A Reckless Note (Brilliance Trilogy Book 1)

by Lisa Renee Jones

  It’s barely a moment, and I’m inside with him, and he’s punched a code into the panel and then pulls me close, holding his jacket around me. “I like you in my jacket.”

  There’s a rough quality to his voice, a warmth beneath the rasp. “I like you in your jacket.”

  “I think I’ll like us both better without it tonight.”

  “Me, too,” I whisper because my voice is apparently as lost in this man as the rest of me.

  His dark lashes lower, sweeping away his expression, but not before I see a hint of something I cannot name, something he does not want me to see.

  Already the elevator halts, the doors opening. Kace pushes off the wall he’s using to hold us both up and tangles his fingers with my fingers. We step off the elevator, only a few feet from a double-arched red door. “The entire floor is mine,” he says, punching in a code to a panel on the wall. “Originally the elevator opened into my apartment, but I wanted an extra level of security.”

  “And a red door is a symbol of protection.”

  “And luck,” he says.

  “But anyone with your skill doesn’t believe in luck. They believe in hard work, hours and hours of hard work, repeating over and over.”

  “I believe in both.” He opens the door and reaches inside, a glow of lights illuminating the once dark space, but he doesn’t enter. He settles back into his place in that hallway with me. And when his eyes meet mine, anticipation burns between us. He’s not touching me and yet, I feel him in every part of me, in ways I didn’t know another human could affect me. “Welcome to my home, Aria Alard,” he says, his voice a silky seduction that strokes every nerve ending that I own.

  He motions me forward and for reasons I don’t understand, I read his need for me to choose to enter, for me to choose to be here as if I haven’t already. Or maybe it’s not his need at all. Maybe it’s my need and this man, this virtual stranger, senses that in me. And if he does, he’s right. All my life has been about decisions others have made for me. I need to be in control of my life. I walk into the apartment, onto dark hardwood and directly into a foyer where a dozen teal teardrop lights dangle from the ceiling. A few feet ahead of me is a staircase.

  The door shuts behind me and nerves explode in my belly. Kace steps behind me and removes my coat—his coat—and I turn to watch him hang it on a coatrack. The minute it’s dealt with, his attention is fully on me, his expression unreadable, but his eyes—I cannot see the blue of his eyes for the fire. With a predatory energy about him that is wholly man and sex, he closes the space between us, but he doesn’t grab me and rip my clothes, though he makes me wish he’d do just that. But that is not who this man is, at least, not in this moment. In this moment, he is control and power, two things that ooze from him as surely as does his desire.

  Instead, his fingers twine with mine in what has too easily and quickly become a familiar and welcome gesture. It could be considered almost tender, though there’s nothing tender in what brews between us in the heat of this night, nor is tender what I crave. Tender is sweet. Tender is sheltered. Tender is all I have ever known and all I wish to escape. I don’t overthink why that is, though I might if I had time. I don’t have time. He leads me down the ten steel steps and straight into an open room wrapped in floor-to-ceiling windows where an eternal dark sky and ocean seem to surround us now. The living area is to the right of the space, two steps leading to the seating area with a large steel gray high-backed couch and two matching chairs, a luxurious gray rug beneath them all, a chandelier of a violin dangling above a round gray marble table. That chandelier is stunning, while the twinkling dots of color from the city lights brighten the night sky and the miles of ocean with life. What brightens me though, what calls me, is the grand piano to the right of the living area, and the violin displayed on a stand beside it.

  I suck in a breath and Kace releases my hand as if he’s telling me that I’m free to follow the burn in my belly. And so, I do. I close the space between me and it, stopping in front of the violin, a work of art, the shiny wood a perfect shade of brown flecked with black. And when Kace steps to my side, I whisper, “It’s a Stradivarius,” incredulous that I am actually standing here with a piece of my history, with a piece of my family.

  “It is,” he agrees. “My favorite of the three I own. The other two are locked in a vault. Touch it if you wish. Pick it up and hold it.”

