Love's Rhythm (14 page)

“You should have told me, Lauren. I had a right to know. Josh had a right to know.
Has
a right.”

She ground her teeth, the mention of her son like a knife in her chest. She’d never told Josh who his father was and he’d stopped asking. “A mistake in my past,” she’d called Nick.

“You left me, Nick,” she said, voice husky. “The fame, the fans, the groupies, hordes of women throwing themselves at you, recording producers procuring for you anything you wanted…I couldn’t compete with that.” She let out a sigh, her gaze jumping around her kitchen. Her small, homey, far-from-modern kitchen with its clutter and temperamental microwave. So far removed from the kind of kitchen an international award-winning performer would own.

She returned her stare to Nick. “Being a star, being a musician, was all you ever wanted, all you ever loved. Being a father wouldn’t have fit into those plans at all.”

His nostrils flared. “You’re wrong, Lauren. I loved you too.”

She shook her head. “Not enough, Nick. Not enough to stop you walking out on me.”

He didn’t answer her. What did she expect him to say? There wasn’t anything to say, was there? She had to think with her head. Her head, not her heart. And her head knew as much as she ached for him, loved him, there wasn’t a hope in hell of there being a happy-ever-after in this. Just another song, perhaps? Another song that would sting her eyes with tears whenever she heard him sing it on the radio.

Another sigh welled up in her chest. “I’m going to have a shower. I think two p.m. is late enough to still be wearing pyjamas, don’t you?” She snorted, looking down at herself. “Well, half-wearing pyjamas.”

Before he could say anything, she turned and walked from the kitchen. He didn’t reach for her as she passed him. He didn’t call after her.

Swinging the bathroom door shut behind her, she stripped herself of her shirt. A chill rippled over her, the tiled room’s cool air like a million icy kisses on her flushed skin. And it
was
flushed. For all the wretched confessions and arguments she presented, her body was still more turned on, more aroused by Nick than any man she’d ever known. He may have hurt her beyond measure fifteen years ago, but he’d branded her his as well. In so many ways, none the least with the boy who looked and behaved so much like him.

She closed her eyes, fighting the tears. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t.

The water was freezing when she first turned it on, the pipes outside no doubt wrapped in winter. She considered stepping into it. Surely that would shock her back to rational behavior?

“Idiot,” she muttered, twisting open the hot faucet. All that would achieve would be her getting a cold and then she’d be miserable
and
snotty.

A moment later she stood under the warm stream of water, head down, letting it pour over her. It flowed over her cheeks, followed the line of her parted lips. It trickled down the back of her neck, down the curve of her breasts, over her puckered nipples. She pressed her palms to the cubicle wall, the tiles cool against her skin, and closed her eyes. Tears rolled from them, washed away by the shower’s warm caress that took the salty drops with it down her body, over her belly, past her navel to the curve of her sex.

Between her thighs. Over her sex.

And the whole time, silent tears leaked from her eyes and her heart cried for Nick. Nick, damn him. Nick.

Her shower screen slid open and he stood on the other side, his nostrils flaring, his jaw bunched.

“I’m sorry.”

His voice was roughened. Nothing more than a low whisper.

Palms still pressed to the wall, she stared back at him. Her breasts grew round with want even as her throat grew tight. “I hate you, Nick.”

“No, you don’t.”

She closed her eyes, the water licking away her tears before they could slip from her lashes. “No, damn you.” She lifted her head and gazed at him. “I don’t.”

Without a word, he curled his fingers under the hem of his shirt, pulled it up over his head and stepped into the shower.

She turned to him, instantly and immediately, and slid her hands up his chest, over his hard nipples before twining her arms around his neck and pulling his mouth down to hers.

The kiss was beyond her. She was no more in control of her body than she was her heart. All she knew was at that very moment there was nothing else in the world she wanted more than to feel Nick against her, holding her, inside her. It was foolish and stupid and weak, but too powerful to resist. She wanted him. He was the only one to ever make her feel whole. The only one ever to make her feel cherished. For all the pain he’d brought to her world, he’d also given her more happiness and love than she could remember. Right now, in this shower, he was Nick.
Her
Nick. Not the world’s Nick. Not the record producers’ Nick. Hers. And she would lose herself in her Nick and deal with the pain of the stolen moment after he’d returned to the world again.

