Getting Played (Heart of Fame #7)

by Lexxie Couper

  Sonja burst out laughing. She stumbled back a step, holding her arms to her belly. “Oh boy, Stan. I see your sense of humour is still messed up.”

  Levi crossed the threshold in one step and closed the door behind her. “I’m not joking, Sonny.”

  The bubbling guffaws died in Sonja’s chest. She frowned, her brain refusing to comprehend the words coming out of Levi’s mouth. Holding up a hand, she backed another step away from him. “Wait, wait, wait.” She shook her head, staring up at him. “You’re serious?”

  He leant his back—broader than it used to be at school, she noticed—against the door and nodded. Sonja didn’t know if it was the beard, the tousled waves of dark honey-blonde hair or his unreadable eyes, but for the first time since he’d appeared back in her life it really truly dawned on her they were grownups now. Adults existing in a world of adult rules. And adult Levi was most likely used to getting whatever he wanted.

  She drew in a wobbly breath, her mouth dry. Unfortunately, the same state couldn’t be said for her sex. Already it was growing heavy and damp at the notion of doing stuff with Levi and his boyfriend.

  Corbin. Corbin Smith. He’s a famous, successful Hollywood screenwriter. And gay. Openly and proudly gay. Think about that, woman.

  Gnawing on her bottom lip, she folded her arms again and fixed Levi with an unwavering stare. “So you’re telling me you want me to have sex with you and your boyfriend.”

  “Partner. And yes.”

  “Your gay partner. I just need to make sure I’ve got all the facts straight here before we go on.”

  Levi crossed his ankles and nodded. “My gay partner. Yes.”

  Sonja’s pulse thumped hard in her ears. “You, Levi Levistan, want me to have sex with you and your gay partner? The man who came into Do Re Me last night and busted you kissing me. The one who seemed pretty bloody miffed about it. That gay partner?”

  Levi nodded once again.

  “And how does your gay partner feel about this? Can’t imagine he’s a fan.”

  Something hungry glinted in Levi’s eyes. “Corbin was the one who suggested it.”

  Sonja raised her eyebrows. “He what?”

  “He suggested it. After we made—” A haunted expression twisted Levi’s face. “After we fucked. After I fucked him.”

  For a split second, Sonja forgot how to breathe. Every cell in her brain deserted its normal function to process Levi’s ludicrous claim. A heavy weight strapped around Sonja’s chest. Her stomach clenched. Her throat tightened. Words failed her. No, not just words. Thoughts. There was no way in hell she had the ability to comprehend what Levi Levistan was telling her.

  It was too…too unbelievable.

  She opened her mouth. Closed it again.

  Nope. Not a single word.

  At the door, Levi watched her. Waited.

  She remembered this side of him well. It was one of the sides that had driven her crazy when they’d been hot and heavy at school. The side that let nothing show. No hint of what was going on in his head. Or his heart.

  Experiencing it again, she remembered all too easily how much it pissed her off.

  Pricking anger crashed over her. Suffocating her shocked stupor. “So this is how famous rock stars do things, is it? You just open your mouth and expect whatever it is you say to happen? You just make a call, get an address and turn up at your old girlfriend’s home and suggest a threesome? This is you now, is it?”

  Levi didn’t say anything. Just watched her.

  She threw up her hands. “Of course it is. Money, fame, groupies. Why wouldn’t you expect it? And I didn’t exactly fight you off in the bar, did I? So yeah, I can see exactly how that equals, ‘hey, Sonny, I know it’s been a while, but wanna be in a threesome with me and Corbin?’” She stopped her rant. Folded her arms over her breasts and glared at him.

  “You know,” he said, expression unreadable, “when you wave your hands around like that I can see your—”

  “Fuck you, Levistan,” she snarled, spinning on her heel and storming away from him.

  Her heart felt like a sledgehammer in her throat.

  She stomped into her living room, fighting to calm the charged energy thrumming through her.

  The nerve of the guy. Coming to her home and suggesting something so…so…

  Enticing?

