“She’s not old enough.”
“I know.” Laney wrings her hands together. “Cody called and told me you were coming, and I looked for her so we could meet you outside. But she wasn’t by the bar or in the bathroom. I tried asking around, but people could barely hear me, and I don’t know where she went.”
The girl seems near tears, and Cody puts his arm around her shoulders, managing a glare at me—which really takes some balls, under the circumstances. “Take her back to the compound,” I tell him, my voice hard. “You and I will have a talk when I get back.”
His brows draw together. “But Samantha—”
“I’ll find her and bring her myself.”
Chapter Twelve
In 800 BCE the first recovered piece of recorded music was found. It was written in cuneiform and was a religious hymn. It should be noted that cuneiform is not a type of musical notation.
SAMANTHA
The man leads me to a back room in the club. I’m expecting a supply closet or a bathroom—something secret and genuinely illicit. This is an office, a little messy but clearly used by someone with authority. Framed vinyl records line the walls.
He reclines on a file cabinet, his posture relaxed.
“Do you work here?”
“You could say that. I also own the place.”
I reach for my clutch, which contains the envelope. “Then why do you need money selling photographs of sleazy coaches?”
A low laugh. “How do you think we afford strobe lights around here? My business is information, and you want to buy information.”
“Fine. Show me the video, and I’ll give you the money.”
He gives me a slow grin. “What’s the hurry? I saw you dancing out there, sweetheart. Wouldn’t mind getting to know you a little better.”
I swallow hard. “Not interested.”
The sound of a scuffle in the hallway catches my attention. The door slams open, revealing Liam North in sharp relief, his eyes a brilliant, burning emerald.
“Oh no,” I whisper.
If Liam finds out what we’re doing here, everything is going to be ruined. Luckily the man seems to know that as well as I do. He takes a step back as if he’d just been touching me, as if he’s just been caught in the act. “Christ. You underage?”
“Out,” Liam says, and the man gives him a nervous look before leaving.
I stare at Liam. “Oh my God. You followed me here?”
He stalks into the room. “That’s what you’re going to say right now? How about, I’m sorry I snuck out of the house at night and gave you a heart attack, Liam?”
Pretend you came here to make out with a guy. “I’m not going to apologize.”
A low growl fills the room. “You followed a man to a back room without even telling Laney where you went. I ought to lock you in your damn room and throw away the key.”
“Hey, what happened to, ‘it’s your decision what you do with your body?’”
“I take it back.”
“You don’t get to take it back. I’m almost eighteen. You won’t have custody of me anymore.”
“You aren’t eighteen yet. Almost doesn’t count.”
Something occurs to me. “You can’t be mad at Cody for this. Don’t fire him or make him do a thousand push-ups or anything. I made him go. Laney, too.”
“So all of you are fucking Spartacus?”
“Huh?”
“All of you are trying to take the blame.”
“Oh.”
He closes the door behind him. And locks it. “You might understand more references if you actually watched a movie once in a while. Or TV.”
My pulse races. We’re alone right now. Very alone. “I prefer music.”
A glance at the carved vinyl records. They don’t hold his attention very long. His gaze locks on mine. “Since when did I get cast as the Roman general in this little drama?”
I glance at his fists. “Did you hurt a bouncer on your way inside?”
“In my defense, they were standing in my way. I don’t take very kindly to people who get between me and my family. Besides, they don’t have to be hospitalized. Pretty sure.”
My throat feels tight. “Your family.”
“That’s you, Samantha.”
I look away, hiding how much pleasure the word gives me. “Does that mean you’ll keep in touch with me when I go on tour? Will you come see me play?”
His expression darkens. “We’re not going to be pen pals, if that’s what you’re asking.”
It’s a physical blow to my stomach, the dismissal in his words. My instinct is to deny it. He couldn’t have meant it. He couldn’t have meant it to hurt this much. Then the moment passes and I’m left feeling sick, about to vomit all over the office. “Pen pals?”
Something in his eyes softens. He doesn’t look warm exactly, but he doesn’t look quite so pissed anymore. “I didn’t realize you would want to keep in touch after you left.”
The memory of our last talk heats the air between us—about condoms and sex. And the way he walked in on me when I moaned his name. God. I’m not sure I can stand another talk like that. “I’m not naive, Liam. I know you took me in because I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
A muscle in his jaw ticks. “That wasn’t exactly the reason. And even though I didn’t know you before I took custody, I’ve grown to care about you over the years. If I didn’t state it clearly enough, then the fault lies with me. I wasn’t raised to show… affection.”
I stare at him, incredulous. Affection? It’s a cold comfort to a girl who’s always wanted the surety of forever. And the word might as well be alien to a man like him. “I’m going to tour the country. The world. I’m leaving, Liam.”
He looks away. “Christ.”
Unease moves through me. “Did you really think I wouldn’t come back?”
“I don’t know why you would want to.”
“Because I care about you.” Liam is six feet of pure muscle and hard will. There’s no way someone like me could go up against him and win. Except that when I take a step closer, he tenses. Another step and he goes still as stone. It gives me a sense of power, enough that I take the final step. “I care about you even though you’re controlling.”