She stroked his tongue with hers, loving the way his arms held her firmly to his body. The water flowed over them both, joining their kiss, slicking their flesh. She pressed herself closer to him, the sensation of her wet breasts sliding against his wet chest too erotic. A moan vibrated low in her throat, or was it in Nick’s? She couldn’t tell. Didn’t care. Rising on to tiptoes, she rolled her hips, an unspoken request for that still trapped in his sodden jeans. Lord, she wanted him inside her. Wanted him filling her, stretching her. Possessing her.

Like a junkie wanted a hit.

Head swimming, she dragged one hand down his torso, her lips still drinking from his as she fumbled with his fly. He stopped her, his fingers replacing hers to deftly release the top button. His erection strained at his zipper and Lauren scraped her thumb over its emerging tip.

He groaned, pulling from the kiss long enough to sear a path over her jaw line, up to her ear. He caught her earlobe with his teeth, nipping with almost painful force before sucking it into his mouth, all the while tugging his fly open.

His cock finally sprung free, a long, thick rod Lauren immediately captured with her fingers. He moaned, the sound raw and urgent, his shaft convulsing in her hand. One throbbing pulse, then another, another.

“Oh, Nick.” She swept her thumb over its tip again, the warm water from the shower turning its velvet-smooth head to a slick dome. “You have the most amazing dick.”

He laughed at her brazen claim, cupping her left breast and giving it a gentle squeeze. “And you have the most amazing breasts,” he murmured, lifting his head. His eyes were heavy-lidded, his thick black lashes spiky with water.

She arched her back a little, pushing her breast forward as she pumped his cock once, twice. “Hmmm, I think I remember you mentioning that a few times.”

He chuckled. “Possibly. In fact I think I wrote a song about your breasts once.
Twin worlds of heaven within my grasp,”
he crooned, kneading his fingers against the heavy swell of her flesh,
“within my reach, I want to suck them, fuck them. Fuck, do I want to suck them, fuck them.”

Lauren laughed, the words making her pussy flutter. She squeezed his cock, unable to miss how thicker and harder it was growing in her hand. “Don’t remember hearing that one in the charts.”

He grinned, drops of water trickling over his lips. As insane as it was, Lauren felt jealous of those drops. “They wouldn’t let me record it. Said it was too dirty.”

Her sex constricted again. The feel of his thumb swirling patterns over her nipple sent ribbons of delicious heat into her core. “Spoil sports,” she panted.

“Ain’t that right.”

Before she could come back with something witty, because witty was pretty much beyond her at this point, he bowed his body and closed his lips over her nipple. She gasped, tangling the fingers of her free hand in his wet hair. The shower spray streamed over her chest as he suckled on her breast. His cock pulsed in her fingers, the metal teeth of his fly scraping at her knuckles as she sought to keep him in her grip, to squeeze him tighter.

Want him naked. Want him—

He dropped into a crouch, sucking with ferocious hunger on first one breast then the other, his hands roaming her belly, her waist, her hips. She trembled, closing her eyes against the water pouring over her. Or was it the pleasure rolling through her?

When his hands found their way to her pussy, when his thumb stroked over her clit, she knew she had to stop him. She was too close, too close. Too close and too desperate for him.

“Nick.” She pushed him away, smiling at him as he frowned up at her. “I want you in my mouth. Before the hot water runs out, I want you in my mouth.”

His eyes dilated. His nostrils flared. Without a word, he rose to his feet, every muscle in his torso coiled, his skin flushed with heat. He gazed at her, Adam’s apple jerking up and down his throat. “It won’t take long, babe,” he murmured, a faint pink painting his cheeks. “Not with your lips on my dick, your tongue. I won’t be able to hold on for—”

She didn’t let him finish. She sank to her knees, yanked his jeans’ saturated, clinging waistline down over his hips, his arse, his thighs, and took his solid, turgid length in her mouth.

Chapter Nine

Jesus fucking Christ, he was going to die.

Nick threw back his head, staring wildly at the bathroom’s white ceiling. Steam swirled above his head, tiny particles of water that danced with lazy rhythm. He stared with blank rapture at them, fighting the pleasure Lauren wrought on his body, struggling to stop the orgasm threatening to unleash itself with seismic force from his very fucking soul.

