After Midnight

by Grimm, Sarah

  She eased back enough to look up at him. “A few scrapes and bruises.”

  He touched her, tracing his fingers lightly around the cut on her forehead. Her eyes drifted shut as he leaned down and pressed his lips near the mark. “I heard about Clint. I’m so sorry, Isa.” He cupped her face in his hands as tears welled in her eyes. “I thought it was you. When Dom called and told me about the fire, I thought…” He had to clear his throat to go on. “I didn’t know whether or not you were alive. Not until my plane landed.”

  “Noah,” she whispered.

  He couldn’t stop touching her, her face, her throat, her hair. She reached up and pulled the elastic band from her hair and he pushed his fingers through the silky strands. Then he kissed her, her face, her throat, he pressed his lips against hers and drank in the familiar taste of her. A taste he’d feared he would never experience again.

  “How did this happen? Do they know?”

  “They’re looking at Clint. They believe he may have gotten trapped after he started the fire.”

  “No way, I don’t believe it.” You didn’t look at a woman the way he’d seen Clint look at Isabeau, and then try to burn her alive. “You don’t think Tommy—”

  “No. He wouldn’t do this.”

  He slid his hands down to rest atop her shoulders, wondering if he was ever going to stop shaking. Someone had intentionally set her building on fire, knowing two people were inside? “How do you know?”

  “He wouldn’t, couldn’t have, he’s in rehab. Thomas convinced him to go, and I—”

  “You what? You’re paying for it, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” She gazed up at him, her eyes soft, sincere. “I’m doing it for Thomas, to give him a better chance at a relationship with his son. He deserves that.”

  Emotion tightened his throat. Noah brushed his hand down her hair. “Yes, he does.”

  She was the most unselfish woman he’d ever met. He wanted to take her to bed, make love with her and then hold her while she slept. Long enough for the shadows to clear from her eyes. He wanted his hands on her—all that smooth, soft skin—wanted to hear the quick hitch in her breathing as he explored her body, reassuring himself that she was all right.

  Sliding his hands off her shoulders, he smoothed them down her back.

  Her spine went taut, her body arched away from his. The hands fisting his shirt tightened as she drew in a quick shuddering breath.

  “What’s the matter?” She’d gone pale. Tears filled her eyes. “Isabeau?”

  “I’m okay.”

  He could tell she wasn’t.

  Slowly the tension left her spine. Her hands opened, her palms settled against his chest. “I’m okay, it’s…my back is burned.”

  Burned?

  She hadn’t said anything about being burned. He dropped his arms to hang at his sides. “You only mentioned scrapes and bruises.”

  “There are a few sore spots.”

  He might have believed her if her gaze hadn’t shifted away. “Let me see.”

  “No.” She stepped back. “It’s fine, my arm is much worse.”

  “Your…arm…” For some reason, it hadn’t occurred to him that the gauze on her arm might cover a burn. He sank onto the bed as nausea climbed up his throat. He scrubbed his hand over his face. “What else are you hiding?”

  He didn’t know how much more he could stand. Every second that passed turned his nausea to white hot rage. The son of a bitch that did this to her better hope he never got his hands on him. He wanted to tear him limb from limb, beat him into a bloody pulp.

  His fingers curled into tight fists.

  “This isn’t the first time that he’s tried to harm me,” she admitted softly.

  “What are you saying?”

  “There was the morning when I was jogging…someone tried to run me down with their car.”

  He hadn’t thought it possible, but his stomach clenched even tighter. Swearing softly, he put his head in his hands. “Let me guess, I was in London and when I asked you about it, you said you ‘took a tumble?’ ”

  She knelt in front of him. Her hand brushed through his hair. “I’m sorry.”

  He straightened, cupped her face in his hands and gazed into her eyes. “You should have told me.”

  She shifted closer, splaying her hands on his chest. “I know.”

  “Tell me you at least told this to the police.”

  “They think that was Clint, too.”

  “No,” he mumbled, but he was no longer certain. He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t seem to clear the rage and helplessness enough to concentrate. What else hadn’t she told him? “Isabeau…”

  Her hands began inching his shirt up his body. Reaching over his head, he fisted his hands pulled it off. A hum of pleasure moved up her throat as her hands smoothed across his chest. She settled her open mouth over his nipple.

  “Isa.”

  “I’m so tired,” she murmured against his flesh. “I can’t sleep when you’re not beside me. I keep reaching for you, waiting for you to pull me against your side.” Her hand trailed to his other nipple and her mouth followed.

  He slid his fingers into her hair and cupped the back of her head. “You need to rest. I’m here now.”

  “I need you to touch me,” she argued, and tugged at his nipple with her teeth.

  Pleasure shot through him as every nerve came to life. He had the fleeting feeling that there was more going on than what she was telling him, but it was forgotten the moment she pushed the scrubs over her hips and off, immediately followed by her top.

  Her naked body took his breath away. The warmth of her skin as she took his hands and placed them over her breasts arrested all thought.

  “Make love to me, Noah.”

