Behind the Curtain

by BETH KERY

  “How long?”

  She blinked. “Since Tahi and I bought our condo?”

  “No. Since you’ve been singing in public.”

  “Oh . . . it happened slowly, over time. The sports bar I worked at during college started a karaoke night. A club owner in Detroit heard me singing one night, and offered me a job. But I turned him down.”

  “Too close to home for comfort,” he stated.

  She wasn’t sure she liked his certainty when he talked about her motivations. Wasn’t there an edge of bitterness in his tone? Nevertheless . . . he was right. It had been too much of a risk in Detroit. Word would eventually circulate back to her mother or father or a family member about her performing professionally.

  “Yeah. Tahi and I both landed customer service jobs at Microsoft right after college. Tahi thrived in the technology sector, but I really struggled. I was bored stiff. I thought it was mind-numbing work.” She cast him an uneasy glance, recalling how he’d told her so confidently as a young man that she wasn’t the business type. She was an artist. Even then, he’d known her better than she’d known herself. That the same man who had once seen down to the heart of her now stood before her like a cold stranger caused that familiar ache to swell in her chest and throat.

  “Anyway, Tahi and I used to go to this blues bar in the underground, not too far from our first apartment. It was a grimy little dive, but they’d get some amazing musicians there. We got to know the club owner, and when he found out I could sing, he gave me a Monday night—their slow night—to perform.”

  “And before long, he was offering you Fridays and Saturdays, and any other night you’d take. I’m surprised your parents let you move to Chicago.”

  Her heart jumped a little, then began to drum in her ears at his mention of her parents. “They put up a huge fight about it, that’s for sure.” And you actually fought back? He didn’t say it, but the imagined caustic question, asked in Asher’s voice, echoed in her head. “They couldn’t argue with the jobs we got or the salaries they offered us,” she continued. “I ended up hating the work, but I have to admit, they paid us well for entry-level work, just out of college. And Tahi was moving to Chicago too, so—”

  “The Laila I knew would have caved in that fight.”

  Her chin went up higher at that. For the first time, anger pierced her anxiety and self-consciousness at standing face to face with him again. “The Laila you knew has grown up,” she stated unequivocally.

  He frowned. She thought maybe he’d realized he’d gone too far.

  “You never really answered me. About why you came to the condo this afternoon.”

  She arched her eyebrows and dropped her arms, standing tall. “Why did you come here tonight?”

  He stepped toward her.

  It was like a wall of flames suddenly leapt up between them. She was scared of the heat. She was undeniably drawn to it. Something about his stare made her want to back away, but she held her ground. “Are you telling me the reason you came to the condo was the same reason I showed up here tonight?” He said it quietly, but it was a demand, somehow. A command for honesty.

  “I came because I wanted to see you,” she admitted breathlessly after a pause.

  “I came because I couldn’t stay away.”

  He shook his head tensely and cursed under his breath.

  “Asher—”

  “I wouldn’t have thought it was possible for you to grow more beautiful, but you went and did it, didn’t you? You’re still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

  A whimper leaked out of her throat. He’d looked so naked, saying it, like her appearance pained him somehow. It made her want to cry. But then he was stepping into her, and she recognized that look on his face. That determination. That fire. He cupped her face in his hands possessively, but he needn’t have urged her. She was already lifting her face to meet his kiss.

  He blistered her from the start, seizing her mouth with his and then parting her lips boldly with his tongue. He sank into her, and she felt that silky, bold caress all the way to her sex. His tongue had trained her in pleasure. Her body hadn’t forgotten those ecstatic lessons. Every cell in her body seemed to leap with joy at his touch. It felt so achingly familiar, yet so blessedly new. This was a man in his prime. He was so much . . . more than he had been once, and what he’d been at twenty-two had forever changed her.

  The taste of him, the feel of him pounded into her chaotic awareness. Her arms surrounded him. Her hands and fingers moved in a desperate search to remember the familiar . . . to discover the differences. He dropped his hands to her hips and pulled her tight against him. He bent over her, making her back arch, his kiss becoming more demanding. Hotter. And she responded the only way she’d ever been able to with Asher.

  Wholesale.

  • • •

  From his first glimpse of her standing there in that dressing room, Asher recognized it. He was defeated before he could even make a first move. Hers was the face to which he’d compared all others, and found them wanting. And the years had made her even more stunning. Like the way she’d grown into her sultry, resonant voice, she’d grown into her body. She’d filled out, and not just in the flesh. She owned her beauty now. Yes, she was clearly anxious about his unexpected arrival, but she stood straight and tall. Standing there with that robe draped around her slender, curving body, and her long, lustrous hair spilling around her shoulders, she looked like nothing less than a goddess. It made him bitter. His hunger for her was his helplessness; his need his Achilles’ heel.

  But it was undeniable. Once he tasted her, he gave in to it with a fierce abandon.

