Her Dark Melody

by Michelle Love

  The floor-to-ceiling windows in the bedroom brought the outdoors in. Sheer, pale blue curtains did little to hide the fact that a storm was raging just beyond the window panes. A flash of lightning lit up the whole room. It was a large room—larger than my own home had been. I didn’t even flinch when the thunder came. I was safe in David’s arms. It seemed like nothing could hurt me when I was with him.

  “There’s something about you, Kaye,” he whispered, and there was a touch of vulnerability in his voice—the same exact tone as when he’d told me about his tragic life. Something tugged at my heart, unlike anything I had ever experienced.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, wrapped around him, my heart still beating fast in my chest. Outside, the storm raged on, but it had less importance to me. I was lying in a bed with a man for the first time. That trumped any storm.

  “I don’t know.” His voice was a sexy, thoughtful little murmur, and despite my fear of being alone with him and in a bed, it sent strange little shivers down my spine. It was usually so easy for me to ignore my attraction to men, but with him it wasn’t quite as simple. “I just know I can’t seem to stop wanting to be around you.”

  I closed my eyes, and not because of the storm this time. There was this warmth growing inside of me, something thrilling and exasperating and also somehow so damn right. I couldn’t think of any better way to put it, even to myself. The man who held me in his arms had awakened something inside of me no man ever had before.

  “I want to see you more,” David said, and his hands were so perfect on me. They stroked over my hair, smoothing it, and I found myself instinctively moving closer to him. “I want to take you out. Just you and me.”

  Just him and me.

  A shiver went through me as I opened my eyes, trying to fight through the sudden burst of happiness filling me from the inside out. If he was saying what I thought he was, then it was insane. I barely knew him.

  “Do you mean you want to …date me?” I could be wrong. Maybe he’d meant something else entirely. I was taking it as a sort of romantic request, but it could just mean he wanted to be my friend. “Like a boyfriend?”

  Was that what I wanted it to mean? Suddenly, I wasn’t entirely sure. I wanted more with him. If he was asking me out, I had my answer at the ready.

  “Yes,” David said simply, and I drew in a quick breath, trying to caution myself—to keep myself from flying completely out of control.

  And then he was kissing me again.

  This time, I didn’t have it in me to push him away. I didn’t want to. I was hardly experienced when it came to this sort of thing, but the press of his tongue as it brushed against the seam of my lips—I found it irresistible.

  I opened my mouth to him and utterly lost myself in the kiss. A wave of heat rushed through my veins, seemingly carried in my very blood, pounding through me until I couldn’t think of anything else.

  For some unknown amount of time, we kissed and ran our hands all over each other, and I let myself do it. After all, he wanted to date me. He wanted to be with me. I’d never had a boyfriend before. He would be my first.

  He shifted against me, and I felt something hard thrust against my hip, just for a second. I knew what it was, of course. A nurse would pretty much have to know, and though I was highly intrigued by it, I wasn’t about to tease him—tease both of us—by letting it go any further.

  “David,” I whispered, pulling away from him. I thought he might show some anger at being interrupted, especially since I pulled my hips gently, but firmly, away from his.

  There was confusion on his face, but it faded away into acceptance, and I realized something important. He wouldn’t pressure me. Even as his cock was hard—as it had obviously been—he let me pull away from him. And he hadn’t said a word to pressure me.

  He was sweet and patient, even though it was far too obvious he wanted me. I couldn’t help but appreciate all of those things about him. Even him wanting me. Maybe even especially him wanting me.

  It was going fast, at least for me. Just lying in bed wrapped in someone’s arms and making out with them was not the sort of thing I did. Ever.

  But my body was pleasantly alight with a pulsing sort of warmth, and there was this strange, hot tingling between my legs I’d never experienced before.

  The fact of the matter was, I wanted this. All of it. Maybe I was an idiot, but I never had been before, so I had to think this was something real. Why else would I be so very drawn to him? Why else would he drive me crazy, like no one else ever had?

