“Pharmacy?” he asks, casting me a worried look.
“Yes,” I say primly, trying not to smile. “My doctor approved me starting on the pill.”
“Really?” His eyes light like a kid in a candy store about to indulge.
“Yes. But,” I quickly warn, “I have to be on it for seven days before we’re safe to go without a condom.”
He maneuvers the car onto the street I’d indicated and grimaces. “It’s going to be a long seven days.”
“It’s one week. Only seven days of practice.” I motion to the pharmacy. “Just drop me at the door. I’ll run in and out.”
He cuts to the curb in an emergency lane to let me get out, and I don’t blame him. Parking sucks in New York City. “Are we talking about seven days of me practicing with my violin or you?” he asks.
My lips curve. “Both actually,” I say, reaching for the door.
He catches my arm and pulls me backward, his hand catching my head as he leans over me, his mouth quickly next to my mouth. “Seven days of practice requires you to stay with me all seven days,” he informs me before kissing me soundly on the lips.
I twist around to face him. “Are there cookies in this for me?”
“Every day if you want them. I’ll call Walker and update them on everything while you’re inside.”
“Maybe you should promise them cookies, too?”
He laughs and a car honks. “Have to go,” I say, opening the door and darting out of the vehicle, smiling as I do. Kace makes me smile. He makes me laugh. He makes me happy. And I don’t remember happiness ever being a priority in my life.
I’ve just entered the pharmacy when my cellphone buzzes with a text. I grab it from my purse and eye a message from Nancy. Oh my God, he’s gorgeous and famous. And I need to know everything. I’d call you, but I know you’re with him. Please have pity on me and call me soon.
I smile yet again, with Kace at the core of that smile. She’s right. He is gorgeous and famous, but Kace August is so much more. Damaged. Complicated. Sweet. Demanding. Too many things to discuss right now with Kace waiting for me. And honestly, I’m not sure I’m ready to discuss me and Kace at all. And so, I reply to Nancy with one word: Tomorrow, that at least buys me time before I head toward the pharmacy window.
A few minutes later, I’m talking to the pharmacist about how to dose my medication he’s filled when the hair on the back of my neck bristles. My gaze lifts and cuts right, where I find a tall, broad-shouldered man, staring at me, part of his face hidden by a display. I stare at him. He stares at me. Now the hair on my arms is bristling, too, and my heart is racing.
Reigning in the fight or flight reaction threatening to take control, I warn myself not to overreact.
This could be one of Savage’s men, I reason, but that’s not what my gut tells me. Kace has only just given them a partial go ahead. He is not one of Savage’s men. I know he’s not.
He cuts away from me, out of sight, and my heart leaps. What if that man knows where my brother is? I have to go after him. I mean no, I don’t dare approach him, that’s not safe, but can I, from a safe distance, snap a photo of him or a license plate or something, anything that I can give to Savage to find my brother? I have to try. With my drugs in hand, I excuse myself from the pharmacist, cutting toward the man.
I hurry in the direction the man traveled, hoping I can catch him or see where he went. Or just get a better view. Darting around a corner I’m now at the endcap that covers several aisles, but the man is nowhere to be found, and considering he was quite tall, he’s either ducked down or just gone. Maybe this was all my imagination anyway. Maybe Gio’s disappearance and my deep-rooted need to control all that’s around me, no doubt inherited from my mother, has me looking to take it to places where there is nothing to be found.
I rotate and run smack into a hard body, gasping with the impact and jolting away from the connection, only to be pulled into Kace’s arms. “Easy, baby. I didn’t mean to become a brick wall that all but knocked you over, but I saw you barreling down the aisle and was worried.”
“I just—I thought you were waiting in the car?”
“The paparazzi are still on the hunt. They must have followed us from your place. We need to get out of here before you end up as their target.”
A small degree of relief washes over me. That man wasn’t about me or Gio. He was hunting gossip about Kace, which is a whole other problem for later.
“There was a man staring at me, but the minute he knew I knew he was there, he took off. I was concerned he might be somehow connected to Gio disappearing, so I tried to catch him and get a photo and see where he went, but he vanished.”
Something I can’t quite name flickers in his eyes. “You thought he was watching you and you tried to confront him?”
“Yes. No. No, I’m not that stupid. I wouldn’t confront him.”
His jaw clenches, his lashes lowering two beats before he steps closer, the very action protective. “It’s your life I’m worried about. What if he would have been luring you somewhere to grab you?”
“I was in the store.”
“Until you weren’t, Aria. Gio is missing.” His jaw sets hard. “I shouldn’t have let you come in alone.”
I frown. “Since when do paparazzi kidnap people, Kace?”
“We don’t know he was paparazzi.”
“You think he was here for me, not you?”
“I don’t know and neither do you. Do you have what you came for?”
“Yes.” I hold up the package. “I’m set.”
“Then let’s get out of here because they’ll find us.” I don’t know if he means the press or someone else and he doesn’t give me time to ask. He takes the bag and sets us in motion, but not toward the front door. We’re heading to the rear of the building.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Ditching the press. I dropped my car at a hotel a block down and paid them to park it. Walker is picking it up and giving us a ride home.” He cuts us down a hallway leading to the bathroom and directly to an exit, which leads us to an alleyway where an SUV is waiting.
