Blackthorne: Heart of Fame, Book 8 Read online

  It had been a while since she checked out a guy. Quite a while, but damn, the two men were presenting her with a rather appealing view.

  Strop shook his head. “Can’t say. Neither had Australian ID when I asked for it, only US and UK drivers’ licenses. As far as I know Blackthorne is in New York. And what kind of celebrity tries to get into a club through conventional methods these days anyway? If they’re who they say they are, where’s their entourage? I’ve read McDowell doesn’t travel anywhere without his personal trainer in tow.”

  Forcing herself to turn her attention to her bouncer, Caitlin frowned. “Did they cause a ruckus trying to jump the queue?”

  She flicked the line of people waiting to get into the club a quick look. It extended down the footpath and around the corner. A line of people dressed to impress, checking out who was checking them out as they waited to enter the Chaos Room. A little thrill of pride shot through her. They were waiting to get into her nightclub, a business she’d created from the ground up, going into more debt than someone her age ever should. But she wasn’t in debt now. She’d done good, transforming a rundown dying bar into the nightclub to be seen at. Although at this point, most of the people in the line were straining their necks trying to get a look at the two guys standing at the curb. Straining their necks, whispering, shuffling about and giggling like little schoolgirls. Christ, even some of the guys in the line were giggling. Fuck.

  “Not much of one,” Strop’s droll voice drew her attention back to him. “They came to the front of the line, the one purporting to be McDowell said who they were and wondered if they could get in. The ruckus started when the women at the front got a look at them. There was squealing. And fainting. And tears.”

  Caitlin swung her stare back to the men waiting on the curb. “Seriously?”

  “Yep.”

  Narrowing her eyes, she ran a gaze over them both again. “What did they do?”

  “The one who says he’s McDowell grinned, waved a hand and gave me a look that said see? The one who is supposedly Blackthorne took a screaming woman’s phone from her and snapped a selfie with her before giving it back and kissing her on the cheek.”

  Caitlin cocked an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

  “Yep. They both helped up the women who’d supposedly fainted and signed a lot of boobs while I called inside.”

  “Signed boobs?”

  “Josh signed mine!” the woman at the front of the queue burst out, a feverish light in her eyes as she shoved her upper body toward Caitlin and yanked down the neckline of her top to reveal an unreadable signature scrawled in red over the top swells of her breasts. Was it lipstick?

  Caitlin stared at the excited woman’s exposed boobs for a second before lifting her head. “Maybe you should put them away,” she suggested.

  The woman straightened, carefully returned her neckline to where it should be and directed a dreamy look at the two men by the gutter. “He smells so delicious,” she gushed.

  Caitlin arched a brow. “Seriously?” she repeated. She didn’t understand fawning over celebrities. It made you look like an idiot as far as she was concerned.

  “Want me to call ’em over?” her bouncer asked, a humored chuckle in his voice.

  Shaking her head, she tapped Strop’s bulging biceps with her hand. “It’s okay. Let me check it out.”

  With another quick glance at the gawking, unsettled queue, she began to walk to the two supposed celebrities waiting by the street. She highly doubted they were who they purported to be. She’d only read yesterday the feds in the States had just arrested a crazy stalker who’d been dangerously obsessed with Blackthorne for months. What were the chances the guy would be prancing around Sydney, kissing fans on the street if something like that had happened? And if it was Blackthorne, where was his bodyguard. All celebrities of his fame had one. As did someone like Rhys McDowell. The striker for Manchester United and the Australian soccer team—along with the new face of Hugo Boss—was just as famous as the rock star. Word had it the guy was a major womanizer who had to beat off fans and lust-crazed admirers whenever he ventured off the soccer field. And sometimes on the soccer field too. Caitlin was sure she’d seen footage on the news last week of a naked female fan crash tackling McDowell during a match in London.

  All those facts led to the two guys standing with their backs to her not being who they said they were. There was no other way for it.

  Still, professional courtesy—an itch she never ignored—dictated she be one hundred percent certain before telling them to get to the back of the line and wait their turn like everyone else. It wouldn’t be good for business for the Chaos Room to be labeled by a vindictive PR rep or snippy gossip site as the nightclub that turned Josh Blackthorne and Rhys McDowell away.

