Love's Rhythm Page 4

  “You’re not his medical practitioner. You’re a vet.”

  Jennifer made a dismissive sound. “Animal, rock star. All the same thing when burst blood vessels and concussions are involved.”

  Nick nodded. “I agree. I’m not fit to drive back to Sydney in my condition.”

  Lauren rolled her eyes. “And what condition is that, Mr. Blackthorne?”

  “Horny,” Jennifer offered before Nick could say a word.

  Lauren snorted. “Deluded, more like it.”

  Jennifer’s eyebrows lifted. “Hey, I just watched you stick your tongue down his throat as eagerly as he stuck his down yours, Miss Robbins, so you can drop the indignant act.”

  “I—”

  But the woman didn’t let Lauren finish. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have somewhere else to be.”

  Lauren’s mouth fell open. “No, you don’t.”

  But to Nick’s delight, Jennifer ignored her, pivoting on her heel and crossing the bedroom in a few long strides. “Make sure you clean up after yourselves,” she threw over her shoulder a second before she walked through the doorway and pulled the door closed behind her.

  Nick laughed, even as his balls grew tighter and his cock jerked. He knew if he let Lauren get the chance she would try to deny what had just happened. He wasn’t going to give her that chance. Just as she turned back to him, her face set in a glare, her finger raised—no doubt ready to tell him to go to hell—he slid his hand into the hair at the nape of her neck and claimed her mouth once again.

  She fought the kiss. For exactly one wild thumping heartbeat. And then she surrendered to what was already in complete control of Nick—pure, undeniable desire. The desire of their past, the desire that had fed them for so long nothing else had mattered.

  He worshipped her mouth, her lips, her throat. He scored lines along her jaw, up to her ear, back to her lips. She whimpered nonsensical sounds that filled his cock with fresh want. Whispered words fell from her lips, words that belonged to unfinished sentences like, “This can’t… I need… I… You… Please…”

  When he slipped his right hand from her hair and covered her breast with it, she sucked in a gasp, her hips pushing to his with an unspoken request. Her nipple pressed at the centre of his palm, hard and insistent. A tremor rocked through her and she let out a hitching breath. “Nick…please.”

  He knew she was asking him to stop even as she was begging him for more. Her voice wavered, torn with need and confusion. “Don’t ask me to stop, Lauren,” he groaned against her throat. He could feel her pulse beneath his lips, rapid and strong. “Unless you really want me to walk away, right now, don’t ask me to stop.”

  “Nick,” she choked, her hips rolling against his. “We can’t do this…”

  He lifted his head, his gaze roaming her face. Her ragged breath caressed his lips, her eyes were closed, her face etched with pleasure. Pleasure he’d given to her with just a kiss. A kiss.

  “Are you with someone, Lauren?” His gut churned, his voice cracking on the question. He had to ask. No matter how much he hated the expected answer. “Is that why you want me to stop? Is that why you’re fighting so hard to deny what’s so very undeniable? If you are, I’ll stop. I’ll stop right now.” He swallowed, clenched his teeth. “Just tell me if you are.”

  Her eyes squeezed more tightly shut. Her teeth caught her bottom lip. She didn’t answer.

  His stomach knotted. His cock pulsed. She was so soft in his arms, against his body. Her heat was so close to his, her breasts so full, her lips so sweet. Fuck, he wanted her. More than he could comprehend. Wanted to bury himself in her heat and give her everything he was.

  Weren’t you here only to ask a question?

  He was. And he had. And she hadn’t said yes.

  “Let me make love to you, Lauren.” He pressed his mouth to the base of her throat, stroking the tip of his tongue into the shallow dip there. “Let me show you what we both once had.”

  He slipped his hand under her shirt, his head swimming at the velvet warmth of her skin. His fingers danced over her ribcage before brushing the under-swell of her breast. Lace rasped his fingertips and an image of Lauren in her underwear from a lifetime ago filled his head, making it swim some more. She’d always loved beautiful underwear—lacey bras and knickers, usually white or the deepest burgundy. What colour was she wearing today?

  His heart slammed faster at the thought and, unable to stop himself, he shifted his arm, bunching up her shirt to reveal that which his hand so desperately wanted to possess.

  “Oh, babe,” he groaned, his stare falling on a cherry-red bra perfectly cupping her breast. Her nipple strained at the delicate lace, drawing his attention and making his breath quicken. “You are as beautiful as I remember.”

  He bent and took her nipple in his mouth, rolling its taut form under his tongue before suckling on it hard through the lace.

