The floorboards squeaked above her, and Michael’s heavy footfalls echoed through the house. A delicious shiver ran down her spine. She had spent the night curled into him in her tiny bed. He had wrapped his arms around her, and she’d fallen asleep surrounded by his strength and intoxicating scent of lemongrass and spearmint.
She didn’t have to turn around to know he was behind her. Michael ran a finger across her back and gathered her hair into his hand.
She continued playing the piano, switching from scales to a four-octave arpeggio. Michael nudged her forward and lowered himself behind her on the bench. She arched into his solid strength as her fingers worked their way up and down the keys.
He kissed the sensitive skin behind her ear. “I thought I was dreaming when I heard the piano.”
Em craned her head back, and Michael captured her mouth in a lazy kiss. His powerful legs tightened around her. He dropped his hands to her thighs and dragged his fingertips from her knees to the space between her legs. He caressed her inner thigh, making slow circles with his thumbs.
“These pajama shorts are going to be the death of me,” he said, voice low and husky from sleep.
She wriggled forward but was unable to keep the smile out of her voice. “You’re ruining my form.”
He straightened up. “That’s right,” he answered. “Feet firmly on the ground. Wrists up. Don’t let the elbows bounce.”
He exaggerated each movement with a mock-serious expression.
“You remember,” she said, squealing as he gathered her into his lap.
He kissed the scar on her ring finger. “I remember everything. And I meant what I said, Em. I don’t think the accident took your gift away.”
She searched his face. “Even if I can still play like I used to—and I’m not saying I can. I still need to know what happened that night. I need to know for my dad. I need to know for myself. I need everyone in Langley Park to know I didn’t mean to let them down.”
Michael’s brow furrowed. “You didn’t let anyone down. And any person that gives you shit for leaving never cared about you to begin with.”
She rested her head in the crook of his neck. She knew he was right, but a nagging voice inside her head needed the world to know she didn’t purposefully throw away her future.
He pressed a kiss to her temple. “We’re going to figure this out. I promise. Even if it’s the last thing I do on this earth, we’re going to get some answers.
Michael cradled her in his arms. He took her hand and laced his fingers with hers. She gazed down at the jagged mark and released an audible sigh. It almost seemed hard to believe a tiny bit of scar tissue had dictated the last twelve years of her life.
Michael ran his thumb across the raised skin. “I have an idea,” he said, releasing her hand and helping her to her feet. “But you have to keep those shorts on.”
Em plopped down on the futon in Michael’s carriage house. “This is not what I thought you were alluding to.”
Michael opened his laptop and pressed a few keys. “I think you’re going to like this,” he said tossing her a wry grin.
His remix of Chopin’s Nocturne 20 streamed out of two small speakers on his desk. Her gaze traveled to the headphones. Her body ignited with desire remembering how she came in his lap, his music pumping in her ears, brightening every dark corner of her mind.
She leaned into the futon and closed her eyes. She smiled when she smelled Michael’s lemongrass spearmint scent. He planted whisper soft kisses to each corner of her mouth.
“You always smell so good,” she sighed. “What is that?”
He laughed and tangled his hand in her hair, wrapping the long auburn strands through his fingers. “It’s my mom.”
Em opened her eyes. “Your mom?”
He chuckled, and something sentimental warmed his expression. “She loved this scent. She always bought the organic lemongrass spearmint clothes detergent and the shampoo from Pete’s Organic Grocery in the town center.”
Em closed her eyes and inhaled. Thoughts of a pre-teen Michael sitting on her bedroom floor, all long legs and elbows, tapping out a melody as she practiced violin filled her mind. His easy presence and familiar scent added a layer of familiarity to her music, a peaceful texture that coated each note.
She pressed her lips to his but froze when he set something solid in her lap. She opened her eyes and narrowed her gaze. It was a violin. But not a traditional violin like her Polly. This thing looked like something out of a science fiction movie. Like a regular violin, it had four strings, a chin rest and pegs at the top for tuning. But this violin was completely clear with little sockets on the side and an on and off switch.
