Blackthorne: Heart of Fame, Book 8 Read Online Free PDF Page B

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