by Anna Bloom
They turned to go. “Lyra. Professor Greene asked me to go through your warm-up while everyone else settles, and hopefully empties their deep pockets,” I cut in. Her back stiffened and she turned back to face me.
“I warmed up earlier,” she said.
“Best I check.” I shot her a tight smile and turned to Miriam. “I’ll see you after the performance.”
She pulled me close and placed a lingering kiss on my lips, a show for her dad. “Don’t be too long. I’ll be lonely without you.”
I resisted rolling my eyes. “Lyra.”
She marched off without a backward glance at any of the Collins family. I gave a mental fist bump at her sass.
She walked through the arched doorway into the main reception area where guests still arrived, peeling off their coats and handing them to staff waiting in black and white.
A small room had been put aside for the instruments. Lyra’s violin sat with the case open. She’d polished it—I’d take that as progress.
I closed the door behind me, watching as she hesitated at the soft click. “I haven’t seen you all week.”
God, I ached to touch her.
She was the curse of my life. My ultimate test.
“I think we said enough the other night.”
“I’m sorry. My temper got the better of me.”
“You don’t get to be angry about me, Jack. We are nothing to each other.”
My stomach hollowed. “I know. You’re my student.”
“And you are dating the daughter of my scholarship benefactor.” Her chest rose and fell. I could almost feel every breath she took.
I met her gaze, wanting to tell her everything. How and why; my bid for survival when life seemed to want otherwise.
Instead I nodded. “True.”
The door opened and Greene poked his head around. “Ah, perfect. The others will begin their arrangement now. Lyra, you happy?”
Greene didn’t look happy.
“Yes, Sir.” She bit on her bottom lip.
He nodded and ducked back out.
“Lyra,” her name caught on my lips, “Please tell me you can play.”
“Why, Jack? Are your new family a bunch of racists that you know want to get rid of me?”
She knew? I took a step closer, like I was crossing miles, not a small room full of instrument cases and discarded coats.
“Can you play?” I slid a hand up her bare arm. Goose bumps erupted in the wake of my touch.
She chopped at my hand with her forearm. “Don’t touch me, you bastard.”
Her fire made a kindle of flame light in my gut. It churned deep, igniting desire with a piercing sting.
“You’ve got a girlfriend. All this fucking time and I’ve been mourning you, missing you. Hating you but still loving you, like a stupid child, and here you are, living the dream…” her words cut off. “Go away. Leave me to whatever end this brings.”
I reached for her again. “Why can’t you play, Lyra? You did the other day, and then you ran.”
“I told you. I don’t want to play. I hate it. It hurts.”
I grabbed her with both hands, dragging her closer. “Why?”
“Because.” She visibly fought the words.
“Why, Lyra?” A strange flicker of hope bloomed in my chest, even though I didn’t know what created it. “Why can’t you play?” I inched closer, my body nearly full-boarding her. I tried to pull back but couldn’t find the strength.
The air between us pulsed, just like it had in her bedroom all those years ago.
“Leave me alone, Jack.” She spat my name, curling her top lip.
“No, Lyra. You don’t understand. They will get rid of you. The slightest excuse and you’ll be gone.”
“What do you care?”
Did she really think I didn’t care? I stepped back in genuine surprise. “You think I don’t care?”
“I know you don’t. Just leave me alone.”
“Lyra,” her name teased my lips, edging me to move closer still, “I won’t let you fail.” My breath fanned over her skin. Her chest heaved against mine.
She blinked up at me, pearls of saltwater glittering her dark lashes. “I won’t let you fail,” I repeated more to myself than to her.
“I can’t play, Jack. I’ve been like this for four years.” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’m broken.”
I shook my head and grasped her chin in my fingers. “No, you aren’t broken. You just have to feel. What makes you feel?”
She met my gaze and my little empire of hostility crumbled into ruins, every moment of hatred I’d felt for her and her bastard brother washed out to sea.
