Lust's Rhythm (Heart of Fame Book 10) (9 page)

Face aching from smiling so much, Chloe thanked their driver and climbed from the taxi. She heard the man say something to Jed as he paid the fare, heard Jed chuckle, and then her husband was standing behind her, his hands smoothing over her tummy as he rested his chin on her shoulder. “Are you sure?” he asked, taking in the front of Angel Ink.

She twisted in his arms a little and smiled. “Just as sure as I am that marrying you is the best thing I’ve ever done.”

He pulled a satisfied face. “In that case…”

An hour later, they emerged with matching tattoos on the backs of their necks to go with their matching rings.

Standing on the footpath outside the parlor, Chloe tentatively touched the bandage covering the image of a cello and an acoustic guitar melding together, now inked into her skin. “Well, that hurt more than I thought it would.”

Jed smoothed his hands over her hips and tugged her to his body. “It goes away quickly,” he said gently. “Trust me.”

Chloe smiled up at him. “I do. Completely and totally.”

He gazed into her eyes, his expression growing serious. “I love you. I know it’s insane, but I love you.”

“Sometimes insanity is the reality no one wants to believe possible,” she whispered.

His chest swelled against hers as he drew in a slow breath and cupped her face in his hands. “And now I love you even—”

A white light flashed beside them.

Followed by another. And another.

Chloe winced and flinched from the blinding detonations.

“Hey, Jed,” a male voice called from behind the blinding flashes. “How long have you and Chloe Blackthorne been seeing each other?”

Jed’s arms around her tightened and, as another flash bleached the night, he let out a low growl. “Piss off, mate. Go find someone else to annoy.”

“C’mon, Jed.”
Flash
. “Give us a smile.”
Flash
. “Or another kiss.”
Flash
. “Or show us your tattoos.”
Flash
.

Anger shot through Jed and he bit back a growl. Someone in the tattoo parlor must have tipped the prick off.

Another flash of white light filled his vision.

“Are they matching?” the man asked.

In Jed’s arms, Chloe stiffened. “Want me to stick that camera up your arse?”

“Whoa,” the pap—who Chloe could only just discern through the flash-burn splotches in her vision—laughed. “The sweet little Untouchable’s got a gutter mouth.”

Another flash.

Jed spun, putting his back between Chloe and the camera. “C’mon, mate. Leave us alone.”

She could feel the tension in his body. His arms around her were growing tighter with every flash of the paparazzo’s camera and every goading word out of the man’s mouth.

“So, you do anything dirty to that mouth yet, Jed?”

Jed froze. Chloe’s stomach dropped.

Oh no.

“Jed.” She fisted her hands in his shirt, desperate for him to look at her instead of the man pointing the camera at them, smirk wide and knowing. “Jed, let’s go. Let’s—”

“Are they wedding rings?” Crude joy filled the man’s question. The flash fired again. “The Untouchable’s not so
untouched
now I bet, ’eh, Jed? Tell me, is she hot in the sack?”

Chloe clawed at Jed’s shirt. Her husband didn’t move. Fury radiated from him. His arms circled her. His heart thumped in his chest so hard and fast she could feel it in her breast.

The flash fired again. So close, so bright, pain speared her eyes. She winced again.

“Nice talking to you, mate,” Jed suddenly declared, his voice completely relaxed. “Cheers.”

His hand smoothed over her back and, with a gentle hug, he pulled her to his side and began walking away from the pap.

Chloe shot him a quick look, surprised at the expression on his face. “Wow,” she murmured. “You look calm.”

Jed shrugged. “He’s not worth it. Trust me, for what he just said about you, I’d gladly shut him up, but he’s not worth losing our future together.”

Behind them, the pap followed, still hurling insults and taking photos.

Jed seemed uninterested, bored almost. In fact, his lips were curled in an easy smile and his pace wasn’t hurried at all.

Chloe gazed up at him, her heart pounding. “I fucking love you, husband.”

He dropped her a wink. “The feeling is entirely—”

The sound of tires screeching to a halt on the street beside them cut him short.

“Get in, get in,” their earlier taxi driver shouted at them from behind the steering wheel, beckoning with a frenzied hand waving through the open window.

