I entered his bedroom and closed the door behind me. Though he’d given his permission, being here felt like getting away with something. I was somewhere I didn’t belong.
I gazed around at the hardwood floors and creamy tan walls and white crown molding, his king-size bed covered in a crisp, dark green comforter. I lifted the edge of the comforter and peeked beneath at the soft, satiny tan sheets. I ran my fingers over them and resisted the urge to lie down on them. The room smelled of him, clean, like soap and spice.
His en suite was immaculate, white and scrubbed. The clear glass of the shower showed the bath products lined up neatly on shelves built into the tile. The semiopaque glass on the shower in his music room provided privacy, but watching him in here, I’d see the whole show.
His tidy closet didn’t have as many articles of clothing as I’d have thought. The hangers faced the same way and the clothes were grouped by type, button-down shirts, suits, polo shirts, dress pants, ties, and belts. One half of the walk-in stood entirely empty.
Had that been his wife’s side when they’d lived together and he’d left it bare out of habit? Was he waiting for her to come back into his life?
His cleaning person had been here today. The sheets and towels smelled faintly of lavender. Glory might’ve told her to do extra scrubbing for the party. Not that anyone should be in his bedroom, yet here I was, by invitation.
I opened the top drawer of his bedside table. A copy of the Bible and a small jewelry case with his initials sat inside. I recognized it as the one I’d given him for his birthday three years ago.
He’d kept it.
I reached inside and opened it. Three rose petals, which I’d not given him, and a picture of him and me. His arm was around my shoulders, and I was laughing at something he’d said. The expression on my face told the entire story. He’d made me very happy for a time. I supposed there was a time before I’d realized I was in love with him when being around him meant joy and excitement, a thrill of exhilaration.
I put the jewelry box back inside. He cared. He wouldn’t have kept those items unless he cared. But what did it mean exactly? We were best friends. Kieran cared for his friends deeply. At least I’d made it into that category.
Feeling bolder, I took off my shoes and climbed into his bed, shoving aside the extra pillows. The crisp, cool sheets settled around me, and I relaxed into the building warmth. I’d wait here for him. He didn’t usually bring women to his bedroom. Maybe they’d go to a hotel.
Or maybe let him find me in his bed. Let it be uncomfortable for him and Dorothy.
I lost my nerve when I heard voices in the hallway. I slid out of the bed, then dropped to the floor and tugged my dress down. From that position, I rearranged the sheets and picked up my shoes.
Waiting by the door, I didn’t hear anyone. Opening it slowly, I peered into the hallway. No one. Had I imagined the voices? I could hear the violins from the terrace, and the drone of conversations.
The light from his guest bedroom spilled out from the slightly ajar door. That door had never latched properly. The Maestro could’ve invited someone to sleep at his house, an out-of-town guest or any overly drunk person, but that would be unusual. He liked his personal space and would likely have arranged for a hotel or driver for anyone who needed it. Curiosity taking hold of me, I peeked in through the crack in the door.
The sequined green dress caught my eye first, then the broad shoulders and blond hair, the bright red shirt tails. I kept myself from gasping in surprise.
Vanessa and David Malone were making love against the wall. Vanessa’s head was pressed to the wall, half thrown back, and David had his strong arm around her waist, holding her up. She moaned softly with every pump of his hips.
I closed the door as quickly and quietly as I could. At least I didn’t have to worry about her sleeping with Kieran tonight.
I went downstairs and left Kieran’s house, closing the front door behind me.
* * *
I dreamt of being invited to Dorothy and Kieran’s wedding. He wanted me to play the piano for him, and in the dream, I banged out angry tunes, crashing my fingers down on the keys.
No one seemed to notice as they stared adoringly at the bride and groom. The harder I played, the more isolation took hold of me. Banging, hard, hard, hard, my anger and aggression spilling over. No one cared about my fury and hurt and absolute heartbreak.
My eyes opened to tapping on my door, hard to ignore in this small space. Probably Kieran.
