Getting Real

21. All the Way



“He did what?” Rielle shouted, making several guests at the check-in counter look around.

Here we go. Jake opened his hands, shrugged and repeated what he’d just told her about Rand taking Harry out for the day. He was ready for a blast of her famous temper and half of him thought she was justified in blowing her stack. Rand had ditched a couple of important commitments and left her holding the ball. But all she said was, “Bastard could’ve told me.”

They took a hire car to the first appointment with B106 FM and Jake watched Rielle snap into performance mode the moment she walked into their foyer. She was all flashing eyes and pouty lips, smart comments and witty one-liners. She back announced songs, traded gossip with the announcers, and talked to listeners. When a caller asked about the now famous ‘hanging roadie’ her response was, “Don’t piss a diva off!” then she said quite deliberately, “Shit, can I say that on air?” setting off a flurry of activity from the panel operator.

At rival station Nera, she auctioned off backstage passes for charity and accepted a challenge to sing a cappella. Jake was amazed at the sound of her husky, honey warm voice, unaccompanied except by hoots of approval from the two announcers. Instead of screaming lyrics as she usually did on stage, her sound was raw and achy, sexy as hell. He wished she sang like that more often. She’d reached into his body and kick started a fever.

When they arrived at 98.2 FM, they found the drive time program manager in a flap because Jonathan Bennett’s interview had run over. Jonathan saw them through the glass wall of the booth and waved madly at Rielle. He said into his mic, “Well look what the cat dragged in. Rielle Mainline, and I guess I’m keeping her waiting. Ooh aren’t I naughty.”

Rielle snorted. She gave Jonathan the finger. “He’s such a jerk.”

Jonathan said, “Oh listeners, if only you could see what she just did. She made a very rude gesture at me.”

“I saw that,” said the announcer. “It was rude.”

Jake watched Rielle glaring at Jonathan. “I thought you liked him.” He tried to sound nonchalant, knowing he had a chance to at least look that way, as he leant against the booth wall.

“I tried.” Rielle folded her arms. “A big mouth and a Mick Jagger swagger just ain’t gonna do it.”

Jake snorted a laugh. Jonathan might move like Jagger but he crashed and burned like Billy Idol.

In the booth Jonathan said, “Oh she doesn’t look happy does she?”

“No, she does not. You’re getting me into big trouble,” said the announcer.

“I don’t think he’s going to shift anytime soon.” Jake said, as Jonathan started talking to a fan who’d called in. Jonathan nattered away, but kept looking over his shoulder at Rielle as if to say, “Aren’t I just outrageous. You have to love me”.

“Maybe we should give him something to watch,” she said. She moved to his side.

“What?” He turned to look at her, expectation making him lose the nonchalance, making his senses fizz.

“How about this?” She put her hand up to his face, stretched up and kissed him.

Her lips were soft and warm, and plugged straight into the centre of his body where his fever for her had its power socket. When she pulled back, he said thickly, “I don’t think that was enough,” and she kissed him again, her hands around his neck and her hips pressed against him.

If that first kiss was about sticking it to Jonathan, the second one was tougher glue. It wasn’t playful, made for showing off—it was hungry, fired from lust. Not something you could walk away from. Jake wasn’t walking, he was sticking. He folded his arms around Rielle, spreading his fingers across her back and took that kiss from fever to full blown disease.


Rielle had itched to touch Jake since she’d seen him in the hotel foyer looking all sex-god in slightly dressier clothes than he wore on the set. He had an effortless charm about him, rocking boy next door with calendar hunk and unaware of the effect that blending ‘what you see is what you get’ and drop-dead gorgeous had. Sitting beside him in the back of the car had made her twitchy with wanting him. But he’d seemed so unaffected, so self-contained and in control, she’d been afraid to brush against him for fear of annoying him.

Jonathan’s show-boating had been enough of a catalyst to galvanise her to act. But she’d half expected Jake to laugh her off, push her away, and she was ready to pretend she was just playing around to get at Jonathan to save face. But when he opened his mouth to hers and bit her lip gently, she knew she didn’t need to pretend anything. He was there in this, with her all the way.

“Wanna get out of here?” he murmured, his voice so lust drugged it was like a throaty purr.

She dragged her thumb across his bottom lip to wipe off purple lipstick.

He said, “What, not my colour?” and gave a throaty chuckle.

“Let’s go.” She took his hand, looking back at Jonathan who wore an expression of bewilderment, and the announcer who was making frantic waving gestures to try to get her to stay. She flipped them off and dragged Jake past the open mouthed program manager and a blushing receptionist.

In the empty elevator, Jake said, “We probably shouldn’t.” He was such a boy scout. But then he put a hand behind her neck and drew her against him. He ran his other hand over her hip and onto the bare skin at her waist, all the while staring into her eyes. Tying her in complicated, useless knots.