  “Oi,” she called at their backs as she drew closer to them. “I hear you two think you don’t have to wait in line like…”

  The rest of Caitlin’s challenge faded on her lips. Not because she’d lost her courage, but because both guys turned to face her at once and she forgot for a moment how to breathe.

  Holy crap.

  They were both sexy as sin.

  “Everyone else?” the guy with the plaited ponytail finished for her. He grinned, his blue eyes dancing with mirth. “That’s about it. Probably because we’re not like everyone else.”

  Caitlin swallowed. Jesus, he was yummy. And cocky. She could see the devilish conceit dripping off him already.

  “That’s enough, Rhys.” A low drawl with its deep timbre sent a shiver up Caitlin’s spine and she swung her stare to his companion, her throat tightening as her eyes connected with an intense grey gaze. “Put your ego in check, dude.”

  Her pussy contracted. Her pulse quickened. Christ, the guy was hot. Hot with a capital oh-my-fucking-God-I-want-to-have-your-babies H. And he did look like Josh Blackthorne. He had those famous storm-cloud eyes, that famous hawkish nose and dark eyebrows. He had that killer smirk that made women everywhere want to strip naked and declare themselves his to do with what he chose, and that sinewy, corded body she’d seen undulating in more than one wickedly sexy video clip on MTV.

  He had all those things. But he didn’t have a bodyguard. And Josh Blackthorne would not be out in public without one of those. Caitlin didn’t think that was the case, she knew it for a fact. She’d spent enough time with celebrities, thanks to her uncle’s famous husband, to know that. If you were famous like Blackthorne was, it was vital you have one.

  No bodyguard, no Blackthorne.

  Sucking in a swift breath, she caught hold of the sexual libido taking her completely by surprise and crossed her arms over her breasts. Not because she was trying to hide the way her nipples puckered into hard points at the guy’s grey gaze, but because she wanted them both to know she wasn’t going to let them waste her time.

  “I don’t care about the egos,” she said, arching an eyebrow at them both—damn, it was hard to look away from the Blackthorne lookalike. “I care about my club. And right now, you guys are just causing a fracas with my patrons.”

  The guy pretending to be Rhys McDowell affected a melodramatic pout. “We don’t mean to. We just wanted to do some dancing. Let off some steam.” He gyrated his hips in a slow rotation. “Get a little low and dirty, if you know what I mean.”

  Behind Caitlin, what sounded like a hundred women all let out a delighted squeal at once.

  On his left, the Blackthorne lookalike snorted. “Smooth moves, Rhys. Smooth moves.” He turned his kilowatt gaze on her again, a dimple flashing at her from his right cheek. “Sorry. We were told this is the best club in town and figured we’d come check it out.”

  Beside him, his companion let out a filthy laugh. “Hell, yeah. I’m all about checking it out.”

  The women in the line behind Caitlin squealed again.

  Caitlin fixed both men with a steady stare before returning her focus to the Blackthorne doppelganger. Inside, her tummy fluttered. Lower in her body, her sex did the same. A girl
could orgasm under the power of that silver-grey gaze. Easily.

  Well, not her per se, but a girl who was partial to his kind of smoldering, simmering, raw sexual potency. A girl who hadn’t had sex with anyone for over eight months and ached to feel hands on her body again. A girl who needed…something she hadn’t had in a long time. Something like…

  Contact. Connection.

  With a grunt, Caitlin killed the traitorous thought and frowned at the two troublemakers. Enough was enough. They really were wasting her time now, and she hated wasting time. It was a pet peeve. “Okay,” she said, shoving her hands on her hips. “Clearly, you’ve had too much to drink, so even if you are who you say you are, which clearly you are not, I’m not letting you into my club. So perhaps you need to find a taxi and head home.”

  Blackthorne’s doppelganger raised his eyebrows. “Okay, first thing. We’re not drunk. Rhys here is admittedly a bit of a douche, but he’s not drunk in any way. He may be jet-lagged, given he just flew in from the UK not less than an hour ago, but neither of us have had a drop to drink. And secondly, why are you so adamant we’re not who we say we are?” He held out his arms, showing Caitlin a black-clad body very much the kind of most women’s fantasies. “Don’t we look like Rhys McDowell and Josh Blackthorne?”

