Love's Rhythm (6 page)

It’s your heart, Lauren. Your heart. Pounding so hard because your ex made you forget your son. God, how could you let Nick Blackthorne make you forget about—

“Mum?”

She started, blinking at Josh’s voice. “
Are
you going to be home for dinner?” he went on. “I mean, if you’re planning on staying longer at Jennifer’s than normal can I go over to Rhys’? He’s got the new version of Rock Band and we thought we could—”

“I’ll be home for dinner, Josh,” she cut him off, gripping her phone tighter. She could feel Nick’s stare on her back, her naked back. She looked around for her clothes, an unsettled knot twisting in her belly. God, she was naked. He’d managed to get her naked all of about ten seconds after regaining consciousness. Naked and flat on her back on Jennifer’s bed. Did she have no shame? No sanity? Was she truly that pathetic? That easy?

She heard Nick move behind her, a soft rustling of material followed by the softer sounds of his footfalls. She tensed, waiting for his touch, her pussy constricting. Instead, his arm extended over her shoulder, her shirt and trousers bunched together in his hand. There was no other contact, no other touch of his body to hers.

Before she could stop herself, she shot him a quick look, her pulse leaping faster in her throat at the expression on his face. It was lost. Tormented.

Without a word, she took her offered clothes, his stare holding her motionless for a moment before she tore her gaze away. Damn it, what did
he
have to feel all tormented about? She was the one who’d had her heart ripped out. She was the one who’d spent the last fifteen years of her life aching for a future long denied her. Not Nick. Nick was the one who’d up and left. The one who’d chosen the life of a rock star over her.

She clutched her clothes to her churning stomach. She needed to be away from him. Now. It was too difficult to think clearly with him near her.

“Josh,” she said, interrupting her teenage son’s obviously well-considered argument for why he could go to his best friend’s house—an argument that consisted mainly of Mrs. McDowell’s
awesome
cooking, no homework, Rhys’ Wii and Josh’s burning desire to reach professional level on Rock Band. “I won’t be long. I’ve just got to get some trouble out of the road and then I’ll be home. I’ll grab some fish and chips on the way, okay?”

“Then can I head over to Rhys’?”

She should have been angry at Josh’s persistence. Instead, she was angry over Nick’s presence and the moronic effect it was having on her intelligence.

“I’ll be home soon, hon,” she said, refusing to answer her son’s question. It wasn’t that she didn’t want Josh to go to Rhys’, but did he have to play Rock Band? Did he have to be so good at it? Did he have to sound so much like his father when he sang?

The last question sliced at her tenuous calm and, squeezing her eyes shut, she disconnected the call and pressed the smartphone’s screen to her forehead. The glass was cool on her flushed skin, highlighting just how flustered she was.

Huh. Don’t you think standing in nothing but your undies while Nick waits behind you highlights it enough? Or how ’bout the fact that, despite how insane you know the situation is, you want nothing more than for him to close the distance between you both, slide his arms around your waist and begin to seduce you all over again? Like he used to way back when?

“Lauren?”

She didn’t open her eyes at his voice. Nor did she turn.

“Lauren, I think you need to tell me who Josh is.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. If he’s your husband, I need to know. If he’s your boyfriend…I need to know how serious you are.”

Lauren laughed. She couldn’t help herself. Shaking her head, she opened her eyes and did up her bra, forgoing the usual readjustment of breasts in favour of shoving her arms into her shirtsleeves and covering up her bare torso as quickly as possible. “How serious I am?” she shot over her shoulder. “About Josh? Very serious. About you leaving ASAP? Even more so.”

“Lauren, I didn’t mean—”

She saw red. The second those words left Nick’s lips she saw red. Saw it. Felt it. She spun to face him, fists clenched, jaw bunched. “Yes, you did, Nick.” She glared at him, a dull throb in her temple. “As always, it didn’t matter what anyone else wanted, you got what
you
wanted. Well, bravo for you, Mr. Blackthorne. You just proved that you still have an effect on my body. Aren’t you clever? But you also proved you haven’t changed a bit since you left me fifteen years ago. The arrogant, self-centred rock star is still in existence, though why I thought it would be any different is beyond me. So here’s a newsflash for you, Nicky. I don’t want you touching me again. I don’t want you touching me, I don’t want you near me and I don’t want you talking to me. Please go away and be famous and fawned over elsewhere.”

