Blame it on the Bass: Heart of Fame, Book 6 Page 13

Which he’d just done that very second.

  So what did he do now?

  Normally, he would celebrate with Levi. But with his partner still checking out Nick Blackthorne’s possible replacement in Seattle, he was now…adrift.

  Glancing at his watch, he calculated the time.

  His mind raced, thinking…thinking. Levi was going to Skype in a few hours, and he’d only seen Sonja but a few hours ago. If he called her now, asked her over for a celebratory drink, would she come? She enjoyed being with him, he knew that, but it was always out in public, never in his and Levi’s apartment. He suspected she didn’t trust being completely alone with him. Or perhaps, she didn’t trust herself?

  Sexual tension and all that, as it were.

  He scrubbed at the back of his scalp with his fingers, staring out his window.

  His heart thumped faster. His cock throbbed.

  “Fuck it,” he muttered, snatching up his cell and dialing her number. “I finally finished the fucker,” he said when she answered. “Want to celebrate with me?”

  “Hello to you too, Hollywood.” She laughed. The sound was a throaty caress he was beginning to hear in his dreams threaded through Levi’s groans and murmured commands. “And congrats. Think McQueen is going to like what you’ve done?”

  He laughed. “He better. It’s about as carnal and horny as I can make it without having them actually fuck.”

  “Love it when you talk dirty.”

  He grinned. In his jeans, his cock pulsed again. “I usually pop a bottle of Moët at this point and Levi and I get a little drunk together. Want to come over and take his place?”

  The second the question left him, he cringed. Damn it, that didn’t sound the way it was meant to.

  Sonja, however, just chuckled. “I’ll do the Moët. Everything else on your celebration list will have to be taken care of by your own hand.”

  Heat flooded Corbin’s face. He shifted on his seat—a very expensive Hayworth Zody that for some reason was suddenly very uncomfortable to sit in. “Deal,” he said, forcing his voice to sound steady.

  Why was he unsettled? Sonja had said no to his and Levi’s invitation. He’d accepted that. Besides, he was gay. The whole Sonja thing was strictly a Levi-Sonja-Corbin thing, not a Corbin-Sonja thing.

  “See you in an hour, Cor.”

  A tight ribbon of heat unfurled through his gut and into his groin at her parting farewell. He placed his cell on his desk beside his laptop, tapped his thumb on its thin edge and closed his eyes.

  He was hung up on the concept of sexual tension, that was all. Two weeks of Levi’s absence, plus fourteen days of focusing on nothing but how two people could lust after each other without succumbing to it was messing with not just his head, but with his body too.

  Sonja would come over, they’d drink a toast, maybe eat some peanuts—did he have any in the cupboard?—possibly order a pizza for an early supper, and then she’d return to her place and he’d Skype with Levi. Maybe, if Levi was receptive, Corbin would try and talk to him about Isabella. If nothing else, they had to decide when they were going to turn her nursery back into a guest room.

  His chest clenched with tight grief and empty longing at the thought.

  Letting out a sigh, he pushed himself to his feet and walked from his office. Wandered the apartment. Stopped and watched the yachts and motorboats moving on the harbour beyond the glass doors of his living room. Straightened the poster for Nick Blackthorne Live In Berlin hanging in the hallway.

  He stopped at the closed door beside Levi’s studio.

  He studied it.

  It was a pale pink, unlike all the other doors in the apartment, with a tiny spray of delicate blue and lilac daisies painted at the bottom, rising up to the knob in a whimsical chain.

  He touched a finger to a pale-blue petal. Nervous about the imminent arrival of their daughter, Levi had painted the flowers one night. Corbin had found him at three in the morning, squatting naked in front of the door, a paint brush in hand, one clenched in his teeth, his beard flecked with pink and blue and lilac splatters of paint. He’d been so intent on his artwork he hadn’t noticed Corbin was there,

  Corbin had watched him for a long moment, loving him. Loving him so much his heart ached.

  And then Levi had turned to face him. Had smiled. “Hey, lover. I couldn’t sleep. Do you like it?”

