Blackthorne: Heart of Fame, Book 8 (3 page)

Drawing to a halt on her right, he lowered his head to hers and brushed his lips against her ears. “Hey.”

She let out a yelp, spun to face him and punched something hard up into his solar plexus.

“Fuck!” he choked out, staggering back a step. Pain lanced through his body. His breath squeezed from him in a wheezy gasp. Whoa, she’d hit him.

“What the
hell
are you doing?” Incredulous anger shone in her eyes. Visible tension claimed her shoulders.

Josh pressed his palm to his chest and gave the point of unexpectedly violent contact a rub. “Trying to get your attention?” Damn, he could hardly breathe. “What did you hit me with? A sledgehammer?”

She narrowed her stare at him. “Yeah, I keep a sledgehammer on me at all times in case arrogant rock stars try to hit on me.”

He let out a wheezy chuckle, rubbing at his solar plexus again. “Damn, you’re a prickly one, aren’t you? And who says I’m trying to hit on you? Can’t a guy just say hello? Given that he knows your uncle?”

Uncertainty flickered over her face. Cautious doubt swam in her eyes. Her eyebrows, straight and dark and oh, so serious, dipped. The tension in her body remained. A tickle of intrigue stirred in Josh’s gut. In all the photos he’d seen of her in her uncle’s LA home, she’d been laughing and smiling. There’d been a cheeky mischief about her. A relaxed playfulness. Where was
that
Caitlin?

She caught her bottom lip with her teeth for a second before frowning deeper. “You
weren’t
trying to hit on me?”

“Actually, I was,” he answered with a smirk, determined to make her laugh. He’d spent more than one extended length of time in the shower thinking of her laughing image in those photos, his hand taking care of the steel in his groin as he did so. “But I was going to do it with charm and subtle grace.”

Flinty anger fell over her face again and she turned away from him, showing him her profile. Not her laughing profile or her smiling profile. Her
disdainful
profile. Crossing her arms over her chest, she studied the writhing, dancing, drinking people crammed on the dance floor. “I’m not interested. So you can stop right now.”

“Can’t I just buy you a drink?” he asked, risking physical injury again by leaning a little closer to her.

She shook her head, her gaze fixed on the crowded dance floor. “No.”

Josh narrowed his eyes. He wasn’t used to a woman saying no to him. They rarely did nowadays, not counting his mother and his kid sister that was. Chloe said no to him often, usually when he told her on the phone he had to end their conversations. Telling a five-and-a-half-year-old who loved him beyond measure he had to hang up always resulted with a stubborn, adamant no before she continued their conversation as if he hadn’t dared try to bring it to an end. Chloe was allowed to say no to him, however. Josh loved her for doing so.

Caitlin Reynolds saying no to him now, even though she knew who he was, was…an interesting experience. And a stimulating one. He’d be lying to himself if he didn’t admit he was even more turned on.

Or maybe his arousal was due to the absolutely gorgeous line of her upturned nose? Or the full curve of her bottom lip? Or the swan-like beauty of her neck? Or the heavy swell of her breasts beneath her folded arms, their round shape straining against the cotton of her Iron Man T-shirt—

“I’d say take a photo, it lasts longer.” Caitlin’s shout sounded over the club’s pumping music, making Josh blink. He jerked his stare up from his contemplation of her breasts and found her profile once again. This time, however, it wasn’t disdainful but contemptuous. “But I don’t want you to get the idea I want you looking at me at all.”

He frowned. “Are you always like this? So frosty and snappish?”

She nodded, still without looking at him. “Yes.”

Resting his elbow on the wall beside his head, he fixed her with a level gaze. “Don’t believe you.”

With a drawn-out sigh, she turned to face him, leaning her shoulder on the wall, arms still crossed beneath her breasts. “Why? Because you’re
the
Josh Blackthorne? The hottest rock star on the planet? Sex on legs with a voice to match? Because no one
ever
tells you they’re not interested?”

At the word
sex
passing her lips—lips Josh completely wanted to nip with his own—a heavy tension filled his groin. He shifted his stance, all too aware he was sporting a semi.

