Her heart jumped.
He stirred and picked up the tea towel and dried his hands, moving slowly. He wasn’t even looking at her.
“Dominic?”
There was pain in his eyes when he met her gaze. “You have his private cell phone number. And that’s his writing.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“Your thoughts say otherwise.”
She could feel her cheeks heating. “Of course I like him. He’s only an international film star! That’s all it is.”
Dominic shook his head. “Your memories of when he was here, when he wrote that number. They’re…colored. You wanted him. He wanted you.” Then the frown smoothed away. “Nothing happened,” he finished as if he was telling himself that.
“I’m just a fan,” Blythe said softly. Honestly.
“Not anymore. It’s gone beyond that now. Now that he….” He was back to frowning again. “…saved…Jake.” Then he refocused on her face. “What happened?”
“Can’t you read that too?” Blythe asked.
“It’s mixed up. You’re all mixed up about when he was here. There’s too much…guilt.” He added the last word with a note of surprise and studied her. Then he sat down on the chair that Jake had failed to push back under the table and looked at her. “You knew. About Patrick and me.”
Blythe pressed her lips together. “Do you want me to tell you the rest, or do you just want to read it all?”
Dominic pushed out a chair with his foot. “Tell me what happened,” he said. “Then I will understand what you are thinking.”
Blythe sighed and sat down. She forced herself to tell him of Patrick’s visit, which had been only yesterday morning. A small aeon had passed since then. As she spoke, however, the hot stew of feelings returned. Her chest tightened.
How could she feel this way about a man she barely knew—and had loved forever from afar, her treacherous mind whispered—when she also wanted Dominic with a power that frightened her with its strength?
“Patrick has presence. He’s the sort of man who takes all the oxygen out of the room when he enters,” Dominic said. “Even I wasn’t immune.” His smile was more of a grimace.
“But I want you,” Blythe said quickly. “Last night…” Her .perceptions had shifted overnight. She was no longer content with being a single mother beating back the rest of the world and raising her kids on her own. She had become a woman with needs and she needed Dominic. “Patrick is…yes, you’re right, he tends to suck people to him when he’s standing in the same room. He figured out about Jake…and me. That has probably saved both of us. But I don’t know him. It’s just a stupid fan crush. It’s embarrassing.”
Dominic shook his head. “You should let yourself find out what it really is.”
Horror touched her. “You mean…?” Pursue him. She couldn’t say the words aloud, but Dominic would hear them for sure. It felt like she was shouting them. “What about you?”
Dominic shrugged. His gaze would not meet hers.
Fright touched her.
He looked up quickly. “No, I don’t think you’re losing me. Not exactly.” He sighed. “This would be much easier if you could just read my mind, too. The words are hard to say.”
“Yes,” Blythe said heartily.
There was misery in his eyes.
“Why did you break up with him?” she asked. “I know you did. You would not have let me kiss you if you were still together.”
“We…argued.” Dominic pursed his full lips. “I don’t think Patrick realized how strongly I resented him trying to push me back into music again. He loves it so much himself, he doesn’t understand why I would ever want to avoid it.”
“He was making you play?”
“No, I wanted to,” Dominic said quickly. “I know that doesn’t make sense if I’m trying to avoid it. It’s a bit like a drug addict trying to stay away from heroin. They love the high, you know. They love how it makes them feel and at the same time they hate it. They hate the way they feel when they’re sober. They hate their lives. They hate that they can’t resolve the dilemma.”
“And Patrick was encouraging you to play,” Blythe said slowly, as she began to understand. “Like a pusher, holding out hope.”
Dominic pulled in a deep breath and let it out. “I can’t hear the music through him. It is imperfect…like hearing only half the melody. I can remember the notes in between, but I don’t hear them. So I can’t even find the high anymore.”
There was a deep sadness in his voice, that made Blythe want to cry for him.
His dark gaze met hers. “You…you touch a different side of me. One I did not know I had.”
“The warrior?” Blythe smiled as she said it. “Every man has a warrior inside.”
“I thought it was just survival,” he explained.
“It is, in the end.”
Dominic nodded. “Yes.”
Their gazes met and this time there was no discord there. Just understanding, although there were thousands of questions yet to be answered.
“Answers for later,” Dominic said softly. “You’re drooping. You must sleep.”
She got to her feet. “As long as you do, too.”
Dominic glanced toward the sofa.
“Upstairs, with me…if you want?” she asked, feeling suddenly awkward.
His smile was answer enough.
* * * * *
When she woke five hours later, the sunlight was broad in the window and Dominic’s hand lay heavily over her waist. He was still asleep, breathing deeply. His thick black lashes rested against his cheeks, giving him a vulnerable air. For the first time she wondered how old he was. At times, given all he had experienced, he seemed far older than her.
Not that she really gave a damn.
She realized that while Dominic was sleeping, her thoughts were her own. She was safe to think about matters that might bother him when he was awake. She had swiftly grown used to him rifling through her thoughts for answers, or answering unspoken questions. She had also learned how to push subjects aside without examining them.