  Corbin knew he’d meant the door. Levi had known Corbin meant everything when he’d said he did.

  They’d made love in the silver moonlight streaming through the large windows of their apartment, Corbin kissing every drop of paint flecking Levi’s body, paying particular attention to the pink drops on his incredible cock.

  It had been the last time they’d pleasured each other before Isabella’s death. Levi had flown to San Francisco the next morning, chasing a replacement for Blackthorne who’d turned out to be, in Noah Holden’s words, a bum steer. Isabella had died a few days later.

  Corbin traced the flowers. Remembered the way Levi had looked while painting them. How happy his smile had been. How full of life and joy and nervous wonder.

  He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to the door. Isabella’s door.

  Would life be that simple again?

  A lifetime later, someone knocked on the front door of the apartment.

  He straightened, rubbing at the numb patch on his forehead. Shit, how long had he stood there like that?

  Dragging his fingers through his hair, he walked to the main entry door and opened it.

  Sonja grinned at him. “You’ve got a red spot on your forehead.”

  He pulled a face. “Think I just walked into a time warp.”

  “Okay, obscure statement number one of the day. Did you open the Moët already?”

  “Nope. Not even.” He stepped aside, waving her in with a bow. “M’lady.”

  She laughed. “That was the worst Sean Connery accent ever.”

  “Damn it, I was going for Hugh Jackman.”

  “In that case, your Hugh Jackman makes a very good Sean Connery.”

  He chuckled. “Get your ass inside, Ms. Stone. I feel the need for some celebrating.”

  With a quick skip, she crossed the threshold.

  He followed her as she walked through the apartment, surprised at how many times he found his gaze lingering on her butt. She wore tight faded-black jeans, tight enough for him to notice the distinct lack of a panty line.

  A faint stirring of heat tingled in his groin, possibly at the idea of her wearing a thong, possibly at the subtle way her hips swayed as she walked. Confident. Almost cocky. Unabashed. In fact, everything about Sonja fit that description. He could see why Levi was drawn to her. There was an infectious energy about her.

  “You checking out my arse back there?”

  He started at her quip, jerking his stare up from her butt. “I was.”

  She tossed him a look over her shoulder. “Well, this is awkward. I was actually kidding. How did you get that red spot on your head again?”

  “Head-butted a ghost,” he answered, walking past her to head for the kitchen.

  Pulling a face, she followed him. “And there’s obscure statement number two.”

  He laughed, opening the refrigerator to extract a chilled bottle of Moët. “I like to be an enigma.”

  She pursed her lips and shook her head. “Oh, please don’t. One enigmatic man in my life is enough, thank you very much. I like the idea of having a simple gay guy as a friend.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “I’m not sure how to take that.”

  She smirked. “True. You’re not like any other gay guys I know. For starters, none of them have suggested I sleep with them and their boyfriends.”

  Filling two crystal glasses with champagne, he slid one across the granite bench toward her. “Until you came along, I was pretty much as cut-and-dry gay as they come.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. Licked her lips. Picked up her glass. “To keeping things simple,” she said, her gaze mee
ting his over the crystal rim.

  He tapped his glass to hers. “To sexual tension.”

  Without waiting for Sonja’s response, he raised his glass to his lips, tipped back his head and swallowed the alcohol in a single gulp.

  “To sexual tension,” he heard her murmur as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Thirty minutes later, they were outside on the deck, soaking up the warm autumn sun as they gazed at the harbour, their second bottle of Moët resting in an ice bucket on the table behind them.

  Forty minutes after that, after discussing what they thought of the latest Spielberg film and how it compared to his early stuff, Corbin found himself completely and utterly at ease. “Levi still prefers Spielberg’s earlier work,” he said, missing his lover greatly. “Jaws is his favourite. It’s the film that made us realize we were meant to be together.” He let out a wry snort. “On our third date, when Levi was still in the closet and I wanted to kiss him in public more than anything, I stopped myself from doing so by talking at length about the mastery of the film’s screenplay, how Spielberg gave birth to the whole concept of the summer blockbuster, and how the film held a mirror up to American attitudes of the time. A good hour later, I realized he hadn’t said more than a few words. I apologized, thinking I’d fucked up completely. Who wants to kiss a guy who won’t shut up about a movie from the seventies, right? Even a private kiss?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with private kissing,” Sonja pointed out. “Or talking about Jaws.”