  An image shot through her head from her last dream, the one responsible for all the pushups. Levi tracing his tongue up Corbin’s spine as Corbin’s tongue teased her right nipple.

  Her feet tripped over themselves. She stumbled a step, careened off the arm of her couch and plonked down with a grunt on the armchair situated beside it.

  “Damn you, Stan,” she muttered, scrubbing at her face with trembling hands. She knew he’d followed her into the living room. She could feel him. It was like he was a big, annoying magnet, an undeniable force that pulled on every fibre and molecule in her body.

  She didn’t lift her head when warm, long-fingered hands smoothed over her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Sonny,” he murmured, his breath warm on the back of her head.

  Letting out a huff—she was going hyper-ventilate soon with all the ragged, shaky, huffy breathing she’d been doing since he arrived—she shrugged off his touch. She didn’t want to. She’d always loved the feel of his warm palms on her body, even when she was too inexperienced to truly understand the significance of the response.

  Hell, the first time they’d spoken in the schoolyard he’d helped her up after she’d walked straight into a pole while staring at him. He’d been sitting outside the music block, plucking out a rhythm on one of the school’s acoustic guitars, his focus on the strings, his shaggy blonde hair hanging around his face, and she’d walked past him—an enthralled fifteen-year-old with an all-encompassing crush—unable to look away. Until she’d hit the pole and landed on her arse.

  He’d hurried over to her and smoothed his hands around her upper arms, worry in his eyes even as a friendly smile played with his lips.

  From that moment onward, she’d been defenseless against his hands.

  Did he remember that now?

  “Seriously, Stan.” She finally raised her head and glared at him. “What you’re doing, what you’re asking me to do, it’s a bit fucked up.”

  He sat perched on the edge of the coffee table in front of her, looking at her, so close his knees brushed hers. The faint caress of denim on Sonja’s bare skin sent a ripple of wanton sensations through her.

  Levi, the perceptive bastard, didn’t miss her body’s reaction. A knowing light danced in his eyes and he leant forward, holding her gaze with his. “And yet, you’re turned on by the request.”

  “I’m not going to sleep with you and your boyfriend, Levistan.”

  “But you want to.”

  Her belly clenched. Not just at the calm confidence of his statement, but at the truth in it.

  His music moves the world. Can his love move her heart?

  Love’s Rhythm

  © 2012 Lexxie Couper

  Heart of Fame, Book 1

  Nick Blackthorne knows all about words of love. They’re the reason he’s the world’s biggest rock star. The irony? He turned his back on love a long time ago, lured away by the trappings of fame.

  An invitation to a friend’s wedding is a stark reminder of how meaningless his life has become. When he enters that church, there’s only one woman he wants on his arm—the one he walked out on a lifetime ago. But first he has to find her, even if all she accepts from him is an apology.

  Kindergarten teacher Lauren Robbins once had what every woman on the planet desires. Nick. Their passion was explosive, their romance the stuff of songs…and it took fifteen years to get over him. Then out of the blue Nick turns up at her door, and all those years denying her ache for him are shattered with a single, smoldering kiss.

  But molten passion can’t hide the secret she’s kept for all these years. Because it’s not just her heart on the line anymore…and not just her life that’
ll be rocked by the revelation.

  Warning: Remember your first crush on a rock star? Now add smoldering sex, a raw and undeniable passion, soul-shattering orgasms. And secrets…

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Love’s Rhythm:

  “Hello, Lauren,” a deep male voice said behind her.

  Lauren squealed. An honest to goodness squeal. At the same exact second she spun on her heel and swung her satchel, weighed down with two textbooks, her uneaten lunch, car keys, half-empty water bottle, twenty-two hand-drawn self-portraits tucked in a sturdy cardboard folder, her purse and her iPad.

  The satchel smashed into the temple of the man standing behind her.

  There was a solid thud, a surprised oof, followed by an even more surprised, “shit, that hurt,” before the man went down like a bag of bricks, collapsing to the ground in one fluid, graceful drop. No, not just the man, the rock star. The rock star the whole world idolised, the one who’d grown up in this very parochial town with her.

  The rock star who’d stolen her heart in that life she refused to think about.