Now she was free to consider everything that had happened in the last two days.
Carefully, she lifted his hand and slid out from beneath it, pushed her arms into her robe and crept downstairs. She wanted coffee like nobody’s business.
While the coffee was brewing she moved slowly through the living room, around the stairs to the formal dining room on the other side. Against the inside wall was her mother’s old upright piano. It had been used as a default sideboard for years, as no one in Blythe’s family played, or had any inclination to. Her mother had been the last player Blythe had known and even she had not played for long years before she died.
Blythe’s childhood memories were spotted with melodies and tinkling notes coming from the dusty formal front parlor of her childhood home, while she played outside or swung on the tire hanging from the old oak out the front.
She lifted the lid, knowing that this was what she had come downstairs to do, all along.
Clearly, she did not love music the way either Dominic or even Patrick did. However, she had always liked listening to her mother play and now, suddenly, she missed that.
Except she had no idea how to make the piano produce the beautiful notes. She had never been taught.
Her heart thudding hard, she spread her fingers and pressed them against the keys.
The piano responded softly, for she had not pressed hard. The sound was off-kilter, a jangling of notes.
She was so uneducated about music, she wouldn’t know if the piano was out of tune or not. She had it serviced every year. The tuners always bitched about the L.A. heat and how it made strings warp and stretch even when they just sat there.
How could she think of being with a man who loved music so much he called it an addiction? Her complete lack of musical ability or appreciation would ultimately frustrate him and drive him away.
She used her forefinger to pick out odd not
es, hitting the black keys as well, listening to the fractional note they played, against the white keys’ more pure notes. She didn’t know if that was what they were called. It was how she had always thought of the black keys.
“They’re called sharps and flats,” Dominic said, from behind her.
Blythe whirled, her heart leaping.
Dominic wore his jeans and nothing else. He was standing, holding the newel post at the bottom of the stairs, gazing at the piano.
“I’m sorry,” she said and reached for the lid.
“Wait.” He held up his hand. His frown was back, the one that told her he was listening to thoughts. “Play more.”
“I can’t play. Not at all.”
“Any note. Play it.”
There was an imperious demand in his tone, an urgency that made her turn back to the keyboard. Guilt swept her, as she picked out notes from up and down the keyboard. They were random, unmusical. A cat strolling across the keyboard would have served better.
Dominic came and stood by her side, staring down at her hand. She was only using the one finger.
“Again,” he whispered.
Blythe tucked her hands under her elbows. “I won’t do that to you.”
Dominic caught her face between his hands, with the long fingers. He kissed her. “It’s all right,” he told her with a small smile. Then he gently pushed her aside and pulled out the stool.
“No, Dominic…”
He shook his head as he sat down. “It will be okay,” he told her. “Just stay there.”
She couldn’t have moved anyway.
He held his hands over the keyboard and she could tell just by the way he held them that he was a master. His whole body had shifted, adjusted, so that he was sitting over it. Commanding the instrument.
He began to play and Blythe caught her breath. It was beautiful. She had no idea what the music was. He was producing from her mother’s ancient piano such beautiful sounds that her chest ached in response.
The last of the notes died away. It might have been five minutes or five years later. She didn’t know. Only after the music stopped did she dare breathe properly.
Dominic was staring at his hands and she almost cried. He hadn’t heard the music. Not properly.
“But I did.” He looked at her and tears were glistening in his eyes. “I heard it all. Every note. Even the silences.” He got to his feet and kissed her again and this time it was deep, sharing emotions he couldn’t speak of.
He had heard the music.
Blythe wrapped her arms around his neck and held him, almost shaking with her relief and her happiness that the music had come back to him.
“It hasn’t,” he said softly against her cheek. “It won’t ever come back to me. Through you, though, I can hear it. I can hear it properly. You hear music just like I do.”
He held her and she thought he would squeeze the breath out of her, so hard did his arms tighten around her.
Then he let her go and pushed her far enough away to look at her. “What is that you’re hearing?” he asked. “There is a melody in your mind.”
Blythe shook her head. “It’s nothing. Something my mother used to play when I was small.”
“Listen to it again,” he said. “Play it back in your mind.”
Feeling foolish, knowing she would probably never recall the full song, she made herself hear the music her mother had often played.
“I know this….” Dominic pushed her farther back and cupped her cheek. “Listen.”
He settled back at the keyboard and lifted his chin, staring into the air. He was recalling the song himself.
Then he began to play.
It was the same haunting, sweet melody, rising and falling among the soft, sad chords that played in the background. The melody had always made Blythe think of the sea, of people who had gone far away, while those who loved them waited on the shore, bereft and alone.
Now, all she could think about were the long hot summer days of her childhood. Of her parents, long gone. Her brother, lost in a car accident when she was only nine. The music brought back memories of her mother she had forgotten. The way she had run the family with an iron fist, yet had always been a complete lady. She had never raised her voice, yet both Blythe and her brother had instantly obeyed, while they cheerfully ignored their father’s bellows.