“No,” he answered, leaning once again a little closer to her. Close enough to detect the delicate perfume she wore. It slipped into his lungs and threaded its way to the growing thickness of his cock, helping the organ progress from a semi to a…whatever the hell an
almost
fully erect cock was called. A three-quarter? “Because I’ve seen photos of you in your uncle’s house and you’re laughing and smiling in all of them. There’s not a hope in hell a woman could ever look so naughty and cheeky and relaxed if she’s as frosty and prickly as you claim to be.”

She blinked.

“That’s the woman I want to buy a drink for,” he went on, lowering his head closer still to hers. “That laughing, cheeky, relaxed woman. And I think that woman’s uncle wants me to buy her a drink as well.”

Her gaze met his, an unreadable light in their azure depths. “Why do you think that?” The question left her on a low breath, low enough it was almost drowned out by the hip-hop rubbish spewing from the club’s speakers.

Josh let his lips curl in a slow smirk. “Because he told me to look you up. Because he told me to tell you to cook lasagna for me one night.”

“And that’s it? My uncle tells you to look me up in Sydney. My uncle who still thinks of me as the teenage girl who used to cook him lasagna on his birthday? That’s the reason you believe the woman you’re meeting now isn’t the
real
me?”

He shook his head, his heart fast. Christ, he wanted to see if that bottom lip of hers was as soft and plump as it looked.

Caitlin’s gaze locked on his, as if she was searching for something in his eyes. “So what
is
the reason, Mr. Knows All the Answers? Why do you think Uncle L so desperately wants me to get to know you? Huh?”

Josh lowered his head to hers until he could see the tiny flecks of sapphire in her eyes. “Because he also told me you were too alone.”

Those eyes widened. She sucked in a swift breath. Stiffened. Straightened from the wall. And then, without a word, spun on her heel and hurried away.

It didn’t take long for the crowd to swallow her up. In a few steps, she was gone from Josh’s view.

“Fuck.” He raked his hands through his hair. Damn it, he hadn’t meant to say that. He’d done so to get his own way, to prove he knew her on a level she obviously didn’t want him to. It was a low, manipulative act, one that he could only blame on his ego.

As his fame and success reached surreal levels, he’d sworn to himself he’d never become the stereotype rock-star prick. The rest of Synergy—his father’s old band—made sure that didn’t happen either. All of them had existed in that deluded state at various points in their stellar careers, as had his father. None of them held back on the stories of the shit and heartache that kind of conceited, self-absorbed ego and attitude caused. The moment he’d become the new front man for Synergy, the moment his dad had wished him success with his old band, the guys had decided they weren’t going to let fame go to his head. They’d taken on the over-protective-uncle role and kept him grounded.

But it was hard not to become enthralled with the power his fame delivered, especially when there was no Samuel, Jax, Levi or Noah around to tell him he was being a cocky wanker. Perhaps they all needed to tour again? Or spend some time in a recording studio. Perhaps he’d run loose for too long with nothing but his money, fame and ego to drive him.

Perhaps he should have headed to Murriundah instead of Sydney. Laying low with his mum and dad would have definitely grounded him. Partying in Sydney with Rhys? Yeah, not so much.

“Fuck,” he muttered again, doing that totally useless shuffle people did when they knew they had to do something to fix a situation but had no idea what that something was. His looked even more ridiculous, thanks to the fact his limp made him shuffle in a lopsided way.

He’d upset Caitlin with that smug declaration. That much was obvious. The way she’d fled him, the stunned disbelief in her eyes. Not his finest hour. Fuck, what was her uncle going to do to him if he found out?

And if her uncle was pissed—and rightly so—would he mention it to his friend, Aslin Rhodes? Aslin, who’d been Nick Blackthorne’s bodyguard for over fifteen years. Before Josh could fix his fuck-up, his father would be chewing him out for being the very conceited, arrogant arsehole Nick had never wanted Josh to be.

Tugging on his hair, Josh shuffled with increasing exasperation. Jesus, in the space of a few seconds he’d gone from feeling like an untouchable rock god to a little boy scared of his dad’s wrath and the censure of his dad’s friends.

All because he was horny over a woman whose laughing, smiling image had fed more than one sexual fantasy. A woman who so obviously didn’t like him.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he growled, staring at the spot Caitlin had disappeared into the frenetic nightclub. He had to find her. He had to apologise. Not just because he didn’t want to disappoint his father, or incur physical injury from her uncle, Liev, but because he didn’t like the idea he’d upset her.

Didn’t like that he was responsible for the shocked pain in her eyes.