  Lauren’s mouth fell open. Her pulse turned into a sledgehammer. She stared at the motionless man lying at her feet, refusing to believe what her eyes were telling her. Nick Blackthorne was here in Murriundah, and she’d rendered him unconscious with the very satchel he’d given to her fifteen years ago.

  “Oh, no.”

  The words were a whispered breath. She dropped to her knees, the ground’s winter-damp seeping through the linen of her trousers as she reached out with one hand and gave Nick’s shoulder a gentle push. “Nick?”

  He didn’t move.

  Oh boy, Lauren, you’ve KOed the world’s biggest rock star.

  She shoved him again, a little harder this time. “Nick?”

  He didn’t make a sound. Not a bloody one.

  “Shit.”

  Her heart slammed into her throat, just as hard as the satchel had hit his head. She licked her lips and brushed a strand of his black hair from his forehead. He was just as gorgeous as always. Older, yes. He was almost thirty-seven after all, but the years looked good on him, so good. In fact, they suited him. When he’d been a teenager, he’d been god-like in his beauty. When he was in his twenties, that god-like beauty had verged on painful to look at. She’d spent many nights lying in the bed they’d shared for a year and a half, gazing at him while he slept, wondering at his perfection, her belly knotting with love, her sex constricting with longing. And then it had become just her bed, Nick nothing but a ghost in her heart.

  She’d stopped reading articles about him somewhere in his late twenties, knowing each one would only make her stupid heart ache. But it was impossible to avoid seeing images of him. He kept popping up on the national news. Australia loved one of their own, especially when they’d won a Grammy or Billboard Award, or when they were dating Hollywood royalty or British royalty, something Nick Blackthorne seemed to do on a regular basis. Even worse was the local Murriundah Herald, the small newspaper constantly keeping the town aware of their famous son and his activities. Those images were hard to escape, and when she had let herself stare at them for longer than a heartbeat, she’d noticed his late twenties and early thirties only elevated his looks to a lived-in sexiness. The tiny seams around his eyes, the lines by his nose, they all heightened what she’d never forgotten—Nick Blackthorne was a sexy, sexy man. And now here he was, unconscious on his side in the Murriundah Public School’s muddy playground, looking even sexier than she remembered.

  Damn it, what was he doing here? What the hell was he doing back here?

  For me?

  She frowned, shaking her head at the notion. No. Nick wouldn’t be here for her.

  Could be. Isn’t that what you’ve dreamed about for the last fifteen years?

  Her frown turned into a scowl. No, it bloody well wasn’t. She had moved on. She wasn’t still the naïve young woman with impossible fantasies and fairy-tale wishes of happy-ever-afters. And if he was here for her—her heart smashed harder into her throat at that thought—he could bloody well bugger off. The last thing she wanted was—

  He groaned. A barely audible noise deep in his chest.

  Lauren started, a tiny yelp slipping from her. “Nick?”

  She nudged his shoulder again, but the groan was about it. “Well, at least I know I didn’t kill you,” she muttered, giving him a glare. He lay there on the cold ground, long, lean body decked out in black jeans, a black shirt and a black leather jacket she knew would cost more than she earned in a month.

  Lauren rubbed at her mouth. What was he doing here? And was he alone? Surely he travelled with an entourage? A bodyguard? She’d seen enough paparazzi images of him to know there was usually a hulking great big guy shadowing him wherever he was. Where was that guy?

  She sat back on her haunches, studying the empty playground around her. There were no massive hulking great big guys running at her, which meant she would have to deal with the unconscious Nick.

  A tight twisting sensation stirred in the pit of her belly and she bit back a groan. She was not going to get all horny and excited at the idea of dealing with Nick. Besides, there wasn’t a hope in hell she could lift him by herself and carry him to her car, even if she wanted to. At five-foot-six and one-hundred-and-thirty pounds wringing-wet, she wasn’t exactly the lugging-unconscious-rock-stars-around type even if said unconscious rock star had more than once lay full-length atop her in bed, on the living room floor, the kitchen bench, the—

  Lauren slapped her hands to her face, killing the utterly insane train of thought. God, was she an idiot? What the hell was she doing thinking about Nick making love to her?

