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

  Corbin laughed again, the ironic, self-deprecating laugh that had drawn Levi to him in the first place all those years ago on a Hollywood set, when Corbin had been openly gay and Levi was still hiding in the depths of a closet. “What happens if she says no? Babe, what happens if she says yes?”

  An image of Sonja straddling Corbin’s hips, his mouth feasting on her breast, his hands worshipping her body filled Levi’s head, hot, vivid and exquisitely arousing.

  Levi let out a ragged breath.

  Fuck, how would they ever recover from this?

  How would they survive it?

  He studied Corbin, every molecule in his body charged with conflicted desire. “Question?”

  Corbin nodded. His gaze swept over Levi, lingering for a moment on his groin. Levi’s cock pulsed in response to the visual caress. He may be messed up emotionally and psychologically—there really was no point denying it any longer—but when it came to Corbin Smith, his body’s physical reaction worked exactly the way it was meant to.

  Drawing in a slow breath, he forced his stare to stay on Corbin’s face. Not the increasing tent in his jeans. Not the long, corded length of his legs, legs that felt so good wrapped around Levi’s hips, or torso. Not the broad expanse of Corbin’s shoulders or the wide breadth of his chest. “What happens if Sonja says yes and we—you and I—still aren’t fixed? What if I’m still…broken? Will you…”

  Turning his head, he scrunched up his face and balled his fists.

  He couldn’t bring himself to say the words leave me. Just thinking about those two simple, monumental words ripped his heart raw.

  How could he exist without Corbin? Fate had torn the future they’d planned away from them, but they still had each other. Yet who knew for how long? If Levi couldn’t allow himself…couldn’t let what was in his soul be free…

  A roaring anger filled his ears only to fade away as two warm, dry hands cupped his jaw.

  With the faintest of pressure, Corbin made Levi look at him. “I love you, Levi,” he said. “Nothing will ever change that. Do you understand?”

  Levi nodded.

  A nod Corbin halted with a kiss. He moved his lips over Levi’s, soft, almost apologetic. He nipped at Levi’s bottom lip with gentle teeth before dipping his tongue into Levi’s mouth.

  Levi groaned, smoothing his hands over Corbin’s hips to haul him to his body.

  The course denim of Corbin’s jeans scratched Levi’s engorged erection, the rough friction on his taut flesh undoing his control.

  He took control of the kiss, spinning Corbin to the side to ram him against the wall. He drove his hips forward, grinding his cock against the steely bulge of Corbin’s groin even as he shoved his hands under the hem of Corbin’s polo shirt.

  Finding his lover’s nipples, he pinched them. Hard. Scraped his thumbnails over each one. Levi’s nails were longer than the average man’s—most bass players’ were—and Corbin reacted to their fierce swipe. He moaned into Levi’s mouth, raking his hands up Levi’s damp back, over his shoulders and into Levi’s hair.

  Levi shook his head, refusing Corbin the contact. He was in control now. And he knew what he wanted.

  Tearing his lips from the kiss, he grabbed Corbin’s belt buckle, undid it with a brutal yank, lowered Corbin’s fly with the same aggressive force and pushed his lover’s jeans down over his hips.

  Corbin stared into his eyes, offering no resistance to the ungentle move, his breath shallow.

  For a moment, Levi toyed with the idea of binding Corbin’s wrists together with the long length of leather. It wouldn’t be the first time. Nor the first time in this very room.

  His cock throbbed at the memories of doing just that. And then those memories were awash with other ones, memories of the time Levi had tied Sonja to her bed with belts when her parents were out of state and he’d spent the night.

  His head swam. Black swirls of tortured need filled his vision.

  He hadn’t thought about that night, his first foray into BDSM, for years. Decades. Hadn’t thought about how wet it had made the girl his parents declared too good for him. How she’d begged him to fuck her harder than he ever had.

  And yet now he was thinking about it. Thinking about that night as his lover now stood before him, the tiny bead of Corbin’s pre-come a dark, wet spot blooming on the front of the Ralph Lauren boxer briefs Levi had given him for his birthday.

  Thinking about it. Getting harder with each second.

  What kind of person did that make him?

  A broken one.