Shoving his way through the crowd, uncaring of the hands groping at him, the bodies grinding against him and the dull ache in his right knee where the metal pins buried into his bones, he headed for the bar. He didn’t see Rhys. It was likely, knowing how smooth his friend was, that Rhys was already scoring in a dark corner somewhere. He did hear his own name whispered more than once. By the time he made it to the bar, he’d had four paper napkins with phone numbers scribbled on them shoved into his hands, down his shirt and in his back pocket. Christ, women were shameless sometimes.

It almost made him wish he hadn’t ditched his bodyguard back in New York with nothing but an email telling him to take a few days off. If Kenny were here now, Josh would be able to find Caitlin without dealing with groping hands and unsolicited phone numbers in his pocket.

Elbowing his way to the bar’s edge, he studied the people working behind it. Four women and two guys tended the madness of demanding patrons. All did so with easy smiles and natural calm.

Josh couldn’t help but be impressed. Caitlin knew how to pick her staff.

“Hey,” he shouted, waving at the nearest bartender—a tall guy with skin darker than chocolate, a gleaming shaved head and bulging muscles under his tight black shirt.

The bartender crossed to where he stood, bent at the waist and leaned an elbow on the marble counter. “Can I help you?” he asked, his voice a deep timbre, his gaze fixed on Josh’s.

“I need to speak to Caitlin,” Josh shouted back, the crowd around him a jostling mix of excited women and impatient men waiting to be served. “Can you tell me where she is, please?”

The massive guy narrowed his eyes and folded arms the size of tree trunks across an equally impressive chest. “Nope.”

Josh raised his eyebrows. Bloody hell, what was it with this bar? Everyone in here said no to him. “I’m not going to hurt her or do anything horrible,” he pleaded his case, a situation he was far from used to. “She just damn near knocked the breath out of me over by the DJ with a single whack. I get the feeling she’s more than capable of taking care of herself. I just wanted to talk to her, is all. I know her uncle and he told me to look her up. Nothing nefarious. Honest.”

He didn’t mention his overwhelming urge to bury himself in her body he’d experienced out on the street. The physical reaction had taken him not by surprise, but by storm. Since then however, he’d looked into her eyes and seen something else in there. Something…intriguing. Sure, he still wanted to lose himself in her lush curves, but he also wanted to have a conversation with her that didn’t involve her telling him to, in so many words, fuck off.

The bartender studied him, his expression contemplative. “You’re not making a deal about who you are then.”

It was, in Josh’s opinion, an odd thing to say. He frowned. “Nope. Should I? Would that make you tell me where I can find Caitlin?”

Those on either side of him began to shove and squirm more, like a writhing mass of sweat, their stares fixed on his face. He heard his name whispered with excited awe and amazement more than once. His chest tightened. At some point there was the distinct possibility of the crowd rioting if he didn’t get away soon.

He really hadn’t thought this night through at all.

In front on him, on the other side of the marble bar, the bartender chuckled, a deep, relaxed sound Josh could hear quite well despite the pulsing music emanating from the speakers and the horde exclaiming his name. “The opposite actually.” He leaned forward, close enough his forehead almost bumped Josh’s. “Head to the door marked private behind the stage. I’ll buzz you in.”

“Dude!” Josh held out his hand, a tight ribbon of elation threading through his unease. “Thanks, mate.”

The massive guy flashed a crooked smile at him and grabbed him around the wrist in a firm shake. “No worries, Blackthorne. But if you
do
hurt her, I’ll tear you apart limb by limb. Got it?”

And with that, he released Josh’s wrist and went back to serving customers.

Josh stared at him for a moment, trying to process the threat. Damn, she must be a great boss to warrant such violent, protective behavior in her staff. Further evidence she wasn’t the icy, uptight woman she’d presented to him.

With a grin, he pivoted on his heel and headed away from the bar.

Getting to know Caitlin Reynolds was his new plan, his new mission. He’d just decided. Getting to know her
and
tasting those sublime lips of hers.

Approaching the empty stage next to the dance floor, he flicked it a quick look, picturing himself up there, guitar in hand. If Caitlin’s lasagna was as delicious as Liev Reynolds said, maybe he’d give a small, unplugged performance on that stage one night to say thank you for dinner. Just him, his guitar, a mic and an unsuspecting crowd.