  ****

  Isabeau had no idea how long she’d been standing at the window. With the sheet draped around her body, hanging low in the back so it didn’t brush against her burns, she stared out across the city. Her mind was in turmoil; her thoughts a jumbled mess. The one thing that stood out from the rest, the only thing she knew for certain, was that this was the only place she wanted to be.

  Right here. With Noah.

  The rest of her life had become one big nightmare, but here, with him, she felt a sense of peace. As if somehow, everything would work out.

  Which didn’t make a lick of sense, because the future was still up in the air. There were things she could never give him, even if he would want them with her. Secrets between them, things she’d kept from him in a vain attempt to save herself from revisiting the pain. And for what, she wondered as she watched the sun dip low over the city? It hadn’t worked. Refusing to give voice to her past did nothing to keep her from remembering, from dreaming and aching. In the end her silence saved her nothing. In fact, it could quite possibly cost her something that had come to mean everything to her.

  Noah’s affection.

  Fighting tears, she closed her eyes and tried to find music in a room that was uncomfortably silent. She startled when Noah came up behind her, swept her hair aside and pressed his mouth to her uninjured shoulder.

  “You should be asleep,” he whispered, settling his hands on her hips. “Why aren’t you?”

  She had been. Exhausted and sated she’d drifted to sleep in his arms, only to wake barely an hour later. Suffocating. Believing she was back in the fire and the smoke. She’d untangled her fingers from his, eased out of bed and after phoning her father and letting him know she wouldn’t be needing her old room after all, stood staring out at the city ever since. Her body was still exhausted, but her mind wouldn’t shut off.

  “I keep thinking. About the fire and how the police are wrong about Clint. I keep thinking about my life. I used to love this city. Now I look out there, and I wonder who started the fire and where they are. I wonder what I did to make someone hate me so much.”

  She turned, shifting so that he no longer touched her. “I look out at the city and I’m afraid. I’m tired of being afr
aid, Noah. I’ve been afraid most of my life.”

  “Afraid of what?” he asked, his green eyes locked on her face.

  “Afraid someone would discover my secret.”

  “What secret?”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, then made herself open them and meet his. “You’re right, I keep things from you.”

  He took a step forward, his mouth a thin line. “Why?”

  “Because you mean too much to me.”

  “You’re telling me you keep things from me because you care about me?”

  Her throat was so tight, she wasn’t sure she could answer. With an effort, she swallowed. “I don’t just care about you, Noah. I love you.”

  An emotion she couldn’t identify flashed through his eyes. He reached for her, but she stopped him with a hand to his chest. “I thought if I held back, as long as I didn’t give you all of me, I could survive you leaving.”

  “Isabeau—”

  “Let me finish, please.” She could feel the tears coming and knew that if she didn’t get this out now, she wasn’t going to be able to. He needed to know the truth.

  He deserved the truth.

  “I’ve lied to you. I’ve lied to everyone, even myself. The music never died. It’s always been there, an ever-changing melody in my head.” Until now. It wasn’t there now. She fought back a sob. “A tune so clear I never understood how others couldn’t hear it. My gift, my mother always said, and in my naiveté, I believed her. I loved to play the piano. It was like…breathing. Something a body, my body, couldn’t survive without.”

  His hands tightened on her shoulders. “You’re shaking. Let me hold you.”

  She kept her arm a firm barrier between them, even as her tears broke free and trailed down her cheeks. “I would play to the music in my head, and I was happy. Even after my mother died, I would play, and she would come back to me, sit with me. Smile and tell me how gifted I was.”

  A shudder moved through her. A sick trembling settled in her stomach. “John Whitehorse thought I was gifted as well—gifted enough to make him a very rich man. I was young, but far from stupid, no matter what he said. I refused, refused to play for him, or anyone else that came around expecting me to. I told them all I couldn’t, not after the accident, after losing Mom. And they believed me.”

  It had been so simple.

  Until it wasn’t.

  She raised a trembling hand, pressed her fingertips to her lips. A sob bubbled up the back of her throat, broke loose.

  “The hell with this.” His arms wrapped around her, pulled her against his solid chest. One hand cupped the back of her head, the other rested low on her back where she wasn’t burned.

  Hot tears spilled down her cheeks. Tears for everything she had already lost and everything she was sure to lose yet. And all the while he stroked her hair, soothing her with words, whispered words she didn’t understand, but that she found comforting.

  Once she could speak, she continued her tale, her voice shaky, uneven. “I didn’t care that John told me everyday, in every way he could, what he thought of the daughter he’d spent a small fortune fighting for, only to have her refuse to make him rich. I could handle that. What I couldn’t handle was not playing.”

  Cradling his big hand in hers, she ran her fingertips over his palm, his calloused fingers. God, she loved his hands. The shape and size of them. The way they moved across her body. Caressing. Pleasuring.

  Never hurting.

  “I couldn’t handle not playing,” she repeated. “So one day, on my way home from school, I went to the studio. I went to Pete, and I played. With no one else around, I walked into the booth and I played. What he must have thought that first time, having believed I no longer had the ability. But he never said anything, just made sure that the studio was empty for me every day after school.”