  The thought whispered through Levi’s head, twisting through his familiar desire for Corbin, threading through the unsettling need for Sonja. It dawned on him that when he’d asked—almost asked—if Corbin would leave if this unhinged plan of inviting her to sleep with them both didn’t work, Corbin hadn’t answered. Had told him he loved him instead. Was that enough? To save them?

  Lifting his gaze from Corbin’s trapped erection, he stared into his lover’s eyes. Searched them for something. Surrender? Hatred?

  What he found was honest, open desire.

  Open.

  As always, Corbin was letting Levi see exactly what he wanted and needed.

  Stabbing heat and need pierced into Levi’s groin at the realization. A thick spasm claimed his cock. His balls drew closer to his body.

  “Levi…” Corbin breathed, urgent want in his voice.

  Chest tight, Levi closed the distance between them, hooked his thumbs into the waistband of Corbin’s briefs and pulled them down.

  Corbin’s raw gasp filled the bathroom. A shudder wracked his body as his cock sprung free. “Fuck, yes.”

  With a low growl, Levi wrapped his fingers around its wide girth and squeezed, heady lust and pleasure flooding him. The solid pole of Corbin’s dick in his hand always affected him this way—turned any doubt, any confusion into primitive, possessive control. Increasing his grip, he pumped up and down his lover’s massive erection. Once. Twice.

  Corbin groaned. Closed his eyes. Trembled. “Do it again.”

  Levi dragged his thumb across the tip of Corbin’s cock, smeared the drops of moisture forming there in a slow swipe before encircling the bulbous head with his fingers and squeezing. Hard.

  Corbin sucked in a hissing breath. “Oh yeah…fuck, yeah.”

  The unrestrained pleasure in Corbin’s face ignited fresh need in Levi’s core. He sucked in a slow breath, pumping Corbin’s length once more. Faster this time.

  “Fuck, babe,” Corbin gasped, writhing against the wall. “That feels so—”

  Levi sank to his knees and plunged his mouth over Corbin’s dick, sucking it deep into his throat.

  “Fuck!” Corbin slammed his hips forward, a violent bucking motion Levi reveled in. “Oh fuck, yeah.”

  Growling around his lover’s shaft, Levi grabbed Corbin’s hips and pressed his arse back to the wall. Another shudder rocked through Corbin. He groaned. Pushed his cock deeper into Levi’s mouth.

  With another growl, Levi dug his fingers into Corbin’s hips and shoved them harder to the bathroom wall. Holding him pinned to the spot, refusing to let him move, Levi slowly withdrew his mouth up Corbin’s quivering shaft. The velvet steel of Corbin’s flesh against his tongue drove him wild. Made his balls ache and his heart pound. He sucked a tight journey up to the distended brim of Corbin’s cockhead and then, with equal ferocity, plunged back down again, deeper this time. So deep Corbin’s balls pressed to Levi’s lips. So deep the tip of Corbin’s pole pushed beyond the back of Levi’s throat.

  Wild fingers scraped at Levi’s scalp. “F-fuck, that…” Corbin panted. “Feels…so good. So…”

  Levi cupped Corbin’s balls in a tight grip, tugged at their heavy, swollen weight and slid his mouth up Corbin’s length, sucking the entire way.

  Corbin bucked. Groaned. Fisted Levi’s hair.

  Levi took him back into his mouth, his throat once again. Controlling Corbin’s pleasure as much as he controlled his own action
s. He worked his lover’s flesh, listened to his groans, felt the shaking in his muscles.

  He played Corbin’s body with growing need until his own urgency overwhelmed him, his own greed to taste Corbin’s release consumed him.

  Controlled him.

  He lashed the underside of Corbin’s cock with his tongue, kneaded his lover’s balls, palmed them, and then slid his fingers between the crevice of Corbin’s arse cheeks and pressed against his anus.

  “Fuck!”

  Corbin erupted in Levi’s mouth. Hot, thick wads splashed the back of Levi’s throat, fast and never-ending.

  Levi swallowed each with greedy groans, massaging Corbin’s entry with the pad of his index finger as he did so. He milked his lover of his release even as he increased the pleasure of it.

