. “I’ve lost count. He must like you though.”

  She flicked him a quick sideways glance. “Why’s that?”

  “I’ve never seen him smile before.” A comical frown creased his forehead. “Ever, now I think about it.”

  Nat had rolled her eyes. “Idiot.”

  He pulled her closer to his side and kissed her temple. “I can understand though,” he murmured, lips caressing her skin. “I kinda like you as well.”

  His proclamation filled her with such warm happiness she was barely able to draw breath as he walked her back to her office to take his leave of her for the rest of the day with a promise to collect her from work when she was finished.

  He did just that very thing and was waiting for her in the Con car park beside the sleek Aston Martin. He smiled at her as she walked toward him, smoothed his hands around her hips and brushed his lips over hers before telling her he was starving.

  They ate dinner at a crowded café close to the Con, swapping stories about famous people they interacted with, embarrassing situations they’d found themselves in. She told him about getting the job of dean, how her appointment had sent shockwaves through both the Australian music world and university education community. It wasn’t every day a youngish woman was awarded such a prestigious role, especially one who didn’t have political connections.

  “I got the job entirely on my merits,” she said, an innate sense of pride flowing through her. “On my teaching success. And have spent all the years since making my doubters eat crow.”

  He laughed. “Why do I have no trouble picturing that?”

  Her answering grin was wide. “Because you know me well?”

  “Better than anyone else in your life,” he murmured.

  She wanted to ask him why he was so sure. Wanted to tell him he was wrong, but he wasn’t. He did know her better than anyone else. Which should have unnerved her, given how long he’d been out of her life and how much she’d changed since they’d parted ways, but it didn’t. Instead, it made her feel…

  Happy. Gloriously, giddily happy.

  Even when two women approached and identified themselves as Jaxonfire groupies, suggesting—right in front of Nat—a threesome, she didn’t bat an eye.

  Because she knew he wouldn’t desert her for the groupies. Knew he was with her.

  And he didn’t desert her. He laughed off the women with a wink, that patented Jaxon Campbell smirk and a firm, “No thanks,” before turning back to her and resuming their conversation about the music industry’s deplorable sexualisation of young female singers in the current pop charts.

  They returned to his hotel suite after dinner and made love on the bed, in the shower, on the baby grand piano. They curled up and watched an old Matt Damon movie and then made love again. And she didn’t care when she woke in the morning still wrapped in his arms.

  Didn’t care at all. The complete opposite in fact. It was wonderful.

  Blissful.

  She slipped from his arms and took a quick shower. After a rather laughable attempt to make herself look half decent in her lust-discarded clothes, she kissed him on the lips, snickered at his sleepy command that she come back to bed and then rushed to work.

  Thank God, a taxi was quick to flag and the traffic nice to her.

  Giving Dory a quick wave as she strode to her office, she ran her hands over her crumpled suit pants. She really should have woken earlier this morning. Gone home before coming to work. Changed into something more appropriate. People were going to talk. If they weren’t already.

  Her belly fluttered with rebellious delight. Screw them. What she was doing with Jax didn’t impact on her job. And it was going to be over soon, if she could ever get him to actually listen to any of her selected candidates.

  Rounding her desk, she dumped her handbag on the floor beside her seat and prepared to sit.

  The first thing she saw on the polished mahogany surface—no doubt placed there for her by Dory—was a note from the chairman of the Con’s board, requesting a meeting ASAP.

  The second thing was a magazine, one of those trashy gossip magazines, with an image of her, Jax and Jeremy on the cover, under the heading: Love Triangle Sounds Off-Key.

  She looked at both and grinned, the rebellious delight in her tummy blooming into wicked joy. She’d known a life with Jax was never going to be boring. Looks like it had already be—

  She froze, her bottom halfway toward the cushioned seat of her chair, the sounds of Dory typing up something on the laptop in the outer office doing nothing to smother the rapid pounding of Nat’s heart in her ears.

  Cold realization crashed over her like a shower of icy pinpricks inside and out.

  A life with Jax?

  She blinked, staring at the magazine without really seeing it.

  Oh God, what the hell was she thinking? A life with Jax? Was she insane? Damn it, had she gone and done exactly what she’d told herself she wouldn’t? Had she fallen in love with the bastard? The very bastard who’d shrugged off their first relationship and stolen her AC/DC record without a backward glance?

  Had she?

  Had she?

  Lowering her butt to her seat completely, she pressed her palms to the smooth surface of her desk and drew a slow breath.

  She thought about her behavior, her attitude toward everything—the potential backlash from the board, the ridiculous attention from the media—and let out a strangled whimper.

  Oh fuck, she had. She’d fallen in love with Jaxon Campbell.

  Which was the most ridiculous, clichéd, woeful thing she’d ever done.

  Closing her eyes, she pressed her palm to her lips. Prickling heat crept over her, replacing the chill of her horrifying realization. Her belly rolled. Oh God, she was in love wi
th him. She’d told herself she wouldn’t let this happen. Told herself it was only ever allowed to be sex, and here she was, imagining a future with him, enjoying being with him on every level when they were together, not just a sexual one. Thinking about him with a dopey smile on her face when they weren’t together.

  Damn it, when had this happened? How had this happened? She’d been so adamant. So determined. She wasn’t going to fall in love with him. They weren’t meant to be a real couple. They weren’t.

  More to the point, what did she do about it?

  “End it,” she muttered, a sick weight settling low in the pit of her belly. “Bring it to an end now. Before you make a fool of yourself and he takes off again with something more important than a record.”

  Opening her eyes, her stomach a broiling mess, she woke up her office computer and pulled up the details of the only serious replacement for Nick Blackthorne she could think of.

  She stared at the screen, looking at the student there. “You better not say no,” she whispered. “After all the orgasms I’ve wasted…”

  The mocking statement died in her throat. The orgasms Jax had given her could never be considered wasteful, no matter how much of her heart and soul she’d lost to him with each one. She would draw on the memory of those orgasms, of him, long after he’d left. Long after the band, Synergy—with its new front man—had rocked the world again.

  Long after Jax returned to his wild Jaxon Campbell sex-maniac ways.

  Hitting the print shortcut on her computer’s keyboard, she stared blankly at the screen a while longer, allowing herself one last, long tormenting thought of Jax.

  And then she shut him from her mind completely and turned her full attention to work. The Dean of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s job was never done, after all.

  Six hours later, when Jax wandered into her office, long, lean legs snugged in black leather, sinewy torso wrapped in a black T-shirt and faded denim jacket, his smile relaxed and playful, she was ready.

  “Hey, Boxhead.” He crossed to the seat in front of her desk and flopped into it, lacing his hands behind his head. “You finished soon? I’ve got something special planned for the evening.”