“Lyra...” My tight grip on her chin eased into a brush of her cheek, my fingers featherlight across her cheekbone. Her lips parted. Unable to stop, I pushed my fingers into her hair, tangling them in bronze and ebony.
“Can’t you feel it?” Her words caught on a gasp.
“What?”
Her hand waved between the slim space between our chests, brushing against my tuxedo. “The chain. It links between us, holding all our energy, our possibility.” She trembled, almost falling into my arms. “When you left, a chink in the chain broke. My music broke that night too.”
She shook hard and I stared wide eyed at her.
I was the reason she couldn’t play.
I was done. Finished.
The devil take my soul. I knew I’d pay for this choice.
A tear slipped down her cheek, then another, and before I could even think it through, my lips crashed against hers. She exhaled a little sigh that ate into my bones. Her lips parted and all at once I could taste the salt of her tears along with desperation and desire.
A thousand and one memories smashed into my brain as her warm tongue slipped across my lower lip. Lifting my hands from her arms, I cradled them around the back of her head, running my fingertips firmly against her skull and angling her face so I could open her mouth with my tongue.
Without breaking my lips, I walked us back toward the wall, away from where nosy eyes could find us, pushing her hard against the surface, enjoying the sigh that pressed from her lips.
I’d be sacked for this.
She’d lose her scholarship. Regardless of her skin color.
Not to even consider what her brother would do to me if he knew.
None of it mattered. Everything pooled into the kiss. All me, her, and everything that had and never would be.
My tongue pushed against hers, warm and minty, my dick stirred to life growing against the black material of my tux. I pushed further, tilting her head back, thrusting my tongue against hers, claiming every space of her mouth, slipping and sliding, until her body slumped a little against the wall. All the hardness of me pushing into the softness of her, two perfect pieces of the same game.
Lyra lifted her hand to my face, her delicate touch cupping my cheek, her tongue swiping faster against mine, dancing with me like she knew the tune I wanted to play.
Tune.
Reality snapped back and I pulled my lips away. Her breath came in little tiny pants of desire.
“Can you feel now?”
She hung onto my body and I knew all too well what she could feel.
“Yes.”
I pushed her away, my hands on her slender shoulders. The satin of her dress clung to the hardened pebbles of her nipples and she shivered again.
I promised myself tomorrow I’d spend less time being an asshole, less time shouting and more time actually looking after her. Even if we couldn’t do this again. If I could keep her here with me, it would be worth it. I couldn’t let her go now. Lyra was an addiction, and my first taste in four years had brought back all the dark cravings.
I snapped my hands together, breaking the moment. “Good. Now go and play.”
A flash of hurt darted in her pale-blue gaze, but I crimped my lips together and waved her away.
“You fucking douche.”
I smirked. “N
ever said I wasn’t.”
Lyra turned and fled from the room, leaving me with my hands pressed against the wall, holding me up. I could still feel her in the air next to me.
I craved her in ways I could never have imagined.
It gnawed at me; an unsatisfied hunger I knew I’d never fill.
Taking a moment to collect myself, I straightened my tie and smoothed my shirt, waiting for my raging hard-on to capsize.
The stirring richness of a bow on violin strings filled the silence. For a moment the sounds transported me back to a plain old room with an unshaded lightbulb swinging from the ceiling.
Like a man in a dream, I walked toward the sound. Lyra stood by the piano, her eyes closed, her grip on her violin loose and relaxed.
Romance. Opus 23
She made every note sound like heaven and with every note I slipped further into hell.
Focusing on her audience, I checked that Miriam’s father seemed suitably impressed. Greene tapped his toe as Lyra drew each note until it made your heart squeeze.
Alex watched her with eyes wide.
Then she opened hers and snapped her gaze onto my face.
And I knew we were ruined.
Surviving this car crash we’d strapped ourselves into was no longer a viable option.