  Corbin’s hands scored at Levi’s shoulders, fisted in his hair. His panted gasps and strangled moans filled the bathroom. Echoed off the tiles and glass. Reverberated through Levi, into his heart, his soul. And then, with a violent thrust, Corbin froze, his cock deep in Levi’s mouth, his seed pumping from him in one final gush.

  A heartbeat later, Levi slid his lips from Corbin’s shaft, his body thrumming with pleasure. He leant forward, wrapped his arms around Corbin’s hip, pressed his face to the flat plane of Corbin’s stomach—still hitching with Corbin’s rapid pants—and held him. Held him and ached for him.

  Incapable of doing anything else but.

  Chapter Five

  Sonja huffed an angry breath at the tangled mess of her hair hanging in her eyes.

  Push-ups. She was resorting to pushups. Pushups at six a.m. in the bloody morning. Bloody hell, surely a vibrator would be better?

  Blowing at her hair again, she lowered her body—balanced stiff like a plank on her toes and palms—to the floor. The muscles of her arms and shoulders burned. Which wasn’t surprising, given she was about to count off fifty.

  Fifty punishing pushups designed to get Levi bloody Levistan out of her head.

  It didn’t help every time she lowered her stiff, sweaty, hot body to the ground her nipples brushed the cool granite flooring of her living room.

  The fact she was doing push-ups—fifty-one now—stark naked also contributed to her flustered state. It meant every time her nipples did kiss the floor, even for the micro-second she quivered an inch above it before straightening her arms again, her hot flesh came into direct contact with the cold stone, sending licks of depraved pleasure through her. Depraved licks of pleasure that headed without delay to the junction of her thighs.

  In other words, she was doing push-ups to try and stop being horny over her old gay boyfriend and was getting hornier with every pushup she did.

  “Fuck this,” she snarled, bringing her knees up to her belly and propelling herself to her feet in a wonky burpee. Raking her hair from her face with a frustrated swipe, she stormed into the kitchen.

  She was meant to be at work in an hour. Work. Like she was in any state to go to work and deal with her boss and his sexual innuendoes. Ha. After spending the night either wide awake and thinking things she shouldn’t about her gay ex-boyfriend, or fitfully asleep and dreaming debauched dreams involving her gay ex-boyfriend, his too-damn-sexy American boyfriend and herself, the last thing she needed was to go in to work and read submission after submission of erotic writing from the slush pile, which was what she had to do today.

  Being an editor at an erotic-romance publishing house was all very well and good, until you found yourself tormented by thoroughly erotic and disturbing dreams and fantasies. When that happened, there, their, they’re and split-bloody-infinitives became less important than how quickly you could lock your office door and ride your hand to a climax.

  It wasn’t often Sonja found herself turned on at work—thank God, given her boss’s habit of checking out her boobs every time he was near her—but after the dreams she’d had last night, reading erotic romance was going to push her to that very state.

  The first dream had been about Levi kissing her on stage. And then stripping her in front of the crowd. And then eating her out while everyone watched and cheered. For some strange reason, a Justin Bieber song had been playing in the background, the words to “Baby Baby Baby” flashing green on the screen behind her.

  She’d woken from that one shuddering with an orgasm. Until that point, she hadn’t known women could even have wet dreams, let alone ones that made her moan and groan and shake all over.

  The next hour had been spent replaying the scene with Levi in Do Re Me over and over, trying to figure out what was going on with him. It had been so long since she’d had anything to do with him, and yet the moment he’d taken her hand—bam, all those years had vanished and it was like he’d never been gone from her heart.

  Even though his kisses had driven her wild, she’d spent those long minutes awake worried about his state of mind. Levi rarely showed his emotions, but when he’d been holding her, trying to convince her to come back to his apartment, an anguished need and torment had shone in his eyes. Why? And how did he possibly think being with her, sexually or otherwise, would help?

  At some point, she’d fallen asleep and into another dream, this one not quite so exhibitionistic but equally arousing. She and Levi were making love in a room with a massive window through which a gentle summer breeze wafted, turning the sheer gauze curtains into a billowing cloud above them. In the background, Nick Blackthorne sang. Not a Blackthorne song playing on an iPod, but Nick Blackthorne himself, wearing a T-shirt that said Rock Hard And Ready. His presence didn’t worry Sonja at all in the dream. It only intensified the pleasure consuming her at Levi’s every touch and thrust and bite. Except somewhere in the dream, Blackthorne became Levi’s boyfriend. And he wasn’t in the background. He was on the side of the bed, perched there, naked. Saying things to them both she couldn’t remember now, his American accent so sexy she’d begged him over and over to say her name, to tell her…

  She didn’t know what woke her at that point, but by the way her heart was hammering and the way her pussy was throbbing, she suspected it was another orgasm.

