Steady Beat (5 page)

“Bloody hell, babe.” Noah sat back in his seat again. Admiration shone in his eyes. That mischievous smile of his played with his exquisite lips. “You really
do
know your stuff.”

She shrugged again, even as she fought the urge to preen. Noah Holden was complimenting her. She could walk away now utterly happy.

No, you couldn’t. And if you do, you’re just wimping out like you always do.

“What song did you first make out to?”

Pepper’s heart smashed into her throat at his murmured question. It was the same as before. And as before, she didn’t want to tell him. “It’s my turn to ask a question,” she murmured.

“I know,” he said, watching her. “But I only ask because I want to make sure I don’t play the same song when we make out.”

She drew in a quick breath. “Why do you think we’re going to make out? Who says I’m going to lose?”

His answering grin was far too sexy for her peace of mind. “Win or lose, we’re still making out.”

“We are?”

“Bloody oath.”

Her pussy constricted. “You sound so Australian when you say that.”

The ridiculous diversionary tactic failed. He didn’t laugh. Just watched her. Waited for her answer.

Her answer, damn it.

Fidgeting on her seat, she licked her lips. “I…” She stopped. Hugged her elbows with her palms. Her cheeks prickled with heat. So did her scalp. She could lie. Tell Noah a song, just some random song that a girl would make out to. Justin Timberlake’s ”Rock Your Body” maybe? Or ”Where Is the Love” by The Black Eyed Peas, but she wasn’t a liar. Shy yes, but not a liar. Which meant if she wanted to sing for Noah—and the band—she had to answer his question. And she wanted to sing for him. Them. More than she wanted to kiss Noah.

Which was a lot.

Lifting her gaze from the collection of empty peanut shells on the table, she met his steady stare. “I didn’t make out to a song.”

He frowned. “That sucks. You should always make out to music. It’s one of the reasons it exists. What did you—”

“You,” she said, before he could ask the question she already knew the answer to. Christ, she was nervous. So nervous her blood roared in her ears like a thrumming drum. Which was ironic, really. “I made out to you, Noah. The very first time I made out ‘Tempest Soul’ was playing on my CD player. The very first time I made out was to your eight-minute drum solo track on Nick Blackthorne’s third album. The very first time a boy kissed me, I was thinking of you.”

Noah Holden blinked. “You win. I haven’t got a fucking hope in hell of thinking about
anything
else now except you and me moving together to music.”

Chapter Three

Noah couldn’t move. Which, given the fact he rarely sat still for more than a few minutes at a time, was pretty damn incredible.

He watched the woman opposite him, a tight coil of heat gripping his gut. He wasn’t joking. The very notion of thinking about answering music-trivia questions had deserted him. All he could think about was Pepper and her lush, full lips moving against his while the best drum solo he’d ever played filled the air around them.

Fuck, he’d love to discover every inch of her body while “Tempest Soul” throbbed from the speakers of a state-of-the-art sound system. It was the one true piece of music he called his own. It was truth,
his
truth. To this day he still couldn’t believe Nick put it on the album and would love him forever for doing so.

Knowing the gorgeous, contradictory woman sitting opposite him experienced her first sexual awakening to the rhythm born from his soul shook Noah to his very core. And stirred something even deeper.

He didn’t just want her now. He
needed
her. He needed to feel his rhythm in her body, to see if his soul was still there in her pleasure.

Christ, he sounded like Nick when the singer wrote lyrics. Why he was surprised by the fact was beyond him. All musicians had romance in them, even attention deficient drummers.

But what shook him more was how quickly he was growing ravenous for a woman he barely knew.

Drawing a deep breath, he waited for Pepper to say something.

Her blue eyes shone in the bar’s muted light, damn near luminous and completely mesmerizing.

Long moments stretched between them. A distant part of Noah’s mind noticed the women at the table behind Pepper were staring at him. He didn’t give them a second glance. They didn’t snare his focus. It was fixed on Pepper.

