Blame it on the Bass: Heart of Fame, Book 6 Read online

  Corbin laughed and then helped Levi snare Sonja before she could scramble away.

  A good ninety minutes later, after both Corbin and Levi had taken turns in spanking Sonja’s gorgeous butt, after they both thoroughly explored her body with their mouths, after they’d all come again, this time with Sonja sitting on Corbin’s face as she sucked Levi’s cock, and Corbin had fucked Levi’s ass, Levi declared it was time to eat.

  Sonja hightailed it to the shower, tossing over her shoulder she was going to raid Levi’s wardrobe for something clean to wear as she did so.

  Which left Corbin and Levi alone together.

  For the first time since Levi had left for Seattle.

  Corbin looked at his lover. Watched him collect the cushions from the floor and return them to their place on the sofa. Levi didn’t look at him.

  “We need to talk about Bella.”

  The words left him before he wanted them to.

  Levi’s jaw bunched. He straightened, his focus fixed on the black cushion in his hand. “We need to talk about a lot of things, Cor.”

  Corbin nodded. “We do.”

  “Perhaps we should put some clothes on before that happens.”

  “Makes sense.” Pushing himself to his feet, he walked to the bedroom. He stopped when a warm hand wrapped around his wrist.

  He turned, finding Levi behind him. “I never meant to hurt you, Cor.” Anguished sorrow cut the words.

  Corbin nodded. “I know.” He let out a breath. “And I shouldn’t have abandoned you like I did. I’m sorry. I really am. But I didn’t know what else to do. I needed you, babe. You. And you—”

  Levi silenced him with a kiss. Slow. Tender. Unlike any kiss Levi had ever given him. He cupped Corbin’s face, his long fingers resting on Corbin’s cheeks as his lips teased and his beard tickled.

  Blissful warmth flowed through Corbin. Warmth and love and happiness, even as a distant part of his mind recognized once again, Levi was shutting him away from his innermost emotions.

  And yet he couldn’t deny the man he loved. He’d been without him and knew he never wanted to be that way again. Perhaps, with Sonja’s help, Levi would finally open his heart and soul.

  Perhaps…

  Levi dropped to his knees and took Corbin’s cock in his mouth, shattering Corbin’s thoughts. Shattering everything except the incredible pleasure rolling over him. The concentrated purity of Levi’s mouth making love to his flesh.

  He closed his eyes and allowed it to claim him. Hating it as much as he loved it, craved it.

  And when he came, violent, shuddering ejaculations Levi swallowed in silence, a dark fear stole through him. A realization he didn’t want to acknowledge or ponder. Levi would never fully allow him into his heart. Ever. Even with Sonja in their bed, maybe even in their lives—a triad relationship in every sense of the word—Levi would never fully expose his heart. It was too guarded. Whatever had happened to him as a boy, a teenager, it had irrevocably wounded him.

  All Corbin could do was learn to live with that.

  As much as it tore him apart.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Tell me about Seattle.”

  Levi looked up from the pizza in front of him—when was the last time he’d eaten pizza?—and frowned at Sonja. “What do you want to know?”

  She settled back in her chair and adjusted the crotch of the boxer briefs she’d pilfered from his underwear drawer after her shower. “Was the singer good? Bad? Is he Nick Blackthorne’s replacement? Will I be singing karaoke to his songs in the not-too-distant future?”

  Levi snorted, shook his head and took a bite from the slice of ham and pineapple pizza in his hand.

  Ah, now he remembered. The last time he’d eaten pizza was after he and Sonja had partaken in an eight-hour sexual marathon during the weekend her parents went out of town. He’d been nineteen, she’d been seventeen. They’d fucked in every room of the house, including Mr. and Mrs. Stone’s king-size waterbed. Pizza after sex with Sonja. It was a tradition he could happily get used to. Especially when sex with Sonja now included sex with Corbin as well.

  “You will not be singing karaoke to his songs in the not-too-distant future,” he answered around the delicious sweet-and-savoury mouthful. “At least not Synergy songs.”

  “Who’s Synergy?”

  “That’s the new name of the band,” Corbin explained, helping himself to another slice—his fourth, Levi was sure. They’d really worked up an appetite over the last few hours of sex. He didn’t think he’d had so many orgasms in such a short period of time ever.

