White Hot Christmas: A Heart of Fame Christmas Story
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Authors: Lexxie Couper
White Hot Christmas
A
Heart of Fame Christmas
Story
Lexxie Couper
Copyright 2015 Lexxie Couper
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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Once the world’s greatest rock star, Nick Blackthorne is now just a guy eager to get home to his wife on Christmas Eve. Getting there however, is a different matter, thanks to a crowded international airport fiasco, sniffer dogs, the ex-captain of the Australian cricket team and a Range Rover that doesn’t want to do what Range Rovers are meant to do.
Will Nick make it home to Lauren before Christmas? Or will he be forced to celebrate Christmas with only the memories of her touch?
For Renee George. Who kicked my arse when it needed to be kicked, and handed me a light when I was in the dark.
Sydney International Airport, Australia
Nick Blackthorne looked at the writhing mass of weary travellers crammed into the arrivals customs security area, the overly excited camera crews pushing and shoving their way through said writhing mass, the surly-faced customs officials glaring at them all, and the stoic sniffer-dog handlers holding the leashes of the far-from stoic sniffer dogs, and thought:
Well, this sucks.
He hitched his carry-on bag farther up his shoulder with one hand and dug his mobile phone from the back pocket of his shorts with the other.
Checking the screen, his worst fears were confirmed.
Yep. No service at all.
Which meant he had no way of letting Lauren know what was going on.
What were the odds Australia’s leading current affairs program would be filming a special in the airport on Christmas Eve?
Until the chaos before him right now, a chaos he was meant to make his way through, he would have said slim to none.
What also were the odds of some misguided individual trying to smuggle something into the country via their luggage that consequently sent the sniffer dog’s wild on the same Christmas Eve?
So, a crowded customs area, chockfull of tired international travellers all eager to get out of there on one of the most special days of the year, stuck together in a small space that—even at the best of times—fostered a suffocating sense of Oh-God-I-want-out-of-here agitation.
And Nick. Travelling alone. Incognito. Without a bodyguard or any fanfare. Hell, even the crew of the airline he’d flown in from London had been unaware he was on the plane until halfway over the Pacific.
Shoving his mobile back into his pocket, he adjusted his glasses on his face—slightly tinted lenses that weren’t quite sunglasses but concealed his eyes enough to make identifying him tricky—and let out a ragged sigh.
This was what he got for being out of the country leading up to Christmas. Sure, he’d been out of the country for a damn good reason—opening the UK branch of the
Children’s Smiles Foundation
he ran with Sir Addison Lancaster, the British wildlife cinematographer—but he should have known something like this was going to happen.
When had getting back to Lauren
ever
been a smooth trip?
Studying the frenzied television crew closing in on the sniffer-dog’s target, Nick puffed out another shaky breath.
If it weren’t for
their
presence here, he’d make use of his fame and celebrity status and queue-jump. Even after all these years of being retired and out of the public limelight, whenever he made an appearance things got a little crazy. If he wanted to he could snag a guard, let the man know who he was and ask to be taken through the “special” customs gate. Even with the craziness unfurling before him, he was tempted.
He had a long drive to get home once he got out of here. It would take him at least six hours if the traffic through Sydney was behaving and the M1 wasn’t in holiday-madness hell. Being trapped in customs was only adding to those six hours and he hadn’t seen his wife for over a week.
He hated not being with Lauren for that length of time. Or really, for any length of time.
He wanted to get home. It was Christmas Eve. He wanted to be with his wife. He wanted to take her in his arms, draw her beautiful body to his hard one, lower his head to hers and kiss her until she made that utterly intoxicating little noise she made when he kissed her.
He wanted to slowly press her against the closest wall, thread his fingers through hers and raise her hands above her head, worshipping her mouth as the steel of his arousal told her in no uncertain terms how fucking much he missed her, how fucking much she turned him on.
He wanted to make love to her lips, her throat, her shoulders, her breasts with his mouth and then bring her to the most insanely intense orgasm of her life as she leant against the wall.
