Blame It on the Bass (25 page)

With a chuckle, Corbin shoved her feet from his thigh and rose to his feet. “Shall go get you a copy, m’lady.”

Levi frowned at Corbin’s woeful Sean Connery accent. Sonja however, burst out laughing. “Thanks, Hugh.”

With a wink and a grin, Corbin sauntered from the room. It dawned on Levi he’d never seen his lover so relaxed. A pang of tension shot through his chest. It was…wonderful.

“So, when are you really going to stop being a fuck knuckle jerk, Stan?”

Levi startled at Sonja’s low question. He swung to face her, a prickling heat razing over his flesh. “I’m sorry?”

She shook her head, a serious expression set on her face. “I’ll be the first to admit what the three of us have been doing today is fucking amazing and incredible and any other hyperbolic adjective of the same ilk, but I can see you’re still holding back. Keeping us both at arm’s length. Now I’m okay with that, given that I’m pretty much the third wheel in this relationship—”

“The band aid?” he suggested, using Sonja’s own term from a lifetime ago. In his gut, a heavy weight churned. Was she more than that? Why did the idea of a life devoid of Sonny’s energy and sarcasm fill him with a cold emptiness?

“A band aid.” She nodded. “That’s it. I know I’ve only been brought into this relationship as a band aid, but I can’t bite my tongue any longer.”

“Then let me bite it,” he interjected. He didn’t want to hear what was coming next. “Or let Cor bite it while I watch. Or suck on your gorgeous tits. Or fuck you with my—”

“Don’t try and deflect, Stan.” Her serious expression grew stern. And worried. It turned her face into something beyond beautiful. Ah, Christ, he really could fall in love with her all over again. Perhaps he already was given how much she stirred him.

“I know what you’re doing and I’m not going to hold my peace. You love Corbin more than anything. I can see that. And holy shit, he loves you. You could power the fucking world on the force of his love for you, but Levi, you’ve got to let him into all of you. You can’t keep part of you locked away from him. It’s killing him. Fuck, it’s killing you. And it’s killing your relationship.”

Levi studied her, hot blood roaring in his ears. “And Corbin told you this? While I was away and the pair of you were getting chummy?”

If Sonja was unsettled by the angry tone in his voice, she didn’t show it. “Not in so many words. Jesus, dickhead. I
know
you. Sure, you’ve changed a little since we were at school, what with the whole I’m-a-famous-rock-star-slash-Hollywood-big-wheel, but you’re still the same Levi Levistan who put up barrier after barrier around his heart when anyone tried to find a way to it. I know you’re doing it now because I lived through you doing it to me. The difference between Corbin and me is Corbin is your
forever
. And I’m—”

“Two copies of
Dead Even 2
.” Corbin strode back into the room, grinning at them both. “Well, two copies of the third act. Now with added sexual tension.”

He came to a halt, frowning first at Levi then Sonja. “What did I miss? Why do you both look like you’re about to go ten rounds with each other?”

Sonja’s laugh tickled Levi’s fraying nerves. “Stan had the audacity to tell me the Melbourne Storm were going to beat the Newcastle Knights this weekend.”

Corbin raised his eyebrows. “Rugby league? You’re arguing over rugby league?” Shaking his head, he continued to the table and dropped into his seat. “And the Melbourne Storm, babe? Really?”

Levi’s gut knotted. He clenched his jaw. A part of him wanted to curse Corbin’s interruption of Sonja’s lecture. He wanted Sonja to vocalize what she was so he could correct her. He wanted to tell her she was so much more to him than a band aid. That he
wanted
her to be even more. That Corbin wanted her to be more than just a sexual thing as well. Another part of him wanted to kiss his lover senseless for saving him from what Sonja forced in front of him—his inability to give everything he was to the man he loved.

Instead, he took a bite of the pizza slice in his hand and shrugged. “At least the Storm has a better winning streak than those cowboys you follow in the US.”

Corbin laughed. “Okay, them’s fighting words, lover mine. Them’s fighting words. Now shut up and read this.” He leant across the table and handed Levi the printed-out scene.

