Melody’s pulse thundered like a runaway train. She knew what her teacher was about to do, and it was against every rule on the book. She had to get away, and fast, before she completely lost her wits and everything important in her life flew out the window. With speed born of panic, she freed her hands from his.
“James, please. Think for a minute.” She took a step backward. “If you’re talking about the kind of temptation I think you are—”
“Shh.” He anchored both hands on her shoulders and stopped her before she could retreat further. “No, Mel. No…more…words.”
She couldn’t break free, Melody knew it. His grip was strong, too strong. But worse, suddenly, was the grip of her own feelings — and the realization that she didn’t want to be free from this man’s hold. One fleeting surge of fear went through her; then it transformed, on a flare of desire, to a need beyond sensibility and practicality and rules.
She gave a small, muffled cry as he molded her body to his, as his lean strength made water of her knees and liquid fire of her blood. Then she lost all thought of resistance and all will to refuse the dizzying, forbidden pleasure of his arms around her…and the taste of a sweet-coffee kiss that went straight to her head.
CHAPTER EIGHT
What am I doing?
This was insanity, James knew. Insanity, pure and simple. Kissing this woman would ruin everything. Destroy their working relationship. Jeopardize her career, and his too, in the bargain. Rationally, he knew he had to stop this recklessness. Knew it all the way to his bones.
Trouble was, his bones weren’t cooperating much, and neither was the rest of him. He’d been fighting to keep his emotional equilibrium around this woman for weeks, and he couldn’t fight it anymore. What would she say if she knew that he — the veteran of what she’d so disparagingly called the “grand tour” — was as giddy as a teenager under the spell of this kiss? He thought he’d felt hunger and longing on Thanksgiving night, but that paled by comparison to this. Now he knew torment, a sweet thirst that craved quenching with Melody’s kiss, spicy as orange tea, hot as the flames that licked the apple wood in the grate.
Thank heaven she had the sense to finally break away, far enough that his last kiss brushed over her hair. She seemed reluctant to part entirely, however, for she kept her fingers entwined with his; James wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. He had to say something wise, but he would be lucky if when he opened his mouth, he didn’t croak.
“Mel.” Speaking a woman’s name had never given James the chills before. Now, he couldn’t help noticing she trembled as much as he did. “Mel…”
“I know. I know.” She shook her head. “Don’t say it.”
“Don’t say what?”
“We shouldn’t have done it. It’s not allowed. It’s against all the rules, and—”
“Shh.” He reached up and touched his finger to her lips. “Don’t worry about the rules. No one saw it, and I’m sure not going to report you when I’m the one who started it. We can be forgiven for this one lapse.”
“That’s right. It was a lapse. A mistake. It can’t happen again.” As if to prove her point, Melody pulled away, out of his reach. But even at that small distance, she was still agitated, chafing her arms as if she were cold.
“But…it could. We both know it could.” Unable to help himself, James stepped closer and brushed his fingers against her cheek. “And rules be hanged, Mel, I think if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll have to admit it’s not bad. It’s good.”
At his touch, Melody knew once more she was lost. Calling what had happened between them merely “good” was like referring to the Sistine Chapel as “a pretty ceiling.” But she knew this chemistry was dangerous. It could poison their work. And when James left, as he inevitably would—
She drew a sharp, silent breath. Of course, he would leave eventually. He was here as much to pay a debt to his grandfather as anything else, and she was merely part of that debt. Once it was settled, they’d go in opposite directions. If she didn’t watch out, she’d come to care too much, then lose…
“Okay, I won’t deny it feels good,” she said slowly. “And under other circumstances, it would be fine. But we have to accept the fact that between us, it’s all wrong.”
“I’m not so sure that’s a fact, Mel, much less that we should accept it. Okay, so it’s not protocol. But other than that, what makes it wrong? We’re both adults.” He looked at her intently. “Maybe we should let it take its course and see where that leads us. What harm can it do?”
Melody froze. What was he saying?
“What harm can it do?” she sputtered. “Are you serious? We’re student and teacher.”
“We’re peers, Melody. Almost equals.”
“No, James. We’re not equals or peers, in any sense of the word. You’re an international star, I’m a nobody from the Midwest. You’ve arrived, I’m still on the way—”
“All the more reason for a collaboration,” he cut her off. “We can help each other in ways far beyond music.”
A tremor of apprehension ran over her, and she turned away. “James, please. I really think—”
“As the song goes, this isn’t a ‘thinking thing,’” he countered.
“Okay, so it’s a bad attack of delayed adolescence,” she parried. “If we ignore it, it’ll go away.”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Maybe you can ignore it. But I don’t mind telling you, I don’t think my willpower’s that strong.” His voice roughened. “Why not use this chemistry between us? Play it out, instead?”
A knot formed below her breastbone.
“Play it out? What’s that supposed to mean?” She felt choked. “I might not be as sophisticated as the women you’re used to, James, but I wasn’t born yesterday, either!”
She’d had to say it, to stand up for herself, but with one look in James’s eyes she felt her inner knot tighten. Gone was the flame of attraction from those eyes; now, a peculiar sadness lined his face, and she knew suddenly that she wasn’t going to get platitudes out of him. She wasn’t going to get a “you’re a good kid” speech, or anything vaguely close to it. He wasn’t going to follow any script she was prepared for.