  Nor dodged Corbin’s need to talk about Isabella with such manipulative use of sex, for that matter.

  A finger of guilt scraped up Levi’s spine at the thought, but he shoved it away. He didn’t want to think about that now.

  You don’t want to think about it ever, mate. Admit it.

  “Synergy?” Sonja mulled over the title. “K, I can cope with that.”

  Levi snorted. “Oh, I’m so glad we have your approval.”

  She flipped him the bird with a smirk. “In your ear, Stan. Now, tell me why I won’t be singing any Synergy songs at karaoke with Seattle in the lead. Was he bad?”

  Levi shook his head. “He was incredible. Amazing voice. Almost a dead ringer for Nick—”

  “Bullshit.” Sonja interjected with a shake of her head. “Not possible.”

  “Possible. But the guy did two things wrong.”

  “What was that?”

  “First, he tried to grope Pepper backstage.”

  “Oh boy,” Corbin whispered, his eyebrows high. Levi wasn’t surprised. Corbin knew Noah Holden, the band’s drummer and Pepper’s partner, well. Noah was a happy, manic teddy bear—unless someone insulted or unsettled Pepper. Then the drummer became rather deadly.

  “And two?” Sonja asked, incredulous curiousity on her face. She looked adorable. The fact she was wearing Levi’s briefs and Corbin’s Dead Even T-shirt made her all the more so. He could happily eat pizza every night this way—with Corbin dressed only in a pair of black satin boxer shorts and Sonny wearing their clothes. It was perfect.

  Still not perfect. And you know why.

  “Two,” he said, keeping his mind on the conversation. “He posted an image of his penis on Twitter with the words, Suck on this, Blackthorne. I’m better than u. The letter U, not the word by the way.”

  “Oh boy,” Sonja echoed Corbin. “Classy.”

  Levi took another bite of pizza. “You could say that. So while he may have sounded a lot like Nick, he was, in a word, quite a dick.”

  “Hey, you’re a poet,” Sonja pointed out.

  Corbin raised his slice of pizza in a toast. “Iambic pentameter for the win.”

  “Is this what I have to look forward to now?” Levi regarded them both with a steady inspection, doing his best to keep his smile from stretching his lips. “A lifetime of English Lit jokes?”

  “Not just jokes.” Sonja grinned. “Poems and spontaneous compositions.”

  “There was a young man called Levi,” Corbin offered with a smirk.

  “Who really was quite a devi,” Sonja continued.

  Corbin shot her a quizzical look. “Devi?”

  She shrugged. “Hey, you find something to rhyme with Levi.”

  “And do you mean diva, or devil?” Corbin asked, a playful light in his blue eyes.

  She slid Levi a sideways smirk. “Both.”

  Levi tossed his pizza crust at her. “Ha ha.”

  She plucked the crust from the front of her shirt and brushed the crumbs from the swell of her breasts with her other hand. “Watch it, Stan,” she admonished with a mock scowl. “You’re mussing up Corbin’s shirt.”

  “Take it off then.”

  She cocked an eyebrow at his suggestion. “Don’t you know you’re meant to wait thirty minutes after eating before having sex?”

  “Getting tired of bonking us already, Sonny?”

  “Fuck, no,” she said, flicking a c
rumb from the vicinity of her left nipple. “Just don’t want to throw up pizza all over you both when we do it again. Much to my surprise, I’m more kinky than I thought I was, but even that’s going too far for me.”

  “Speaking of kinky,” Levi said, turning his attention to Corbin. “Tell me about the new sexual tension you added to the script.”

  As always when work was mentioned, Corbin lit up. “Ah, it’s so good. Sonja and I brainstormed it over breakfast one morning. The layers it adds to Huntley’s character and the torment it gives to both protagonists is…” He closed his eyes and made an appreciative humming sound. “Suffice to say, I got horny and emotionally conflicted while I was writing it.”

  Levi raised an eyebrow. He didn’t say what he was thinking—how “horny and emotionally conflicted” described his current state. Instead, he leant forward, retrieved another slice of pizza and settled back in his chair again. “Can I read it?”

  Corbin smiled. “When have I ever said no to you?”

  “Oi!” Sonja nudged the side of Corbin’s leg with her heel. “What about me? Do I get to read it as well?”