  “Do you mean it?” I asked, and I pressed my lips against his strong jaw, kissing along it and feeling the slight roughness of his stubble. He was so masculine and he smelled incredible.

  “Yes,” he whispered, and his arms tightened around me. He didn’t try to push anything, though. His hands rested on the small of my back, but he didn’t try to grope me.

  I could trust him. I was safe with him.

  Maybe, just maybe, this could be something real.

  “Yes,” I echoed, repeating the word he’d just said. Yes, I would date him. God, yes. We barely knew each other, and I knew it was a little bit crazy, but I couldn’t make myself turn something like this down. Not when I wanted it so badly.

  “As long as we can go slow. We can see what happens,” I added, because the cautious side of my brain demanded it. I had to be careful. Even throbbing with heat and arousal, I couldn’t do anything else.

  “We’ll see what happens,” he agreed. And then—just like that—I had, for the very first time in my life, a boyfriend. A strong, handsome, utterly gorgeous boyfriend.

  When he kissed me again, I was right there for him, waiting. I wasn’t going to have sex with him, of course. Us dating hadn’t changed who I was.

  Despite everything, part of me was just the tiniest bit disappointed that he didn’t push me further. I was relieved, of course, but I had never ached for anyone the way I ached for him. My body had never been so eager for anyone.

  David

  A man could drown in Kaye’s kisses. He could lose himself completely if he allowed it to happen. Those sweet, innocent, sexy-as-hell kisses that had me far too hard, far too quickly.

  I had been so sure she had used her body to get what she wanted—that she gave herself to men and, in return, they left their money to her. I knew it wasn’t true anymore.

  I had a virgin. And she had already given herself to me, at least a little bit, by agreeing to date me. My plan was working, and now—on top of everything else—I was going to get to be the very first man who ever had the lovely Kaye James.

  “So how’s it going with the girl?” Brent had this smirk on his face. It made me—just for a second or two—want to smack him, though I quickly pulled myself together.

  Damn it, though, couldn’t he at least learn her name? Kaye. He was hardly going to be able to seduce her if he couldn’t be bothered to learn it. Kaye. Her name was beautiful and sweet, just like she was.

  “Kaye,” I corrected, and I fought very hard to keep my voice completely even. No need to fly off the handle. Brent didn’t have any reason to care about her name, at least not yet. As long as he could remember it when it counted, I should have no issues.

  “Okay, fine. Kaye. How're things going?” Brent was nothing if not persistent, which made him pretty much the perfect man for this particular job.

  “Well, I’d say things are going pretty well,” I said, fighting off a bit of a smirk. “She has herself a brand-new boyfriend, and I have …” I couldn’t help but brag a little. How many guys could say what I was about to say? “I have myself a virgin.”

  “Oh my God,” Brent said, and I could pretty much see his eyes popping out just at the thought. Who could blame him? A virgin. Not only that, but a drop-dead gorgeous virgin. “Are you serious? She’s a virgin?”

  I nodded, and though it was a bit ridiculous, I wanted to puff my chest out with pride. Just a little. It wasn’t like I had done anything special, really. It wa
s complete luck that Kaye was untouched, but I knew I had impressed my best friend.

  “Can we change things up, maybe?” Brent asked, after a bit of silence as he processed the news I’d dropped on him. “You could introduce me to her before you get married? I’ve never popped a cherry before.”

  The strangest thing happened to me then. I had the urge to growl, to glare at my best friend, and to tell him to back the hell off. Kaye was mine. I took a deep breath, having to calm myself down and back away from some pretty serious potential rage.

  And why was that, exactly?

  I had no idea why I was feeling so prickly, but I was. And I wasn’t about to let Brent think for a moment that he could touch a hair on the girl’s head. “That doesn’t make any sense,” I pointed out. “I can’t discover the two of you in bed together before we get married, or it defeats the whole purpose. I need to be married to her, or we both get nothing.”