  She tasted of fruit and honey. She tasted like sex. He sank into her, drowning in her flavor like a starving man sitting down to a feast fit for a king. Her mouth fed him, and yet it made him so much hungrier. He spread his hands on her hips, feeling the taut curve of her naked skin beneath the thin covering of her robe. He rubbed her, his throat vibrating in a growl. His cock lurched at the sensation of her, and suddenly he couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Jesus,” he rasped, nipping at her upturned, parted lips while his fingers found the belt of her robe. He leaned back slightly, looking down at her face as he jerked at the tie. He parted the fabric and stared down at her exposed body. His throat knotted. A pain went through him, one of pure lust and longing. Her breasts were a little fuller than he remembered, but still high and round and firm, the nipples small and mouthwateringly erect. She was paler than she had been during that sun-drenched summer so long ago, but her skin was still flawless and smooth, with a golden hue. Clenching his teeth, he pushed the robe off her shoulders. It slid down her back and legs to the floor. He touched both of her shoulders and trailed his hands down her beautiful arms.

  Laila’s arms.

  Bending his knees, he pulled her tight against his aroused body. He pressed his mouth to her biceps, feeling her silky skin against his lips. He gently scraped his teeth against the firm muscle and clamped his eyes tight against a surge of emotion. The sound of her hoarse whimper penetrated his awareness, and then she was digging her fingers into his hair and saying his name. He shifted his chin, finding a hard nipple. He latched onto it, shivers running beneath his skin at the feeling of her nails dragging against his scalp.

  She started against him. He lifted his head, dazed. Had he hurt her? Her wide eyes and obvious anxiety penetrated the flash fire of his arousal. He heard the sound of footsteps in the far distance. Suddenly, Laila bent and scooped up her robe from the floor.

  “That’s a bathroom,” Laila said in a low, hoarse voice. She pointed to a door. “Can you please go in there?”

  “Am I hiding?” he asked incredulously.

  “Yes,” she replied shortly, closing her robe and cinching the belt. The sound of footsteps approaching grew louder. “Please, Asher.”

  “Okay, okay,” he
muttered, frowning. Jesus. Had nothing changed? They weren’t kids anymore. It was like they were nineteen and twenty-two all over again, and about to be caught red-handed by her parents. Someone knocked briskly on the dressing room door.

  “Laila?” a man called.

  “Yes?” she replied, her eyes broadcasting a silent plea to him. She nodded pointedly at the bathroom she’d indicated, her beautiful face tight with anxiety. “Just a second, Rafe.”

  Asher moved, his feet dragging a little as he glanced behind him at Laila. He went into the dark bathroom. He shut the door but left it open a few inches. He watched through the crack as Laila did something similar to her dressing room door, opening it only a few inches.

  “I’m in the middle of dressing,” she said breathlessly to the man on other side.

  “Oh, I thought you’d be finished. Lance Meyer, the reporter from Entertainment Weekly, came a little early. It’s a good sign. He was hoping to meet you.”

  “What? You know I prefer not to meet anyone in person.”

  “He’s not going to bring his photographer to the meeting. I thought we’d have some champagne sent down here and have a drink with him before the show,” the guy—Rafe—said in a French-accented voice.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head adamantly and causing her long hair to slide against her robe.

  “Laila, we need this. If you’d let me sign you with a big name recording studio for your first contract, a well-organized publicity blitz would have come with it. As it is, this reporter from EW might be all we get before you begin recording next month—our only chance.”

  “That’s one of the reasons I picked Sunday Records, and you know it. No huge publicity. You know my stance on this, Rafe. I don’t want to be interviewed or have the media connect my face with Yesenia’s. That was my condition from the beginning, and you agreed to it. I thought Meyer was just coming here to see my performance.”

  “But this is your chance for some major exposure from one of the top music and entertainment magazines. Most artists would kill for this opportunity.”

  “No, Rafe,” she said firmly.

  “Your privacy is still going to remain intact.” Asher’s muscles tensed so hard they hurt. What was this guy’s problem? He was going at Laila like a battering ram. Couldn’t he hear? “But it’s only going to fuel the flames of fascination about Yesenia, even if you allow Meyer just to see you,” Rafe continued. “He’s bound to be blown away by the way you look. Even though he won’t have a photo, he’ll likely write tributes to your beauty that will only make your legend grow.” A hand came through the door. Asher stiffened, watching Rafe caress first Laila’s tumbling locks of hair and then her cheek. Laila started back but then stilled herself.

  Asher recognized a lover’s familiar touch. A burning sensation started up in his belly.

  “You’re flushed, ma cherie. Did you stay in the sauna too long?”

  “No. But I’m not feeling all that well. Rafe, I wish you hadn’t suggested it was a possibility I’d meet with Meyer,” Laila said.

  “You aren’t feeling well? Do you think you’ll be able to perform?” Rafe asked, suddenly sounding nervous.

  “Yes. That is, I will if you give me time to get ready.”

  “Of course. Please don’t worry yourself about it now,” Asher heard Rafe say after a pause. “But sometime soon, we’re going to have to talk again about this absolute need for privacy on your part, Laila. It’s in direct opposition to you growing as an artist. It would be one thing if you were some kind of troll behind the curtain, but you’re the most stunning woman—”

  “You said you didn’t want me to worry about it now,” Laila interrupted tensely. “Do you want me to get ready for the show, or not?”

  “Of course.”