  With a chuckle, Corbin shoved her feet from his thigh and rose to his feet. “Shall go get you a copy, m’lady.”

  Levi frowned at Corbin’s woeful Sean Connery accent. Sonja however, burst out laughing. “Thanks, Hugh.”

  With a wink and a grin, Corbin sauntered from the room. It dawned on Levi he’d never seen his lover so relaxed. A pang of tension shot through his chest. It was…wonderful.

  “So, when are you really going to stop being a fuck knuckle jerk, Stan?”

  Levi startled at Sonja’s low question. He swung to face her, a prickling heat razing over his flesh. “I’m sorry?”

  She shook her head, a serious expression set on her face. “I’ll be the first to admit what the three of us have been doing today is fucking amazing and incredible and any other hyperbolic adjective of the same ilk, but I can see you’re still holding back. Keeping us both at arm’s length. Now I’m okay with that, given that I’m pretty much the third wheel in this relationship—”

  “The band aid?” he suggested, using Sonja’s own term from a lifetime ago. In his gut, a heavy weight churned. Was she more than that? Why did the idea of a life devoid of Sonny’s energy and sarcasm fill him with a cold emptiness?

  “A band aid.” She nodded. “That’s it. I know I’ve only been brought into this relationship as a band aid, but I can’t bite my tongue any longer.”

  “Then let me bite it,” he interjected. He didn’t want to hear what was coming next. “Or let Cor bite it while I watch. Or suck on your gorgeous tits. Or fuck you with my—”

  “Don’t try and deflect, Stan.” Her serious expression grew stern. And worried. It turned her face into something beyond beautiful. Ah, Christ, he really could fall in love with her all over again. Perhaps he already was given how much she stirred him.

  “I know what you’re doing and I’m not going to hold my peace. You love Corbin more than anything. I can see that. And holy shit, he loves you. You could power the fucking world on the force of his love for you, but Levi, you’ve got to let him into all of you. You can’t keep part of you locked away from him. It’s killing him. Fuck, it’s killing you. And it’s killing your relationship.”

  Levi studied her, hot blood roaring in his ears. “And Corbin told you this? While I was away and the pair of you were getting chummy?”

  If Sonja was unsettled by the angry tone in his voice, she didn’t show it. “Not in so many words. Jesus, dickhead. I know you. Sure, you’ve changed a little since we were at school, what with the whole I’m-a-famous-rock-star-slash-Hollywood-big-wheel, but you’re still the same Levi Levistan who put up barrier after barrier around his heart when anyone tried to find a way to it. I know you’re doing it now because I lived through you doing it to me. The difference between Corbin and me is Corbin is your forever. And I’m—”

  “Two copies of Dead Even 2.” Corbin strode back into the room, grinning at them both. “Well, two copies of the third act. Now with added sexual tension.”

  He came to a halt, frowning first at Levi then Sonja. “What did I miss? Why do you both look like you’re about to go ten rounds with each other?”

  Sonja’s laugh tickled Levi’s fraying nerves. “Stan had the audacity to tell me the Melbourne Storm were going to beat the Newcastle Knights this weekend.”

  Corbin raised his eyebrows. “Rugby league? You’re arguing over rugby league?” Shaking his head, he continued to the table and dropped into his seat. “And the Melbourne Storm, babe? Really?”

  Levi’s gut knotted. He clenched his jaw. A part of him wanted to curse Corbin’s interruption of Sonja’s lecture. He wanted Sonja to vocalize what she was so he could correct her. He wanted to tell her she was so much more to him than a band aid. That he wanted her to be even more. That Corbin wanted her to be more than just a sexual thing as well. Another part of him wanted to kiss his lover senseless for saving him from what Sonja forced in front of him—his inability to give everything he was to the man he loved.

  Instead, he took a bite of the pizza slice in his hand and shrugged. “At least the Storm has a better winning streak than those cowboys you follow in the US.”

  Corbin laughed. “Okay, them’s fighting words, lover mine. Them’s fighting words. Now shut up and read this.” He leant across the table and handed Levi the printed-out scene.