  “Nick,” Lauren raked her nails over his shoulders, her hips bucking forward. He pressed his free hand to the small of her back, holding her still as he drew on her breast. She whimpered, clinging to him, those wordless sounds slipping from her again. Wordless sounds that grew to raw pleas. “Oh, Nick, that feels so good. So good…”

  He laved her nipple, caught it between his teeth and flicked his tongue over it. She arched in his arms, one long leg wrapping around the back of his thigh. His blood roared through his veins, in his ears at the warmth of her sex, her pussy, so close to his groin. It shoved him dangerously close to the edge.

  “Fuck me,” he ground out against her breast, raking his hand down to her arse to cup her left cheek, “I’m about five minutes away from—”

  She reached up and yanked her bra aside, freeing her nipple of the concealing lace, and the rest of his sentence was lost to him.

  He latched onto the taut point of flesh, drawing it into his mouth with hungry need. Lauren moaned and arched into him, stroking her heat against the length of his erection through their clothes, her nails digging into the backs of his shoulders. A disconnected part of his mind wondered where his leather jacket had gone. A far more involved part pointed out it didn’t fucking matter. Lauren Robbins was in his arms. Who the fuck cared about a jacket?

  He scooped her breast, now completely released of her bra, deeper into his palm, massaging its beautiful weight as he feasted on her nipple. With every suck and nip, she whimpered, thrusting her pussy harder to his cock. His straining, throbbing cock.

  Ah, Christ, he was close to coming.

  It was always this way with Lauren, Nick. You lost control every time she touched you. Lost control and lost yourself in her heat, her smell, her taste…

  The thought seared into him, hot and powerful. Every song he’d ever written was about her, every rhyme forged by what they’d had and what he’d walked away from.

  And now here he was, her flesh in his mouth, her nipple under his tongue, her pleasure turning the air musky.

  Christ, he wanted to be inside her.

  He straightened from her breast, grazing her chin and mouth with his lips before dragging his thumb over her nipple. “Let me make love to you, Lauren. Right now.”

  She opened her eyes, gazing up at him through heavy lids. “Nick…”

  His name fell from her lips, part supplication, part request.

  Without another second wasting time, he hauled her off her feet, threw her onto the bed and crushed her to the mattress with his body. He captured her lips with his, his kiss as savage as his lust. His head roared, the pain of his concussion insignificant to the dire need, the concentrated pleasure consuming him. She writhed beneath him, her hands raking over his back, her sex grinding to his erection.

  Fuck, it felt so good. So good. So potent and raw. It was as if they were two horny teenagers all over again, discovering each other with the full force of hormonal need. The first time he’d possessed her they’d been just that, barely legal and so fucking on fire he’d hardly stroked into her tightness once before losing his load. The
second time—fifteen minutes later—had been just as hot, just as powerful. She’d cried out his name both times, begged him for more. Told him she loved him.

  And he’d buried his face in her neck, one hand on her breast, one hand knotted in the sheet of her single bed, his cock sheathed inside her wet heat, and told her he loved her too, would love her forever.

  Fuck, how had he let it all go so wrong?

  Fix it now. Give her everything you should have the last fifteen years. Make her remember what it was like. Make her cry your name. Make her plead for more. Make her love you again.

  He tore away from the kiss, hooked his hands under the hemline of her shirt and yanked it up over her head before she could utter a sound. Her breasts jiggled with the force of his disrobing, her nipples hard points—one still trapped by the cup of her bra, one revealed to his gaze. With a growl, he ripped the skimpy undergarment apart, Lauren’s squeal making his cock jerk in his jeans.

  He captured first one nipple and then the other with his mouth, suckling with ravenous want. She moaned and twisted beneath him, her fingers scraping at his shoulders. With another growl, he snatched her wrists and pinned them to the bed beside her as he thoroughly sucked on her breasts. She made sounds, sweet sounds, wordless sounds, her legs wrapping around his thighs, pulling him harder to her sex.

  Nick’s heart punched faster, driving eager blood into his shaft. His pulse thumped in his ears, a rapid beat echoed by the throb in his groin. He dragged his mouth over her smooth flesh, nipping at the under swell of her breasts with increasing urgency before sliding his tongue and lips down the line of her belly to the indent of her navel.

  As she always did, she hissed in a sharp breath. Lauren’s belly button was an erogenous zone and Nick wasted no time lashing it with feverish attention. He circled its circumference with the tip of his tongue, painted its shallow depths with broad strokes. She bucked each time, a hiccupping, “oh, yes, yes,” accompanying each physical reaction to his tongue’s caress.