Finally, Blythe recognized the strength her mother had always hidden. She had that strength, too.
Her tears spilled down her cheeks. She was helpless to stop them.
“Blythe. Dominic.”
The music stopped instantly. Blythe spun to look toward the stairs.
Patrick stood there. And his expression was that of a man in agony.
Chapter Twenty
“Jake called me,” Patrick said slowly, as if each word was painful to speak. “He said you needed help.”
Blythe felt Dominic’s fingers tangle in hers. He squeezed. Then he pushed her hand forward.
Toward Patrick.
Understanding blazed in her mind. Dominic was telling her to go to him. To find out.
He was pushing her toward Patrick because he had seen in her mind the sudden flare of want. He had been right all along. It had moved beyond a fan’s adoration. Whatever she was feeling had changed when Patrick had confronted them in her own kitchen and made them see the truth about themselves. When he had helped Jake and propped up Jake’s self-esteem at the same time.
How she felt about him had shifted again when she had seen his image on Facebook. The sword strapped to his back. The implacable determination in his eyes that made his jaw square and solid. The fighter. The warrior. Patrick’s true vampire nature.
Now that he stood there before her, the wanting leapt to a new level.
But it was Dominic’s fingers tangled in hers. Dominic’s hand had lain across her.
Blythe tightened her fingers around his and stayed still.
Dominic got to his feet, pulling his hand away. He pushed her forward, his hand against her back. “Kiss him.” His voice was strained. “You want to. He wants it, too.”
Patrick drew in a sharp breath. “No. Not if it means someone gets hurt.”
“No one has to get hurt.” Dominic was pushing against her back again. Then he made an impatient sound, picked up her arm and pulled her across the floor. The whole time, Blythe could not look away from Patrick.
He wanted to kiss her.
“Is it true?” she asked him and realized she stood only inches away from him. She had to lift her chin to look him in the eye.
Patrick kept his gazed locked on her. “Yes.” It was a soft confirmation.
Her heart leapt again. It was ramming against her chest, a runaway beat. And her legs felt weak. “Have you always….?”
“Yes.”
She tried to catch her breath. “Dominic….”
“Him, too.”
Blythe’s thoughts fractured. She was losing it. All she could think about was what Patrick’s lips would feel like against hers.
He was standing so still. He was waiting for her to tell him what she wanted. He would not force the issue in any way, not with Dominic standing there, watching them both.
So she reached up on her toes to kiss him.
She never made it. As soon as she swayed toward him, Patrick closed the space between them, pulling her up and against him. His lips came down on hers, his hand grasped her head and he kissed her with an intensity that scattered the last of her coherent thoughts.
His tongue touched hers, then returned to stroke it and play with it.
She couldn’t breathe and didn’t care. Her body was aflame, every nerve ending shrieking. This was completely different from being kissed by Dominic. Different…and just as good.
Dominic.
Horrified, she pushed away from Patrick and staggered back, bringing the back of her hand up to her mouth. She wasn’t surprised to see that her fingers were trembling.
“It’s all right,” Dominic said
in a soothing voice.
She shook her head. Patrick looked just as guilty as her and that made her feel even worse.
Dominic turned her shoulders, making her look at him, instead. His dark eyes were grave. “Don’t think of anything right now,” he urged her.
“But—”
He touched his fingertips to her lips, making her fall silent. Then he kissed her. It was brief and thorough, his tongue sweeping through her mouth in a single caress.
Blythe couldn’t catch her breath. Confusion was pummeling her, as she tried to understand.
Then Dominic gave her a small smile and turned to Patrick. He gripped Patrick’s shirt in his fists and kissed him.
Her growing understanding was swept away by a sheet of white hot lust, that swept over her as she watched the two men together. They looked so good together. So sexy.
Patrick’s eyes closed and he groaned.
Blythe pressed her hand over her mouth to stop an echoing groan from escaping. Her pussy was throbbing, demanding attention. Her clit pulsed. Watching them kissing was more erotic than anything else she had ever witnessed in her life.
Then Dominic took a step back, tearing his mouth from Patrick’s. “Do you understand now?” His voice was hoarse.
She could see that Patrick did understand. There was a raw lust in his eyes that she had never seen before. And he was looking at her…and Dominic. “Blythe?” he said softly.
She swallowed. “Are you asking if I agree to this?”
“Yes.”
A shaky laugh escaped her. “I think I agreed to this days ago. I just didn’t know it.”
The two men exchanged a glance. Then they both stepped toward her and Blythe thought she might spontaneously burst into flame. She was shaking with it.
Dominic brushed her hair out of her eyes. “There’s no need to be afraid.”
“Not anymore,” Patrick said, just as softly. “We’ve all had our blinders removed.” He kissed her again and this time it was beyond heavenly, for Dominic was standing behind her, holding her, as Patrick kissed her.
Dominic kissed the nape of her neck from behind, making her shiver. It was powerfully arousing to have two pairs of lips on her body. She felt incredibly wicked, yet at the same time it felt perfectly natural, as if this was the way it was supposed to be.
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