  Levi took them, his body tight. He settled back in his chair, noting Corbin passed Sonja her own copy. A small smile tugged at Levi’s lips as he watched Sonja cross her ankles on Corbin’s thighs, a hot lick of happiness stirring through his groin as Corbin smoothed his palm along her shin. It was such a scene of natural contentment and relaxed harmony. For a moment, Levi wanted nothing more than to absorb its simple truth and beauty.

  Fuck Sonny being just a band aid. Fuck her leaving our lives. Not happening. Not if I have any say in the situation.

  A heavy heat crawled over him and he raised his gaze from the sight of Corbin’s hand on Sonja’s leg to find Corbin watching him. Their eyes connected. Mated. An unspoken conversation Levi understood with every fibre in his soul. Corbin didn’t want Sonja to leave them either.

  How could their lives be so perfect this way, after such a short time, when he was still so…so…fucked up?

  Chest constricting, determined not to think about the uncertainty of their future for the rest of the night, he lowered his head to the papers in his hand.

  And put them aside fifteen minutes later, his cock a rigid pole of urgent want, his balls throbbing and hard with equal desire.

  “Holy fuck, Hollywood,” Sonja murmured from her seat beside Corbin, her stare still on the pages in her hand. “This is…shit, this leaves the sexual tension between Clooney and Lopez in Out of Sight for dead.”

  “It works?” Corbin asked. The nervous uncertainty and excitement in his voice made Levi’s cock jerk.

  “Fuck, yes, it works.” Sonja looked up at him, her cheeks flushed. Levi couldn’t miss how hard her nipples were under the cotton of Corbin’s shirt. Nor the way her breasts rose and fell.

  Corbin’s smile stretched his lips. “Thanks.” He turned to Levi, that same anxious thrill in his voice shining in his eyes. “Levi? What did you think?”

  Levi placed the stapled sheets of paper on the table beside his plate and shook his head. “I’m not sure,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Are you serious?” Shock registered in Sonja’s question.

  He slid his gaze to her before returning to Corbin. “I think I need to see it.”

  A flicker of realization danced in Corbin’s eyes, followed by a flare of open desire. He nodded, his lips twitched. “I think we can arrange that.”

  Sonja frowned at him. And then let out a tiny oh as she too realized what Levi requested. “Who…who gets tied up?”

  Levi stood, his cock straining against the stretch cotton of his boxers. “You do.” He turned and walked from t
he room. “Take her to your office, Cor,” he ordered over his shoulder.

  Striding into their bedroom, he retrieved the set of suede-lined cuffs from the top drawer of the bureau. Every nerve ending in his body sparked with impatient lust. Every muscle in his body thrummed with craving need. Corbin’s scene had tapped into his base desires, his arousal fed even more by the knowledge both Corbin and Sonja had brainstormed it together. Had they pictured themselves in the role when discussing it? Had he been the one watching the sexual torment unfold in their minds?

  Body charged with molten tension, he gripped the cuffs—Corbin’s favourite pair—in a tight fist and walked from the bedroom.

  Down the hallway. To Corbin’s office.

  His lover had done well. Sonja sat on a chair in the middle of the room, her breasts rising and falling with each shallow breath she pulled. Corbin stood before her, stripped to his waist. Levi’s cock pulsed, the sight of Sonja’s willingness to participate in the moment and Corbin’s sublime strength and sculpted power sending fresh desire through him.

  “Cuff her.” He handed the handcuffs to Corbin. “Just like the script.”

  Corbin met his gaze. Levi’s cock throbbed, and for a moment he was almost overwhelmed with the need to place his lips on Corbin’s throat and feel that purely male part of the body move beneath them.

  Drawing on what tenuous control he had over his pleasure, he walked to the far side of the room, crossed his arms over his chest and leant his back against the wall.

  Corbin stared down at Sonja, jangling the cuffs in one hand.

  Sonja watched him, lips parted, breath ragged.

  “Have you ever been tied up before, Sonja?” Corbin’s gentle question caressed Levi’s senses.

  His balls drew higher to his arse when she nodded her head. “Once. By Stan.”

  Corbin stepped closer to her, the inside of his knees framing hers. “Do you trust me?”

  She nodded.

  Levi bit back a low groan.

  Without another word, Corbin gathered Sonja’s wrists in his hands and positioned her arms behind the back of the chair. “Grip the posts,” he growled the lines from the screenplay.