  Corbin chuckled. “Levi said the same thing, sans the private kissing part. In fact, he told me he wanted to talk about it some more after he did something.”

  “What was the something?”

  Heat pooled low in Corbin’s belly. “He kissed me. Right there in the café. In front of anyone who wanted to watch. Leaned forward in his seat, cupped the back of my head in his hand and kissed me. A slow, lingering, open-mouthed kiss.”

  “Damn.”

  The shake in Sonja’s whispered exclamation echoed the tremble in Corbin’s stomach. “After that, well…he wasn’t in the closet anymore. I met the band, he met my family and a few months later, we bought this place and moved in together.”

  “So tell me,” Sonja said, rolling the stem of her empty glass backward and forwards between her thumb and fingers. “What happened? Where did things start to unravel?”

  Corbin studied his own half-full glass in his hands, the bubbles in the champagne floating to the surface somehow mocking him. His mouth grew dry. His chest grew tight. “Our baby daughter died.” The statement left him on a calm whisper.

  Beside him, Sonja hissed in a swift breath. “Your what?”

  He closed his eyes.

  “Corbin?” Soft fingers touched the back of his shoulder. “Did you just say what I think you said?”

  He stared at the yachts bobbing up and down on the water. A constricting vice wrapped his chest. A ball of hot loss churned in his gut.

  The fingers on his shoulder slid down his back. From the corner of his eye, he saw Sonja studying his profile. “You and Levi had a baby daughter?” Shock filled her voice. “I didn’t… I never read anything about…”

  “Very few people knew about Isabella and her mother,” he said, the words somehow dry in his mouth. “Levi and I made sure the media and press learned nothing about our plans to become parents. Even our agents didn’t know. I told my family. Levi told the band. That was it.”

  “Her mother?”

  Corbin dropped his focus to the glass in his hand. Watched the sun glint off the crystal in a dance of glorious light. Watched it bounce off the surface of the champagne the same way. With a slow breath, he drained the glass.

  “Where is the mother?” Sonja asked, confusion in the question. “Is she Levi’s… I mean…how… Why isn’t she here now?”

  “Connie was a surrogate,” he said, the alcohol slicking its way to his churning gut. “Both Levi and I contributed sperm. We didn’t know—didn’t want to know—whose sperm fertilized her egg. She was a wonderful young woman we found via a long, very secret search. There was no money involved. Just a promise to allow her to be a part of Isabella’s life if she wanted.”

  “Was?” Sonja whispered. “Jesus, Corbin, please tell me you’re using past tense because—”

  “Connie was killed in a car accident on the way to her last obstetrician’s appointment at the hospital. Isabella was due the following week. She was in labour when the paramedics found her trapped behind the wheel of her car.” He watched the tiny beads of residue champagne slide down the interior of his glass, pooling at the bottom. Talking about Isabella…about the accident…it felt like someone was ripping out his heart. “Neither Levi nor I were in the country at the time. We were both due back later that week. An SUV ran a red light and smashed into her, hitting the driver’s side door at approximately forty-six miles an hour. The paramedics arrived a few minutes before she died, strapped in her seat. They did all they could to try to deliver…to save Isabella, but…but they couldn’t. The story of our baby daughter died with them both. To this day, the media—the world—knows nothing of what Levi and I have lost.”

  “Fuck…” Sonja breathed.

  Corbin lifted his stare from his glass and returned it to the boats and sun and life beyond his deck.

  “The funeral was a private one. The wake, somber. There were no other celebrities to draw attention to the proceedings. Just Levi, me, my family and the band. As far as we know, the only reason Carl Holston made an appearance was because he’d been tailing Nick. Thankfully, Rhodes, Nick’s bodyguard, ran him off without too much fuss.”

  Sonja’s hand slipped from his back. He grabbed it before she could pull it away, needing the contact. Even if he couldn’t look at her, couldn’t bring himself to let her see the anguish in his face, he needed to feel the warmth of her palm against his.