Kace opens the door and helps me inside, before following, sealing us inside. He speaks to the driver who sets us moving. “I can’t believe you just pulled that off in a blink of an eye.”
“Experience and I was ready for them. I pay Walker to be on standby, especially now. The charity events got some press and I knew that would put me on the radar again. And I knew you wouldn’t want to be in the press.” His eyes meet mine and I know he sees the concern in mine when he adds, “The attention will fade.”
And then return, I think, and I don’t doubt that he thinks so as well, because it’s true. We’ve both been hiding from the problem his career and my birthright represent. We are like two sides of a coin. One side is the two of us together soaring as beautiful and high as an eagle, with wings spread in the lift of a perfect wind. On the other side, we are the same eagle crashing into a turbulent storm riddled with unexpected blasts of hail. We can no longer pretend those two sides are only one.
We have to talk about this. We have to consider the risk to him and me alike, and we have to do it tonight. He knows it. I know it.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
With what feels like a question of our future together in the air between me and Kace, I rotate and sink lower into my seat. The problematic mix of his career and my past is a topic we’ve avoided for a reason. It could be the end of us and we both know it. And perhaps selfishly, I don’t want to let go of Kace. Minutes pass and awkwardly—when we are never awkward together—neither of us touches the other. I want him to touch me. I want to touch him, but there is an invisible wall between us. Perhaps that wall has always been there, but we had climbed it, scaled right over, and jumped right into all things me and him.
A good ten minutes pass, with traffic just one more obstacle to overcome in these turbulent few days.
Tension
pulses in the air, or maybe it’s more like a ticking clock with a heavy, exaggerated arm. A million thoughts charge through my mind, many of them warnings my mother spoke to me over and over, about not just protecting myself but others around me. She would not approve of Kace August. She’d like him. She’d admire his talent. But she would not approve of a man that is a poster child for the world I’m never supposed to visit again. She’d claim he represents danger to me and me danger to him.
But I give a mental push to her assumed arguments.
I was eleven when I left Italy. The odds of someone recognizing me like Kace did are next to zero. Even if they dig around, my history is long and established right here in New York City. And Gio didn’t accidentally find trouble. He went looking for it. In fact, after years of hiding, I think he welcomed it.
I don’t want to walk away from Kace.
Almost as if I’ve spoken this desire out loud, Kace reaches for me and scoots over, aligning our legs. His touch sizzles through me, electric, and somehow soothing. That’s the thing about Kace August. He, like his music, manages to be so many things at once. We don’t immediately look at each other, but there is a magnetic pull between us. In unison, we turn to each other and the minute our eyes meet, we lean into the connection. His fingers tangle into my hair while mine twist around his T-shirt and our mouths collide in a scorching, deep kiss. A kiss that consumes. A kiss that both demands and gives in the same breath. We only come up for air, and reluctantly, when the vehicle halts. Kace strokes my damp lip, glancing over my shoulder to the window.
“We’re here,” he murmurs, his hand sliding down my hair the way he always does, tender and possessive at the same time.
He leans forward and speaks to the driver, his voice muffled before he shifts his attention back to me. “He called ahead. The door is clear. No press.”
The driver flips the locks on the doors and exits the vehicle. He must signal the building staff because my door is opened by the doorman, a chilly air piercing the warm heat of the vehicle. I slide across the seat, and exit the backseat with Kace on my heels, his hand settling possessively at my back.
Steven, dressed in his blue official jacket, welcomes us. “There she is,” he greets warmly, the lines by his eyes and gray at his temples, aging him older than I’d remembered. Fifty-something, I think today. “Please tell me you are on the mend,” he adds.
“I am,” I say. “Thank you for your help. I was a mess, I know. I barely remember what I said or did.”
“You’re better now,” he says. “That’s what matters.”
Kace slides his arm over my shoulder. “Thank you, Steven.”
Steven gives a tiny nod. “No thanks needed.”
Kace guides me into the building and to the lobby, but instead of heading to the elevator, he detours to the security desk and the tall, red-haired man in the same blue jacket Steven wore behind it. I expect Kace to discuss the press and the security risk. Instead, he says, “Mitch, this is Aria Alard. I need to add her to my approved entry list.”
My gaze jerks to his, and while there might be surprise in my action, it quickly transforms into understanding. He’s still looking at Mitch, not me, but I know what he’s telling me. We’re not over. He’s telling me we are not over.
“What do you need from her?” he presses Mitch.
I glance at Mitch, and inside his probing stare, I decide I’m not the only one surprised by this request. He recovers a perfectly stoic expression to flavor his tone as he greets me. “Good evening and welcome, Ms. Alard. Can I get a copy of your ID please?”
My heart thumps against my breastbone, and when I look at Kace, I find a question in those intelligent deep blue eyes: what will I do?
