Getting Played (Heart of Fame #7) (5 page)

Nick smiled. “I’m not going to argue.”

“So—” Jax waved over their waiter and handed him the bill, “—what’s the deal with Josh? Is he taking after his old man?”

Nick snorted, a disgruntled scowl pulling at his face. “Y’know, I missed the first fifteen years of his life, the
formative
years, so they say, so I can’t be blamed for the way he’s carrying on now. And he is twenty-one. Old enough to know what the fuck he’s doing…”

Jax watched his friend’s scowl twist. “But you do blame yourself?”

Nick let out a ragged sigh. “He was a grounded, normal teenager when I first met him. Now…maybe I fucked him up coming into his life. Maybe it’s taken this long for the reality of the situation—a famous father, a heritage, more money than God—maybe it’s taken this long to sink in?”

Jax frowned. “You don’t think the loss of his pro-soccer career has anything to do with it? What’s he studying at the Con?”

“Composition and music technology. And yeah, probably.” Nick sighed again. “He’s not angry at me or his mum, but he’s angry. He’s a gifted bloody musician, Jax. Leaves me for dead, but his first love has always been soccer. That didn’t change even when I turned up in his life. And now that’s been taken from him…” He raked his hands through his hair and shrugged. “Maybe he’s acting out. I think it’s shocked both Lauren and I because it’s come out of blue. We knew the end of his soccer career was going to be hard to move on from. Hell, he’d only just been approached by Manchester United to play for them in the UK the week before his injury, but we figured when he enrolled at the Con that he’d got himself sorted out. Now, every time the phone rings at home I’m wondering if it’s Natalie, calling to tell us he’s high in class again, or talking back to a lecturer or been busted screwing some girl or another in the rehearsal rooms.”

Jax let out a sympathetic chuckle. “Hate to say this, mate, but it does sound like he’s taking after you, even if he isn’t on a stage or in a band. Do you remember some of the shit we got up to in our twenties? On tour?”

Nick visibly shuddered. “Don’t remind me. There are whole periods of that part of my life that are just a foggy blur. Jesus, I still thank God every damn day for giving me Lauren back. I was rudderless without her.” He fixed Jax with a pointed look. “Much the same way you are without Nat in your life.”

Tight heat coiled in Jax’s gut. He grunted. “I’m not rudderless. I’m living the life, the dream. I’m—”

“Lost,” Nick cut him off. “And one of these days, you’re going to realize it. Just don’t let it be too late or you’ll miss out on the best thing in your life.”

A surreal tension gripped Jax’s temples. A heavy weight wrapped his chest.

Nick laughed. “I love you, Campbell. You’re the younger brother I was denied. So I’m allowed to tell you when you’re being a dick. And right now, denying what you and Nat had—and
still
have, based on the electricity I saw arcing between you back in her office—that’s you being a dick.” He rose to his feet, his eyes dancing with a perceptive mirth. “Take it from someone who knows.”

Before Jax could find any kind of response, like a denial he and Nat had
anything
more than combustible sexual chemistry, Nick gave a nod. “Now I gotta go. Lauren doesn’t know why I came to Sydney today. She thinks I’m searching for the perfect first birthday present for Chloe. Which means I’ve gotta find that present before I head back home.” He grinned. “And before you tell me you’re living the life because you don’t have to deal with stuff like this, let me tell you I
love
stuff like this. It’s what makes every day worth waking to. Knowing the people you love are living their lives with you, that you are a part of something
more
than just your own existence…”

Jax stared at him, the pressure on his temples and chest tighter.

A surreal memory slipped through his mind, catching his breath. His parents lecturing him the day after he and Nat separated. Telling him she was the best thing that had ever happened to him, how much they loved her. That he was an idiot for throwing what he had with her away. “She made you more, Jaxon,” his mother had proclaimed, disapproving disappointment in her eyes. “I know the band is on the verge of becoming very successful, and I know you’re not my baby anymore, but I’m allowed to tell you these things. Natalie made you more. When you started dating her, the young man I always knew you were came out. A man not focused only on his own selfish life and whims, but on the world around him and where he fit into it. I like that man a lot. And so did Natalie.”