The tirade finished as abruptly as it started, but it left her spent. She closed her eyes against the sight of Nick, standing but a few feet away from her, his face as indelible on
her
existence as a brand on her soul. For all her postulating and carrying on about how she was over him, all it had taken was one kiss—one kiss—and she was his again. To do with what he wanted.

She hated him. For what he’d done to her fifteen years ago. For what he’d done to her just now.

“Believe it or not, I didn’t come here to make you angry.”

His voice played over her senses, low and deep and husky. It had never ceased to turn her on, Nick’s voice. When he sang to her, which he had done often in the early years of their relationship, his voice had been all the foreplay she’d needed. Now, try as much as she did to stop it, her body reacted. Her heart quickened, her nipples pinched tight. His was a voice of sin and pleasure. The voice with the power of the Pied Piper’s proverbial flute—except instead of entrancing children, Nick Blackthorne’s voice seduced women.

“Why
did
you come here, Nick?” she asked. “Was it to prove something?”

“No.”

The single-word answer was so haunted she opened her eyes and looked at him. Her pulse slammed into her throat. That same tormented expression etched his face, but whereas on another man it would make his visage appear wretched, on Nick it just made him look all the more achingly gorgeous—the tortured musical genius, a man ruled by the songs in his soul. Except he wasn’t. Lauren knew that. He was ruled by his prick and his ego.

Is he still though? Have you ever seen him look so…lost?

She ground her teeth, folding her arms across her chest and fixing him with a steady stare. “Why did you come here?”

He met her gaze with his own unwavering stare. “I came to say sorry.”

Lauren wanted to laugh. She wanted to scoff in his face. She couldn’t. Her heart was hurting too much to do that. She licked her lips, her mouth dry. “I don’t believe you.”

Nick didn’t flinch. “It’s true. I came to say sorry and to ask you to a wedding.”

Lauren blinked. Okay, she hadn’t seen that one coming. “A wedding?”

Nick laughed, a self-deprecating snort she’d never heard from him before. It did unsettling things to her stomach.

“It’s stupid, I know, but I received an invitation from this amazing couple I met a few months ago, a couple who pretty much saved my life, and the only person in the entire would I can think of who I want to share their special day with is you.”

A lump filled Lauren’s throat. Thick and fast and choking. She swallowed, but it didn’t go away. Nor did Nick suddenly grow two heads. Surely that’s what was meant to happen now, wasn’t it? Surely this had to be some surreal dream she was in? Nick appearing out of the blue, rendering her defenseless against him with a single kiss and then asking her to a wedding? “A wedding?” she repeated.

He shrugged, a lop-sided smile pulling at his lips. “I’ll admit this hasn’t gone
exactly
as I planned, but then you always did throw my plans into wild loops, Lauren Robbins.”

She held up a finger, giving him a narrowed-eyed scowl. “Don’t.”

He paused for a second. “Who is Josh, Lauren? I need to know, because I have to tell you something here and now and your answer will greatly impact on just how I go about doing that.”

“What do you have to tell me?”

He shook his head. “Who’s Josh? Is he your boyfriend?”

Lauren lifted her chin. “If he was? Would you go away then? Leave Murriundah?”

His smile grew more crooked. “No.”

“So what difference does it make if he
is
my boyfriend?”

Nick took a step toward hers. “The difference is whether I have to compete with someone or not?”

Lauren’s heart slammed harder into her already tight throat. “Compete?”

“For you, Lauren.” His grey eyes seemed to glint, as if the hottest of fires suddenly burned in their depths. “I came back to say sorry for fucking up, sorry for walking away from you, from us, sorry for tearing out your heart. I came back to apologise and invite you to a wedding. To share a moment of pure happiness with the only person I have ever been truly happy with, and then you kissed me.”

She stared at him. “And?” The word was barely a whispered breath.

“And then you asked for more, and I knew I had more to give you. So much more. I
have
more to give you, Lauren. I have fifteen years of more to give you, if you’ll let me, and then a whole lot more.”