  A cold shower had followed that dream. A cold shower and a stern talking to. She’d called herself a perverted lunatic, scolded her ridiculous sexual imagination—perhaps being an erotic book editor was doing things to her mind?—and deemed all thoughts of Levi and his boyfriend off-limits.

  Her ridiculous sexual imagination didn’t listen however. For the last dream of the night, the one that had seen her propel herself from her bed and pound out fifty-one naked pushups, involved her and Levi’s boyfriend. Doing…stuff together. Naughty stuff. Stuff a gay guy never did with a woman. Stuff her authors wrote about. Stuff involving lots of lube and sweat. And while he was doing that stuff to her, Levi had been doing stuff to him.

  A flash of the dream whispered through Sonja’s frazzled mind, utterly vivid and detailed. Her knees buckled and she grabbed at the refrigerator’s handle, desperate to keep herself upright. Another flash of the dream taunted her—Levi behind his lover as his lover buried his head between Sonja’s spread thighs—and she bit back a groan. Damn it, her sex was constricting and pulsing like a...like a…fuck, whatever pulsed and constricted a lot. This was why she was an editor and not a writer. Maybe she should call up one of her authors and ask for the appropriate noun?

  She shook her head at the insane notion. Yeah, like she was going to share any of this with anyone.

  Sucking in a slow breath, she straightened her spine, squared her shoulders and yanked open the fridge. The chilly air from the open refrigerator slipped over her flushed, perspiration-slicked skin, turning her nipples to aching pebbles. She shook off the urge to touch them. Coffee was what she needed. Coffee would clear her head. Coffee, followed by eggs and toast and then more coffee and a shower. By the time that was done and she was dressed for work, she would be completely back in control of her body and mind.

  Easy peasy—

  Her doorbell rang.

  Sonja frowned
in the direction of her foyer. “Who the fuck?”

  The doorbell chimed again.

  She shot a look at the clock hanging on the wall above the kitchen sink. Who the hell would be ringing her doorbell at five-minutes past six in the morning?

  The soft ding dong sounded again.

  Letting out an exasperated sigh, Sonja swung the fridge door shut and ran to her bedroom, shouting, “I’m coming!” over her shoulder as she did so.

  Her robe was nowhere to be found. Not surprising really, given how long overdue she was to attack the growing pile of laundry waiting for her. Scanning the room, she spied her old AC/DC Farewell Tour T-shirt crumpled on the chair under the window. She’d worn it to bed but had stripped it off and flung it aside after only a few minutes under the sheets, its soft restriction as she tossed and turned driving her mental.

  Dragging it over her head, she yanked it down as low as it would go—just past her hoo-haa combed her fingers through the tangled mess of her hair and hurried to the front door. Just as whoever was on the other side knocked. Twice. “Okay, okay,” she muttered, unlocking the door and pulling it open, “keep your pants on.”

  “Good advice, Sonny,” Levi deadpanned at her, his dark eyes raking over her bare legs. “Do you always answer the door like this?”

  Sonja’s heart didn’t just jump into her throat. It rammed up there in an explosive beat and tried to pound its way from her body. She gaped at him. Then she caught herself gaping at him and scowled instead. “What the hell are you doing here? Are you stalking me?”

  He laughed, a wry chuckle she’d never forgotten. It had been the kind of chuckle he gave anyone foolish enough to tell him he was good at something. The kind that said he didn’t think he was, but thank you for the thought. “No,” he said, the corners of his eyes crinkling. For the first time, Sonja noticed the wrinkles there. It made her realize he wasn’t an eighteen-year-old boy anymore. Nor was she sixteen.

  Scowling some more, she leant her elbow on the side of the doorframe. And then realized the action—designed to look sarcastically indifferent—raised the hem of her T-shirt.