He wanted to lose himself to the pleasure of everything she was, everything he loved, like he did damn near every day.
He wanted to be with her now, not just because it was Christmas Eve, but because she was his and he was hers and he missed her…
He had to get out of here. Now.
His body was starting to do things any hot-blooded guy’s body
did
when thinking about the woman he loved.
Tugging at the baseball cap he wore low over his face, Nick weighed up the odds of one of the television crew spying him if he tried to grab a guard’s attention.
He knew the mindset of a crew like the one before him well. He’d been exposed to it more than once in his decades-long rock star career. As much as it appeared they were focused on the sniffer dog, its handler and the passenger the dog had targeted, one of their number would be surreptitiously watching the surrounding crowd, waiting for further “tension” to add to the moment, even if it was only tension added via the editing room.
If he made a move for a guard and was recognized…
Especially with the makings of a noticeable bulge in the vicinity of his groin…
Nick flicked a glance at his watch. Lauren would be expecting his call to say he’d touched down by now.
He withdrew his phone and checked the service again, just in case the gods of telecommunication and ageing rock stars had decided to be kind to him.
They hadn’t. Fickle freaking deities.
Shoving his phone back into his pocket, he glared at the bedlam that was weary travellers, frazzled guards, excited sniffer dogs, a confused passenger and the salivating television crew in front of him.
Damn it, he was going to risk it.
Maybe the hat, the glasses and the three-day growth would be enough to conceal who he was. That and the fact he wasn’t wearing his customary black. It was the middle of summer in Australia after all. He’d changed out of his UK winter clothes halfway over the Pacific. It wasn’t often Nick Blackthorne was seen out and about in Sydney in shorts and a T-shirt (his favorite AC/DC T-shirt, stolen
back
from Josh the last time his son came to visit). And seriously, who would expect one of the world’s most famous people to be hanging around in general-population customs without any bodyguards or entourage?
With one last glance at the television crew—now circling the passenger with the bulging suitcase protesting about the dog and the cameras—Nick adjusted the peak of his cap, sucked in a deep breath, fixed his stare on the lone guard positioned farthest from the incident, and stepped out into the fray.
And froze as a familiar scum bastard wandered into his line of sight.
“Fuck,” he muttered. “Holston.”
Hot anger warred with disbelief for control of his emotions.
How was the prick still alive? Surely someone far more famous than Nick, with far less scruples than himself about dealing with the notorious paparazzo, had…well, dealt with him?
Narrowing his eyes, Nick watched the man who’d done his best to make Nick’s life a living hell.
Greyer and fatter than the last time Nick had seen him, Carl Holston seemed no less disagreeable and nasty. Nor less inclined to care about those around him.
The man pushed and shoved his way through the crowd, snarling at anyone who didn’t move out of his way as fast as he deemed acceptable, the enormous camera bag hanging from his meaty shoulder telling Nick he was still at his despicable game.
If Holston spied him…
Retreating a step into the crowd, Nick tracked the paparazzo’s path.
The last time they’d faced off had been at Chloe’s graduation ceremony from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Holston had crashed the event, dressed as a graduating student, and snapped photos of Nick and Lauren as they applauded their daughter’s achievement. Neither he nor Lauren had known he was doing so, however. Not at the time. It wasn’t until Chloe came running up to them, her grin wide, her eyes shining with pride and delight, that Nick saw him.
The resulting confrontation had been ugly. Nick had lost his temper and Holston had been forcibly removed by the Conservatorium’s security, but not before asking Chloe in a gleeful shout if she screwed anything that came along, just like her old man.
The bastard was a burr in Nick’s side. A toxic one.
Damn it.
So much for trying to jump the queue now.
Turning, Nick made his way back to the shadowy wall he’d been lurking against and resumed his observation of the melee.
Holston, thank freaking god, was shoving his way towards the exit queue, no doubt with plans to push his way to the head of the line.
