He wasn’t looking at me when he nodded.
On a sigh, he grabbed both steaming plates, carried them over to the island, and set them next to me.
He pressed both his hands to the counter on either side of me, gazing at my face. He looked so vulnerable.
“My little drummer boy,” I whispered, fluttering my fingers across the tattoo etched on his chest.
“Lex,” he murmured, wedging himself between my knees. He twisted my hair up in his hand. And he kissed me. Slowly.
This wasn’t a plea.
This was a promise.
Then he edged back, plucked two forks from the drawer, and handed one to me. “Eat, sweet girl.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Zee
I sat at my piano.
Silence swam through the stilled darkness of the loft. Like waves lapping at my bare skin. Cool and soft. It was almost enough to convince me I wasn’t submerged. Suffocating where I drowned.
Seven years.
Seven years I stood on the foundation of my loyalty.
Now the evidence of my treachery lie twisted in my sheets upstairs.
My perfect torment.
A faultless penalty.
In the end, I knew I was gonna lose her, too. It was the way it always went down. Coming so close to something great right before it was ripped away.
Joy nothing but a cruel-hearted tease.
But I couldn’t help but feel some of it—joy.
Wrapping me in ribbons just the same as her caress. This girl who’d been breathing all that vibrant life into me.
Her belief.
No fear. Just life.
A huff of a breath pressed from between my lips. That energy—a steady rhythm that beat through my blood—hadn’t abated since I’d held her in my arms six hours ago. She’d drifted into the most peaceful kind of sleep, stealing mine and affording it, too.
The stark conflict of what she made me feel was mind-bending.
But it didn’t matter how hard I tried to shun it. It was right there. Nipping at my heels and prodding at my spirit.
My fingers twitched as the faintest whisper of that song glided through my veins.
Life.
I pulled in a breath, drawn, fingers at the keys. Emotion knotted tight in my throat, and I set my foot against the soft pedal to keep it muted.
I rasped out a gush of air from my lungs when I pressed my fingers down, the strike of the chord like a flash fire across my skin.
I played, the sound subdued against the darkness of my loft, amplified in her spirit that seeped down from above.
There was nothing I could do. Nothing to keep it from pouring out.
The overflow.
Spilling.
Crashing.
Flooding.
I got lost in it, gliding through the feeling.
In the music that danced all around me, waiting on me to reach out and take it. Make it mine. Give it life and beauty.
That beauty and the unrelenting pain.
Two always seemed to go hand in hand.
Everything intensified, and I gave myself over to the song. To the lyrics that twisted and grew. The words meant for her, murmured silently on my tongue.
Written in the skies
Bleeding stars and broken hearts Scattered wishes and shattered dreams Never knew you were strewn Right there with them
They felt real. Just like she said. Meant to be.
They flowed through my mind like the chords flowed through my fingers.
That space between us alive.
Bigger than before.
Consuming.
Everything sizzled and the hairs at the nape of my neck stood on end. Attention rapt. Hunger throbbed in my gut and became a thriving entity when I felt fingertips glide down the bare skin of my back.
The ground fucking shook.
She was the first girl who’d ever given me chills. The first one to make me think there might be something better out there than the constant disappointment. Than the torture of the day to day.
She wrapped the comfort of those slender arms around me, her lips pressing fast to the top of my shoulder.
“Magic,” she murmured. “You play the drums for the world to see, and they have no clue about the talent that’s hiding inside you.”
She leaned in closer, the words a promise against the shell of my ear. “My little drummer boy.”
A groan climbed straight out of my spirit and dove into the atmosphere. I snatched her wrist and swiveled around.
Alexis stood there wearing nothing but my sheet wrapped under her arms. A torrent of that white hair fell all around her in soft, seductive waves, making her glow, that knowing shimmer that glinted and danced within the passion and strength of those striking blue eyes.
A clash of the deepest sea and the darkest heavens.
Starshine.
“And you are a fucking vision.”
I slowly stood and Alexis took a step back. I was wearing nothing but my underwear, my cock raging like a beast as it fought against the thin fabric.
If I was giving in, I might as well take it all.
Her attention dropped to where I was straining for her like a madman. Like she felt the weight of my body’s demand. A rush of that red crawled across her chest and climbed the delicate slope of her neck.
I couldn’t see it in the shadows, but I felt it. Could feel the heat. The attraction that flamed.
The need and the confusion that lapped in that space that came alive every goddamned time.
Maybe it was what had finally thrown me over the edge. Maybe it was what had me edging her back, stalking toward her as she clutched that bottom lip between her teeth, one of those affected, sweet smiles fighting to break free.
She kept backing up with every step I took in her direction. A tiny gasp escaped her when her back hit the windowpane. I pressed both my hands over her head. Trapping her.
Because fuck.
I didn’t want to let her go.
She was lit up by the cityscape, like the girl was the focus in some kind of precious portrait. A shimmery silhouette. A light in the darkness that held me captive.
And I was thinking foolish thoughts.
Wondering if I just might find my way out of the darkness and finally break free if she lit the way for long enough.
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me, gorgeous? Are you trying to send me straight outta my mind?” I followed the curve of her jaw with the tip of my index finger.
She shivered beneath it, head tipping up as I trailed it down. I let it glide the length of her delicate neck and across her collarbone.
I leaned in closer, two of us breathing the other’s breath.
“I hope so, because I’m pretty sure I’ve already lost mine,” she murmured.
“Alexis.” It was a groan. I pressed her tighter against the window. “Now that I’ve had you, I don’t want to stop.”
She lifted that brave chin, making more of those demands I had no idea how to heed and even less of an idea of how to resist. “Tell me you need me.”
I gripped a handful of the sheet covering that tight, sweet body. “I’ve never needed anyone…anything…the way I need you.”
I gave it a tug, and the satiny material pulled free, pooling like a beggar kneeling at her feet.
This angel that was nothing but temptation.
Bare.