Walking toward her, wading through hell, step by step, I sat on the empty stool in front of the piano and picked up the score where she was.
Together.
The music coursed through me in a way I hadn’t felt since Lyra used to play for me to drown out the beating fists of my father.
Then I felt it.
The tugging connection in my chest hummed, vibrated in the air between us, replacing an empty space with a pulse of electricity that I’d forgotten existed.
The chain.
I’d never be able to let her go. To live without her again would be worse than death. I’d wanted death many times over the years, but now I knew there was one thing far worse.
Something taking Lyra away from me.
I wanted my lips on hers again, my body pressed into the space of her.
I looked up to find her watching me.
And we played. The chain between us rewriting everything.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lyra
We’d kissed. Could there be any other thought in my head ever again? Possibly not.
We’d kissed and it hadn’t felt anything like it had before. It had all the mores and then some more heaped with possibility on top.
Jack hadn’t kissed me the way he had back then. He’d kissed me like I was someone new.
“Lyra, that seriously blew my mind.” Eva hugged my arm, pulling me into the common room of Hamilton. She reached onto tiptoes so she could whisper in my ear, “I thought you hated playing?”
“I did. I do.” I shrugged my shoulders up to my ears. Who knew anymore?
“We need wine to celebrate.” She started pulling open the cupboards as Brittany, Alex, and others whose names I hadn’t bothered to learn yet stumbled in behind us.
I guess I should learn names now… now that it looked like I was staying.
I shut down all thought of coming and going.
I’d think about it tomorrow.
Jack had kissed me.
Of course, there was the cheating scumbag element of the kiss… but maybe I’d think about that tomorrow too.
What would Grams say? Didn’t that break a commandment?
No, Lyra. Stop.
“Well, well, well,” Alex threw an arm over my shoulder, “the girl can play.” His arm weighed heavy, pushing me down a little.
“No one ever said I couldn’t play,” I argued back, although I was pretty sure they’d all been saying it.
“So what flipped the switch?” He waggled his eyebrows. “Was it meeting my bore of a father and realizing you had nothing to lose?”
I chuckled and shook my head. “No. Maybe I’ve just been nervous.”
Alex scrutinized me with interest. “Mm. Maybe.” He tucked his hand around my waist, anchoring me firm against his hip despite me pulling in the opposite direction. “Drinks all round I believe.”
There was a general murmur of agreement until Eva piped up, “There’s no booze,” and made everyone groan.
“Don’t panic, I’ve always got a stash of the good stuff.” Thankfully, Alex let me go. “Lyra, want to come and help me carry some down?”
“Ugh.” I was grateful I didn’t need to think of an excuse as Eva came up and hooked me with her arm. “Lyra, I’ll help you get changed.” She turned her back to Alex and sent me a totally indiscreet wink which made me roll my eyes.
“Thanks. I think,” I muttered.
She pulled me out the common room and we paced up the stairs, leaving Alex and his friend Reyn to walk off in the direction of their room.
“Saved you.” She laughed.
“Thanks.”
“Although why I’m saving you, I don’t know. He’s as hot as fuck.”
“Eva, you think everyone is hot.”
She tilted her head as we paused on the landing to our floor, both of us catching our breath from the bitch of all stairs. “Maybe I do.” She stuck her tongue against her cheek as she met my gaze. “You don’t though, do you? I mean, Alex Collins took you to the Collins Gala as his date, introduced you to his family, and you don’t seem interested at all.”
“Why should I be interested in them? Weren’t you telling me they were racist bastards just the other day?”
“Oh I don’t mean interested in them. I mean in him. He’s talented, cute, and obviously interested in you.” She peered at me closer like she could find the answers on my face and tapped at my chest. Slightly alarming. “So, you and Mr. Cross? That was some scorching chemistry between you when you played together.”
“What?” I nearly tripped over the blue silk of my dress as I tried to push my way through the heavy double doors. “Don’t be silly, it’s just what we’d been practicing.”
