The air charges around us and it’s as if a spark explodes into flames. I don’t know who moves first, but we’re kissing again, his hand pressed between my shoulder blades, supporting me, protecting me, even as he’s rocking me against his cock. Or maybe I’m just doing it myself. All I know is the urgency of our bodies, nothing else.
The build of my orgasm begins again too soon, and I can’t fight it. Not with his tongue stroking my tongue, not with him buried inside me, filling me, pleasing me. I don’t even have the warning I expect. My body doesn’t tense in a prelude to release. It clamps down hard on him inside, clenching around him, darts of pleasure shooting through my body. I bury my face in his neck, the spasming of my sex jerking my entire body. He groans, low and guttural, and then he’s quaking with me. I try to move, to push him through his release, but I can’t seem to control my body. The room fades, and I cling to him, inhaling his scent, trembling with his touch.
When finally, I blink the room back into view, his powerful arm is around me, and I’m staring at the violin, the Stradivarius violin. I’m naked in every possible way with this man.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I have only seconds to feel naked and exposed before Kace brings me back to him, back to a place that is remarkably safe and comfortable. He cups my head, kisses my neck, and says, “Do you like tacos?”
I’m naked on top of him on a fairly small piano bench, with him still inside me, and he’s asking me about tacos.
I laugh and pull back to look at him. “Is that a trick question? Doesn’t everyone?”
“Good answer. I know a great twenty-four-hour place and they deliver.”
Just that easily he tells me he doesn’t want me to leave. And I don’t want to leave.
He stands up and takes me with him, only to set me down on the bench, where he’d just been sitting, his hands at my hips. “Don’t move. I have something for you.”
He doesn’t wait for a reply. He pushes off the bench and snatches up his pants, and turns, offering me a delicious view of his tight, perfect backside, which is tattoo-free, as he pulls them on and then walks around the piano. I drag my knees to my chest, twisting around to follow Kace’s movements, but the violin blocks my view.
The violin.
It’s almost as if my past is chasing me. Maybe it always was.
I shouldn’t be here. I should get dressed and go home.
Only, I don’t want to leave.
Confusion claws at me and already Kace has returned, still shirtless. My gaze rakes over his perfect abs and I’m now aware of the colorful display of musical notes tattooed all over his rock-hard belly, travelling beneath his pants. My mouth goes dry. I want to find out what I missed. I want to lick a path that travels every one of those musical notes.
He settles on a knee in front of me and sets his T-shirt on the bench next to me, his hands cupping my legs just below my knees. Knees that I’m still clutching to my chest, but when Kace gently urges them to the ground, my feet settle on the wooden floor. I’m now naked once more and exposed in so many ways with Kace yet again, but he isn’t looking at my body.
He’s looking at me and I’m looking at him and I see that edge in him, and not for the first time, I believe it’s torment, pain, damage. And I believe he allows me to see this. I believe he wants me to know that I sees this. I wonder if it’s because he sees it in me as well. My belly clenches with this realization. Yes. I believe he does. He’s a man who shelters himself, who doesn’t bring people into his life, and that is not about fame. It’s about more than that. I’m naked, taking risks with him, but he, too, is exposed. He, too, is taking risks. Maybe neither of us should be, but we can’t seem to help ourselves. We can’t seem to walk away.
Never before have I felt as if I needed anyone but my family.
But I need this man.
Right now, I need him.
Slowly, his gaze drops, lingering on my mouth and then traveling over my breasts, before he says, “For the record,” his hand warm on my bare knee, “I will never sit on this bench again, and not think of you right now, sitting here just like this, naked and beautiful.” His eyes meet mine and are warm, gentle even, tender. “And I do want you here,” he adds.
My breath lodges in my throat and any thought of leaving fades into the darkness of moments before. He tugs his T-shirt over my head, and I push my arms through the sleeves, the scent of him on my skin, and all around me now.
“Thank you for the compliment and the T-shirt.”
“I’m just speaking the truth, and as for the T-shirt, it was a gift based on being greedy. I was making sure you didn’t get dressed and run.”
It’s a statement that feels layered, punched with measured meaning. “Why would I run, Kace?”
He studies me a long moment, his expression indiscernible before he says, “I do believe the reasons are many.”
I’m not sure if he’s talking about his reasons or mine. Or maybe both? Either way, I remind myself that whatever I felt moments before, he’s made it clear this isn’t more than—well, whatever this night is. Didn’t he? I am not exactly sure what we said now any more than I know how to reply. What is certain is that I’m suddenly cold, the chill of the apartment I was too occupied before now to notice, sending a chill down my spine. I shiver, and Kace reacts, catching my hand, and pulling me to my feet. The next thing I know, he’s scooped me up in his arms again. I yelp and laugh as he starts walking. “What are you doing?”
“The floor is cold and the fire is hot. We’re moving to the fireplace.”
Once again, and oh so easily, he has me laughing. “I could have walked.”
“The floor is cold and you’re in your stockinged feet.”
