by Piper Lawson
I hang up without listening to the rest.
I’m being unprofessional? You fucked some actress who wanted your connections.
Unreal.
I rub my forehead.
Looking back, I know why I was attracted to Ian. He was older and confident and knew the business. When he advised me, it didn’t come off as controlling, it was helpful.
Turned out he liked to advise more than me.
I walked in on him in his apartment with an actress who was, apparently, even more desperate for his mentorship than I was.
Fuck it. I have bigger things to worry about than him.
The café is filling up, and I’m not getting done what I need to here.
I remember the piano in Tyler’s office at the studio.
Maybe having the instrument in front of me will help.
On impulse, I buy a second coffee and take that one, plus the one I’m barely halfway through, with me in Haley’s car.
Once I get back to the house, I head around to the patio, letting myself in the side door of the studio. Shay’s not at the desk, and my hands are too full for signing the visitor’s log, so I start down the hall.
The first studio is full, and I can see unfamiliar artists recording inside.
The door to the second is open. I move toward it, pulling up when a figure comes out first.
“Dad!” I exclaim when I nearly bump into him.
He looks as surprised as me. “Annie.”
We haven’t spoken alone since I’ve been here.
I guess we’re speaking now.
“I was checking on my investment.” He cuts a look over his shoulder toward the studio, as if expecting someone to appear, but turns back to me almost as fast.
“Thank you for offering to help with your sister,” he says. “We started building the label before Haley got pregnant again, and she didn’t want to hold things up.”
“Sure.”
“You came to watch too?” Shay appears at the end of the hall, bouncing toward me. “They’re so good.”
She balks when she realizes my dad is there. “Mr. Jamieson, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you come in.”
“Shay, call me Jax.”
“I can’t. It’s weird.”
He frowns, uncomfortable. “Well, get over it.”
Dad looks between us then heads for the door without another word.
“God, I fucked that up, didn’t I?” she breathes.
“It’s fine. My dad doesn’t know what to do with candid women who aren’t intimidated by him.”
“Is that why he married Haley?” Her mouth rounds. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounds.”
But I’m laughing. “Exactly.”
I reach for the door and head inside. Tyler’s on the other side of the soundproof glass, arms folded as he listens to the guy that must be my dad’s new protégé play his guitar into the mic.
The levels bouncing on the computer screen tell me they’re recording something.
My attention is all on Tyler.
He’s gorgeous and breathtaking, and parts of me that felt like they were asleep these past months are suddenly awake again.
The kid catches us watching and grins, cocky. His attention still on us, he messes up and Tyler shifts off the wall and jerks the door between us. “Get out,” he says to the boy.
“Jax wouldn’t—”
“I don’t care what Jax would. You have a problem, you can go take it up with him. But I promise you, he gives less fucks than I do.”
The kid stalks out the door, kicking a wall on the way.
Tyler emerges next, and he’s more frustrated than his charge.
I know the feeling. Since Ian’s voicemail, I’m on edge, ready to rip into someone.
Tyler’s gaze warms as he spots me. I resist the urge to run my hands over my clothes before his attention lands on the cup in my hands.
“You brought me a present.”
His words strokes over my skin, tugs between my thighs.
“Assuming you take it more cream than coffee, yes. It’s a thank you for using the piano in your office. Which isn’t technically your office, but I wanted to be polite. I thought you might not even be here given you have that benefit concert in LA tomorrow night.”
“I’m leaving in the morning.” He hits a few keystrokes on the computer setup, frowning.
“But you’re coming back?”
Not that I care. I’m being polite.
“The day after. When’d you use the piano?”
“I’m about to.” I take a sip of my coffee and make a face. “The coffee’s a bit cold.”
“I’ll microwave it for you!” Shay grabs the second cup from me and dashes out toward the kitchenette.
When she’s gone, I say, “You’ve got yourself a fan club.”
Tyler shakes his head. His mouth curves in a gorgeous half smile as he finishes working on the computer. “The girl knows music. But my heart’s unavailable.”
My chest caves in a little.
Tyler let me in once. The idea he hasn’t let anyone in since feels tragic.
My hand strays to one of the buttons in front of us and Tyler’s fingers close over mine. “Don’t touch my board.”
“You used to like it when I touched your board.”
His eyes darken, in arousal or warning or hell, maybe both.
Pen’s words come back to me.
Hot rebound sex.
I shove them down.
He swipes my cup before I can protest, inspecting the label. “Double espresso. Someone didn’t sleep last night.”
I grab it back. “I was up late,” I grumble, turning and heading for his office.
Tyler follows. “Not that late.”
He closes the door behind me, his shoulder brushing my chest and giving me a hit of that cedar and sunshine scent.
“It was hard to sleep in an unfamiliar bed with an unfamiliar person next to me.”