“Sit down, Mel.” His voice was gentle. “I need to explain what I meant, and I can’t do that if you look like you’re about to bolt for the door any second.”
She wasn’t sure at all that she wanted him to explain. She wasn’t sure bolting wouldn’t have been the better part of valor. But there was genuine distress in that face, genuine caring in those eyes, and she couldn’t turn her back on that. Still, she needed to meet him halfway in a little more public territory. So, nodding, she edged back out to the studio and sat on one piano bench, and James followed her that far. But he didn’t sit down at the adjacent bench, or in the straight chair as she’d expected. Instead, he simply paced the width of the studio as if scanning the walls for hidden answers in some secret hieroglyphic, before he spoke again.
“This is tricky to say right, proof being I’ve botched it twice already.” He laughed softly. “I’m not propositioning you, Mel. When I say we should use this and play it out, I’m talking about using this electricity, this attraction we feel. We’re spontaneous combustion. We’re electric. You know it, and I know it. Believe it or not, that kind of energy can be a blessing.”
“A blessing?” She blinked. “Oh, yeah, right. Raging hormones were always one of my favorite blessings!”
One side of his mouth crooked upward. “Okay, so there are times when it’s difficult. But in another way—” He broke off, and now those cornflower eyes were alight. “In another way, it’s powerful, a power that can be sublimated, harnessed, and put into your music. It can deepen your art, refine it, and make it extraordinary.”
With that, he sat down at the bench across from her. But, she noted, he still made no attempt to reach out or touch her in any way, and she appreciated the space. When he went on, his voice was barely above a whisper.
�
��That’s what I mean by using this attraction and playing with it, Mel. Not having a quick roll in the hay.”
She lowered her head, swallowing back sheepish relief and embarrassment. How naïve was she coming off, anyway, if he felt obligated to spell things out like that?
“I keep forgetting we’ve known each other only a short time,” he continued, as if reading her thoughts. “I know better, but the rest of the world doesn’t.” The sadness was fading from his voice now, replaced with wry humor. “Scandal sheets to the contrary, I’m quite an old-fashioned guy.”
Her head snapped up. “But you’ve been around the world. You’ve lived your life in the fast lane. You can see how I’d think—”
“Sure.” He finished without rancor. “I’ve seen a lot. But trust me, the fast lane isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Backstage, in the old days…” He let out a sigh. “They’re always there. The groupies, the hangers-on, the girls who want a piece of you, notching a bedpost. Most of the other guys, even the married ones, they didn’t see anything wrong with it. They looked at it as a gold mine. But I couldn’t. Not just because at the time I was married, either. To tell you the truth, Toni and I didn’t have much of a marriage.”
Melody fidgeted, suddenly uncomfortable at hearing about James’s former wife, in any incarnation. “James, please. You don’t have to tell me any more. You don’t owe me any ‘true confessions’.”
“I disagree. You thought something crude of me, and I understand why. I didn’t say what I meant from the beginning. But the truth is, Mel, I don’t make love lightly.”
She looked away, knowing she would blush again. But if James saw anything amiss, he was too much of a gentleman to tease her about it. She said a tiny thankful prayer for small favors.
“I don’t claim to be a saint, mind you,” he went on. “I won’t say I’ve never been tempted. I have. But something stopped me before I cheapened myself — or anyone else — like that.” His voice dropped again. “Bottom line? I believe intimacy is just that, Mel. Intimate. Deep, committed, and permanent. To be blunt, married. And I won’t settle for less.”
Melody shook her head, or maybe it shook of its own accord. For whatever reason, her view of the room moved side to side. “That’s not exactly what most people would expect to hear from a man with one failed marriage behind him,” she murmured. “I’d have thought you’d swear off matrimony forever.”
He shrugged. “I might have, after what I went through the first time. Toni and I weren’t poster children for Marriage Encounter.” The spark of mischief was back in his eyes. “But I didn’t say I intended to live the rest of my life celibate, either. So that leaves me with only one real choice, now, doesn’t it?”
“That…and sublimation.”
He laughed now, wholeheartedly. “Well put, Mel. And high time we got to it.” Rising, he nodded toward the keyboard. “First, I need to give Al the key to my place so he can crash for a few hours. He’ll be grounded with this storm, but we’ve got to be ready to get him back to Boston as soon as they’re flying. So you go ahead and warm up, and we’ll start our lesson when I get back.”
With that, he dashed in and out of the file room, then left the studio. And Melody only then remembered the wonderful, awful piece of music she was supposed to have a lesson on today.
For long moments after she put it on the music rack, she only stared at it, uneasy. Giving it back still seemed like the right thing to do, but she hesitated. While she still knew precious little of James’s life before and outside of school, Melody had spent enough personal time with him now to sense without being told that many doors he was opening for her weren’t opened for just anyone. If she gave his music back at this point, it might almost seem as if she were thumbing her nose at that tentative trust.