She frowned at him. Chewed on her bottom lip. Rubbed her elbows with her palms. “What do you mean, I win?” she finally asked.

“You win,” he answered, his voice strained. Probably because his throat was so bloody tight. “I can’t think about anything now except f…kissing you. Which means, you could ask me my middle name and I wouldn’t know it.”

“Rodney.”

His middle name fell from her lips in a hushed breath.

He chuckled, the sound equally soft. “Is it?”

She nodded. “So I get to audition? In front of the band?”

He nodded. A hot ball sat on his chest. His groin throbbed. He couldn’t look away from her. “You do.”

“And I don’t have to kiss you?”

He swallowed, the question shearing into the mounting ache for her. “You don’t.”

Fuck, harder words had never been spoken.

“What if I want to kiss you?”

He pulled a slow breath. Studied her. She studied him back, a pink tinge in her cheeks, her teeth pulling at her bottom lip. She was such a mix of confident calm and hesitant uncertainty. If it weren’t for the fact she’d approached him in a bar with such an unbelievable proposition he’d swear she struggled with being shy. Yet even that thought twisted the tight interest building in his groin. There was something about her. Something he really,
really
wanted to get to know.

Without uttering a word, he rose from his chair and lowered himself into the one beside Pepper. She frowned. And then gasped when he leant forward, bringing his face a breath away from hers. “Then kiss—”

She cut off his gentle command by brushing her parted lips over his.

Jolts of hot tension shot through Noah, sinking into his very soul.
He groaned, the feather-light contact more electric than any kiss he’d experienced before.

Holy fuck, yes.

She moved away a little, her breath a rapid pant against his lips, but before she could straighten completely in her chair, he cupped her face in both his hands and captured her mouth with his.

He wanted more.

Swiping his tongue over the velvet softness of her bottom lip, he dipped into her mouth. She didn’t fight him. Her tongue met his, timid at first before taking control. He surrendered to her kiss, his head spinning, his gut clenching. Damn, if they weren’t in a bar, he’d—

She snaked her hands up his chest, behind his neck and into his hair, and Noah decided he didn’t give a fuck they were in a bar. He thrust his tongue deeper into her mouth, challenging her to meet his desire. She did, her teeth nipping at his bottom lip with fierce urgency.

Noah groaned again, snaring her hips with his hands and yanking her closer to him between his spread thighs.

She whimpered. He ravished her mouth. The heat of her bare knees so close to his balls—swollen and heavy with lust—drove him insane. Her hands tightened in his hair. She sucked on his tongue. Noah bucked his hips forward, aching for contact of her body with his groin, even if it was just her knees. Hell, he’d pay everyone to leave the bar right there and then if it meant her knees would press to his groin.

Hell, he’d fucking
buy
the bar if it meant he could press his groin to her—

She raked a hand down his chest, cupped his engorged cock through the denim of his jeans and Noah’s sanity shattered.

He tore his mouth from hers, struggling to control his breathing. “Jesus, you really know how to…” He stopped. Swallowed. His head spun. He stared into her eyes, reveling in the desire fogging their blue depths. “Come back to my hotel room with me.”

She didn’t move. Nor say a word.

He smoothed his hands over her outer thighs, unable to stop touching her. Her skin was soft and silken and warm. He liked it a fucking lot. “Please?”

Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment, long enough for Noah to notice she wore no colour on their lids, before she looked at him again. “No.”

His heart smashed into his throat with painful force. “Why not?”

She let out a shaky breath, her teeth catching her bottom lip. “I want to sing for you, not sleep with you.”

Noah’s heart thumped harder in his throat. “Not sleep with me? Bullshit. With the way you just kissed me, you want to sleep with me. Fuck, I can barely think with the sexual energy sizzling between us.”

“If I sleep with you, I’m going to spend the rest of my life thinking that’s why you let me sing. But if I don’t…if I sing…” She shrugged, torment etching at the corners of her eyes. “I’m not…I don’t…”

Noah straightened, holding out his hand. “Give me your phone.”