Nick shoved his hands in his pockets, and waited for the inevitable.
The inevitable happened. As Nick had known it would.
Another traveller in the queue protested when Holston attempted to worm his way into the line. Holston snarled something back Nick couldn’t hear from his vigil by the wall, and suddenly the guard who had been standing away from the television crew/sniffer-dog situation near the luggage conveyor belt, was hurrying towards the exit gate.
Holston spun towards the guard just as the guard reached his side.
Words were exchanged. The traveller who Holston had tried to cut in front of pointed at Holston and said something.
Holston affected the most ridiculous
I’m-innocent
expression ever.
The guard told him to step out of the line.
Holton snarled and shook his head, pointing at the passenger. He clutched the strap of his camera bag, more words Nick couldn’t hear spewing from him as his expression turned venomous.
The guard reached for Holston’s bag.
All hell broke lose.
Holston slapped the guard’s hand away and shoved at him.
The guard staggered back a step and pulled his gun from its holster.
More guards appeared out of nowhere, bigger and scarier than the one Holston had pushed.
Holston was slammed to the ground by two of them.
The camera crew filming the sniffer dog and the wildly protesting man with the bulging suitcase swung their attention towards the fracas.
So did the guards accompanying the sniffer dog and its handler.
The camera crew and the guards bolted towards the bellowing Holston and the guards currently hauling him up off the ground in what could only be describe as some kind of shoulder, head lock.
A low chuckle vibrated deep in Nick’s chest.
“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke,” he murmured.
“Agreed,” a deep voice on his right said.
Nick shot the man standing beside him a quick look, recognition replacing wary uncertainty instantly.
Curtis Clarkson, ex-captain of the Australian cricket team and the husband of Josh’s best friend, Rhys, gave him a grin. “The bastard has made my life hell more times than I can count.”
Nick grunted. “Hell yeah. Know that feeling.”
Curtis chuckled. “Yeah, you’ve had it worse than me, haven’t you?”
Curtis had been to more than one Blackthorne event at Nick and Lauren’s house in Murriundah. Every time Josh was back in Australia, he and Rhys caught up. If that meant catching up in Nick’s living room, that’s where it happened. Whenever Rhys was in Australia, so was Curtis. The married couple were almost as inseparable as Nick and Lauren.
Which begged the question, if Curtis was here…
Nick cast a questioning look at Curtis. “You soloing it?”
Curtis pulled a face. “Rhys is flying in tomorrow morning. He had a BBC/Manchester United commitment in London he couldn’t get out of. We’re spending Christmas lunch with my family and then grabbing a chopper up to Murriundah in the arvo for dinner with Rhys’s family. You? Where’s Lauren?”
Nick pulled his own face. “Exactly where I want to be. Home. In Murriundah. Don’t suppose you’ve got that chopper standing by already, do you? If we ever get out of here, that is.”
Curtis chuckled again. The guy was so laid back Nick wondered how he could have once been considered the most dangerous player on the cricket pitch. “Don’t you normally travel with a bodyguard? Can’t he get you through this insanity?”
Shaking his head, Nick scowled at the craziness before them. The camera crew had split into two; one camera covering Holston’s less than dignified apprehension, the other focused on the sniffer dog who was now barking with enthusiastic delight at the traveller with the overstuffed suitcase, who was—it seemed to Nick—trying to climb onto the luggage conveyor belt, eyes wide with guilt and terror.
“Traveling solo myself this trip,” he said to Curtis. “It’s been a while since I moved around Australia with a bodyguard anyways. The mob tend to be more interested in Josh and Chloe nowadays.”
Curtis laughed, a low-key affair that still spoke of a wicked sense of humour,
and
an awareness of the consequences of unwanted attention. “Ah, the life of a parent with famous children, eh? Reckon I might get some pointers from you on how to do it soon.”
Nick raised his eyebrows. “Is there something Rhys hasn’t mentioned to Josh?”