Stockings and his T-shirt. While he carries me across the room. I don’t know if I could have imagined such a moment. He sets me down in a cozy little sitting area with a gray leather couch, two chairs, and an incredible coffee table that has a wooden violin as its pedestal. All of which are accented with a lighter plush rug. Kace sets me on the couch and grabs a blanket he wraps around me. “Let me get the fire started.”
I snuggle into the soft blanket while he walks around the table and to the wall, next to the sleek fireplace that almost seems to float inside encased glass, flipping a switch that ignites a blue and orange hazed flame. Moments later, he sits on the gorgeous table right in front of me, his hands settling intimately on my knees. “Better?”
“Much. Thank you.”
“Good,” he says and I believe he means it. He’s thoughtful, caring, a man who is dark and light, and I crave an understanding of why. I shouldn’t though.
“I’m never here”, he says. “I forgot how chilly the windows make it in the winter.”
He’s never here. This should be empowering. He’s a temptation that can’t last, and yet, somehow the idea of him leaving pinches, no, it stabs at me.
Thankfully he doesn’t notice. He snags his phone from his pocket. “I’ll order the food. What do you love and hate?”
“Fish. I hate fish.”
His eyebrow arches. “Even shrimp and lobster?”
“Yes. I don’t eat ocean bugs.”
He laughs and it’s such a warm laugh. Such a masculine laugh. “We’ll have to work on changing your palate.”
The statement implies he plans to be around to do so, but that’s a contradiction to him never being home. And as he said himself, he’s not my forever guy. I assumed that means, he’s my one-night guy. But I’m not running for the door and he’s not pushing me to the door, either. He moves to sit next to me and places an order for a “Dueling Dozen” whatever that is, and then sets his phone on the table. “Food will be here in about twenty minutes. I don’t have any tequila to go with the tacos, but I have wine.”
“Wine is great,” I say, and unbidden, I think of my mother and her evening glass of wine, a habit she’d formed with my father and had never given up. There were so many ways I felt her ho
ld onto him. Sometimes I feared too much for her sanity.
“Any preferences?” Kace asks. “Sweet? Dry? White? Red?”
“Surprise me.”
“You certainly have me,” he says softly, and like so many things with Kace, there seems to be more to that statement than a simple tease, which is why I’m not surprised when he doesn’t wait for a reply. He stands and disappears somewhere behind the couch, and I think of all that has transpired with Kace. I think of the torment I’ve felt and even tasted beneath his surface. I no longer believe that violins and music alone connect us. We are two ships on a stormy sea, looking for our lighthouse in each other. I fear we’re really just helping each other crash into the rocky shore. I think he does as well.
Perhaps that is why he believes I will run. I believe I should run, too, but I’m not. I’m still sitting here in his T-shirt, but still so completely naked.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Kace returns with two glasses of wine in hand and sits down next to me. I let the blanket fall away and accept a glass, our bodies automatically angling toward each other. There’s a comfort level between me and this man that defies our short relationship and my normal reserve. “This,” he says, offering me a glass, “is my favorite Italian blend. I actually pick it up when I’m in Italy.”
It’s a reminder of how dangerously close this man is to everything I’ve been hiding from, but for now, I reject fear. At last, I allow my taste buds to travel there with him. I sip from my glass and indeed the grapes are luxurious. “It’s wonderful. Smooth.”
“I’m glad you like it.” He sips from his own glass and studies me, his gaze far too probing and perceptive for my own good. “When was the last time you were in Italy?” he asks.
This is one of those moments I’ve trained for. I have stories to tell when asked this question, if ever asked this question, practiced stories meant to save my life, but those stories are lies. And I have told and lived so many lies. I need this time with Kace to be as real as it can be. I just need something real. I can’t lie to Kace. And so, I don’t. “Too long, Since I was a child.” It’s the truth, I think. It has been too long, but I can’t say that to him. Instead, I change the subject. “And you have been everywhere more than once,” I comment.
“I have been to many places, not everywhere. And while I’m ready to stay home for a while, there’s no question that it’s been a blessing many don’t share to see the world.”
I don’t miss the humble tone wedged in that statement nor the past tense. “You really aren’t going to tour anymore?”
“Contrary to my manager’s and agent’s demands, yes, I really am quitting. A performance and event here or there for a good cause is fine. A tour, night after night in a hotel, is a whole other ballgame. One I’m done playing.”
There is absoluteness to his statements, steel in his jaw, and I wonder if this has been coming for years or decided suddenly, but that feels perhaps too personal a question. Instead, I ask, “Sara said you have several charity shows coming up with Chris?”
“Austin the day after tomorrow,” he says. “And then L.A. and San Francisco in two weeks. The final show is a big charity event Chris does at the Louvre Museum in Paris every Christmas.”
Unbidden, I feel the bite of him leaving for Europe when I shouldn’t. I may not even know him a few months from now and this is a fling, a one-night stand. Sex and pleasure. Nothing more. Afraid he will read this in me, I deliver a well-deserved tease. “You quit the touring circuit as well as I quit chocolate.”
He laughs. “I guess that means you never quit chocolate. However, I am quitting the concert circuit. I have nothing booked after that Christmas show. I don’t need the money. I have other demands and projects outside of my violin.”