  Brent frowned, and I had thought maybe he was joking, but I realized something then. He was actually sort of serious. At the very least, he was reluctant to let go of the idea of having her first, and the growl I had fought off threatened to come back in full force.

  “It can be an ongoing affair,” Brent argued, and my hands clenched into fists at my sides. “I take her first. Then it’s even more of a betrayal if she’s been sleeping with me the whole time you guys were married and even before.”

  I shook my head. No way was I going to let that happen. I was, to say the very least, attached to the idea of being her first. It had thrilled me deeply to know that I would get to be her first, and I wasn’t about to give something so amazing up.

  “She’d never do a thing like that. You don’t know her at all. She’s sweet, innocent, and pure. Pure as the driven snow. She’s not the kind of woman who’d start sleeping with one man while keeping another dangling on the side.” While I wasn’t sure about her morals when it came to money, I knew she wouldn’t do a thing like that when it came to sex. “It’s not in her. No. I get her first.” I crossed my arms over my chest and looked at him with an expression I knew he would recognize. I had always been good at getting my way when I really wanted to and this was one of those times. “I don’t even want you to meet her until the wedding.”

  It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him, but …well. I didn’t trust him. I knew him too well, and when it came to women, he really wasn’t a very nice guy.

  I couldn’t claim I was much better, of course, but I chose not to think about it too much.

  “David …” I could tell Brent was going to keep arguing.

  I shook my head firmly. “I’ll cut you out of the deal completely,” I threatened, and it wasn’t an idle threat. I made sure he knew it, too, pretty much glaring at him. “You’ll be out a lot of money. Just drop it.”

  My threat shut him up, as I knew it would. I hated to do it, but I also didn’t want him thinking he could talk me out of this. Kaye was mine.

  No. Not mine. I had to remember what this was.

  Her first time, though, definitely belonged to me.

  “Fine,” he muttered, clearly put out. He was such a child sometimes, but he was my only real friend and he was damn good at his job.

  “You’ll get her soon enough,” I pointed out, smirking a little bit. Only, I didn’t feel quite right inside. It was one thing to plan this all out before, but it was all starting to feel so easy. Too easy.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Brent said, perking up noticeably. “You’ll be married to her in no time at this rate.”

  It was true. I knew it. She seemed to have a sort of weakness around me, which gave me another of those strange twinges of conscience. It would be so easy to get her to fall in love with me and to sweep her into a whirlwind romance and marriage.

  “So when do you want me to, you know, step in?” Brent asked, pulling me from my thoughts. I looked at him with a smile, though it didn’t feel natural on my lips.

  “At the wedding,” I decided. “Which I think will probably be in just a few months.” I was already moving quite fast and definitely had no intention of slowing down, no matter what those inconvenient little twinges of conscience said. Nor the little shocks of pain that went through me when I thought about Brent touching Kaye or about her moaning and arching toward anyone else as he slid inside her.

  Getting possessive over a woman had never really been the sort of thing to happen to me before. I had never let myself get close enough to one. It was an uncomfortable feeling, and I found myself having to push it away time after time.

  “Okay, perfect,” Brent smirked, and it was a relief to me when he seemed oblivious to how strangely I’d been feeling about the whole thing. Not that I was having doubts, I assured myself. I still wanted what was mine.

  It was just that maybe Kaye could feel like mine, if I let her.

  “So you sweep her off her feet and into bed, and then marry her,” Brent plotted, and I forced myself to meet his smirk with one of my own. “Then I’ll meet her at the wedding, ask her to dance, and I’ll tumble her into bed myself with indecent haste.”

  I let a deep, deep breath soothe me and forced my head to nod in agreement. Just think of the money, I told myself. Think about the betrayal of grandfather leaving everything to Kaye, who was almost a stranger. I was his own flesh and blood. I was the rightful heir. Why would he do such a hateful thing if not because of something she’d done?