  Yes to all the things he has just suggested. I want to pick it up and hold it but I do not. I resist out of sheer conditioning, taught to run from my past, and from anyone who could connect me to that past. And yet here I am, with “the” Kace August and not one, but three Stradivarius violins, within reach.

  Kace steps behind me, the warmth of his body sinking into mine before he even touches me. But he does touch me. The instant his hands settle on my waist, I lean into him, welcoming the power of his body against mine. He’s strong, confident, a man who knows his place in this world and I envy this of him. He nuzzles my neck, goosebumps lifting on my nape. “It’s calling you,” he says, his lips brushing my ear, breath a warm fan on my neck. “I can feel it. You want to know if it’s real.”

  I’m suddenly not sure if he’s talking about the violin, but I turn to face him, his touch rotating with me. My hands settle on his upper arms, muscles flexing beneath my palms. “Do you really want to know?”

  His hand slides under my hair and settles warmly on my neck, his touch dragging my mouth close to his. “Oh yes,” he murmurs, his breath a warm caress on my cheek. “I’ve learned in life that the façade of truth destroys more than outright lies.”

  Never have any words hit me deeper, harder, never have they been more real.

  “I stayed away from you for reasons that haven’t changed. I’m not a forever guy. I’m not good for you.”

  I almost laugh with the truth in those words. I don’t know what he expects from me, but he’s right. He is everything I’ve been warned against which, if I’m honest, only makes me want him more but there is more to this story.

  “Nor am I good for you,” I say. “And I, too, have learned a few lessons, like forever doesn’t even exist. And even if it did, it’s too long.”

  He pulls back, surprise etched on his handsome face, and something else—there is always something else with Kace that I cannot quite read. I don’t want to read it, either. I don’t want to talk. I push to my toes and dare to be bold when nothing in my life has been bold but death. I don’t want to think about death tonight. I press my lips to his.

  For a moment, the briefest of moments, he is stiff, and then there is a low, rough groan that escapes his lips and vibrates against my lips. His tongue licks into my mouth in a sizzling slide that has me moaning. He slants his mouth over mine, deepening the connection, and he kisses me as I have never been kissed. He kisses me as if he is claiming me as if I really am his. And tonight, I want to be. Tonight, I so want to be, but his words come back to me, they stab at me.

  I’ve learned in life that the façade of truth destroys more than outright lies.

  I don’t need another lie in my life. I tear my mouth from his. “I need you to know that I do want to see your violins. Your Stradivarius. I have a personal reason. But that is not why I’m here now.”

  “Why are you here, then?”

  “Because of you. Because I need to feel what you make me feel.”

  “What do I make you feel, Aria?”

  “Free. And alive.”

  He doesn’t pull back but he doesn’t move. His lips linger above mine, his body close, his breath warm and his scent spicy. Seconds tick by in which I swear I can feel him in every part of me and I crave his kiss. A kiss that has yet to come and I begin to wonder if it will.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  He does kiss me. God, how he kisses me.

  His mouth slants over mine, and I swear I feel the deep stroke of his tongue in every part of my body. My nipples pucker. My sex clenches. My body aches. Kace has
that power. He kisses me and I melt, as I do now, sinking into the hard lines of his perfect body. No other man has ever affected me this completely, but he does. He owns me with just a kiss, but then, Kace is like no other man I’ve ever known. His tongue against my tongue seduces, demands—and while there was always a reserve to me in the past, a warning playing in my head, there is no part of me that holds back with Kace. I kiss him with abandon, with passion. I kiss him with my own demand, and then he tears his mouth from mine and backs me up until I’m pressed against his grand piano. “What are you doing to me, woman?” he demands, once again.

  “This,” I say, pressing my hands under his T-shirt.

  In reply, he tugs the shirt over his head and tosses it aside. “Is that what you want?”

  “Yes,” I say with no hesitation, my hand caressing the musical notes on his arm, tattoos that say he claims who he is, he embraces who he is. I want this man. I give myself permission to own my desires the way he owns me just by being in the same room as me. And I’m not afraid of that. Not here. Not now. Not this night.