  “Looking like them isn’t going to get you into my club ahead of all the other people who’ve been doing the right thing and—”

  A white flash on Caitlin’s right made her flinch. She spun around, glaring at the woman wearing a mini skirt, boob tube and not much else standing there, iPhone held up in the I’ve-just-taken-a-photo position. “Excuse me?”

  The woman giggled, took another snap and hurried back to the line to wait to get into the Chaos Room.

  Caitlin gaped at her insolence.

  “First time you’ve had your photo taken?”

  Blackthorne’s doppelganger’s question—uttered with a dry laugh—jerked her back to him. He was smirking at her, that smile so like the real Josh Blackthorne’s for a moment Caitlin forgot her time was being wasted by a lookalike wanker trying to cash in on his stunningly sexy similarity to a rock star. “Listen,” she said, trying to ignore the niggling doubt in her tummy. “I’m sure you’ll get in lots of other clubs tonight based on the way you both look, but my club isn’t one of them. So stop riling up those waiting in line, seriously stop impersonating Blackthorne and McDowell and go get your kicks somewhere else, okay?”

  The McDowell wannabe burst out laughing. His companion—he of the simmering Blackthorne good looks—chuckled as he pulled an iPhone from his back pocket.

  Around them, white flashes fired. More people from the Chaos Room’s waiting line had broken ranks it seemed, to come witness and capture the show on their smartphones. Caitlin wanted to flinch. She wasn’t a fan of having her photo taken without her permission. Instead, she kept her focus zeroed in on the two guys. If this was a Mexican standoff, she sure as hell wasn’t going to back down. They weren’t who they said they were, and they weren’t jumping the queue. No way. Not on her—

  “There’s someone who wants to talk to you,” Blackthorne’s doppelganger said to her, holding out his phone.

  Caitlin blinked. Looked at him. At the offered phone. At him again. “What?”

  More smartphone flashes detonated around them. She heard both the names Josh Blackthorne and Rhys McDowell uttered more than once.

  “Everything okay, boss?” Strop called from his place at the Chaos Room’s main door.

  Blackthorne’s lookalike took a step toward her, his stormy-grey eyes holding her captive. Damn, they were stunning. He extended the hand holding his phone closer to her, his smirk turning to a playful grin. “There’s someone who wants to talk to you on the other end. Take it. Say hello.”

  Stomach twisting, pulse fast—why did she feel like something beyond her control was taking place?—Caitlin closed the distance between her and the frustrating and far-too-sexy guy and plucked his phone from his fingers. Refusing to break eye-contact with him, she took a step back and pressed his phone to her ear. “Hello? Who’s this?”

  “Caitlin?”

  At the sound of her uncle’s voice on the other end of the connection, Caitlin almost dropped the phone. “Uncle L? What the hell are you…why are you…”

  “Wait a second,” her uncle, once a political bodyguard and now the husband and personal trainer to Hollywood hunk, Chris Huntley, interrupted. “Why am I talking to you on Josh Blackthorne’s mobile phone?”

  Chapter Two

  She looked better in person than she did in photos. And she looked fucking amazing in the photos he’d seen.

  Watching Caitlin Reynolds talk to her uncle on his phone, Josh couldn’t help but grin. He’d blown her out of the water with the move. Honestly, if he’d planned it this way, he couldn’t be happier with how it was turning out. But he hadn’t.

  Thirty-six hours ago, he’d been in New York, the feds standing in his Upper Westside apartment’s living room informing him his stalker had made bail and that he needed to be wary.

  Thirty-five hours ago, he’d been on the phone with Chris Huntley, who’d become a very close friend since Synergy had recorded the end track to Dead Even 2. He’d told Chris the stalker was on the streets again and jokingly wondered if Liev would teach him some self-defense moves. Maybe how to render a guy immobile with his pinkie, or some such ninja technique. Chris had suggested Josh hop a flight to Sydney. “Get out of the country for a while, dude. At least until the weirdo is behind bars again.” Josh had agreed with the idea. Liev also agreed with the plan and suggested Josh give his niece a call. “She’s a workaholic, Josh, but man she knows how to cook a mean lasagna. Tell her I said she had to cook you dinner at least once. She’s too bloody alone, that one. Don’t tell her I said that, however, or she’d have my balls.”