I rolled and stared at the clock. Five in the morning. Too early to deal with Kieran. My head was fuzzy, woken mid sleep cycle. I took a sip of water along with the two pain pills I’d left on my bedside table for the inevitable wine headache, swallowing them prophylactically.
I walked to the door and confirmed it was Kieran by peering out the peephole, and opened it. Shirttails untucked and sleeves rolled to the elbow, he asked, “Can I come in?” Had he slept at all?
I stepped back from the entrance. Cold air blew inside, freezing my bare toes but providing a nice cool down to the overheated room. I wished my neighborhood was safe enough to crack open a window while I slept. “It’s rude to visit someone at five in the morning, especially without calling first. You’re making this a habit.”
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his rumpled tuxedo. I leaned forward to smell him.
“Do I smell like booze? I only had a few drinks tonight, hours ago,” he said.
“It’s not the alcohol. I wanted to know if you smelled like perfume.” If he’d slept with Dorothy and then come here, I’d kick him out.
He drew his brows together. “Do I?”
Was he telling me that he’d fooled around with her? That shouldn’t make me mad, but it set off irrational anger boiling in my veins. I blamed the lack of sleep on my inability to keep my calm. “Do your sheets?” I didn’t usually speak to him this way. Being tired and angry brought out boldness, apparently.
He inclined his head. “What are you talking about?”
“I want to know if you slept with Dorothy. Except I really don’t want to know at this exact moment, because if you say yes, I’ll lose it. I haven’t had much sleep, and my emotional control is shaky right now. I need coffee to wake up, but I’m nowhere near ready to be awake and functional. I want you to leave, but I don’t want you to leave.”
He held up his hands. “I don’t know what you want me to do, then. I didn’t sleep with anyone. The caterer finally left after cleaning up. What a disaster the party was. Mess everywhere. I had to talk to everyone, and I couldn’t even go home and be alone because I was home. I was finished with the party by midnight, but everyone else was having a grand time. When they finally left, I went upstairs to find you. All I wanted was you, but you weren’t there, so I came here.”
So, the party hadn’t been his idea. It wasn’t his thing, not really, and he wanted someone like me to come and make sure to put the house right. He liked his stuff the way it was. “I waited.”
“You did?”
“For a few minutes.” In his bed.
He spread his long fingers wide in a questioning gesture. “I wanted to talk. I feel like we need to talk.”
“You can talk,” I said.
He plowed a frustrated hand through his hair. “Vanessa wanted to have the party. She’s some kind of event planner. Glory thought it was a good idea, and she jumped on board. It’ll probably be the last one I have in my house.”
“You’ll get a lot of donations. The music session outside was beautiful and fun. The people there will have loved being inside your personal abode,” I said.
“You heard the music outside?”
“Of course.”
He studied my face. “You were talking with Lawrence Yates, and then you disappeared.” Wrinkles appeared at the corners of his dark eyes.
“I didn’t disappear with Lawrence. I walked away on my own.”
His jaw relaxed, and the corners of his mouth lifted. “Come home
with me. The cleaning crew’s supposed to be working all morning, but we’ll lock ourselves in the music room and forget about it. No one went inside the music room. I had that bolted closed.”
He wouldn’t have wanted anyone touching his instruments or sheet music, or getting a peek at his work in progress.
“We can talk here. I’m not dressed,” I said.
He blew out a breath, and I smelled mint. “I can see that. Why’re you being difficult?”
I set my hand on my hip and fought a smile. “Come on, really? You’re calling me difficult?”
His gaze met mine, and he broke into a soft laugh. “Right. No, you’re right. I’ve been difficult for you. For everyone. But this is a new side of you. Are you in love?”
That question caught me by the throat, and my grin faded from my face. Kieran was circling around the truth, but he couldn’t see it. He couldn’t get that I loved him. Endlessly. “Everything’s messed up in my head. Confused and twisted around.” I contemplated the idea that Kieran thought love would happen in a moment, as if I could fall in love with Greg or Lawrence from one night or after a single conversation.