  He grips the piano behind me, “Do you know what I want, Aria?”

  There’s an edge to him again now, a dark edge that shouldn’t appeal to me, but it does, it so does. I ask the question he’s demanded. “What do you want, Kace?”

  “Too much,” he says. “Too much, Aria.”

  He means it. It’s in this moment that I understand the hot and cold I’ve experienced with this man is far more than I realized. He wants me. He doesn’t want to want me. He doesn’t believe I should be here. My defenses flare and my hand presses to his bare chest. “Why am I here then? You don’t want me here.”

  “I want you, Aria. Very much. Too much. That’s the point.”

  “But you don’t want me here.”

  He cups my face and stares down at me, the hardness, somehow tender. “I do very much want you here.”

  “You’re confusing me.”

  “The feeling is mutual, baby,” he says, his voice thick with emotion that I don’t understand, that I’m not sure I’ll ever understand. But it moves me. He moves me and I reach up and cup his hand on my face.

  “What are we doing, Kace?” I whisper.

  He leans in and brushes his lips over my lips, a feather-light seduction that trembles through me. “This.” His mouth closes down on mine and his tongue licks past my teeth, a long, deep stroke that is seduction and power, passion, and dominance. I’m panting when his lips part from mine, linger there, his finger stroking my cheek.

  “You, woman,” he murmurs, a hint of torment in his voice. “You are going to be my undoing.”

  I don’t know what that means, and I don’t have time to analyze it anyway. Not when he reaches up and catches the zipper at the front of my dress, and heat pools low in my belly, every inch of me alive. I am alive with this man, a ball of nerves and desire like I have never known. Slowly, so very slowly, he lowers it, but his gaze is locked with my gaze. The zipper slides past my belly and halts at the top of my thighs.

  His hands settle at my waist, and he leans in and kisses me. I can taste that dark edge on his tongue again, I can taste the demand, the absolute control. In this moment, I remain acutely aware of how much that control arouses me, how much it calls to me.

  His lips leave mine, the hunger in his stare ravenous, but I have this sense that this is still about control to him—he allows me to see this. His control is a need, an absolute need that I understand. It’s the kind of need that we aren’t born with. It’s created. I find myself in contradiction to what I need, in wanting to give him what he wants. I am in fact wet and trembling with the idea of giving him the control.

  But that means trust, the kind of trust that has left me alone and that I give no one.

  And yet I am here with him. Haven’t I already made the decision to trust him, not with my secrets, but with my body?

  His hands go to my shoulders, sliding under my dress, scooting the straps halfway down my arms. He captures me with the material, holds me with one hand, but I’m not thinking about being held captive. I’m thinking about his lips lingering above mine again, his breath a warm tease that promises a taste that does not come. He doesn’t kiss me. I want him to kiss me, I want it so badly that it hurts.

  But still, he doesn’t.

  He pulls back, his gaze lowering to the swell of my breasts, his fingers stroking the sensitive skin just above the black lace of my bra, my nipples puckering beneath the silk. His gaze lifts to mine and he catches the front clasp of my bra. He shoves aside the cups, his attention returning to my breasts, and my lashes lower with the heat of his inspection, a wave of unexpected shyness overtaking me. He has this way of making me feel owned and it’s intense, so very intense.

  My lashes lift and he’s looking at me and I’m looking at him, this throb of energy between us, that almost lives, breathes, its own life. “You’re beautiful,” he says softly, his fingers gently teasing my nipples. Sensations ripple through me, and my lashes lower again. He tugs me hard against him, his cheek pressing against my cheek, his lips at my ear as he says, “So damn beautiful.”