Em held up the odd-looking instrument.
“It’s an electric violin,” Michael said with a wide grin.
“I figured that much,” she answered, looking the instrument up and down. If Cinderella needed a violin to match her glass slippers, this was it.
“It’s made of acrylic, and it’s got LED lights built in.”
Michael plucked a string, and a flurry of lights flickered inside the instrument.
It was hard not to get excited when Michael emanated such raw joy.
“What are you doing with it?” she asked.
“I’ve been messing around with it, playing with different sounds. There are lots of artists playing electric violins—especially ones that are crossing over into techno.”
She lifted the instrument into position. Despite it looking more like an ice carving of a violin than an actual instrument, the chin rest felt sturdy and her fingers relaxed against the strings.
He slid the headphones over her ears and plugged them into the jack in the side of the violin. He met her gaze with smiling eyes. “Try it. You might be surprised.”
Em wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know,” she answered, staring down at the alien instrument. She was a classically trained violinist, and this glowing mass of clear acrylic looked like something from a Sci-Fi flick.
Michael held out the bow. “Come on, Em. What would it hurt?”
She took the bow, and her lips curved into a smirk. “At least the bow doesn’t light up.”
Michael returned her smirk and tilted his head toward the violin like a challenge.
She closed her eyes and drew the bow across the strings. “Oh my gosh,” she exclaimed, her eyes popping open.
“Not bad, right?” Michael said.
“It’s different, but no, not bad at all.”
He removed her headphones and plugged the violin into a speaker. “Play something simple. I want to show you something.”
“Simple, huh,” Em said, narrowing her eyes.
“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” burst from the speakers.
Michael laughed and shook his head. “What do you think of this?” he asked, pressing a few keys on his laptop.
Em gasped as the music amplified. It sounded like there were twenty other violins playing along with her. She repeated the child’s tune over and over, enchanted with the glowing instrument as Michael manipulated the sound with different effects.
She had lost count of how many times she’d played the tune when Michael turned to her. His playful tone was gone, and his green eyes darkened to a smoky sage. “Play something real. Play Chopin’s Nocturne 20 for me.” He pressed a few keys on his laptop and his electronic version of the song burst from the speakers.
Em listened to the dreamy composition grow in complexity as the techno elements complemented Chopin’s haunting tune. Her mind emptied of thoughts and worries. Her father, the impending sale of her childhood home, her injury, and her pain all evaporated like drops of rain kissed by sunlight.
She drew the bow across the strings, but what came out wasn’t what Chopin composed. Like a silversmith turning precious metals into works of art, she played the tune, bending and shaping it into something new.
Then the music stopped. Em blinked once, then twice. She had drifted to that place where her mind hove
red between this world and the next.
“Were you recording that?”
His green eyes shined with wonder and adoration. “Yeah,” he replied.
A pang of anxiety surged through her chest. “It’s just for us, okay. I don’t want anyone else hearing that.”
“I wouldn’t share it with anyone without checking with you,” he said, taking the violin out of her hands and setting it on the desk. “Do you want me to play it back for you?”
She nodded. She didn’t trust her voice. As a musician, she had never deviated from the notes written on the page. Like a trained soldier, she followed every marking, every notation. She had spent all of her childhood playing the piano and the violin exactly as the arrangement demanded. She had never even dreamed of putting her mark on something as timeless as Chopin’s piece.
Michael sat down at the desk and focused on his laptop. The screen was filled with jagged and arcing lines, and his fingers moved rapidly between the keys and the mousepad. “I’m just messing with the reverb and compression.”
He tapped one last key and swiveled the chair around. The remix filled the air as her violin riff twisted and turned its way through the explosion of sound like live wires leaping and sparking.
She met Michael’s gaze. She needed the connection, needed to keep herself grounded in this moment.