I didn’t think it worked that way. Falling in love with Kieran had been a slow build. Maybe he thought love existed in the space between meeting and making love, that passion was the same as love, and just as volatile.
His hands went to his pockets. “Was Greg here? Did you leave early to meet him?”
The complexity of that question made my head hurt. “You seem fixated on me sleeping with someone.”
“I want you to be happy.”
“Is that why you sleep with random women who throw themselves at you?”
Kieran frowned. “We’ve been over this. It’s not random.”
“Did you ever think of being not random with me?” I asked. Triple bonus points for me being extra bold and brash this morning.
A long, very long, pause.
I swallowed and waited, refusing to be the first to break the silence.
He stared at me hard, perhaps weighing if the comment had been a joke or not. “You should sleep with the man you’re in love with.”
Another knife to the heart. He didn’t see it. “You have rules about nothing, but you have a rule about that?”
The color drained from his face. “I don’t deserve you.”
It sounded like an excuse to me. “According to a reliable source, you’re wild in bed.”
He furrowed his brows. “A reliable source? That’s nonsense. No one talks about that, and no one talks like that.”
I stepped close to him. He was completely unaware of what people thought of him or how often people liked to discuss him and think about him. Maybe he didn’t care. “Lots of women talk about sleeping with you. Maybe you can’t take this too far, but what do you think about doing other stuff?”
He studied my face. “I cannot. You’re a treasure. You deserve something I cannot give you, and you deserve to have something that I’ve never been able to do.”
He couldn’t see me in that light. Contemplating exactly why made my stomach twist painfully. “Then Lawrence. Or Greg. Or David. One of them will do it.”
That got a fierce reaction. His face got red, and he advanced on me. He took my upper arms firmly and pulled me against him. “You’re playing with me. You want me to get upset, because you know I care for you, and I wouldn’t want to see you carelessly with another man. Do you know how terrible a man can be with a woman? He won’t care for you. He’ll say what he needs to say to get you naked and in his bed. Then he’ll hold you down and fuck you and not care about you after.”
Or he could hold me down and do those things and I’d welcome it. Embrace it. “If you don’t want me, why do you care who else wants me?”
He released me and took a step away. “You don’t know what I feel. You know that I can’t. I’ve told you that before. But you seem unwilling to understand that I care, and it’s because I care that I can’t.”
“If you can’t, then someone else will. They’ll have to. I won’t die a virgin,” I taunted him, pushing for another reaction. Even his hands on me for those precious seconds had lit a fire inside me, and I wanted that sensation again, the heat and the intensity of it.
His eyes flashed with blistering passion. He reached for my shoulders and drew me to him and kissed me. His fingers speared into the back of my hair. A soft press of his lips to mine, then he tilted my head, giving him better access, and delved his tongue deep inside.
Fireworks, heat, and a thousand emotions spiraled through me. I was living an amazing moment that I didn’t want to end. I’d craved this attention from him and had let my jealousy of other women he’d touched and kissed simmer inside me.
I’d imagined how it would feel to kiss him, but I never could’ve imagined this.
This was too good, amazing and powerful, rocking me to my core. The entire orchestra struck up and played. He held on to me, pressing his hard, strong body to mine, tangling his fingers in my hair. I pressed against him, into his lean hardness, moving against him and relishing the friction between our bodies.
I got to work on the buttons of his shirt. He didn’t stop me. I had the shirt open in under twenty seconds. My heart hammered. He’d come to his senses and stop me. At any moment, he’d still my hands, and I wouldn’t get to have any more.
I needed more. If I only had this moment, this would never be enough.
Even in my tank top and shorts, heat spun through me. I rose on my toes to press my lips harder to his.
He slid his fingers underneath the hemline my tank top and lifted, peeling my shirt over my head. I drew away from him as unexpected shyness battered me.