He’d laughed away her soft rebuke, telling her he was fine. Telling her that he and Nat were never anything but fuck-buddies.

“Fuck-buddies my arse,” his dad had growled. “She loved you. And you loved her, even if you were too self-absorbed to realize it. And now you’ve gone and thrown it away. Because that’s how you deal with difficult things, son. Hard things. By shrugging them off and pretending they never mattered in the first place. You may be a gifted musician, Jaxon, but sometimes you’re a shit human.”

The long-repressed memory taunted Jax now. Mocked him.

He swallowed, gut clenching. He’d told his dad to mind his own business back then. Had hugged his parents and told them he was going to be okay, and so was Nat. Had spent the next twenty-one years showing them and the world just how okay he was.

But was he? Really? If he
was
okay, why was he suddenly feeling…whatever it was he
was
feeling for Nat after only a few moments in her company?

On the other side of the table, Nick chuckled. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen you lost for words, Campbell. I like it.” He scooped his leather jacket from the back of his chair and shucked it on. “Thanks for lunch. Next time I expect to see Natalie with you.”

And with that, Nick left, strolling through the restaurant, waving and nodding to those who recognized him as he did so. The world’s biggest rock star, now just a normal guy missing his wife. Albeit, a normal guy with a great big bodyguard hired just for the day waiting for him at the restaurant door.

Jax frowned, his gut a churning mess of conflicted confusion? Was Nick correct about him? Was he lost? Was that why the second he’d seen Nat in her office he’d instantly felt wonderful? Not just horny at how beautiful she was, but happy?

Surely not. That would mean he’d spent the last twenty-one years of his life fucking around, in more than the physical sense, and he hadn’t done that. Had he? Was there any sin in being horny? In partying?

True, he wasn’t as young as he used to be. Shit, forty-two was only eleven months away, but that didn’t mean he had to put himself out to pasture, did it?

An image filled his head, one of him and Nat curled up together—fully dressed—on a sofa, the faint-blue flicker cast by a television set illuminating their contented faces.

“Jesus,” he muttered, dragging his fingers through his hair as he pushed himself to his feet. “That’s just fucking scary.”

And fully dressed? Him and Nat on a sofa fully dressed? No way. No fucking way, in fact. The only way he and Nat would be on a sofa together was naked as the day they were born, slicked with sweat, her straddling his hips as he pounded up into her, her nipple in his mouth, her nails scoring his flesh, her dirty sex talk he loved hearing so much turning the air blue.

Liquid heat flowed into Jax’s groin at that thought.
That
one, not the domestic-bliss thought. No way was that what he wanted with Nat. What he wanted with Nat was wild, uninhibited fucking. Raw, no-holds-barred fucking.

Now. Right now.

Shooting his watch a glance, he smirked. Screw waiting for tomorrow. He was heading back to the Con and getting Nat’s challenge started. Sex on the desk. He’d walk into her office, sweep everything from the top of her desk, yank her out of her chair and pin her flat on her back atop the mahogany surface. He’d spread her glorious thighs and make her come with his tongue before wrapping her legs around his hips and burying himself to hilt in her sweet, tight, hot, wet—

His cock twitched in his jeans, beyond semi-erect.

Letting out a low chuckle, he adjusted the rigid pole and crossed the restaurant.

His bodyguard met him at the door, intimidating and serious and silent.

“Bruce,” Jax said, sliding his Ray-Bans onto his face against the beaming afternoon sun. “I’m giving you the afternoon off.”

“Sir?”

“Go be free for the afternoon. See a movie. Hit the art galleries. Shit, go scare teenagers at the train station. Do whatever it is you do when you’re not guarding my body. My body is going to be otherwise engaged for the rest of the day.”

Bruce studied him.

Jax grinned.