  Asher ground his teeth together as he watched Laila turn her cheek for Rafe’s kiss. It shocked him a little, how his entire body seemed to recoil at the vision of another man touching her.

  It had been a mistake to come here.

  Chapter Twenty

  Laila hurried to the bathroom door after Rafe had gone. It was shut tight. She wanted to knock and call Asher’s name, but it felt like an intrusion. How could it feel like an intrusion when she’d been naked and pressed against his aroused body just minutes ago?

  All of this was crazy.

  She recalled their impulsive, intense make-out session earlier . . . the feeling of his hot, firm mouth pulling gently on her nipple. Against her will, need tightened her sex. She placed her fingertips on her hot cheeks, willing the memory to fade.

  Had he heard her talking to Rafe?

  “Asher—”

  The door abruptly opened. She started. His face was hard again.

  She only had to take one look at it to know. He’d definitely heard her and Rafe talking. He walked over the threshold, seeming to tower over her. She stepped back.

  “I’m sorry about that,” she said breathlessly. “That’s Rafe. Rafael Durand. He’s the club owner and my manager and promoter.”

  “He’s more than that.”

  Without saying another word, he started to walk toward her dressing room door. Anger and confusion rose in her.

  “What do you expect from me, Asher?” she called out bitterly. He turned around, his jaw tight, eyes blazing. “I didn’t know you were going to come here. My life hasn’t frozen in time since Crescent Bay. I’m not some kind of prop to your life, ready to fawn all over you the second you return.”

  Heat scorched into her cheeks upon hearing her own words. Maybe she hadn’t fawned all over him, but she’d certainly been about to get under him in about three minutes flat. But that wasn’t the point, she told herself, rallying.

  “Are you going to try to tell me you’ve been celibate for eight years? No. Of course not,” she said, her mouth slanting in irritation that she’d asked the question. Her own brain had answered it, making her picture the long line of fascinating, beautiful women a man like Asher had likely been with over the years. She threw up her hands in a helpless gesture. “I didn’t know this was going to happen any more than you did, Asher. Don’t blame me for the unexpected.”

  He closed his eyes briefly.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.” He said it stiffly, but she thought she sensed genuine regret on his part. If she’d had to guess, she’d say he was as confused and overwhelmed by what had just happened between them as she was. They’d both been stung by the lash of lust.

  Feeling the chink in his armor, she stepped toward him. “Can’t we please just sit down together? Talk? Catch up. Act like most people would, after not seeing each other for eight years?”

  “I guess that’s the problem. You’re not most people to me,” he stated, his eyes piercing her.

  Exposing her.

  “God, Asher.” She exhaled shakily after a stunned pause. “I’d forgotten.”

  “Forgotten what?”

  “Your honesty,” she said through a congested throat. Her eyes burned. “The way you strip me bare.”

  For a moment, neither of them spoke, but silent truths seemed to swarm around them. It was like standing on a ledge in the pitch-black. She didn’t know what was in front of her, an amazing path or a frightening abyss. She wavered.

  “I have to get ready for my show,” she finally said, resorting to the obvious and mundane in her bewilderment.

  He nodded once, his mouth hard. “I’ll go, then,” he said. He started to turn.

  “Asher.”

  He paused but didn’t turn around.

  “You’re not most people to me either,” she said shakily. “You never will be.”

  He faced her slowly. For several seconds, they just stared at one another. She felt like she was crazy, wondering what was going on behind those brilliant eyes of his.

  “You’re still existing behind the curtain. That hasn’
t changed,” he said.

  Her breath hitched with unwanted emotion. She struggled not to break down in front of him . . . to keep it locked inside.

  “Things have changed, Asher.”

  She wanted to say more. She wanted to tell him that she’d never sacrifice something so precious again. Not her music. Not someone she loved with every fiber of her being. She kept her profession separate from her family life because she could. She and Tahi still went to Detroit frequently. Their parents, aunts, uncles and cousins visited them in Chicago. Her family would be very distressed by the idea of her performing in public, especially her modern, sexy compositions. The fact that she herself had written the music and lyrics wouldn’t help matters much. They didn’t even know she wrote her own music. It was a conflict and a pain that she could spare them. It was manageable. She’d been managing it for the last five years of her life.

  She wanted to say all those things to Asher in that moment, but her throat had tightened, and the words were trapped. She sensed his reluctance in those dragging seconds, and that cut as much as anything.

  “I’m leaving Chicago in a little over a week,” he said. “I’ve taken a position as the Gazette’s new European bureau chief.”

  Some of the clogged emotion rushed out of her throat at that. Here it was: the inevitable barriers.

  “Well. Time never was on our side,” she said with a mirthless laugh. So many things were against us, from the beginning. She strained to smile, knowing all along she wasn’t kidding him. His large, dark figure shimmered in a veil of tears. “I’ll be going to L.A. in a month, as well. Not on a permanent basis, but probably for a good chunk of time.”

  “For your first recording contract,” he said.

  She nodded. He’d heard Rafe mention it just now. She inhaled, willing herself to remain calm.

  “Will you at least stay for the show?” she managed to say, surprised at how even her voice sounded.

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” he said.

  The door closed quietly behind him.