“Hmm. No wonder you come out of practice looking pale and drained if you two do that together every morning before breakfast.”
I turned, levelling her with the ‘don’t shit with me’ stare that Grams had taught me at a very young age. “Seriously, Eva. The man is an arrogant asshole who makes rude his middle name.”
She nodded, thoughtful. “Maybe so, but the way he looked at you from that piano stool, well…”
“Well what?” I pressed when she trailed off.
“It was like he knew you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I tell you, he’s a douche of the highest douche order. He’s a Knight of Douchedom.”
“He’s a hot douche. And honestly, he can frown at me any time he likes with those brooding green eyes of his. That level of anger is hot as fuck.”
I chuckled and pushed her through the door. “If you like that kind of thing.”
Behind me a dark shadow stirred, and a shiver ran along my skin.
“Come on, I’m freezing in this dress, and I feel like a dick.”
My legs knocked together as I tried to pull on my shorts and an old faded plaid. With the dress off I could breathe freely again… well apart from the sporadic shaking of anticipation.
In the bathroom I scrubbed off my makeup. “Whoa, what are you doing?” Eva stared around the doorjamb. “You looked so pretty with the smoky eyes.”
I stuck my tongue out and carried on rubbing soap around the said area of my eyes where I’d created massive rings of soapy gray.
She carried on watching me until I stopped rubbing again and lowered my hands. “You go down, I’ll just finish up.”
“No, I can wait.”
“Seriously, Eva, have you seen how much waterproof mascara I’m trying to get off?”
She hesitated; her face torn. I loved her loyalty. I’d landed a good roommate, no matter what else might have been going on.
“Seriously, go.”
“Okay, don’t be too long. I think Brittan
y will be drowning her sorrows and might drink all the booze.”
I waved her off and then turned on the tap to wash the soap off. She’d gone when I lifted back up again, my reflection still showing more eyeliner than I knew how to deal with. I should never have let her play dress-up with me earlier.
Eventually I stopped rubbing and grabbed at my towel, pressing it into my red raw face. Patting at my skin, I walked back out into the bedroom, letting out a shriek as a dark looking shape stepped away from the wall.
“Shh, it’s just me.” Jack’s hands wound around my neck and my heartbeat thumped unevenly under his touch.
“Jack, you can’t be in here.” I mean there’s nothing like stating the obvious. I wanted to do more than that though. “Shouldn’t you be at home with your girlfriend?”
He tilted his head, those dirty greens sweeping my face, making me feel everything other than dirty—ironic when they should have.
“I didn’t get to talk to you afterward.”
“Go home, Jack. Eva could come back at any moment.”
“So now you are worried about being caught with your tutor?” His lips quirked into a long-forgotten favorite smile.
“Jack.” I grasped his fingers around my throat, pulling them away. “You can’t be caught here.”
His gaze blazed. “Because now you want to stay?” He lifted his eyebrows, his mouth twisting into an ugly smirk.
“No.” I sighed, dropping my chin down onto my chest. “Because I see that your life has moved on. And maybe the kiss was what I needed to move on with mine too.”
Lies. All lies. Twisting in my gut, making myself wring from the inside out.
With a finger, he tilted my face. “Hearing you play, the way I know you can, the way I’ve always remembered. It was like I could take flight and remember who I used to be.”
“But you’ve changed. You have a girlfriend, Jack.” Somehow, I broke out of his hold. “So even if you weren’t my teacher, even if you hadn’t run away from our hometown, leaving unanswered questions in your wake. Even if all those things weren’t a consideration… you still belong to someone else.”
His shoulders sagged. “You would see it like that.”
“Because it’s the only picture to see. Now you run along to your new life and leave me to mine. I’m going to ask Greene for a new teaching aide on Monday.” Jack’s gaze burned with undisguised fury. “And I’m thinking after tonight, he will give me everything I need.”