For him, I sense, this is about a commitment. Him giving it. Him asking for it. But for me it’s not that simple, not that commitment is ever simple. I avoid showing off my ID for obvious reasons. But it seems that somewhere between the day Gio disappeared and now, I’ve decided owning my identity is far more powerful than praying it’s good enough. And then there is Kace, whose name and presence, as cheesy as Gio would say it sounds, has become a healing song filling my empty heart. I reach in my purse, find my ID, and then offer it to Mitch. He gives it little attention, simply copying it at the mini machine right next to him. That copy stirs a hint of unease, but not enough to have me yanking it away from the man.
“You’re all set,” Mitch announces. “Just show your ID if there’s someone here other than me.”
“Thank you, Mitch,” I say, and when Kace slides an arm around me, setting us in motion toward the elevator, all my unease slides away.
Once we’re at the elevator banks it’s not long before we’re alone inside, on our way to his floor. Kace leans on the wall and folds me close, our legs pressed intimately together, and when I meet his stare there’s a charge between us that steals my breath—but there is also a world of unspoken words between us.
The car halts, and he’s holding my hand now, leading me toward his apartment, his private fortress, his kingdom, and he’s sent me a strong message tonight. I’m no longer an outsider.
As if driving home that point, we arrive at his door and he places me in front of him beside the security panel, leaning in to kiss my neck, before he whispers the code into my ear. It’s as good as being offered a key. “Punch it in, baby, so I know you remember it.”
He’s daring me into his world, asking me to step wider, longer, further. All things I would never have done in the past. All things no other man could tempt me to do. And yet he does. And I answer.
I punch in the code and when the panel beeps its approval Kace opens the door to allow my entry. With a rush of adrenaline and nerves, I step forward, aware of him behind me. I shrug out of my coat, hanging it and my purse on a coatrack, my actions meant to reinforce a message I believe I’ve already delivered: I’m here. I’m staying. Nothing that happened with the press or Alexander, or anyone else for that matter, has changed that. The door shuts and I turn to find Kace watching me, removing his jacket, and his eyes have darkened with something akin to a predatory gleam. My body responds, tingling with awareness while my mouth goes dry with the stretch of his T-shirt across his broad chest. Once his jacket is on the coatrack, we end up standing there, staring at each other. Almost as if all those unspoken words are too complicated but the pull between us is not.
There is a current in the air, crackling all around us, to the point that there must be sparks. My God, I can feel this man in every part of my body when he has not even touched me yet. My experience is limited, it’s true, but no man ever came close to affecting me the way Kace does.
He moves first, one long stride, and I swear my sex clenches. That’s the power of this man. I blink and I’m against the wall, his powerful legs shackling mine, his hand sliding into my hair, tilting my eyes to his. “We are not over. The damn paparazzi does not end us. You will not walk away over this.”
“I don’t want to walk away,” I say, my fingers tangling in the hem of his T-shirt.
“You don’t want to, or you aren’t going to?”
“What I want is not always what I get.”
“You are exactly where you belong. Say it.”
“I’m a Stradivari and with that comes risks.”
“Say it, Aria. You belong here.”
“I’m where I want to be.”
“Damn it, woman,” he murmurs, his mouth crashing down over mine, his tongue a wicked slice of demand, his hand on my back, molding me closer. And just that easily, I am lost in the ache of my burn for this man. He believes he can protect me, but I remind myself that I must protect him. He says he won’t lie to me, but he admits he has secrets. I’m conflicted with Kace over my anger, but unsure how to move forward, but oh so certain that I am a whisper from drowning in my need for him.
His hand slides over my backside, and he scoops me into him, the hard line of his body absorbing mine, the harder ridge of his erectio
n pressed to my belly. And then, unbidden the image of that man in the pharmacy drags me back to hell and I shove on Kace’s chest. “Kace, what if—”
“What if what, baby?”
His breathing is ragged, his breath a velvety promise of another kiss. “Something goes wrong?”
“What if everything goes right?”
“That’s not who we are.”
His hand caresses a path down my arm, a gentle tease of a touch that sends a shiver through my body until his hand covers my injured hand. “How’s your hand?”
“Better. Why?”
“Just making sure I don’t hurt you, baby, because it’s time to be here, and present.” He catches the hem of my blouse and drags it over my head, tossing it away. “And I plan to do whatever it takes to make that happen.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Kace’s hand splays widely between my shoulder blades, molding me close, my breasts against the hard wall of his chest. “We’re here,” he says, “we’re alone. Let the rest go. Let it all go.”
My fingers curl on his shoulders, the heat of his body rushing over me. “I’m trying. I’m just—”
His hand cups my head and he kisses me, a slow slide of tongue seducing me while his fingers deftly unhook the clasp at my back. “Right now,” he says, “we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be. You and me, together. Believe that.”
“What if I drag you to hell, Kace?”
“More like you dragged me out of hell, baby,” he says. “And I thought I was there to stay.”
“What if I’m the devil in all the details?”
“Then hell hath no fury like a man chasing a woman.”
“You aren’t chasing me.”
He leans in and kisses my neck, his breath a sweet, warm tease as he whispers, “Run and find out, baby.” He drags my bra down, and then his fingers are on my nipples, arousal warming my skin and pooling heat low in my belly.
My fingers curl on his arm and I pant out a soft breath.
A Wicked Song (Brilliance Trilogy Book 2) Page 10