“This is you, Em,” he said.
She closed her eyes. The music was everywhere, in her, around her. Michael’s warm hands cupped her face, and she inhaled his scent. Only two things existed in her world: Michael and music. He kissed her, and the contact sent pulsing heat to her core.
She grabbed his shirt and wrapped the soft cotton around her fingers. The hard bumps of chiseled abs pressed against her knuckles. She released the fabric and pressed her hands against his bare skin.
Michael pulled off his T-shirt, revealing a hard torso cut with clean, muscular lines. A dusting of dark auburn hair trailed from his navel down to a thick bulge in his pants. Em pulled back a fraction, her greedy gaze devouring each inch of his chiseled body. It was no wonder the punching bag in the corner looked beat to hell. She pictured Michael, sweat-slick, punching and jabbing until his muscles reached the edge of exhaustion. She ran her fingers down his torso, memorizing each inch of muscle wrapped in taut, smooth skin.
Michael pressed her hand to his heart. “I never let you go, Em. You’ve always been here. You’ll always be here.” His grip tightened and his heartbeat quickened beneath her touch, syncing with the thrum of the music.
She swallowed hard. He had lived in her heart, too. She’d tried to cut him out, tried to chain off the part of her that would always be his. But it was always there, no matter how hard she tried to fight it. Her whirling winds of anger and resentment couldn’t destroy the place where Michael had always lived in her heart.
He released her hands and lifted her into his arms. He dropped back into the chair, and she straddled him like she had on Halloween. But she didn’t want to control him, and she didn’t want to use him. Now her body ached for his touch. It whimpered with want when he lifted his lips from her skin for even a fraction of a second.
The music bathed them in sound and vibration, and Em pressed her core against him. Animal arousal coursed through her veins, and Michael released a low, raw growl.
“We’re better together,” she whispered, leaning back and twisting out of her tank top.
He finished the job, pulling off her pajama shorts. “Fuck, yes we are.”
Michael shifted in the chair and yanked down his pants in one swift move, exposing his cock, heavy and glistening with the seed of his desire. She sank on to him, and her wet heat welcomed his hard shaft. He stretched her, inch by delicious inch, and she released a ragged gasp.
“Do you feel it?” he breathed, gripping the smooth flesh of her ass, guiding her body in strong, measured thrusts.
She felt everything: the demanding pulse of the music, her body surging with desire, his hard length filling her completely. The chair creaked and moaned as she gripped his shoulders and allowed his body to set a punishing pace. Sweat trailed down the space between her breasts, and he licked the moisture. She watched his tongue, mesmerized and drunk on lust.
He massaged her swollen clit in perfect rhythmic circles. Em threw her head back, lost in a tidal wave of sensation. He gripped her ass with a lion’s ferocity and pressed a deft finger between her buttocks, massaging the sensitive place no man had ever touched before.
He worked her body, harder and deeper. His ragged breaths came in hot beats between kisses. “Mary Michelle, you are so fucking sweet and so fucking tight.”
Her name, dripping off his lips, sounded so hot and so dirty. She couldn’t hold back and met her release, eyelids fluttering, her body no longer her own.
She belonged to Michael. She belonged to the music. Their music. The notes poured through her like a dam breaking loose. He joined her within seconds, squeezing her ass with a carnal force that would surely leave a mark.
Em dropped her head to Michael’s shoulder. Tremors of her orgasm rippled through her body like warm rain, leaving her loose and sated. He released his grip on her ass and the tender flesh ached with a delicious burn teetering on the tantalizing precipice of where pleasure met pain.
“Em,” Michael breathed into her ear as his fingertips painted mindless shapes on the small of her back. “I missed you. I missed you so much.”
She met his gaze. He must have seen the truth in her eyes because the crooked smile he gave her sent sparks ricocheting the length of her spine.
He leaned in. “Listen. Just listen.”