She heard herself whisper, “Please,” and realised she was virtually begging him to kiss her again, but she didn’t care so long as she could have his touch. His mouth was impossibly close to hers, the scent of him, fresh woodchips and cinnamon, filling her head. When the lift touched ground, and the doors pinged open, Jake brushed her lips with feather light finesse, all tease. But he reached forward, poking the close-door button, all command, not waiting for it to take effect, clamping down on her mouth possessively.


In the building foyer, Ross Rowland, waiting for Jonathan said, “Whoa,” as the lift doors closed on Jake and Rielle.

A courier standing beside him said, “That who I think it is?”

“Yep,” said Ross, “but she’s kissing the wrong guy.”

Jonathan didn’t need to be told. He arrived in the foyer with a head of steam and blazed past Ross, charging for the street and a waiting hire car.

Ross caught up to him as he heard the driver say, “Not yours mate.”

Jonathan said, “I think Rielle is on with Reedy.”

“Yep,” said Ross, “I reckon she is.”

“How do you know?” Jonathan snapped. But Ross didn’t have to give his eye witness account. Rielle and Jake came clattering out the door and onto the street, holding hands and laughing.

Jake helped Rielle into the back of the limo, said “Fellas,” gave Jonathan and Ross a salute and slid in beside her.

Jonathan looked at Ross. “F*ck.”

He wasn’t talking about their missing ride.


In the back of the hire car, Rielle’s breath was coming fast. She had wild eyes.

Jake slid up next to her. “What do you want?” He put his arm around her shoulder, his lips against her neck and felt her shiver.

“Hotel.” She closed her eyes, curving her neck so he could get closer.

“You have that magazine shoot.”

She groaned. “Blow it off.”

“Only take an hour.”

“Too long.”

“I’d like to watch.”

She opened her eyes. “Okay, but then it’s just you and me.”

“Assuming you don’t change your mind.” It’d kill him for sure if she did.

“Then don’t make me,” she said, licking his ear.

They took the car to a photographic studio where the fashion editor of Now was waiting. He whisked Rielle away to dress for the shoot, leaving Jake to cool his heels watching the photographer set up.

He didn’t want to think too much about what he and Rielle were doing. So many reasons why it was a bad idea, but be damned if he wasn’t going to let it run its course, so long as she still wanted to and there was no predicting what she’d do. The shoot was a time out, a chance to see if the madness was still running free in both of them or if it was just another brain snap, glorious but momentary.

He was having coffee with the photographer when Rielle re-entered the room in a cotton dressing gown. Her makeup was dark and smoky, her lips red, her hair pinned up high and artfully tousled with a host of jewelled butterflies nestled in it.

They positioned her on a plush red velvet 1930s style chaise lounge, in front of a distressed brick wall. The richness of the soft, round-edged lounge contrasted with the scratched rawness of the wall behind it. The robe was discarded. Jake saw a flash of pale flesh. And when the photographer and the editor stepped back, Rielle was naked but for a creamy gold satin sheet falling between her bare legs and held scrunched in one hand over her breasts.

He swallowed hard and reached out for the edge of the wall to steady himself. This wasn’t a time out. It was foreplay.


“Beautiful, darling. Drop your chin, lift your eyes,” said the photographer, down on her knees in front of Rielle. “Gorgeous. Now tilt your head to the left. Let the sheet go, just, ah that’s perfect, just there.” She snapped away furiously, scrambling lightly across the floor boards to change her angle.

“Now give me that look you give your lover when he’s done something especially nice,” she said.

Rielle closed her eyes and let out an audible sigh, her shoulders softened. She leant further forward, let more of the sheet slide through her fingers, showing more of the swell of her breasts, the curve of her shoulders and one hip. She stretched her lips into the softest smile and then opened sleepy, heavy eyes.

“God!” groaned Jake. He bit his tongue to stop articulating his need so blatantly. He imaged that look—sultry, seductive, rip-your-heart-out-hot—was for him. The editor gave him a curious look and moved away, and Jake was glad he’d had enough presence of mind to check the swear word he’d wanted to utter. He thanked heaven Trish Reed had instilled a veneer of good manners in him.

“Perfect,” said the photographer. “Hold that.”

They shot another half dozen poses, each one sexier than the last, a blistering barb sent to test his patience. He couldn’t get Rielle out of here quick enough. While she was changing, the photographer let him see the shots on her computer. He struggled to maintain any semblance of composure. Rielle seemed to be reaching out of each frame and into his heart.

“Did you like that?” she asked when she had dressed again and joined him.

“No,” he rasped. “It was torture.”

She laughed, and it was musical, and like everything about her—driving him mad.

They made it back to the hotel in record speed, trying not to give their driver too much reason to be watching them and not the road. Not succeeding. They all enjoyed the ride.