I’d had a boyfriend in high school. We did a lot of over-the-clothes stuff, but I remember it being sweaty and gross. He’d panted at me. Panted. That’d been disgusting.
But this… Kieran’s mouth brushed against mine, soft yet firm, and there was no sweat, only the lightest scrape of his shadow beard against my face. His hands were on my hips, holding me against him, putting the hard lines of his body against the soft curves of mine.
“Why did you pull away? Do you want me to stop?” He skimmed his lips against my cheek, whispering the words.
I wanted him endlessly. “I’m nervous,” I said, owing him the truth.
With another man, I might’ve feigned experience in these matters. I’d dressed him before, and, practically speaking, undressing him was a simple matter of doing the reverse. Except the hum of anticipation and the buzzing in my head fogged my thoughts, and the heat pulsing through me sharpened my awareness that this was nothing like putting on his clothes before a concert.
After that, I fumbled with my hands. I didn’t know if he’d like my hands on his shoulders or his chest. The weight and impact of this moment deserved consideration.
Thinking too much… This must be a turnoff to him. I’d seen the women he’d had sex with. They were sophisticated and worldly. They probably did things with their hips and hands and mouths I couldn’t even imagine.
“I don’t want you to be nervous. I won’t hurt you. Not today, not ever.”
He shrugged out of his white button-down, and draped it over my shoulders, then he hooked his thumbs in the sides of my shorts and slid them down to the floor.
I stood with his shirt around me, covering me, smelling of him, of his masculine scent, the satiny fabric skimming my skin. I put my hands into the sleeves, and he cuffed them to my wrists.
He didn’t button the shirt, but it floated across the front of me, the brushing fabric pebbling my nipples. After leading me to my bed, he pushed on my shoulders. He could be in control in any situation. Comfortable anywhere.
“Sit. Just sit for me.”
I couldn’t do anything but obey him. Without his shirt, I had a view of his bronzed skin and cut muscles and the flatness of his stomach leading down…down. His natural confidence rolled off him, sexy beyond anything I’d experienced. He moved behind me, and I tense
d.
He pressed a kiss to the top of my shoulder. “Relax. Let me love you. Don’t let your nerves take over. Everything you’re doing turns me on. Every little breath, every careful movement, even the way you keep watching me is making me hot. All that’s keeping me from ravaging you is knowing that it’s you, and you deserve more, much more.”
Love me. He wanted to love me. In this sense, the word was a verb that meant everything sexual, but I closed my eyes and let myself believe that he loved me as much as I did him.
He gathered my hair in his hands and lifted it, then kissed my neck. Desperation for him rose inside me, bringing with it a fierce rush of affection. My body clutched with yearning. I leaned into his body, giving him my trust and my love.
I wanted his hands and mouth everywhere. He folded the collar of the shirt down and kissed around my collarbone. The fabric moved lower, and his lips brushed my shoulder. His hands were strong, guiding me. He did the same to my other shoulder and then he shifted me again, laying me back on my pillows, spreading my hair around me. His gaze moved from my hair to my face, and I read awe and pleasure in his eyes. He liked what he saw, and that sent a jolt of excitement through me.
“Is this okay?” he asked.
I nodded. Sudden tears rose in my eyes, and they had everything to do with him and how much I loved him. I might never have this again. I’d caught his eye and his interest for now. It wouldn’t last. Kieran’s attention flew to new music, new endeavors, and new women after days or weeks.
I wouldn’t ask what had changed and what had made him do this. If he thought about it too much, he might stop, and I’d implode from the emotions rushing around inside me.
He pulled away one side of his shirt and pressed a kiss to the side of my breast, pinching my nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Then his mouth closed over the hardened peak, licking and sucking, and mind-numbing pleasure careened through me.
Tugging aside the other half of the shirt, he kissed his way to my other nipple, and his hand closed over my breast. Every muscle in my body flexed in awareness, and I stretched and let my body melt into the mattress.
The Maestro Page 10