The remix had been playing on a nonstop loop. The song sounded so familiar now that she couldn’t picture a time where this music wasn’t a part of her soul.
“This is good, Em. It’s not like anything I’ve ever heard. We could do this. We could make music together.”
She closed her eyes, letting the idea take root when a rush of frigid air washed over her naked body in an icy gust.
20
Em gasped and arched into Michael as something cold and wet nudged her thigh. She looked down and let out a relieved sigh. “Cody, boy! Did you get lonely?” she asked, greeting the canine intruder and scratching between his ears.
Michael chuckled. “I can promise you, Cody MacCarron is the least lonely dog in Langley Park. Kate Fisher walks him almost every day. And she brings you treats, doesn’t she old boy?” He patted the dog’s protruding belly.
Em and Michael untangled their bodies, and Cody pranced around the room. Michael adjusted his pants and looked at his watch. “Christ, it’s past six o’clock. Let me put Cody back in the house. Kate must have left his dog door open.”
Em finished dressing. “I’ll go with you. I haven’t been inside your house once since I got back.”
Michael’s shoulders tensed as he pulled his T-shirt over his head.
“What is it?”
“The house isn’t in great shape.”
She took his hand. “You know I don’t care about that.”
Sensing it was time to go, Cody scurried through the carriage house doggy door and bolted toward the main house. Michael tightened his grip on her hand as they neared the front door.
Michael’s American Foursquare was nearly a carbon copy of hers except instead of red brick, his was a muted lemon yellow color. As a girl, she had known it like the back of her hand. Mrs. MacCarron always kept sweets hidden away in a drawer under the dishtowels. She and Michael would tiptoe their way into the kitchen, slide the drawer open, and swipe the treats like cat burglars on a big-time heist. She smiled as the memory grew warm in her chest. Mrs. MacCarron must have known what they were up to. Knowing her, she probably left the sweets there on purpose.
She entered the foyer and stopped in her tracks. Just like in her home, the staircase was situated directly in front of the foyer. Except, the staircase in the MacCarron house was wrecked. The handrail was missing, and slats of espresso-stained woo
d that once served as the steps sat in a pile. Someone must have come through and tried to fix the missing stairs, but they’d used regular plywood giving the structure a misshapen quality like a child’s art project.
“What happened to the staircase? Did you do this?” Em asked, spotting the espresso posts resting against the wall.
“No, this was all my dad.”
“Why did he do this? Was he trying to repair something?”
Michael didn’t answer. He walked past her and into the kitchen. A low mechanical hum pulsed for a few seconds, and Cody let out a high-pitched whine. Doggy dinnertime.
Em crouched down and took a closer look at the slats. The boards were sharp and ragged as if someone used a crowbar to yank them out of place.
Michael came out of the kitchen and crossed his arms. “I told you the place was a mess.”
“This isn’t a mess. This is…”
“Insanity?” he offered.
She met his gaze but didn’t take the bait. She remained quiet, giving him space to talk.
“Want to sit?” Michael asked and tilted his head toward the living room.
She followed him to the love seat.
“I knew something was off with my dad after my mom passed away. He’d forget little things, a meeting here, a filing deadline there. I told him he needed to hire a legal secretary. But you know my dad, he liked doing it all himself. He prided himself on being self-sufficient.”
Michael wrapped his arm around her and pulled her in close. She rested her head against his chest, feeling his throat constrict as he swallowed.
“He didn’t come into the office one day. I called the house, but he didn’t pick up. I had to cover all of his meetings as well as my own. So, I wasn’t able to stop by the house until late. When I got here, I walked into this,” he said, his gaze locked on the staircase.
“What was he doing?”
Michael’s embrace tightened. “He was looking for my mom. He thought she was trapped under the stairs. I walked in, and he looked so relieved to see me. He said, ‘Michael, we have to help mom. She’s been calling out to me all day. She’s stuck under the staircase.’”
The Complete Langley Park Series (Books 1-5) Page 40