Jesus. Lauren was giving him head. Lauren was giving him head in her shower.

The frenzied, heady thought sent fresh tension into his groin. His balls swelled, pressing high on his inner thighs, aching for release. His cock convulsed in Lauren’s mouth and his hips bucked forward, an involuntary action he could no more control than repress. Christ, he was going to come any moment now. He was going to fucking blow his load with barely five sucking strokes of Lauren’s mouth and tongue.

“Babe,” he groaned, fisting his hands in her hair. “I’m…I’m not…if you…” The rest of his choked confession was lost to a groan as Lauren’s fingers found his sac. She tugged, a barely there pressure that sent shards of exquisite heat into his core. He bucked again, squeezing his eyes shut, his breath hissing through his clenched teeth.

She sucked on his length, taking him deeper and deeper into her mouth until he pushed at the back of her throat. And then with a gentle tug of his balls, she slid back up his length. Her tongue laved his cock as she went, long steady strokes until her lips wrapped the ridge of its domed head. Until her teeth scraped at its very tip before she plunged down his erection once again. Deeper this time. So deep. So deep.

“Fuck…that’s good…so good…babe…that’s…that’s…so…fuck…” His moans rose in the cubicle like the swirling steam, a mindless song far more primal than any he’d sung before. His knees quivered, his body rapidly succumbing to the concentrated pleasure of Lauren’s mouth. So close. The base of his spine tingled. His ragged breath burned in his lungs like fire. Christ, how had he lasted this long?

Because it’s Lauren. Lauren who knows how to play your body as well as you know how to play the guitar. Lauren, who always did. Who always did, and now you’ll never want anyone but her ever again. Just Lauren, just…

“Lauren,” he moaned, her name on his lips pushing him over the edge, propelling him into an orgasm he couldn’t resist anymore. A crescendo of sensations, of wants, of needs, of pleasure. He came, his orgasm erupting from his balls, pouring through his cock, through his soul, into Lauren’s mouth. She swallowed thick spurts of release with fierce hunger, her own moans rising to his ears, vibrating through his shaft. He bucked into her, thrust into her, pumped into her mouth until rhythm ceased to exist to him and his body was no longer his, but hers. Until his seed was drained of him, and her tongue washed him clean.

Until he was lost to her. Christ, he was lost to her.

His heart hammered in his chest, his throat, his ears. He stood motionless. No, not motionless. His chest was rising and falling so fast anyone would think he’d just run a marathon. And his cock kept pulsing in tiny jerks, the fading beat of his orgasm still in possession of his dick. As was Lauren. Her lips no longer wrapped his shaft, but her fingers had replaced them, holding him with a gentle pressure. Held him, touched him. He looked down at her, his lips parting as he watched her lean forward and lick the last bead of his release from his cock.

It was too much. He was too spent. A wild convulsion rocked through him and he laughed, a choked exhalation of breath. “N-no more. I can’t…”

She lifted her eyes to his, her tongue slipping out of her mouth to slowly swipe at the corner of her lips, the water from the shower flowing over her, dripping from her puckered nipples.

“You drive me crazy, Lauren Robbins,” he uttered on a wobbly breath.

She traced the treble cleft tattoo on his lower abdomen with one slow, steady finger. “You drive me mental, Nick Blackthorne.”

Her answer sent a wave of sheer happiness through him. He laughed. “At least the hot water didn’t run out. Might have been a touch embarrassing if I was suddenly standing in cold water.”

She grinned, rising to her feet to stand before him. “I doubt the cold water would have made any difference.”

It wasn’t at all possible—he was too drained—but his groin throbbed with delight at her response anyways. It throbbed with an interest, a need he knew he’d never quench.

He leant toward her, letting his chest brush her nipples as he reached behind her and killed the water. “You realize it’s my turn now, yes?”

She laughed, a throaty sound that made his groin stir again. “You think you have it in you?”

He snaked one hand up her wet body to cup her breast and rasp his thumb over her hardened nipple. “Oh, I may not be a spring chicken anymore, but I’m pretty fucking certain I can bring you to climax again and again while this old body of mine recovers.”