  That throb between us might be breathing, but I can’t breathe waiting for what comes next, still bound by my dress and his hands, incapable of touching him, of anything but what he so chooses. Suddenly, he shifts us and turns me, dragging my dress and bra down my shoulders, and he doesn’t stop there. My dress and panties pool at my feet, and his arm wraps my waist as he lifts me and kicks away the material. I’m now in nothing but my thigh highs and heels. And when he sets me down, I catch my weight with my hands, the shiny slick surface of the piano cool beneath my palms. He’s hot and hard behind me, the thick line of his cock pressed to my backside.

  I’m back to the understanding that he is in control.

  On some level, I know that’s why I’m holding onto this piano not him. It’s back to why his control arouses me and I force myself to be honest, to own my decisions. The truth is, I’ve spent my entire life clinging to my control. I need an escape that just lets me stop, just lets me enjoy a moment, a night. That need was hidden behind a locked door. Another truth: Kace opened that locked door and I can’t seem to shut it again.

  His hands find my breasts, his lips my neck, and then they’re at my ear again. “I want you here,” he repeats. “I want says it all.”

  “I want to touch you.”

  “And you will. Just not yet.” His hands, those talented, gifted hands, begin traveling my body: my arms, my hips, the curves of my breasts. Then he is cupping one of my breasts and pinching my nipple, and not gently. I gasp with the bittersweet ache that clenches my sex. My head tilts backward, and he kisses my neck again, cupping my face and tilting my mouth to his mouth, kissing me, all soft and seductive until he nips my lip. I yelp and his tongue strokes away the pinch even as his fingers tug my nipple—both nipples, and not gently—the devil incarnate who offers pain that is somehow pleasure.

  “Kace,” I pant out, and as if that breaking moment is what he’s waiting for, his hands are gone, planted on the piano next to mine.

  Desperate to touch him, I start to turn, but he catches my hands with his. “Don’t move,” he orders softly.

  Adrenaline surges through me with the command that is new to me. I’ve been ordered around by family, by my brother, but never by a man, never like this. I’d never allowed such a thing and yet my thighs are slick and my breasts heavy.

  “Aria?” he presses as if he’s asked a question. “Don’t move. Understand?”

  It is a question. He’s demanding and asking, and I barely understand this contradiction, but it is somehow perfect. It emboldens me. I’ve been sheltered and I resist crawling back into my hole. I’m not here to live in that hole. I crave this man and all he offers.

  “Yes,” I say, but I feel my own demand as well, and it fires my tongue. “I heard you. Don’t move. Don’t touch. Later. Not too much later, Kace.”

  He lau
ghs, low, rough, sexy, the sound sliding through me and settling hard in my sex. I am even wetter now, the ache deeper, the certainty that touching him will answer my body’s call. But it is he who touches me. His fingers trail down my sides and over my hips before he cups my backside and then gives one side a smack. I yelp and arch into the touch, but the sting is forgotten when he steps to my side, one hand still holding my backside, the other resting on my belly, fingers low, caressing just above my sex.

  He strokes my clit and I gasp as he begins to explore my body. “So damn wet.” He sinks two fingers inside me and presses his lips to my ear. “Remember that word, want? I’ve wanted you like this since we met.”

  I can’t speak, not with his fingers inside me. I pant instead, my chin lowering with the sensations rippling through me. He squeezes my backside, his teeth scraping my neck as he asks, “Do you want my tongue to replace my fingers? Or would you rather have it on your nipple?”

  I moan, I can’t help it. His touch, the way his fingers explore me, stretch me. His words. His voice. There is a swell in my sex, a promise of a long, ached-for orgasm by someone other than me—it has been so long. I fight it. I do, but he cups my face, claims my mouth, and his fingers—God, his fingers. I can’t hold back. My body jerks and I shatter. Kace reacts. He turns me into him, deepens the kiss, and strokes me all the way through the quake of my body.

  When it ends as sharply as it came over me, I gasp with just how intense my orgasm was, and he nips my lip and declares, “I’m going to fuck you now.”

  “Yes. Please.” It’s all I can say. It’s all I need. I reach for his pants, and I don’t know when, but they are unzipped, he already has on a condom.

  “Even polite when you want to fuck,” he says. “I like it.”