  Even thinking about Brent dancing with her at my wedding, though, could be enough to really anger me. If I let it. So the trick was not to let it, and I thought I was equal to the task. After all, I’d been with many women and none of them had ever gotten their claws into me.

  I knew better. After what my mother had done to my father—and to me—I would never trust a woman. I wouldn’t make the same mistakes he had. No matter how sweet Kaye seemed, she was still a woman and she would betray me.

  Which was the whole point. I was going to use her nature against her and let her inevitable betrayal benefit me. It was a small way of getting revenge, not only against my grandfather and against her, but also against my mother. Maybe she would never know, but I would and I thought it would be enough.

  So I smirked at my best friend and nodded. “Yep, that’s the plan.”

  It was a good plan too. Simple. In my experience, those were the plans that worked the best—the ones without too many bells and whistles.

  Kaye would never know what had hit her, as long as Brent and I could pull it off. Simple didn’t mean easy, and I knew if either of us pushed too fast, we could scare her off.

  Still, I was on the right track and I knew I could do this. I would have everything I wanted soon enough, with just a little bit of patience. Just a little bit of pushing. Not too fast, but just enough to keep her off balance and intrigued without scaring her off.

  It was a thin line and I was going to have to walk it carefully. The rewards were astronomical, though, and it was more than worth it.

  Glancing at Brent, I knew he would do his part flawlessly. He always had women flinging themselves at him, and Kaye, I figured, would be no exception.

  “You and I are both going to be very wealthy men,” I commented and laughed as I raised a bottle of beer in a slightly mocking toast.

  “To money,” he said, while I clinked my glass bottle to his.

  “To money,” I echoed, and then added, forcing a nonchalance that I didn’t quite feel, “To Kaye.”

  “To Kaye,” Brent repeated.

  To Kaye. The woman who was going to make all of our dreams come true. Whether she knew it or not.

  Chapter 7

  Kaye

  An odd, nervous, excited energy filled me as I got ready for my first real date.

  Of course I had been out with people and done fun things with them, and some of those people had been men. But to go out, one-on-one, in a distinctly romantic context—I had never allowed myself to do that before.

  David had told me to dress up, and as I glanced in the mirr
or, I had to admit I looked good. I rarely found occasions to wear anything fancy, but I’d picked a scarlet dress that somehow made my green eyes shine even brighter and set off my dark hair perfectly.

  I tried not to blush when I saw how the bright fabric clung to my hips and breasts and made my waist look tiny. I looked sexy. Hot. Not at all how I would usually dress.

  I even had heels on.

  The look on David’s face when I opened the door to his knock made the whole thing worth it. His absolute delight was obvious as he scanned me from head to toe—but in a way, that made me feel beautiful and cherished, not cheap. He had some skills, I had to admit.

  “You look beautiful,” he breathed, and I believed him. I both thought he saw me that way and thought that I actually was, which was fantastic.

  “Thank you,” I murmured, slightly warm and flushed. David offered me his arm and I took it, feeling strange and fluttery inside. He was such a gentleman, and even though it was all happening so quickly, I couldn’t help but be glad I’d decided to go for it and date him.

  I could almost swear the soles of my black pumps didn’t even touch the ground as he swept me out to the car.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as I settled myself in his car, which was a BMW that I was completely sure would make me dizzy if I knew how much it had cost him. I knew, logically speaking, that I owned quite a few expensive cars myself, but I had never driven any of them.

  Which reminded me, was this the time to offer him the half of the money I’d inherited? I watched his profile and shook my head. No. It wasn’t the right time.

  Probate hadn’t even fully cleared yet. I probably wasn’t even supposed to be living in the mansion and I hadn’t gotten anything yet. It would be better to wait, so if he said yes, I could hand him a check right away.

  Besides, I wanted to enjoy this night without any money hanging over our heads. So when he reached for my hand, I let him have it, his fingers slipping through mine and our palms touching, almost caressing each other.