A Little Night Music (11 page)

Nate sprawled on the burgundy leather sofa, sinking into the deep cushions. “It was good to see them again,” he admitted. He knew damn well who, in the end, paid his bills.

He appreciated his fans’ unwavering support, craved the give-and-take of their energy at his concerts.

“Every little bit of flirting helps,” Sam said with a laugh. “Speaking of which, I noticed the sparks flying between you and our new publicist.”

Figures. Half the time, Sam couldn’t find the off-ramp they needed on the tour bus, but anything to do with women, and he was spot-on. “She was pretty hot.”

Tantalizing. Vibrant. Addicting.

Sam browsed through the CDs lining one wall, his blunt fingertip sliding from case to case. “She was that,” he agreed. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Hannah said you’d talked to her. I’m a big boy, Sam. I can take care of myself.”

Glancing over his shoulder, Sam grinned. “Did I or did I not see the two of you making out after the photo shoot?”

“We weren’t making out.”

“Only because it was the middle of the afternoon in a public place,” Sam said. He sat down on the sofa, putting his feet up on the teak coffee table and crossing them comfortably at the ankle. “It looked pretty serious to me.”

“So I kissed her. That doesn’t mean it was serious.”

Sam snorted. “Don’t even try to tell me that you two didn’t spend the night together. I’m not an idiot.”

“Never said you were,” Nate said. He took a sip from the cup. Wiped a spot of foam off his upper lip.

“Look, I want you to be happy, have some fun. I know it’s been hard since…” Sam didn’t need to finish the sentence; they both knew exactly what he meant. Sam had been there for Nate through the whole thing.

“I just don’t want you screwing up a good working relationship,” Sam continued. “She’s great at PR and we really need that.”

Nate stared at his old friend. Always the bottom line for Sam.

“She’ll be on the road with us,” Sam persisted. “You’ll need to decide how public you want a relationship with her to be.”

“There’s no relationship,” Nate said.

Not yet. Maybe never. Maybe just lots of hot sex. But then why could he still taste her? Feel her around him?

Sam nodded. “If you say so. Just keep your non-relationship discreet. I’ve got to run. There are a million things to do before the tour starts.”

Nate followed Sam to the door. It was good to see his friend and manager so positive again. He said as much.

“I could say the same thing for you,” Sam said soberly. “Look, I know you’ve been worried about the tour, and the problems that could crop up. You’ve just gotta have faith in yourself.” The familiar evil twinkle started up in his eyes again. “Or just keep thinking about your publicist, if that’s what puts you in a good mood.”

Nate laughed and punched Sam on the arm. “Get outta here.”

But by the time he’d finished his coffee, his thoughts were indeed right back with Hannah.

Despite the drink on his tongue, he couldn’t seem to forget the taste of Hannah’s skin. The desire to touch her again was almost consuming him.

Maybe just hearing her voice would ease the yearning ache. The need.

Or it would lead to other things. After all, he wanted her just as aroused and needy. His groin tightened at the thought.

He reached for the phone.

*

Hannah stretched, feeling her spine pop, the kinks dissipating. She’d logged off the last website, and she was finished. Gina’s pictures were perfect, as always.

She was struck by how good Nate looked in them. Not just his usual good, but healthy. She hadn’t realized just how much he’d changed until she’d surfed some of the sites that had photos from his last tour. There’d been a gauntness to his face. Lines and tension that had aged him, that spoke of turmoil. Funny that she’d never really noticed it until now.

These new shots caught his edgy sensuality. They made Nate seem dark, mysterious, and utterly delicious. Hannah sighed. Hunger coiled in her body, making her clit throb. Just thinking about the things he’d done to her made her shift restlessly in the chair.

The phone rang, and she jerked upright, her feet hitting the floor.

“Hello?” she said.

“Hello, Intoxicating.”

“Nate!” Her heart thudded in her chest, making it difficult to breathe. Or maybe that was just the husky voice in her ear.

“I wanted to call you. I wanted to say good night,” he said.

Hannah glanced at the clock, smiling when she saw that it was still relatively early. “I don’t usually go to bed this early,” she told him.

“We did last night,” he reminded her.