Bruce continued to study him, expression unchanging. “I don’t think that’s wise, Mr. Campbell.”

Jax grinned some more. “Fucking oath it’s not wise. But I’m doing it. Many times, if I can convince her to lock the door.”

A tick flickered beneath Bruce’s right eye.

“C’mon, Bruce. What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

“Stalker. Crazy fan. Furious father. Paternity suit. Court summons. Kidnap. Abduction.”

Jax laughed and slapped his bodyguard on the granite boulder disguised as a shoulder. “Alien invasion. Apocalypse. Yeah, yeah. You worry too much. No one’s been after me for years.”

“Says the man who spent yesterday morning running from an irate father.”

Jax preened. “You say the nicest things. Now fuck off. I’m heading back to the Con. I’ll see you later tonight. That thing…” He clicked his fingers, trying to remember the appearance his agent had arranged upon learning he was going to be in Sydney.

“The red-carpet opening of the new George Clooney movie?” Bruce suggested.

Jax slapped him again. “That’s it. See you back at the hotel before that.”

And before his bodyguard could offer any more rational protests to his departure, he turned and headed for the bright-orange Aston Martin he’d hired for his stay in Sydney.

“Mr. Potter?” Bruce called, employing the name Jax used in public when trying to keep his identity unknown.

Jax pivoted on his heel, raising a questioning eyebrow at the man. “Yeah?”

“Use protection.”

Jax burst out laughing.

Somewhat ignoring the speed limit, he arrived at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music almost half an hour later. His arousal hadn’t abated. In fact, all he could think about for the entire drive was Nat, her hot, lush body and the way she gave herself over, 150 percent, to pleasure.

Bringing the Aston Martin to a halt in the visitor’s parking lot, he killed the engine, raked his fingers through his hair and checked his teeth in the rearview mirror for any leftover lunch.

Nope. He was good. Ready to roll.

Ready to take Nat by surprise and rock her world.

His heart thumped faster in his chest, sending fresh, eager blood to his groin.

With another quick adjustment of his package, he climbed from the rental and made his way to Nat’s office.

More than one student recognized him as he passed. Thankfully, none tried to slow him down, kidnap him, abduct him or present him with a paternity suit. He wasn’t surprised. He knew for a fact there were students enrolled here with a parental unit or two more famous than he. Josh Blackthorne, for one. It didn’t worry his ego in the slightest. In fact, it was a nice change.

By the time he made it to Nat’s office, the grin on his face was as wide as the wood in his pants was long.

Dropping a wink at Nat’s cute secretary, he crossed to the closed door leading to Nat’s inner work sanctum. “Just going to wait for Boxhead,” he tossed over his shoulder.

The cutie half-rose to her feet. “Ms. Thorton isn’t in there at the moment, sir.”

He faltered. For half a heartbeat. “That’s okay. I don’t mind waiting.”

“But—”

He gave her another wink, body thrumming. “It’s all good, trust me. Nat and I go way back.”

He closed the door on her incredulous expression. His heart kicked up a notch.

Pressing his back to the door, he ran a slow gaze over the interior of Nat’s office.

It said a lot about her, things he remembered with warm fondness. Despite her position of authority and success, the room was modest and minimalistic and at the same time timeless and tasteful. There was a massive framed photo of the music conservatory on the far wall. On another wall were two pieces of abstract art he recognized as being created by her brother, Brogan, one of Australia’s most revered artists. The other two walls contained all of Nat’s various degrees, framed in the same rich, deep-red as her desk.

She had a lot of them. Seemed she’d spent most of her life studying since they’d parted.

Pride swelled through him. She’d always been the smart one of the two of them. The achiever. When they were both students at Sydney University—she studying music and education, him studying just music—she’d always earned distinctions on every test and assignment, while he’d barely scraped in with pass marks. He’d been too busy thinking about her most of the time to concentrate on his work. As an excuse for not living up to his true potential, it was a good one.

Letting out a soft chuckle at the memories, he moved his gaze to the piece of furniture dominating the room.