“Bullshit. You know every inch of me.”
He looks even better today with messy hair, second-day stubble, a button-down rolled at the sleeves, and dark jeans that hug his hips and legs. Tyler’s every bit the rock star, gorgeous enough to send legions swooning, but he has the credibility to back it up.
All of it adds to the frustration from my morning so far.
“Apparently I don’t know anything,” I blurt before I can stop myself. “I’m young and naïve and can’t be trusted with my own feelings, not to mention to finish a musical.”
I brush past him to put my coffee cup on his desk before taking a seat on the piano bench, setting out my notebook.
“According to who?” his measured voice comes from right behind me.
I close my eyes. “It doesn’t matter. I need to work on this song.” I set my fingers on the keys but don’t press them. He waits me out as I count my breaths, my mind still spinning, my chest tight with anger and something that I can’t name.
“Tyler...” I start before he can leave. “I need to ask you something. Promise you won’t read too much into it.”
He doesn’t answer, so I keep going.
“Tell me you’re still attracted to me.”
Tyler’s heavy exhale is the only response for a long time. His hands find my shoulders, the bare skin revealed by my tank top.
“I’ll be attracted to you when we’re dead.”
Our conversation last night comes back to me in a blur of emotions, past and present and through it all, a kind of need and regret and impatient arousal.
I can’t fix the first two, but maybe I can fix the third.
I turn on the bench to find his belt at eye-level. “You said you wished things were different between us at the end.” I think of the times we were together, when I was hoping the physicality would bring us closer and it only drove us further apart. “Before you left for tour, you said you owed me.”
He lifts my chin to stare into me, through me. “And?”
“And I want to collect.”
“You want sex.”
“Yes.”
He wants a chance to make amends, and I want to prove I can handle myself. That I’m not some child who loses my heart at every turn.
But the look on his face has me second-guessing my idea.
“Tyler! Your coffee’s here.” Shay bursts through the door, and Tyler steps back. “I’ll put it on your desk,” she decides, smiling our way.
“Thank you,” he answers. “And Shay?”
“Yes?”
“Knock next time.”
Her brows pull together. “I did.”
“Knock and wait, next time.”
“Oh. Sure. Sorry.”
With a wave of apology, she ducks out, the door clicking after her.
I exhale hard. “I shouldn’t have…”
My words trail off as Tyler steps back in front of me, his fingers threading in my hair.
He’s living this as much as I am, his eyes darkening to whiskey mixed with earth.
It’s an answer. Adrenaline surges through me as I reach for his jeans, my fingers working on the snap. It’s not until the zipper’s halfway down that his hand closes over mine.
“Those weren’t the terms.”
“What do you mean?” My head snaps up.
“I didn’t owe you my cock, Six. I owed you my mouth. Take it or leave it.”
His words startle me. They’re a rough piece of fabric stroking across my skin, making me resist and aware of every inch of him at once.
We’ve been intimate, sure, but there’s so much we haven’t done. I realize that now from the way he’s looking at me.
“I’ll take it.”
I may live to regret it, but it’s the only answer I have.
Triumph flashes in his eyes. “Good. Spread your legs.”
My brows shoot up but I do it, my knees bumping the corners of the bench.
His hand is right there between my thighs, rubbing the seam of denim.
“These shorts look familiar.”
I bite my cheek to keep from moaning under his touch. “They’re from high school. I stopped short of putting on the Oakwood skirt.”
“Too bad. Would’ve been even easier to do this.”
I never thought of him being careful with me before, but when he slips two fingers under the edge of my shorts and beneath my thong, sliding them along my wetness before pressing all the way inside on a long, undeniable stroke, I know it’s true.
He’s not careful now.
My body squeezes around the invasion, and I gasp as I fall back against the piano, my elbows banging on the keys.
He touches me like that, stroking with those fingers while he circles my clit with his thumb.
Unlike the last times we were together, he’s all in this. Present, in this moment.
So am I.
He builds me up with that simple touch. I’m panting by the time he pulls back.
“You know what you want. Say it.”
God, he’s sexy. All of it makes me stronger, bolder.
“I want your filthy mouth on me.”
His chuckle is half groan. “That makes two of us. Take off everything except your thong. Kneel on the bench and brace your elbows on the piano.”
There’s a hint of something earnest under the command, something that reminds me of last night—how good it felt to be close to him, how he might have something at stake here, too.
It’s enough that I don’t argue as I shimmy out of the rest of my clothes and his hungry gaze drags over my body.
My nipples are hard buds, and I’ve soaked through the last remaining item of clothing as I lean over the dark wood, my forearms resting on the cool surface.
Tyler palms my ass. “The show you saw in London. Tell me you fucked yourself to sleep after and wished it was me.”