Jed laughed. “Bloody perfect timing.”

Chloe sprinted for the back passenger door.

They threw themselves into the backseat, the pap chasing after them.

It wasn’t until they were speeding down the street, almost a block away, that she remembered to breathe again. “Whoa.”

“Mate,” Jed leant forward and clapped the driver on his shoulder through the security partition. “You’re a lifesaver.”

The man flashed a toothy smile at him. “You’re welcome. Where can I take you?”

Dropping back beside her, Jed gave Chloe a curious look.

She wriggled deeper into his side, rested her head on his shoulder, and gave the driver her own smile. “The Beverly Wilshire.”

“The Beverly Wilshire,” the cabbie confirmed, a second before the taxi’s speed increased.

Silence stretched between them. There was nothing awkward or uncomfortable about it. Chloe closed her eyes, loving how perfect it felt to relax cuddled into Jed, how easy she fit to his angles.

With one arm hugging her to him, he drew lazy circles on the side of her thigh with his fingers, his lips occasionally pressing against the top of her head.

She listened to his heart, counting its beats, losing herself to the rhythm.

There was music in its soft beat, a music she felt all the way to her soul.

He is better than playing the cello
.

It was the last thing she remembered thinking before being woken by a gentle kiss. “Hey, wife. We’re here.”

Opening her eyes, she squinted around herself.

The taxi had pulled to a halt outside her hotel. “I fell asleep?” She straightened off Jed and rubbed at her eyes. “Well, that was boring of me.”

Jed chuckled. “You snored a little. It was adorable.”

Chloe gasped. “I did not.”

He grinned. “Ask our driver.”

The taxi driver twisted in his seat and gave her an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid you did, Mrs. Rabbit.”

Jed’s grin stretched wider. Chloe couldn’t contain her own smile at the moniker
Rabbit
. Yeah, Jed was perfect for her.

“Okay, Mr. Rabbit,” she said, as she opened the back door. “Time to get your cottontail out of the cab.”

It took them five minutes to make it back up to her suite. They weren’t accosted by paparazzi or harangued by family members unexpectedly ambushing them in the foyer. Jed carried her stilettoes for her in one hand, his other curled around her hip to hug her to his side. Chloe scrolled through the photos on her smartphone that Ralph’s wife had snapped for them of the ceremony, her heart swelling with happiness at each one.

There was no denying the love in her and Jed’s eyes in those photos. The joy in their faces.

They rode the lift with a lovely couple from Texas who didn’t recognized either of them, the conversation focused on why so many elevators insisted on having mirrored walls.

The whole time, Chloe’s tummy kept fluttering with excitement and happiness. Jed held her hand as the four of them chatted, their fingers threaded together, the feel of his wedding ring against her finger a wonderful thrill she knew she’d never tire of.

Barely two steps into her suite, with the door closed behind them and the faintest hint of dawn in the sky beyond the expansive windows, she turned to Jed, buried her hands in his hair, and captured his lips with hers.

He met her passion with a hungry growl, dropping her shoes and walking her backward into the suite without breaking the kiss, his hands tugging at her clothes. She sought out his belt, his fly, lowering the zipper to plunge her hand down his jeans just as he popped the last button on the white silk shirt she’d worn to their wedding.

She palmed his erection the exact moment he dragged the right cup of her bra free of her breast.

“I’m going to fuck you senseless, wife,” he groaned against her lips before dragging his mouth down to her breast to suck on her erect nipple.

She moaned and bowed into the possession, her feet somehow still moving her backward even as her brain grew fogged with pleasure.

When the backs of her thighs bumped into something hard and immobile, she barely had the breath to let out a grunt.

With a hungry growl that sent liquid heat to her core, Jed removed his mouth from her breast, grinding his hips to hers as he pressed her against whatever they’d encountered and took her lips again.

Sofa. Back of the sofa…

She wrapped one thigh around his hip, desperate to have his length inside her. The flirty mini-skirt she’d worn to the chapel—delicate pastel mint in colour and soft and floaty in fabric—rode up her leg and Jed immediately took advantage of its new position, dragging a hand over the back of her thigh to cup and squeeze her butt cheek.