In Rielle’s big suite there was no turning back, no hesitation and no second thoughts. They came together like fire on ice, scorching, shocking, stinging and melting each other. Rielle’s sharp breaths and high whimpers made Jake all but lose it before they’d even undressed. He couldn’t remember ever being so desperate, so short on control. He was sick with it. Bent all out of regular shape and normal behaviour.

This was happening. Really happening. He’d get to learn Rielle though her body. He’d get to love the rock star and the real girl inside the performance.

And she wanted it as badly as he did.

His touch made her tremble so fiercely her knees collapsed under her, but he held her tight and scooped her up, carrying her the short distance to the bed and throwing her down on it.

“What do you want?” He stood over her, fumbling in the darkened bedroom with the catch on her shoe, his voice tense, crackling with excitement. When he’d asked her that in the car, he’d never expected to end up here. Now he was mad from expectation.

“Everything.” She lifted her shirt over her head, snapping the hook on her bra.

Perhaps it was the build up, the anticipation running too high. Perhaps it was just not meant to be. After the steamy promise of their play, their lovemaking was tight, anxious and unsettled. They had no rhythm together or sense of each other’s need.

Once they lay together, in the light-starved luxury of the suite, there was a distant, fretful quality to Rielle’s movements that Jake could not break through. She closed her eyes to him, turned her head and went somewhere else and he couldn’t find a way to bring her back. Not stroking her beautiful body, not speaking softly, not calling her name. She checked out on him, and it was devastating.

It confused him, made him angry. He changed his approach, got a little firmer with her, a little less gentle. He worked a little harder, and felt her body respond, moving with him, rising to him, opening and folding around him. But her mind stayed closed. All her earlier vocalisation fell silent, smothered somewhere, kept from him. It made him worried about hurting her, not loving her right, not pleasing her. It made him conscious and deliberate when he’d wanted to be lost.

“Where are you?” he said, bearing down on her, feeling her glorious heat, but not the light of her mind. While her body thrashed under him, her soul was locked tightly away. He might have been anyone. She might have been anywhere. She wasn’t here with him. All that remained, writhing in his hands, was a facsimile of her presence.

He tried not to care, to take his pleasure selfishly. And he was so worked up, so primed and she was so incredibly sexy, it was easy to do. But it wasn’t what he wanted. It was fraught and cheap, and as meaningless as any encounter he could have any night on tour, with one of a dozen girls backstage.

And that would’ve been more fun.

Gone was the provocative rock diva, the sultry songstress, the celluloid siren and the sex kitten who’d had him acting like an impatient teenage boy in the back of a car. In her place was an ice queen, beautiful, tempting, remote and chillingly cold. He was sorely tempted to grab his clothes and quit the room, leaving her to whatever she was thinking. But when she opened her eyes, he saw pain, confusion and sadness, so he rolled over beside her and reached for her hand.

“Tell me I didn’t hurt you, Rie?” Watching her face he was no longer sure he hadn’t pumped his frustration as well as his desire into her.

She spoke whisper soft. “No, you didn’t hurt me. I’m sorry. This is my fault. It was just too intense.”

He propped up on his elbow. She was across the bed from him, staring at the ceiling, the sheet pulled up under her arms, her hair a wild tangle.

“I don’t understand. You didn’t like what we did?” He knew her body had liked it, the evidence was in her response, rocking, twisting, rolling beneath him. But that wasn’t enough.

She sighed and turned her head to look at him. “It was too much. I can’t feel like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m going to be blasted apart. Shatter into a million pieces and never find my way back.”

He wanted to smile, relieved. He’d have thought she was kidding, but her eyes were hooded under a frown and her mouth turned down. “Rie, that’s the best part.”

She shook her head, closed her eyes to him. “You don’t understand. No one has ever made me feel like that. It’s out of control. I can’t feel like that ever again.”

He sucked in a breath. “No, I don’t understand.” It was as thorough a rejection as he’d ever experienced. More cutting because he thought he might really feel something for this incredible, complex girl.

Jake got up and dressed quickly. She watched him from the bed, tumbled amidst the sheets, her eyes red-rimmed, her expression unfathomable.

“Please don’t hate me, Jake.”

He leaned across the bed and kissed her gently, feeling her lips tremble under his. “I couldn’t hate you, Rie. I sure as hell don’t get you, but I think you’re the sexiest and most talented thing I’ve ever seen.”

If only.

When Jake closed the door, Rielle let the tears rack through her. This thing with Jake was a sickness, come on so fast, striking so hard. She’d needed to sweat it out quickly before it sent her mad, and the only way to do that was to get skin to skin with him as fast as possible.

But he asked too much. He wanted all of her and that wasn’t something she could give. Because if she let him see her real self, he’d know her for the insecure, superficial person she was. Too scared to ever drop her guard, take her armour off and be herself, because that self died years ago on a strip of road three hours out of Sydney, and it wasn’t worth knowing anymore.