He presses a thick finger inside me and I fall forward, my eyes squeezing shut. Emotions clash in my chest, but I don’t want to lie to him. “Yes.”
Instead of continuing, he pulls out and plants a kiss on my bare shoulder.
This was a bad idea.
The tension inside me is stronger, bigger, tighter. He’s making it worse, not better.
If I ever questioned what happened to the quiet, repressed teenage boy I loved…
He turned into a man. One who won’t be denied.
Tyler’s fingers comb through my hair. “Wider.”
My knees ache from the hard surface but I force them apart another inch. “Happy?”
“Ecstatic. Tell me something. Are you young and naive?” he asks.
I look over my shoulder to meet his gaze. It’s hot and hungry and steals my breath.
“No.”
I drop my forehead back to the piano and wait.
Tyler drops kisses down my skin, soft but deliberate, one after another. “No, you’re fucking not.”
He spreads my ass and doesn’t hesitate, not even there, until finally, his lips press where I’m hot and wet and aching for him.
“Oh shit, Tyler,” I moan.
His scarred hand covers my mouth the next instant. It’s all I can do to keep from crying out as his mouth settles between my thighs and he devours me.
Yes.
It might be his mouth on me, but we’re equals in giving, in taking. The energy flows between us, tension and relief. We’re two musicians improvising together, inspired by one another’s actions and reactions.
Nothing in the last two years has felt like this.
Nothing has ever felt like this.
My back arches hard, the pressure between the hand on my mouth and his lips where I’m wet and aching forcing me to coil like a tight, needy spring.
It’s only physical.
I repeat it like a mantra, hoping I’ll believe it.
“Your legs are shaking,” he rasps, his hot breath warming my already-heated skin. “I bet it’s been years since you came so hard you forgot your name.”
I shudder into his hand.
“Bet it’s been even longer since you came so hard you forgot my name.”
Fuck.
When we had sex before, there was always a sweetness to it. A reverence. As if we were afraid we’d lose each other.
Now it’s as if the last shred of protectiveness between us broke.
This isn’t sweet.
It’s anarchy.
We’re not in love.
We’re at war.
My first crush, my first love, my first heartbreak… He’s back, and he’s fucking me with every inch of our baggage.
Tyler builds me up with his lips, his tongue, his fingers.
I’m mindless, my hands sweaty on the piano, to keep my balance or my sanity as I drown in the pleasure.
“Scream if you want,” he murmurs against my slick skin, the hand not covering my mouth tracing wet lines down the back of my thigh before gripping possessively around the top. “I’ve got you.”
I don’t scream.
But I do come.
In a shaking, sweaty mess of past and present, of bittersweet memories and shocking desire, I break.
Pleasure washes over me in waves, each one rippling further, echoing more faintly, as my cheek sticks to the polished wood.
The tremors leave me smooth and fresh, like sand after the tide goes out.
This was what I needed.
I almost believe it until Tyler leans over me, brushing back my hair to graze his lips across my cheek.
Sweet. Chaste.
Except that if I turned to catch that mouth with mine, I’d taste exactly what he did to me.
I don’t remember my name.
But I remember his.
10
“Do you have questions about recovery time? The procedure? Anaesthetic?” The surgeon spreads his hands on his desk.
He’s for sure taking for granted the range of motion in those fingers, those palms. The sixty-something man might be a doctor, but he’s
pure California. In living here the past year and a half, I’ve learned Angelenos can take for granted almost anything.
I shake my head. “I’ve done it before, at some of the best clinics in the country.”
“Well, I like to think we have the best team here at UCLA. You’re on the schedule for three weeks from now. I sincerely hope we can get you the results you’re looking for in terms of both mobility and pain management.”
“Me too.”
I leave the clinic and head outside into the sun and get into the waiting car.
It’s not my first surgery, but I’m hoping it’ll be my last. Beck calls it my obsession, but I think of it as relentless focus.
Since the night a single blade destroyed what I’d worked twenty years to build, I’ve been aching for the day when I can say I’m back to myself.
I have a few hours before I need to be at the venue for sound check for the benefit concert tonight. I scan the set list, which I’ll go over again with my band once I get there.
For the most part, I do vocals and some light chords. The lead guitarist who plays with me is probably good enough to play harder assignments than what I give him, but it makes me envious to hear him do it.
To deal with the monotony of traffic, I go through my email, firing off responses to anything urgent and leaving most of it where it is. After, I open the list of demos Shay sent through from local bands.
I listen to the first, then skip to the next.
Another skip.
I let the third one ride a moment. It’s sultry and raw.
I glance at my phone to see what it is.
It’s Shay. Not another band, but her.
It’s simple, but catchy, and the vocals feel fresh and real.
I file that away as the car reaches my destination, a toy store in La Brea.
Inside, I tell the clerk, “I need a present for a friend’s kid. She’s four and a half.”