Of course, if James thought she wasn’t up to playing the music, he’d have no choice but to take it back. They’d both save face, and the right decision would be a perfectly logical move to make. And maybe that solution would take care of itself, she thought wryly, because she wasn’t finding this work easy to play.
Deliberately, she opened the score to the first solo section and went through its beginning bars. Those were a physical nightmare of ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth chords that stretched the tendons in her hands to the point of pain. So deeply engrossed was she in getting through those first bars that she was completely unprepared for a verbal intrusion.
“Not bad,” came a deep voice, “for a beginner.”
“What?” She gasped, and whirled around on the bench. James leaned on the studio doorjamb, a smile gathering momentum from those eyes to that mobile, elegant mouth. Stepping forward, he closed the door behind him once again.
“Sorry I scared you. I came in some time ago, but I’ve been in your shoes — so absorbed that I didn’t know when someone was right behind me.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, he settled back at the adjacent grand. “Sounds like you’re ready for a lesson, but I’ll give you the choice. Do you want an extra week on this before we get down to business on it?”
Melody blinked. He was back in business mode without missing a beat. She wished she could blank out the memory of being hot and bothered so easily.
“An extra week?” she hedged. “What about today’s lesson, then? What will we spend our time on?”
“Anything we want. Dean Thomas just told me the school is officially closed for the day.”
For a minute, Melody wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. She needed all the work she could get on this piece, but she also knew James had company and no doubt wanted to get back to his friend. Exasperated, she thumped a good, loud dissonant chord.
He cringed, but his eyes still twinkled. “If that’s your hint that you want more practice, it’s working.”
“A hint? No way. My teacher is Mr. Straight Ahead who doesn’t deal in hints.” Melody laughed despite herself. “But I could use some time to deal with this piece of music, since it’s obvious some guy wrote it in the midst of a whale of a hangover.”
He laughed. “A what?”
“Well, how else do you explain this — this — terror?” She waved at the score. “If it wasn’t written under the influence?”
“Oh, it was under an influence, all right. Just not of what you think.” James’s voice went suddenly quiet. “But for the sake of argument…” He bent close to her. “Suppose you show me this ‘terror’ you’re talking about. Where, exactly, are you seeing it?”
“Are you kidding?” She pointed at the last page of the first movement. “This is only one of the terrors in here, Mr. Goodwin. Not only do you have to have six fingers on each hand to play this chords, but —”
“Mel, didn’t you see the glissando marking? You ripple the notes, not play them all at once.”
“I saw that!” she sputtered good-naturedly. “It’s still impossible!”
“No, it’s not. Let me show you.”
As he rose from his bench and came toward her instrument, Melody’s heart skipped a beat. Finally, her teacher was going to play for her? This surrender-thing might be a lot easier than she’d thought.
“Watch. It’s real simple.” He pointed to the score. “Let’s start with the pickup to rehearsal letter B.”
Holding her breath, she waited. But instead of settling down on the bench beside her and taking over, he bent behind her and brought his arms around her shoulders so that each of his hands guided one of hers. Not since she was seven had a teacher piloted her hands; never had it felt this way before.
She was aware of him, every inch of him. The warmth of his body. The strength of those arms around her, even in such a platonic embrace. The line and proportion of those long hands as he molded hers to fit the passage, as he steered them and lifted them to bring music out like she’d never made before. Beneath his sure touch, her fingers coaxed the glissandi from the keys as if she were plucking the strings of the piano like a harp. In the hands of a master, this piece would spring to incredible color and life, the
interpretation it deserved.
As they finished — in mere seconds, it seemed — Melody could have sworn the studio was bathed in an ethereal light. Only when she looked at James did she realize half the light came from a bemused, grateful expression on his face.
“Now,” he said low, “do you understand?”
She nodded, too overcome for words at first.
“Good.” He lifted his hands from hers, then sank to one knee beside her. “Now go ye therefore and do likewise.”
“J-Just like that?”
“Just like that.” He raised one eyebrow. “You’re up to the challenge, Mel. Trust me.”
Here was her golden opportunity, Melody thought. She had to take it.
“I’m — not as sure of that as you seem to be.” She swallowed. “In fact, James, I’m not at all sure I can do this justice. Not like you could. I think it’s only fair you perform this yourself. As it ought to be done.”
For a second she saw his jaw tighten, as if he’d had a sudden jolt of pain in it. Then, without knowing quite why, she looked down at his hands and saw them flexing again, the fingers curling in on the palms, the knuckles bent sharply…
“Believe me, Mel.” When he spoke, his voice was thick. “This music ought to be done the way you’re going to play it.”
“But I don’t know how I’ll progress far enough to do this justice in a year, let alone three months. Not that I won’t give it my all. I will. But I’m—”
“What?” Now he was on both knees, reaching out and clasping her hands again, as tenderly as if they were made of glass. “Afraid? Don’t be. I wouldn’t have given it to you if I didn’t know all the way to my bones that you’ll not only do it, you’ll knock ‘em dead.”
Melody hardly knew what to say, then realized he wouldn’t have heard her if she had spoken. He was lost in gazing at each of her hands as if memorizing its every line, and released them with a reluctance that touched her clear to her soul.
From the Ashes Page 8