  He thought of the funeral, of Isabella. Of everything that happened after that fateful car accident. He and Levi had decided to keep their loss from the press. The world didn’t need to know of it. Levi had declared it for the best as he’d dressed for the funeral and Corbin had sat on the end of their bed, his eyes hot with tears.

  And then Levi had told him crying would not bring Bella back and their relationship unraveled.

  Licking at his dry lips, Corbin let out a ragged breath.

  Levi didn’t want anyone knowing any of this, so why was Corbin telling Sonja now?

  He didn’t know. He just needed her to understand. To not cast judgment on Levi. To…to share his grief.

  Oh Christ, he needed someone to share his pain. After all these months…

  A dry, hollow snort escaped him. He closed his eyes for a second before finally turning to face her. A wobbly smile pulled at his lips. “You know what Levi is like, Sonja. You know he doesn’t let anyone really…in to his heart. Doesn’t really let anyone see his soul. When Isabella died, when our daughter died, something inside him died too. But he wouldn’t share his hurt with me. I wanted to go through it together, to talk about it to each other. I didn’t want to be alone in my pain, my grief, and Levi was…is my world, my reason for breath, and I needed to be in the moment, no matter how fucking horrible it was, with him. I needed that. I needed to him to share it with me. I needed to know he was as affected by our loss as I was, but he wouldn’t let me feel it with him.”

  “And your relationship fell apart?”

  He nodded. The compassion and sorrow in her eyes tore at his control like raw strips of flesh from his body. “And our relationship fell apart. I don’t even know if Levi still…” He stopped. Shook his head. Swiped the back of his hand over his lips and turned back to the water.

  “You’re wrong, Cor,” Sonja stated beside him, her hip nudging his, her fingers squeezing his hand. “About Levi not letting anyone in to his heart. You’re there. So there. Every time he looks at you, I can see it. He devours you with his eyes. He just…he’s just fucked up, is all.”


  Corbin closed his eyes and slumped his shoulders. “And I can’t seem to un-fuck him. How can I when I still hurt so fucking much?”

  “Hey.” Sonja touched his chin with gentle fingers. “Hey, Hollywood. Look at me.”

  He resisted Sonja’s attempt to turn his head toward her. He couldn’t look at her now. Not when he could feel the hot sting of tears in the back of his eyes.

  “Corbin,” she said, firm command in her soft voice. “Look at me.”

  He did.

  She cupped the back of his head with her other hand, tugged it down to hers until their foreheads pressed together. She gazed up at him, so close he could see the flecks of green in her blue eyes. “I’m here. For you. For you both. You don’t have to hurt any—”

  He crushed her lips with his.

  He couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t stop himself. The urge—no, the need—to kiss her didn’t just overwhelm him, it took utter control of him. The need to feel her lips move against his, the compelling urgency to taste her warmth with his tongue, to connect with her, live with her was the only thing that mattered.

  He slanted his lips over hers. The unfamiliar texture of soft, full lips slicked with gloss—sweet, like strawberries—detonated in his brain. Soft lips, smooth skin, delicate perfume…no stubble or tickle of a beard. No scent of Levi’s Hugo Boss cologne. Just full, womanly lips, a floral scent, the subtle taste of strawberries and Sonja.

  His head spun. His heart raced. His cock throbbed, flooded with eager blood. He buried a hand in her hair, wishing the champagne glass he held in the other wasn’t there. How could he hold her close with a glass in his hand?

  Hold her?

  Hold her?

  Reality smashed into him. A fierce fist to his gut. He sucked in a gasp, tense with shocked disbelief, and then moaned—swirls of surreal pleasure filling his head—when Sonja parted her lips and stroked her tongue along his.

  He moaned, captured her tongue with his mouth and thrust his hips forward, pressing his erection to the soft plane of her belly.

  It was so different. So…so…unbelievably different.

  She whimpered, leaning into him. Her breasts crushed to his chest and a current of alien response shot through him. Breasts. Full, round, tipped by hard nipples…