There’s only an inch between the ruffle of my blouse and the flat of his abs.
“You think I’m going to apologize for keeping you safe?” he mutters. “You think I give a damn that you’re mad at me as long as you’re in one piece? That’s the only thing that matters.”
“Because you think of me like a daughter?”
He shakes his head slowly, not breaking eye contact. “No.”
“No?” I whisper.
“When I walked in on you…” His voice is hoarse. “I didn’t think of you like a daughter.”
I should probably be horrified that he would think about me in any way other than family, except I’m the one who started it. I take a step closer, and there’s nowhere for him to go. He’s already backed up against the wall. This big, strong man who could probably make a whole army quake—or at least a battalion. And he’s cornered by me.
This close I can see the green of his eyes, so dark they’re almost emerald, flecked with gold. A scar bisects one dark eyebrow, probably a scar from something terrifying and deadly.
“How did you think of me?” I’m afraid to know the answer, but I’m even more terrified of never knowing. Of being a nameless, faceless body in that writhing crowd, hooking up with a stranger when the man I really want is standing right in front of me, inches away, his breath a feather-touch on my forehead.
A small shake of his head. “It’s not right.”
I’m not sure what right and wrong mean when it comes to us, but I know what it means for music. Someone can play a piece with perfect timing and notation. They can hit every single note, but it still won’t have passion. That part comes from inside. “Then be wrong with me. Don’t make me do it alone.”
I push up on my toes, pr
essing my lips against his in a blind, artless kiss. I’m off center of his mouth, kissing the corner. He stands still as a statue, letting me wobble on my heels, letting me fall against him, only my broken kiss to balance me.
Grief beats against my ribs. He’s going to make me do it alone. Of course he is. I’m always alone. A small sound escapes me. Loneliness. Pain. It vibrates against his mouth, sound made real.
He jolts as if I’ve shocked him. Something unspools inside him. I feel it in the inch of air between us. And then I feel it in my lips. He takes over the kiss with shocking possession, his hand behind my head, his body turning us so I’m against the wall. He looms in front of me, blocking out the view. There are no vinyl records on the wall, no bass thrumming through concrete and steel. There’s only him, only this. How is it possible that only a few minutes ago I felt powerful? I didn’t know what this would be. I couldn’t know the way I’d revel in surrender.
His tongue touches the seam of my lips, a pure electric sensation that makes me jump. I part my lips in surprise, pulling in the scent of him—man and earth, salt and sea. He tastes elemental. His tongue swipes the tender inside of my bottom lip. It’s more sensitive there than I could have imagined. I feel the slickness of the caress all the way in my core. My thighs clench together.
So careful. So wary. I touch my tongue against his. He’s the one who groans.
His hand fists in my hair, creating a delicious little ache. “Do you know what you’re doing to me?” he breathes, and I try to shake my head; it only makes him pull harder.
“Liam… I need…” It’s like the bedroom when he walked in on me, my hips rocking, mindless, hungry. Worse than that. My whole body is moving restlessly against him.
He tears himself away with a hard sound. Only an inch away. A rough tremor runs through him. It’s a small comfort, knowing that I’ve moved this man. Knowing how much control he has, knowing it’s eroded. But only a small comfort. He still leaves me panting against the door.
“I’m supposed to protect you,” he says, his voice taut with guilt.
“Against people like that?”
“Yes, against people like that. He’s more than a club owner, Samantha. At least that’s not all he is. He’s a loan shark. The dangerous kind. One who makes sure his debts are paid with money or with blood. He doesn’t give a shit about doing the right thing.”
A shiver runs through me. “How do you know him?”
“I run a security firm. It’s my job to know these things.” He cups my jaw. “Even if it wasn’t, I would make sure to know every single danger within a hundred-mile radius. You’re too important to risk.”
Determination hardens my tone. “You tell me you want me to make my own decisions as a woman, and then you take them away.”
He pulls back, and cool air rushes into the space between us. “Because you lied to me, Samantha. Something could have happened to you, and there’d be no one to protect you, no one to even know where you went. That’s not a grown-up decision.”
I look down where he’s holding my hips in place. It’s like prying metal, watching him lift his fingers one by one. Each loss feels like a chain link snapped.
He pulls his hands away with an audible groan. “I’m not going to touch you again.”
Hurt licks against my skin like flames, but I try to act casual. “Right.”
“If you want to go out, of course you can. I’ll send Josh with you.”
“Is that an order?”
“Absolutely,” he says with burning green eyes.
Despite the hunger in his voice, there's no trace of vulnerability in his expression. He's made of stone and water, as unconcerned as air. Gone is the man incandescent with desire. How am I supposed to be interested in the boys who are dancing in clubs when this man has kissed me? How can I be satisfied with warmth when I know how it feels to burn?
Chapter Thirteen
Violinist Lindsey Stirling has over 10.5 million subscribers on YouTube
SAMANTHA
A message blinks on my phone when I get home from school.