  “You a masochist, Lauren Robbins?” she snarled under her breath, grabbing at her satchel/instrument of destruction before digging her phone from its lethal contents.

  She turned it on, keying in Jennifer’s number. Hopefully, her best friend was sticking with Friday-afternoon tradition and had closed her vet clinic early. Jennifer was used to dealing with heavy, unresponsive animals, being the only vet in the district. Dealing with an unconscious Nick Blackthorne would be a breeze.

  “I’ve got the margaritas chilling in the fridge already,” Jennifer Watson said the moment the connection was made, not bothering with any kind of greeting. “Tell Josh you’ll be home later than normal tonight.”

  “I’ve got a problem, Jen,” Lauren answered, trying hard not to let her gaze roam over Nick. Trying but failing, damn it.

  “What’s up? And if you tell me you’re marking school books I’m coming over there to thump you.”

  “I’m not marking school books, Jen.” Lauren rolled her eyes. “Now shut up and listen carefully.”

  Jennifer made a dramatic ooh sound before laughing. “Okay, Miss Robbins, I’m listening. What’s your boggle?”

  Lauren bit at her bottom lip. “Umm, you know how I told you I once dated Nick Blackthorne?”

  Jennifer let out a sharp snort. “You mentioned it in passing years ago and never let me bring up the subject again. Is this a confession? Did you lie to me? Or are you going to tease me some more with tales of your past? Did you also date Hugh Jackman? Guy Pearce? Geoffrey Rush?”

  Lauren laughed, rolling her eyes. “No, I didn’t. But I did date Nick Blackthorne.”

  “And I’m going to say the same thing I said when you told me before—lucky bitch. Now tell me what’s up?”

  Lauren took a deep breath. “Well, he’s here now.”

  Silence answered her. For a good twenty seconds or so. Then Jennifer said, “Nick Blackthorne is here?” Her voice, normally calm and laced with mirth, like she knew a really funny joke and was on the verge of sharing it, raised an octave. “In Murriundah?”

  Lauren gazed at Nick’s face, his stormy-grey eyes shuttered by thick black lashes resting on cheekbones high and strong. A decidedly purplish bruise was beginning to make itself known on the side of his face. “In Murriundah,” she answered on a sigh.

  Jennifer
made a strangled little sound. “And?”

  “And I just knocked him unconscious in the school playground.”

  “What the—”

  Lauren jerked the phone from her ear.

  “What the hell do you mean you just knocked him unconscious?” Jennifer continued, her voice far from calm and loud enough Lauren could hear each word even with the phone nowhere near her ear. “Why? With what? And why? Jesus Christ, Robbins, who are you really and what—”

  Lauren returned her phone to her ear. “Jenny!” she snapped, “I don’t have time right now. I need your help. I can’t move Nick by myself and I can’t leave him on the ground. He’ll catch a cold—”

  “A cold?” Jennifer interrupted. “You can’t leave him on the ground because he’ll catch a cold? How ’bout you can’t leave him on the ground because he’s Nick Blackthorne?”

  Getting Played

  Lexxie Couper

  It all starts with sex under a desk…

  Heart of Fame, Book 7

  After yet another month without a lead singer, the band Synergy is on the verge of calling it quits. Which drives Jaxon Campbell, keyboardist and perpetual player, to do something dangerous—hit up a woman with contacts—and curves—in all the right places. Trouble is, the last time he saw her, he kind of broke her heart. And stole her cherished, autographed AC/DC album.

  Natalie Thorton, Dean of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, knows everyone who’s anyone in Australia’s music industry. She’s driven and utterly professional and doesn’t have room in her schedule for relationships.

  When Jaxon strides into her office, all of Natalie’s suppressed sexual urges—the ones born in Jax’s arms—surge to the surface. He wants something from her? Well, she wants something from him. Orgasms. Lots of them.

  How can Jax say no? He’s never forgotten her, and it’s not like they’re going to fall in love. But just who’s playing who? And whose heart is going to fall first?