Levi took them, his body tight. He settled back in his chair, noting Corbin passed Sonja her own copy. A small smile tugged at Levi’s lips as he watched Sonja cross her ankles on Corbin’s thighs, a hot lick of happiness stirring through his groin as Corbin smoothed his palm along her shin. It was such a scene of natural contentment and relaxed harmony. For a moment, Levi wanted nothing more than to absorb its simple truth and beauty.

Fuck Sonny being just a band aid. Fuck her leaving our lives. Not happening. Not if I have any say in the situation.

A heavy heat crawled over him and he raised his gaze from the sight of Corbin’s hand on Sonja’s leg to find Corbin watching him. Their eyes connected. Mated. An unspoken conversation Levi understood with every fibre in his soul. Corbin didn’t want Sonja to leave them either.

How could their lives be so perfect this way, after such a short time, when he was still so…so…fucked up?

Chest constricting, determined not to think about the uncertainty of their future for the rest of the night, he lowered his head to the papers in his hand.

And put them aside fifteen minutes later, his cock a rigid pole of urgent want, his balls throbbing and hard with equal desire.

“Holy fuck, Hollywood,” Sonja murmured from her seat beside Corbin, her stare still on the pages in her hand. “This is…shit, this leaves the sexual tension between Clooney and Lopez in
Out of Sight
for dead.”

“It works?” Corbin asked. The nervous uncertainty and excitement in his voice made Levi’s cock jerk.

“Fuck, yes, it works.” Sonja looked up at him, her cheeks flushed. Levi couldn’t miss how hard her nipples were under the cotton of Corbin’s shirt. Nor the way her breasts rose and fell.

Corbin’s smile stretched his lips. “Thanks.” He turned to Levi, that same anxious thrill in his voice shining in his eyes. “Levi? What did you think?”

Levi placed the stapled sheets of paper on the table beside his plate and shook his head. “I’m not sure,” he said, shaking his head.

“Are you serious?” Shock registered in Sonja’s question.

He slid his gaze to her before returning to Corbin. “I think I need to see it.”

A flicker of realization danced in Corbin’s eyes, followed by a flare of open desire. He nodded, his lips twitched. “I think we can arrange that.”

Sonja frowned at him. And then let out a tiny
oh
as she too realized what Levi requested. “Who…who gets tied up?”

Levi stood, his cock straining against the stretch cotton of his boxers. “You do.” He turned and walked from the room. “Take her to your office, Cor,” he ordered over his shoulder.

Striding into their bedroom, he retrieved the set of suede-lined cuffs from the top drawer of the bureau. Every nerve ending in his body sparked with impatient lust. Every muscle in his body thrummed with craving need. Corbin’s scene had tapped into his base desires, his arousal fed even more by the knowledge both Corbin and Sonja had brainstormed it together. Had they pictured themselves in the role when discussing it? Had
he
been the one watching the sexual torment unfold in their minds?

Body charged with molten tension, he gripped the cuffs—Corbin’s favourite pair—in a tight fist and walked from the bedroom.

Down the hallway. To Corbin’s office.

His lover had done well. Sonja sat on a chair in the middle of the room, her breasts rising and falling with each shallow breath she pulled. Corbin stood before her, stripped to his waist. Levi’s cock pulsed, the sight of Sonja’s willingness to participate in the moment and Corbin’s sublime strength and sculpted power sending fresh desire through him.

“Cuff her.” He handed the handcuffs to Corbin. “Just like the script.”

Corbin met his gaze. Levi’s cock throbbed, and for a moment he was almost overwhelmed with the need to place his lips on Corbin’s throat and feel that purely male part of the body move beneath them.

Drawing on what tenuous control he had over his pleasure, he walked to the far side of the room, crossed his arms over his chest and leant his back against the wall.

Corbin stared down at Sonja, jangling the cuffs in one hand.

Sonja watched him, lips parted, breath ragged.

“Have you ever been tied up before, Sonja?” Corbin’s gentle question caressed Levi’s senses.

His balls drew higher to his arse when she nodded her head. “Once. By Stan.”