“No.” She shook her head. The ridiculousness of the situation struck her. Here she was standing in her best friend’s bedroom wearing only a shirt and underpants as the world’s biggest rock star told her quite clearly he wanted her. Again. The world’s biggest rock star who could have anyone he wanted, who had women and men throw themselves at him on a daily basis, wanted her.

Say yes.

She shook her head again. “No.”

“No you won’t let me, or no, you won’t tell me who Josh is.”

“Both.”

He took another step toward her. “Lauren, please.”

She stared at him, eyebrows knotting. “Nick, do you have any idea what you did to me fifteen years ago?”

“I think I do. And I want to show you how fucking sorry I am.”

“I can’t let you do that.” She caught her bottom lip with her teeth, hugging herself. “I barely survived the last time you left. Now, it’s not just…” She bit on her lip again. “I’m just a school teacher in a small town that doesn’t have a single set of traffic lights, and I like that. You’re Nick Blackthorne. You date royalty and fly in private jets and have women send you their worn underwear. You’re talking about competing, Nick?
I
can’t compete with
that
. I can’t and I won’t. It’s not fair to me, and it’s not fair to Josh.”

Nick’s eyes flared that same black heat. “He’s a lucky guy, this Josh.”

Lauren swallowed. “I like to think so.”

“But tell me, Lauren,” he murmured. “Does he make you feel like this?” He destroyed the distance between them in one step to capture her mouth with his.

The kiss was deep and thorough and utterly possessive. It claimed her lips and rendered her knees weak. His hands cupped her face, his fingertips coming to rest on her temples, his thumbs stroking her cheekbones. His tongue delved into her mouth, seeking hers. Finding it, mating with it. She wanted to stop him, she knew she should—it was insane to let him kiss her like this—but the second the notion of pulling away entered her mind it was washed away by the waves of desire and need Nick’s kiss sent surging through her.

She moaned, surrendering herself to that desire. For a moment, just a moment. Surely she could allow herself one more moment?

Nick moaned back, a raw sound so full of want her head swum. His heat seeped into her, his body hard and lean against her. So hard. All of him.

She shifted, rolling her hips. His erection pressed to her belly, and not for the first time in her life of being kissed by him, she wished she was taller. She wished she was his height so her sex could align with his. She needed to feel its long, thick length on her mons. Just for one moment…

“Fuck, I love kissing you.” Nick’s groan, uttered against her lips, sent ripples of tight heat into her core. “It’s like kissing a horny angel.”

His tongue swiped over hers before she could respond. Or maybe she did? Maybe the whimper in her throat and the thrust of her hips harder to his body was her response? She wasn’t sure anymore. Wasn’t even sure what she’d been doing before this kiss. Her mind didn’t seem to be hers anymore. It was lost to the pleasure welling inside her. All due to Nick’s lips, Nick’s tongue, Nick’s kiss. Her blood roared in her ears and her pussy throbbed. She slid her hands up his torso, the sculpted muscles beneath her palms tensing at her touch. She liked that. Liked the effect she had on him. She skimmed her fingertips over his nipples, her sex squeezing as they puckered into tighter points under the material of his shirt.

His shirt. Lord, why hadn’t she removed his shirt along with his jacket? Just to be sure he hadn’t been bruised when he hit the ground back at school? If she’d removed his shirt her skin could be touching his skin now. In fact, she should remove her own shirt. Share her body heat with him. Let her warmth heal him. Let her body soothe the pain she’d caused him. It was only right.

She tried to pull away, tried to disengage herself from the kiss. The need to strip naked was too powerful to ignore, but Nick wouldn’t let her. His hands raked down her back, his arms cinching around her, as if he feared she was going somewhere. Ha! She wasn’t going anywhere. Why would she, when Nick was kissing her with such ruthless abandon and greed? When his erection ground against her belly, an undeniable testament to his desire for her? She moaned again, her innermost muscles clenching, wanting that which her body and her heart remembered all too easily—Nick inside her, possessing her. Filling her. Fucking her.

Making love to her.

Like he used to.

Used to.

The thought slipped through the rising pleasure consuming her mind. Used to. Past tense. There was a reason for that. He’d left her. For something else. For the groupies, the starlets.