The picture shows a mane of wild red curls, the kind I would have happily traded for my ordinary brown hair. I met Beatrix Cartwright many years ago, back when we were both children.
Our upbringings couldn’t have been more different.
She came from a wealthy family, her mother a famous pianist, her father a tech industrialist who doted on his family. Meanwhile my father had to be reminded that my Sergio Peresson violin was on loan from a music society, and we couldn’t sell it because they knew who had it. That didn’t stop him from threatening to whenever he was particularly broke.
Her parents invested in her musical education and were supremely interested in her feelings. My father only agreed to let me play in the London concert because the queen herself would be in attendance. He spent most of the concert on the phone in the lobby, coming up for air only to glad hand during the reception.
On the surface it seemed like we had very little in common, but Beatrix and I had something in common—we were both children with unusual talent in a world ruled by fierce, egotistical adults.
Somewhere between practice and performance we became fast friends.
Maybe it was fate, which knew we were both on the same dark path. The death of her parents changed the course of her life. I gave her what support I could over e-mail as I followed my father from desert to jungle to tundra, only to begin all over again.
And then my father died, giving us one more thing in common.
Orphans, both of us.
I’m excited about the tour, her text says with a string of green-faced emojis, each of them about to throw up. She’s always had a dry sense of humor and a weak stomach.
You’re going to be amazing, I text back.
Her anxiety goes beyond stage fright. For many years after her parents’ deaths she didn’t even leave the penthouse in the hotel where she lived. Only recently did she begin to venture out, but it’s still difficult for her to deal with crowds.
I only agreed to it because you’re coming, she says. When do you get here, anyway? Can it be now?
Words appear on the screen even though I don’t feel myself typing them—I’m afraid to leave. I don’t want to. What if I never see Liam again? What if he never forgives me for lying to him? The thoughts are too private to be read, even by me.
I hold down the Backspace button until they’re gone.
Soon. I punctuate the word with a string of sobbing emojis. Three months, to be exact. It’s the closest I can come to revealing my true feelings, the same way the green-faced emojis revealed hers.
How is Liam doing?
Oh you know. The same. Stoic and strong and serious.
So he’s being an asshole?
No, of course not. I blush, trying to think of how to word this, how to describe what happened in the back office of the club. I’m not even sure I know the words. Not kiss or touch. Something more meaningful—and more fleeting. Actually, something happened.
Uh oh.
It’s hard to explain. We sort of… we almost kissed.
Oh my God. Samantha. SAMANTHA. Did he take advantage of you? I’m going to fly to Kingston right now and punch him in the face.
What? Don’t be silly, I say, typing quickly because she might actually do it despite her extreme fear of public transportation and the baby girl she has at home. She’s only doing the opening show in Tanglewood, which is where she lives. I wouldn’t be surprised if the label planted the opening show there just for her.
Beatrix Cartwright is maybe the most famous musician on the tour, besides Harry March himself. She has a massive internet following from playing covers of popular songs and posting the videos online. It’s a different direction than the old-world classical music that consumes me, but I admire her skill—as well as her poise in the face of notoriety.
He didn’t take advantage of anything, I tell her. If anything I took advantage of him.
I’m givin
g you such a look right now. A look of disbelief.
Really. I’m the one who wants him to see me as more than a child.
But you ARE a child.
I make a rude gesture using an emoticon in response. She’s only a few years older than me, and she’s already married with a baby. It’s actually common for people in our position—strange and rare though it is. We grow up fast and either settle down or burn out.
Well, she says. I’m sure he turned you down. Liam North doesn’t know how to have fun, which has never seemed like more of a virtue than right now.
Fun? The idea makes me smile. He knows how to fight and work and struggle. The idea of fun is as foreign to him as it is to me. We’re well suited that way. Yes, I admit. He turned me down.
What aren’t you telling me?
That makes me sigh. He really did turn me down. After he kissed me. It wasn’t almost anything. We did actually kiss.
OMG.
Don’t freak out. I know it’s probably inappropriate.
Probably???
God, how to explain the exhilaration of knowing he had chased after me, bursting into a nightclub, breaking through muscled bouncers to make sure that I was safe. And then the way his large hand had cupped my jaw, making me feel delicate.
I want him to do it again. The cursor blinks at the end of the sentence, waiting with an accusatory rhythm. When I press the Send button, I feel only a sense of rightness. It’s honest, at least.
A long time passes with the three little dots hovering where her response will go. She’s writing a long lecture about all the ways it’s wrong for me to lust after Liam, I’m guessing.
But her text is very short. What happens when you leave?
I know what she means. Both of us know what it is to be alone. To be left behind. It doesn’t matter that I’m the one walking away this time. Being adrift at sea is no better than being stranded on an island.
Then it’s over, I say, knowing there won’t be any civic responsibility after that.
LIAM
Leaning back in my office chair, I close my eyes. The strains of the violin wash over me, soothing the rough edges inside me. I’m in agony thinking of the day when the room next door will be silent. What will happen to every jagged, violent thought inside me?
Falling For The Forbidden Page 43
