“Hey, you can’t sleep?” I asked.
His head shot up, eyes wide. He visibly relaxed when he spotted me, although I couldn’t say I felt the same. More like the opposite. Blame that on his half-naked body, every muscle in his torso strong and defined.
Ever since he’d become popular, I couldn’t remember a time I’d seen pictures of him without a T-shirt on. Now I could see why. He didn’t want anyone to see the thick, five-inch scar along his otherwise perfect abs, halfway between his ribs and the waist of his low-rise jeans. I was surprised none of his one-night stands had ever mentioned it on the social media sites. If they had, the news would have gone viral.
I stepped into the room and surveyed the area. The room was dimly lit, a lightbulb in the ceiling fixture burnt out. The bedding was a tangled mess, the casualty of heavy tossing and turning. Other than the bed and Nolan’s acoustic guitar propped against the wall next to the head of the bed, the place was empty.
Nolan sighed and scrubbed his face with his hand. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”
I plopped down on the edge of his bed. He joined me.
“You didn’t.” I suspected it was a lie, but I couldn’t tell him the truth and upset him. I didn’t want him to feel worse than he already did. And maybe it was just dumb luck I’d woken up. “Why don’t you play something?”
“You should go to bed. You need to rest.”
I shook my head. “No, I’m pretty sure I need to listen to you play. Please.” I gave him my most pleading look. Besides, now that I was awake, I doubted I could fall back to sleep anytime soon. Not when I knew how much he was hurting.
“Okay,” he whispered, and leaned over me to retrieve his guitar. He started strumming the melody, and I instantly recognized it: “This One Moment.” My favorite song. It had done well on the charts, but it should have gone much higher. It should have been number one.
The moment Nolan sang the first verse, I was done for. His rich, clear voice melted my insides like a marshmallow in hot chocolate. I loved listening to his album, and I loved hearing him in concert, but neither of those compared to listening to him sing and play the song unplugged.
I wasn’t the only one the song affected, although I doubted Nolan’s insides melted like mine. The knotted tension in his muscles seeped away, the way it had whenever he used to sneak off in the middle of the night and play in the backyard shed. When you saw him like this, it was easy to understand how important music was to him. It was his lifeline, the thing that gave his life meaning.
I smiled at him. My blood heated at the way he smiled back. It was a smile he had perfected over the years and used to his advantage. It wasn’t a smile meant only for me.
Nolan leaned over my legs and returned his guitar to the bed. But for some reason, as if drawn to him like a magnet, I shifted forward as he straightened. His hand accidentally brushed against the side of my breast and I froze.
I might have frozen, but my blood didn’t. It heated to two hundred degrees as my heart hammered hard in my chest.
His hand remained in place even when I turned to face him. Almost as if his thumb had a mind of its own, it brushed against my nipple. I sucked in a hard breath but still didn’t move, silently willing him to keep touching me this way.
Neither of us said anything. I was afraid to break the silence and have him realize what he was doing—to me—and how I was reacting.
My gaze returned to his lips, and once again I wondered what it would feel like if his mouth melded with mine, if his tongue explored mine.
And then I discovered exactly what it felt like to have his lips caress mine. I didn’t know who moved first, him or me, but one moment I was thinking about kissing him and the next we really were kissing. Softly.
I closed my eyes and his familiar scent teased me the same way his mouth teased mine. I was losing myself in his tender kisses, and I didn’t care.
His lips parted, and the tip of his tongue traced along the seam of my mouth. We weren’t even kissing hard, but my breath was coming fast and eager. I opened my mouth and let him in.
The jolt shooting through me as his tongue stroked my tongue was almost my undoing.
It was also the splash of cold water I needed.
What the hell was I doing? This was Nolan, the guy who had been my best friend for much of my life, until he moved away. This wasn’t one of my one-night stands. I never felt anything for those guys, and that left the sex less than satisfying. I felt too much for Nolan, and that was dangerous. Because in the end, he could walk away unscathed.
Not so for me.
I pulled away, unable to look at him. “You can keep playing if you want.”
I didn’t wait for his response. Like the coward I was, I fled his room.
Chapter 12
Hailey