His low voice sent shivers through her. Her nipples beaded in response to the images that flooded her memory.

She felt herself grow moist.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m thinking about you,” she admitted. Hannah smiled when he reacted to the admission with a quickly drawn breath. It gave her the courage to go further. To allow herself the pleasure of listening to his voice just a little longer. “I’m thinking about all the things I’d be doing right now if you were here.”

He groaned. “Yeah, me too,” he admitted. “I found your panties. You left them on the floor. They smell like you.”

Hannah found it impossible to answer. Her throat had tightened, along with every nerve in her body, sending rippling awareness to places she wished he were there to fill.

“I like them, the black silk and lace. I was wondering what color you’re wearing now.” His voice continued to seduce her.

“I don’t remember,” she admitted. Right now, she wasn’t sure she knew anything at all.

“Check,” he instructed with a soft laugh. “I want to know. I want to picture you in them.”

Hannah licked her lips. Of its own accord, her hand had gone to her waistband, sliding it down. She stood up, and shimmied out of the yoga pants. She kicked them under the desk. “Blue,” she whispered. “Slate blue.”

“Silk or lace?”

“Lace,” she said.

“Mm,” he said, encouraging her. “Can you feel how wet you are through them?”

“How do you know I’m wet?” she asked, low and breathless. It was hard to talk.

“I know,” he told her. “Touch yourself.”

“Nate…”

“Touch yourself,” he whispered again. His voice was velvet and magic, calling to the wild side of her that wanted so desperately to play.

She whimpered as her fingertips skated across the edge of the lace, slipping downwards to where she throbbed. Shock waves rippled through her thighs when she brushed her clit through the lace.

“Are you wet?” he asked again.

“Yes,” she said, feeling the moisture gathering in the cloth. She flicked her nail against her clit. Pleasure made her moan. The pressure built unbelievably quickly. That his voice and a few simple words over the phone could do this was nothing short of amazing. Her knees trembling, she dropped back into the chair, waiting for his next instruction.

“I wish I were there,” he said softly. “I’d touch you slowly, teasing you. Are you teasing yourself, Hannah?”

Her eyes were closed, her head tipped back. She could imagine his hand pushing aside the scrap of cloth, touching her hot slick flesh. She managed to moan a reply, knowing he understood by the sexy laugh that drifted down the phone lines.

“I’d slip a finger into you, and then another. You’re so tight, Hannah. So hot and wet.”

“Nate,” she pleaded, her body aching for release. Her fingers had followed his instructions, slipping the lace aside to thrust into herself. Except that they felt like his, and she swore she could feel his warm breath on her cheek when he spoke.

“Not yet, sweetheart,” he told her. “With my other hand I’d cup your breast, caressing you until your nipple was hard against my palm. Will you do that for me, Hannah?”

“Oh god, Nate, please,” she moaned. She blindly reached for the phone’s headset, tugging it into place, and slipped her hand beneath her T-shirt. Her nipple pressed, aching, through the lace of her bra. She rubbed her thumb in light circles, feeling the pleasure beginning to spiral out of control. She pinched lightly, the sensation going straight to her clit.

She was going to come.

“That’s it, baby,” he told her. “Think of my hands on you.” His voice held her in thrall, controlling her release. “You can come now,” he said.

She did, the pleasure bursting through her in wave after wave of exquisite release. She cried out his name, her hips bucking against her hand. Slowly, the sensations faded, the aftershocks easing until sanity returned. She whispered his name again, knowing that her voice held all the need she felt.

He laughed softly in her ear. “Sweet dreams, Hannah.”

The soft click told her that he had hung up. Hannah smiled, relaxed and boneless in the chair. She wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to sleep now or not, but she did know one thing.

It was going take more than a few orgasm-filled encounters for her to get enough of him.

Chapter Seven

Hannah paced the radio station lobby from the front door to the leather-and-chrome waiting area to the glass doors that led deeper into the building. She’d been up since four, eager to get ready, so hyped about seeing Nate again that she’d gotten little sleep the night before. Her inability to sit still had nothing to do with work-related nerves, though. It didn’t have much to do with her job at all. Granted, this on-air interview was important, if not crucial for Nate. Her own reputation was on the line with this job. She had to get him back on top. The pressures didn’t even register.