  When he felt the muscles in her thighs begin to quiver, when he felt a tremble work through her body, he moved lower. How could he not when he pulled Lauren’s scent into his being with every breath he took? He could taste her pleasure, her need on the air, a perfume so familiar to him that for a dizzying moment he almost believed he’d never been without it.

  His chin nudged the waistline of her trousers. He released her wrists and fumbled with her fly, lifting his head from her belly only long enough to watch his hands slide her snug charcoal pants down over her hips.

  His heart slammed into his throat. His mouth went dry. “Oh, babe…”

  She lay before him, nothing covering her from his gaze but a pair of tiny red lace knickers.

  Lace of her heat, slips into my soul, keeps her from me forever and I grow

  The lyrics from a song he’d written a decade ago whispered through his mind, a song about a woman called “Heartbreak”. A tormented song. A tortured song.

  He didn’t want to listen to them, think about them. He wanted…

  “To taste your honey on my tongue,” he murmured, a second before he pressed his palms to Lauren’s inner thighs, spread her legs wide and lowered his head to her pussy.

  “Oh, Nick!”

  She moaned his name as his tongue stroked her folds through the lace of her undies, her hips thrusting upward to meet his touch. She sucked in a ragged breath, shoving her hips higher as he flicked at her clitoris.

  The lace rubbed at his tongue and he growled, snagging the crotch of her knickers with a finger and yanking it aside. The scent of her pleasure filled his breath instantly. His cock swelled harder at the subtle musk. “You taste as good as I remember, babe.” He spoke against her inner thigh, his lips brushing her skin as he ran the pad of his thumb over her wet seam. “I want more.”

  He slipped his thumb into her pussy, lapping at her clit as she bucked into his penetration. She called out his name, louder this time, her hands grabbing at the bed’s duvet. He wriggled his thumb deeper, sucking the nub of her clit into his mouth, laving it over and over again with his tongue.

  “Nick.” Lauren’s gasps turned his name to a breathless pant. “Nick, I…I’m…”

  “Come for me, baby,” he urged against her sex, withdrawing his thumb long enough to dip his tongue inside her damp folds. “I want to fucking drown in your orgasm.”

  He stabbed his tongue and his thumb back into her heat, wriggling both before driving his thumb deeper and lashing her clit with his tongue. Her moans grew louder, her hips bucked higher, harder. His dick ached in his jeans, a rod of steel ready to burst. As soon as Lauren came, as soon as he brought her to climax with his mouth, he would sink his length into her dripping, clenching sex. As soon as she came…

  He caught her clit with his teeth, nipped once and then suckled.

  “Fuck!” Lauren’s scream rent the air, the word long and hitching. “Oh fuck, yes, yes.”

  Her cream flowed from her, painting Nick’s lips and chin, and still he worshipped her sex. Still he suckled and bit and lapped, all the while releasing his fly with one shaky hand. He freed his cock of its denim prison, smearing his pre-come over its bulbous head, his mouth full of Lauren, his mind full of pleasure, his heart full of—

  Someone started singing “Livin’ on a Prayer” from beside the bed. Someone not Jon Bon Jovi.

  “Shit!” Lauren yelped, her voice high, panicked. “Shit, shit, shit!”

  She scurried backward, her heels bunching up the duvet, her feet smacking into Nick’s shoulders. He jerked upright, staring at her, his heart smashing into his throat at the abject horror etched on her face.

  “Lauren?” He made to crawl after her, but she shook her head, staring at him for a split second, eyes wide, face pale, before lurching sideways and snatching at her satchel sitting on the bedside table.

  “Livin’ on a Prayer” grew louder as she pulled a slim white iPhone from the satchel’s belly and swiped her finger over its screen. Nick caught a glimpse of an image of someone with dark hair and a wide grin, a male someone, and then Lauren rammed the phone to her ear, her back turned to him, her spine ramrod straight.

  He stared at her back, at the bra strap still dangling from her shoulders, at the tousled curtain of her hair caressing her shoulder blades. His pulse thumped fast in his neck, his cock.

  “Hey, Josh,” he heard her say, her voice almost, almost controlled, and his mouth went dry. “I’m sorry, honey, I meant to call.”

  Chapter Four

  “Yeah, yeah,” Josh chuckled in her ear, and Lauren closed her eyes, fighting the need to slump into a ball and cry. “Sure you did, Mum. Any chance you’re going to be home for dinner tonight? I mean it is after six after all.”

  Lauren’s eyes flung open. She looked at her watch, a loud thump-thump pounding in her ears.

  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?