“But the violin is a part of you. An extension of your very person.”
“It is,” he says. “But it’s not all I am and I want to play for me. I want to play with passion again and I don’t feel I have that anymore.”
“You play like you do. So very beautifully.”
“And while I know you mean that, and I appreciate it, it’s become a job. A punishing job on the road with a different bed and time zone every time I blink.”
“Hmm,” I murmur, sipping my wine. “That must be very hard. And lonely.”
“There was a time that everything it is suited me, and suited me well. It’s what I wanted. That time has passed. I’ve been touring since I was ten. I’m thirty-four. It’s time to slow down.”
“Ten?” I ask incredulously. “I didn’t realize you toured that young. Performed yes, but toured?”
“Ten. I was schooled on the road. Everything has been a moving target my entire life.”
I consider his words and don’t take lightly what he has shared with me. He’s a private man, who never speaks of such things in interviews, and while I crave a deeper look beneath his public persona, I’m tentative about pushing him too far. Still, I can’t resist asking, “Did your parents travel with you?”
“I had a handler.”
I blink. “A handler?”
He sips his wine and then downs the rest, refilling his glass as if it’s a topic that requires further sustenance. “Sherry Meyers. I used to joke that she was Michael Meyers’ mother. She was my teacher and guardian who was paid to travel with me. Cranky old woman, too, but she did keep me out of trouble, which I tried to find often.”
My lips curve. “You? Trouble?”
“I was a young boy teased and praised for the violin in my hand. I thought I needed to be tough to prove I was a man. I got in fights, excessively and frequently.”
“Obviously you shifted that energy and became the rock star of violins.”
His lips curve. “I stopped beating people up, yes. After I broke a bone in my left hand. Had it been my right, I wouldn’t be playing today. Some of us are hard damn learners. But yes, I matured and changed my point of view. And I changed as a person. Mostly. There are still a few people I wanted to beat, but I didn’t.”
I laugh, charmed by the easy conversation, and his ability to self-analyze.
His cellphone buzzes with a text and he snags his phone from his pocket, glancing at it. “That’s security telling me they sent our delivery person up.” He sets his phone on the coffee table. “I’ll be right back.”
“Where would I find a bathroom?” I ask.
He stands and takes me with him, and my God, this easy, casual touch, jolts me with awareness. I am so hypersensitive to this man that it’s insane. He knows it, too. I see it in the burn of his eyes, and the way his gaze lowers to my mouth and lifts. “Other side of the living room,” he says. “But hurry,” he murmurs, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “I’m suddenly starving.”
My cheeks heat and he laughs. “You were just naked on top of the piano but you still blush.”
“You were naked on top of the piano.”
“And you were naked on top of me.”
New heat rushes to my cheeks all over again and he laughs once more, turning me to face in the other direction, and leaning in close, his breath a hot fan on my neck as he says, “You, Aria Alard, are a contradiction I can’t get enough of. Go. Hurry. Before I make them leave the food at the door and take my T-shirt back.” He smacks my backside and I yelp, rushing away as I do, my backside warm, but then, so is my entire body. That smack of my butt was not aggressive or even painful. It was intimate, though. It was daring. He makes me daring.
I have never been daring in my life.
I reach the piano and that beautiful violin that reminds me of things I don’t want to think about right now—reasons I shouldn’t be here. Reasons I should not be daring. I ignore the instrument and its warning, grab my purse, and leave my dress, hurrying toward the bathroom. The living room is huge, the walk long, but I find the door and enter, quickly shutting myself inside the luxurious bathroom with a dark granite tub and counters. I quickly check my call log in the hopes of som
ething from Gio, but there is nothing. I swallow hard and unbidden anger follows. He’s with Sofia, chasing our family heritage. He knows I don’t approve. And when he gets back, I will hurt him.
Anger is decidedly more comfortable than fear. I embrace it. I hold onto it. I shove my phone into my purse and set it on the sink. I do what I came in here to do, and wash up, only to groan at my image in the mirror. I’m with the most gorgeous man I’ve ever met and I have lipstick on my nose and my hair looks like I stuck a finger in an electrical socket. Worse, my purse is so small that I have nothing to fix the damage with me but a stick of concealer and a tiny comb. I put both to use and just in time. Kace knocks on the door.
I open it to find him, and like he was back at Riptide, he’s standing right in front of me, his dark hair rumpled, his blue eyes warm. His big body deliciously half-naked. “Just making sure you weren’t about to make a run for the door,” he says.
He’s worried I’m going to leave? Obviously, he is or he wouldn’t be standing here. I mean, he said as much, but I didn’t think he was this literal but clearly, he was. Kace August is really worried that I will leave. And he doesn’t want me to. I don’t quite know what to do with that, but stay. “I like your T-shirt,” I confess. “I was plotting a run for the door before you could take it back.”
He catches my hips and walks me to him. “You can keep the T-shirt if I can keep you.”
It’s teasing, I tell myself, but it doesn’t stop the flutter of my belly. “Do I get tacos in trade?”
A Reckless Note Page 13