Corbin stepped closer to her, the inside of his knees framing hers. “Do you trust
me
?”

She nodded.

Levi bit back a low groan.

Without another word, Corbin gathered Sonja’s wrists in his hands and positioned her arms behind the back of the chair. “Grip the posts,” he growled the lines from the screenplay.

“Bite me,” she responded, the film’s duplicitous femme fatale’s line falling in a husky threat from her lips.

Corbin drew his head closer to hers, skimming his hands over her arms. One down to her wrist behind her body, the other up to her shoulder before circling the base of her throat. “Oh, don’t tempt me, darling.”

She sucked in a swift breath, jutting out her chin as she glared up at him. “You think you’ve won?”

Corbin nodded. A heavy spasm claimed Levi’s cock as he watched his lover tighten his grip ever so slightly around Sonja’s throat, following the directions of the script to perfection. “I know I have.”

“But I’m not tied yet,” Sonja pointed out, lifting the arm Corbin didn’t hold until her fingers brushed over his chest, across his nipple, before she shaped her hand into a mock gun. “And you’re so very vulnerable.” She pressed the tip of her fingers to his heart. “Here.”

With a blur of nimble speed, Corbin snared her free hand and yanked it behind her back. The sudden action, both abrupt and savage, thrust Sonja’s breasts forward and Levi ground his teeth as he watched her nipples rub against Corbin’s chest.

“Maybe,” Corbin growled, sliding his lips up the side of her face to her ear as he slowly, slowly bound her wrists together behind the chair. “But I’m the one with the rope this time. And you’re the one in the chair.”

Sonja let out a whimper—one Levi knew wasn’t in the script. He drew in a steadying breath. The sight of her arms bound by the length of rope he used to bind Corbin flooded him with searing sensations.

“My feet aren’t tied,” Sonja pointed out, eyes half shuttered, breath ragged. “Give me a chance and I’ll snap your throat with them.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s what you’re going to do, darling,” Corbin spoke the written lines, straightening slowly, dragging his hands over the tops of her thighs as he did so.

Sonja’s eyes closed as his fingertips skimmed close to her pussy. Another little hitching sound escaped her. “No?” she mocked.

Corbin shook his head with a smile. “No.”

“And why not? You’re not still under the delusion I love—” Sonja’s whisper cracked as Corbin trailed his hands down the inside of her upper thighs until his fingers were nestled next to her sex. “I love you, are you?” she finished the line, the words a husky whisper.

“Darling,” Corbin chuckled, channeling Chris Huntley’s arrogant cockiness to perfection as he pushed her thighs apart. Sonja let out a short gasp. And another one as Corbin smoothed his palms down her legs to her knees, his lips hovering so close to hers they brushed together when he said, “You’ll love me to the day you die.”

“And when’s that?” Sonja asked, pushing her body as far forward in the seat as the ropes around her wrists and Corbin’s imprisoning palms on her knees would allow.

Levi drew another steadying breath, his cock an aching rod of steel, his heart a hammering tattoo in his chest.

“Not my call, darling,” Corbin murmured, sliding one hand higher up her leg, closer to her spread sex again. “I’m just the paid grunt, remember?”

And then—just as he’d written in the screenplay—he crushed her lips with his.

It was the end of the scene, and the movie. The screenplay directions called for the camera to pan back at this point, taking in the silent man leaning against the room’s far wall, watching Huntley’s character and his traitorous, captured lover. A man who would straighten from the wall and walk toward them both, cocking a Glock as he did so.

Levi didn’t have a gun. But he walked toward Corbin and Sonja anyway. Reached them just as their fierce kiss finished.

Breath shallow, nostril’s flaring, Corbin turned to face him. “So? What did you think?”

Levi wrapped his fingers around Corbin’s wrist and placed Corbin’s hand on his engorged length. “What do
you
think?”

Corbin squeezed his offered erection. “I think you liked it.”

He smiled. “I think you’re right. Now tell me, what do you think we should do with Sonny here?”

Corbin slid his gaze from Levi to Sonja. “I think we should fuck her.”

Levi dipped his head in a single nod. “I think you’re right. Again.”