“Vocal rest, for one.” I walk over to her, and unlike that time all those months ago in Grady’s studio, I don’t ask permission to touch her. I lay my hand against the muscles of her stomach with the ease of possession because now she’s mine.
“You’re not thinking about your breathing, so your phrasing is off.” My index finger strokes across her belly ring. “The phrasing is a huge part of the delivery on this song, so it’s not convincing. I don’t believe it.”
“Okay.” Her eyes fix on my finger still stroking the smooth skin at her waist. “That’s not helping my breathing.”
I smile, slipping my hand down her arm and over hers in her back pocket. I step closer, bending my knees until I can press our foreheads together.
“I’m sorry for being a jerk.”
“You’re not. You weren’t.” She shakes her head against mine. “You’re right. If I want to be a professional, I have to perform like one.”
“Yeah, you do.” I pull back, leveling a sober look at her. “Your voice is ragged, Kai. I know what you sound like rested. You need vocal rest.”
I brush a thumb over the dark circles under her eyes I didn’t notice yesterday when makeup camouflaged them.
“You need rest, period. I’m concerned.”
“I’m fine.” She grips my wrist. “What else?”
“I know I wrote that first phrase ending on the G, but resolve it. It’s not working the way I wrote it.”
“Got it. Anything else?”
“The biggest thing, and this is an intangible, but it’s the most important part. Emotion.” I grip her hips and catch her eyes. “You’re delivering this song with zero emotion. I know you know about love, so sing like you do.”
“I guess I am tired.” She runs a hand through her hair. “I’m having trouble connecting to the lyrics. Having trouble communicating it.”
“Sing it for me,” I say softly.
My suggestion would seem presumptuous if I didn’t know how deep our connection goes. Her dark eyes warm and soften when she looks up at me. I pull her into me, close enough to smell her hair and feel the heat of her body.
“Will you sing it for me, Pep?” I whisper in her ear, spreading my hand over the silky skin of her back. “Pour everything you feel for me into it.”
She lays her head against me, her breath quickening against my neck.
“Can you do that for me?”
She nods, sliding her hand up to grip my neck, fingers piercing into my hair. The booth door opens, and she jerks back, turning away and linking her hands behind her head.
“Sorry.” Amber glances between Kai and me. “Thought you’d want this.”
I take the tea from her and give it to Kai.
“Drink this, Pep.”
She takes the mug, sipping and smiling gratefully at Amber.
“Thanks. It’s good.”
“That’ll help your voice some.” I turn to Amber. “The guys back?”
“Yeah, they’re in the studio.”
I look through the plexiglass, and sure enough, they’re back behind the board. I take one more look at my girl when Amber leaves. She already seems more confident.
“You got this.” I turn just before I exit the booth, connecting our eyes. “For me. Sing for me.”
I hear the difference immediately. I don’t know if it’s Amber’s miracle tea that has saved more than one voice on a rough night, or if it was our pep talk, but Kai nails it. She measures her breathing, every phrase spaced as it should be. Every note, properly supported. And emotion . . . God, as jaded as I am, it takes a lot for me to get goosebumps, but my goosebumps have goosebumps when she sings the lyrics this time. I don’t stop her once. I’m afraid to, scared I’ll ruin something magnificent by meddling with it.
And when I told her to sing for me, I didn’t expect her to sing to me, but she does, stretching a live wire between her eyes and mine. I’m not only transfixed, but also painfully aroused by the whole thing. It’s so incredibly personal to have my words in her mouth. It’s almost an erotic experience to see something that came from my mind, from my heart, dwelling inside of her. I scoot under the board as far as I can so these guys can’t tease me about getting a hard on for a second verse.
My synesthesia is in overdrive. I close my eyes, trapping all the colors the music shows me beneath my eyelids, not sharing them with anyone. Bright gold mixed with blue and green, a musical paisley splashed across the palette of my mind, splashed across my senses.
When she’s done, the studio stays completely silent. They feel it, too. It was only a verse, but it was so perfect it felt sacred, and they’re as scared to ruin it as I am.
“Was that better, Rhys?” she asks, voice husky, eyes wide, skin flushed like we’ve been touching each other in front of everyone for the last few minutes. And maybe we have.
How she can think anyone would see us in the same room and not know we’re together is beyond me. The heat between us, even separated by several yards, could melt the plexiglass wall of the studio.