His erection rubbed at the curve of her sex, the rigid pole still imprisoned by his jeans. Chloe reached for it, parting his open fly as wide as she could before wrapping her fingers around his hot flesh and pumping.

“Fuck, wife,” Jed moaned against her lips. “I love the way you do that.”

Flattening her free palm to his chest, she gave him a little shove.

He straightened, not enough for her hand to slip from his cock, but enough for him to strip his T-shirt up over his head and throw it aside.

It dawned on Chloe, as the item of clothing fell to the floor and Jed captured the side of her neck in a wicked exploration with his lips, that her father had been at the wedding after all. What would he think about the fact her new husband married her wearing a Blackthorne shirt?

“Think your father’s going to mind I married you with his name on my chest?”

At Jed’s murmured question—punctuated by hot kisses as he moved his mouth up to her earlobe—Chloe laughed. “I was just thinking that very thing.”

Jed lifted his head and grinned down at her, his cock pulsing in her hand. “See? We
are
perfect for each other.”

“Fucking oath,” she declared, as she released his erection then planted her foot on his stomach, as high as she could, and slowly straightened her leg.

Jed stepped backward at her wordless instruction, desire burning in his eyes.

“Now,” she returned her foot to the floor, her thighs spread wide, and slid the hem of her skirt higher, revealing the fact she wore no underpants, not even a G-string, “make me come, husband.”

“Wedding present number one, coming right up,” Jed declared, before dropping to his knees in the V of her legs and taking possession of her pussy with his tongue.

Chloe clung to the back of the sofa as he licked and lapped at her clit and folds. It didn’t take him long at all to make her explode.

The orgasm crashed through her, fast and savage.

She didn’t care. She knew he’d give her more before the sun came up.

And he did.

As she slumped on the edge of the sofa’s back, her breath as fast as her climax, her body thrumming with post-orgasm energy, he straightened to his feet, slipped two fingers into her wet folds and, gazing down into her face, brought her to another wild orgasm with his hand.

“Oh God, Jed,” she whimpered, the potent force of the second climax lashing at her body. She pressed her cheek to his chest, eyes closed, and clung to his shoulders. “I liked wedding present number two just as much as number one.”

He chuckled, withdrawing his fingers from her sex before tracing circles over her bowed back with his other hand. “Wait until we get to wedding present number three,” he murmured.

The words vibrated against Chloe’s cheek, a tickling caress that made her smile.

Lifting her head, she fixed him with a direct stare. “You’re clean, right? In
every
way?”

He nodded. An intense light burned in his eyes. “In every way.”

Chloe’s chest tightened. “And I’m all about the IUDs.”

He cocked an eyebrow, even as his Adam’s apple jerked up and down his throat. “Are you now?”

She nodded. “I am. So let me give
you
wedding present number three.”

She wrapped her fingers around his naked erection, tugged him back to her body with it, and aligned its bulbous tip to her glistening entry.

“To a gazillion years of wedded bliss, Mr. Brody,” she said, circling his hips with her thighs.

“Hell, yeah,” he murmured, holding her gaze with his own.

And then they both moved as one, Jed thrusting into her heat as Chloe rolled her hips forward. Connecting themselves together in the most intimate, beautiful way Chloe could ever imagine.

A
fter they made love, after they showered together, after they had an impromptu fashion parade with the hotel-supplied bathrobes, and after they ordered their second lot of room service for the night—although
night
was hardly the correct term by that stage, given the eastern sky was tinged with the purple-pink blush of dawn—they fell asleep on the floor.

Of course, they made love again before doing so.

After that, sated and exhausted, they threw the king-size bed’s duvet and numerous pillows and decorative cushions on the floor in the suite’s living area and curled up together, Jed spooning Chloe, to watch a movie airing on the television.

Jed had no idea when he’d fallen asleep. He knew Chloe had dropped off before he did, somewhere into the second act of a Tom Cruise movie set in post-alien invasion London. She was commenting on the actor’s ability to be old and sexy and weird all at the same time, her voice a husky whisper, her words halting and at times a little slurred, and then suddenly she was silent, her sentence left unfinished, her breathing slow and regular.

Jed had smiled, loving the way she felt, asleep in his arms, and continued to watch the movie, determined to see it to the end credits.