No, she was antsy because she hadn’t seen him in a week. The thought of standing in his warmth, of seeing him and smelling him and touching him, was wreaking havoc with her panties.

They’d talked on the phone at least once a day. The calls had been long, sharing details, learning about tastes, dislikes. The hesitant sharing of two people getting to know each other. Interesting conversations that had inevitably ended with phone sex. Hannah had never been one for lots of talk during sex. But somehow Nate’s smoky voice had drawn her from her erotic shell. Asking her what she liked.

Asking what she’d like to do to him.

Following her halting, breathy suggestions. Not afraid to moan in her ear as he touched himself, urging her on to bolder instructions until they were both sweat-soaked and sated.

Would the connection hold when he walked through the radio station’s door? Hannah couldn’t imagine it wouldn’t. Just the thought of it hardened her nipples beneath her silvery-grey bra.

“New relationship energy,” Gina had called it. “It won’t last forever, but enjoy it while it does. And how could you not, with someone like the foxy Nate Fox!”

Hannah had given up protesting that it wasn’t a relationship. Obviously it was, even if they hadn’t defined its scope. It might not last longer than her job. It might not even survive that long.

But she agreed wholeheartedly with Gina—she was going to enjoy every hot, erotic, orgasmic moment of it.

Her new silk underwear teased her most intimate areas. Over that she’d slipped on a simple sleeveless silk top that caressed her curves. A handkerchief-hem flowered skirt swirled around her legs, long enough to imply competence but short and flirty enough to reveal tantalizing hints of her thighs when she moved. Pointy-toed pumps made her calves curve nicely.

Hannah forced herself not to glance at her watch again. She knew that she was annoying the receptionist with her pacing. She was beginning to annoy herself.

A blast of warmer air interrupted the air-conditioned chill, and Hannah turned. Andre, wearing his usual wraparound sunglasses and looking like the cover model for
GQ Goes Mercenary
, held the door open. The menacing look he wore warned the fans who had turned up outside the building that they would not be entering.

Nate was smiling at her as he walked through the door, clutching a giant-sized coffee cup from the nearby Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in one hand and his guitar case in the other. The jeans that outlined the muscles of his thighs were faded, a small tear in one knee made her want to rip it wider. The black T-shirt he wore clung to every ripped inch of his torso. Despite the early hour, he looked so good even the receptionist sat up a little straighter.

 “Nate.” Hannah held out her hand, her eyes flicking to the receptionist as a subtle signal that they needed to stay businesslike.

For the time being.

“Good to see you again, Hannah,” he said, taking her hand. The shake turned into a caress, and he used the contact to pull her a little closer. His lips brushed a chaste kiss across her cheek, a promise of more intimate caresses to come, and she shivered.

He saw her shiver, and his smile became wicked, the look in his blue eyes meant only for her.

She dared a glance down. His jeans were faded at the crotch, and the paler mark made his interest all the more obvious.

The receptionist must have called the DJ while they were lost in each other, because she said, “You can go through now—Jerry’s waiting for you.” She buzzed them through.

Andre preceded them through the door into the inner sanctums of the station. His forbidding presence led the way through to the studio. The fluorescent lights gleamed on his freshly shaved head.

Hannah followed Andre down the hall, every sense aware of Nate close behind her. She wondered, if she stopped suddenly, would he smack into her? The temptation to test it, just to be in contact with his body, made her ache.

The DJ met them just outside the main studio, hand already outstretched. His sandy hair was drawn back into a ponytail, the freckles across his nose at odds with the crow’s feet around his eyes and California-tanned-to-leather skin. The welcoming grin on his face added to the youthful effect. Jerry Kane had been a DJ on a small but influential station in the Bay Area when Nate was breaking out. He’d liked Nate’s music so much that he’d played it every day for a month on his show, and the publicity had helped catapult Nate to fame.

Now in LA, his show was nationally syndicated. He was also the only DJ in the metro area enthusiastic about interviewing Nate again. Right now, everyone else considered Nate a has-been, had moved on to the newest and latest artist or stuck with the classic rock icons.