  Before Josh had ended the call, Liev had given him Caitlin’s number. And the name of the nightclub she owned. Josh had written it all down, picturing the young woman he’d seen in more than one photo at Chris and Liev’s LA home. Calling Caitlin Reynolds seemed like a very good idea.

  Thirty-four hours ago, as he was packing for his trip to Oz, he’d been surprised by a call from his best friend, Rhys. Rhys was bored with preparing for the Soccer World Cup and wanted to run amuck for a while. Rhys was the quintessential wild boy of the sporting world. Josh hadn’t seen him in ages. With a laugh, he’d told Rhys to catch a flight to Sydney ASAP. “Let’s go a little crazy back home. What do you think?” He hadn’t told Rhys about his on-the-loose stalker.

  They’d met each other at the Sydney airport, caught a taxi to Josh’s Kirribilli apartment overlooking Sydney Harbour, dumped their luggage in the middle of the living room and hightailed it here, to Caitlin’s bar.

  And then they’d been stopped at the door by the bouncer from hell.

  Which was perfect. Because the second Josh got a look at Caitlin Reynolds in the flesh, he wanted her. Fuck, did he want her. He wanted to do things to her he’d never done to any other woman. He wanted to lose himself in the lush curves of her body, the liquid blue of her eyes. He wanted to shake her to the core, rock her world—no pun intended—shatter the tightly wound poise she wore and make her scream his name. And the best way to start the ball rolling was to unsettle her by having her uncle confirm he was, in fact, the guy she so adamantly denied he was.

  He studied her, doing his best to keep his expression relaxed. God, she was sexy.

  She was no more than five foot five but projected a confidence taller than that. Her long sable hair was scraped back from her face, accentuating high cheekbones, a smooth, curved forehead and expressively straight eyebrows. Her blue eyes flashed with challenge, the thick dark lashes framing them only serving to emphasize how direct and blue they were. She had a tiny overbite Josh found utterly sensual, and her pink-glossed lips were full. Man, what would those lips feel like moving against his.

  The Iron Man shirt, jeans and flat-heeled boots did nothing to hi
de the lush curves of her body, a body his body was already eagerly responding to. And no matter how many times she pushed her hands to her hips or jutted out her chin in challenging aggression, he couldn’t help but notice how full her breasts were, how round her hips, how narrow her waist.

  A little bundle of feisty ferocity and indignant conceit all wrapped up in an exquisite vision of feminine beauty. It was incredible to behold. Powerful and almost mesmerizing. Alluring was another word that came to Josh’s mind.

  Vixen was another.

  As was seductress.

  And imposing.

  Liev had told him she was a tad full of herself. Establishing the hottest, most successful nightclub in Sydney at the age of twenty-four would do that to a person, let alone a slip of a girl. As would maintaining that club’s popularity for three straight years running without fail. Liev was proud of his niece and rightly so. Josh was already in lust with her.

  Now to get her into his bed.

  Naked.

  “Okay, Uncle L,” he heard her say into his phone with an unreadable expression as she studied him back. “If you say so.” She snorted. “Of course I don’t want to. I do have a—” She closed her eyes and shook her head, exasperated frustration flickering over her beautiful face. “Yeah, I know. Okay. Yeah. Sure. Love you. Give Chris my best.”

  She ended the call with a jab of her thumb and, with a curious—or was that cautious—frown, held his phone out to him.

  He grinned at her. “Told you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you’re awesome,” she said, her tone somewhere between sarcasm and humour. Josh couldn’t tell if she was trying to regroup or genuinely felt het up at who he and Rhys were. “Welcome to the Chaos Room. We’re honoured to have you here.”

  “Who wouldn’t be?” Rhys crowed at Josh’s side. For a second, Josh wanted to kick him.