  Fighting a fresh swell of tears, she found comfort when Noah eased her a little closer, held her a bit tighter. “Of course John found out. I got careless. I allowed the draw, the lure of the music to distract me. He followed me one day. That’s when the beatings began. If I wouldn’t play for him, I wasn’t allowed to enjoy playing.”

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I tried. I tried so hard. I begged and pleaded with God every day to make the music in my head go away, the need to create stop. It never stopped, I…couldn’t stop. And John…John didn’t stop.”

  His arm tightened around her in reflex, setting off an ache across her back. She didn’t care. The discomfort was nothing compared to the agony she was recalling.

  “John would punish me with silence. He would take away my radio, smash my CDs, all in an effort to force me to play. And when that wouldn’t work, he would hit me some more. Once, he kicked me so hard he left a bruise in the shape of his boot on my back. I thought he’d kill me. I prayed for it.”

  “God, Isabeau.”

  “Instead I learned. Finally, I learned. Not to enjoy it, not to love it. I learned to ignore the music and to lie.”

  The words came easier now. She pulled her face out of his neck and released his hand. She wiped her tears from her cheeks, took a deep breath and looked up at him.

  “It worked for me. Right up until the moment you walked into my life. You changed everything, Noah, that night you stepped into my bar. You turned my world upside down. Suddenly the music was louder. So loud I couldn’t ignore it or drown it out.” She cupped his handsome face in her hands. “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. I even checked behind the bar to make sure one of the customers hadn’t messed with the stereo volume. Then I looked up and there you were, smiling at me. And it was so obviously coming from you that…”

  “What?”

  “I panicked. I was mean and hurtful and I pushed you away because you were a threat to this carefully constructed lie of mine. If you get hit enough, just the thought of playing will bring the fear, the pain. Every once in a while the lure returns, and it’s strong enough to smother the pain, at least for a moment. But it never lasts, and it never ends well.”

  “That’s why you were playing later that night, when I returned?”

  “It wouldn’t go away, even after you left. It remained so powerful I couldn’t concentrate. I even forgot to check the door after the last employee left. I never forget when I’m alone after close.”

  He skimmed the back of his knuckles down her cheek. “You were trembling. I thought you were frightened of me.”

  “I was,” she whispered. “Frightened of how you made me feel. All I could think about was getting you out of there. You needed to get away from me so I could breathe. It never occurred to me that you would come back.”

  His mouth skimmed her temple. “I did come back.”

  “And I tried to fight it. I tried not to be drawn to you because you wanted something from me I couldn’t give you. It was never about performing, Noah. I never enjoyed that. The joy was always in playing. After John, I couldn’t even do that without throwing up.”

  “Yet I forced you to do it, anyway.” He bent close then kissed her, deeply, thoroughly, his fingers furrowing through her hair. “I’m sorry for that,” he said, and kissed her again. “I’m sorry for ever making you feel like you needed to play in order to have my affection.”

  Drained, she rested against him, relying on his strength now that hers was gone. Slowly, the chill left her body as his warmth began to penetrate. Her eyes drifted shut.

  “Isabeau?” One of his hands cupped her throat, tipped her head up.

  “Hmm,” she asked, forcing her eyes open. Discovering a look in his eyes she’d never seen before, she tilted her chin. “What’s the matter, what is it?”

  His thumb stroked the hollow of her throat as he continued to gaze at her. The look faded, a smile curved his lips. “It’ll keep,” he said softly. “Right now you look like you’re going to fall over. Let’s get you back to bed.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Isabeau stood over the bathroom sink, d
rying her hair with the hotel-supplied hair dryer. With nothing else to wear, she’d pulled on the scrub bottoms, but traded the uncomfortable top for one of Noah’s older, softer T-shirts. Her ears rang, her body ached like someone who’d fallen down a flight of stairs, and showering without getting her gauze-wrapped forearm wet had been interesting, to say the least.

  Her reflection in the mirror confirmed she looked as bad as she felt. The stark white of the butterfly bandage on her forehead stood out against the dark purple bruise that had formed around it. A long, thin scratch graced her right cheek. And even cold compresses hadn’t been enough to help her eyes. Already swollen and irritated from smoke, her crying jag last night had puffed them up even more.

  She looked bad, she felt even worse, and because she still couldn’t speak above a raspy whisper, she hadn’t been able to order breakfast and a bottle of aspirin from room service the way she wanted to.

  If she could keep her concentration focused on what she was doing, her hair would be dry and she could sneak down to the lobby gift shop and settle for whatever she could find. But her mind kept wandering to Noah, wondering when he was going to tell her that they’d gotten their record deal.

  He was at the studio now, a sure sign that things had gone well in California. He never went into the studio this early, not before noon. And he never shut off his mobile phone, as he’d done last night, before taking her to bed. Put those things together and she only came up with one thing.

  He didn’t fear missing a call about a contract offer because one was already on the table.

  She tried to be happy for him. Okay, she was happy for him. But tangled up with it was also the harsh reality that he was leaving. Soon.

  There was nothing to keep him in New York.

  Emotion welled in her throat, settled into a knot. She turned off the hair dryer, closed her eyes, and curled her arms around her middle.