“What?”

He wriggled the fingers of his right hand. “Your phone. Give it to me.”

Confusion pulling at her eyebrows, Pepper reached into her bag, withdrew an iPhone and handed it to him. “Why?”

Noah grinned at the Han Solo frozen in carbonite cover protecting her mobile, a swelling wave of happiness rolling through him at the geeky sight, before tapping the phone icon. “I get what you’re worried about,” he said, keying in a number. “You think if we sleep together now I won’t hold up my end of the bargain and let you audition. Or, if I
do
let you sing and you take Nick’s place, that the only reason you
got
the gig was because we had sex.” Returning his focus to her face, he smiled and handed her back her phone. “Ring that number there.”

Pepper shot him a puzzled frown before pressing her thumb to the screen.

The sound of Darth Vader’s heavy, mechanical breathing vibrated from Noah’s hip. He squirmed on his chair, tugged his own iPhone from his pocket and held it up for Pepper to see her number on his screen. “Now you know I’m serious about you singing for me. I never give out my personal number to someone I’ve only just met. In fact…” He leant forward and plucked her phone from her fingers again, chuckling at her surprised gasp as he opened her contacts. It took him a minute to enter the info, during which Pepper watched him. He could feel her steady inspection like a warm caress. “There.” He handed her phone back to her, not even trying to control his grin.

Pepper’s frown knotted deeper. “What did you do?”

“I added Samuel, Jax and Levi.”

Blue eyes locked on his face, wide with shock. “You did what?”

“Look up Strings, Ax and L.L. in your contacts.” He chuckled. “I’m in there as well now. I’m Drummer Boy, in case you didn’t work out who it was.”

She smiled at him, a little smirk he found wickedly delightful. “I did.”

He nodded. “Good. Now, I give you permission to call every one of them if you don’t hear from me tomorrow. Which you will, Pepper. Promise. In fact, I give you permission to call the media. Want me to put Perez Hilton’s number in there? If I renege on our deal, you can call him and play this message to him.” He dialed her phone, shaking his head and holding up a finger at her when she went to answer it.

“Hi, this is Pepper,”
Pepper’s smooth voice came through the connection, tickling his ear.
“Please leave a message after the beep.”

“G’day, Pepper. This is Noah Holden, the drummer in Nick Blackthorne’s band. I’ve just made a deal with you to audition as lead singer. I won’t back out of this deal if you agree to come back to my hotel room, even if it’s only for coffee and ice cream.”

Pepper’s mouth fell open.

Noah ended the call and smiled at her. “See? I’m serious about hearing you sing.” He leant forward, holding her stare with his. “I
want
to hear you sing. You intrigue me. And I haven’t been intrigued for a long time.”

She chewed on her bottom lip. “When?”

Noah’s heart quickened at the way her lip glistened with moisture. “Tomorrow. I’ll call the guys and get them together tomorrow arvo.”

“Arvo?”

He smiled at her frown. “Sorry, afternoon. So, want to go now? From here, I mean?”

Apprehension flicked over Pepper’s face.

“Only for coffee and ice cream, remember?” he said with a chuckle. “No sex. You’ve got that on record. Although you have no idea how much I want to make love to you right now.”

A pink blush painted her cheeks. She studied him, her head turned slightly, her elbows tucked into her sides. He waited, his heart thumping in his ears, his feet jiggling on the floor.
God, let her say yes.

Pepper nodded. “Okay. Coffee would be great.”

Noah had to stop himself from fist-pumping the air. “Excellent.”

“I know a really good, quiet café around the corner,” Pepper said before the image of him laying her naked on his hotel suite’s bed finished forming in his head. “They have amazing apple pie. Would you like to share a slice with me?”

Swallowing at the rapid beat in his throat, Noah smiled. “I’d like to share anything with you, but am happy to start with pie.”