That’s all it took to make Samantha mine.
She knows we’re not related, but she thinks I was friends with her father. I could use that line with the reporter, but it sounds like she’s done her homework.
How deep has she been digging?
“I knew her father,” I say, choosing my words with care. I didn’t know him as a friend, but I knew who he was. And I knew everything about him. “He passed without someone to care for her. I felt it was my civic responsibility to step in.”
“Civic responsibility,” the reporter repeats, sounding skeptical.
“That’s right.”
“The demands of raising a child prodigy are not ordinary. She has a famous violinist in his own right living nearby—you covered his expenses and pay a generous salary so she can meet him once a week. You deal with press interviews.” She gives a little smile. “Like this one.”
“It’s no problem.” This press interview is becoming a big problem.
From the smile playing at her lips, she knows it. “It’s interesting that you were unmarried and had no children of your own when you decided to take on this civic responsibility. Had you met Samantha before you became her guardian?”
The question dances perilously close to, Had you met Samantha’s father before you became her guardian? I don’t mind lying to protect Samantha’s privacy, but that might make things worse. It would be possible to confirm that there’s no record of her father and me ever being in the same room together. How much does she know?
I stand up and face the window, which overlooks acres of North property.
“We hadn’t met,” I say without turning.
She was a twelve-year-old with messy brown hair and lost brown eyes. I had been completely out of my depth. It’s a wonder she’s turned out as smart and self-sufficient as she has, but I don’t kid myself. She was mostly grown-up at age twelve.
Terrified and alone, yes. But she already knew how to survive—she’d learned that out of necessity.
Kimberly appears beside me, the sunlight bright on her pale skin. This is the kind of woman I should take to bed. The kind of woman that should make my cock hard. It’s wrong, it’s so fucking wrong, that all I can think about is Samantha’s moan.
“That’s interesting,” Kimberly says, her voice low, as if she can see inside me. What would happen if she knew the truth? If she printed the truth in an article? “That the court couldn’t find someone else to care for her. That they trusted you when you didn’t even know her.”
“The world is a stark place,” I say.
There aren’t always people who care about kids. My brothers and I learned that early. Samantha deserves more than that. She deserves all the safety and comfort I can find.
She deserves the truth too, but she’s not getting that.
Kimberly turns so that her body is between mine and the window. She faces me, her breasts brushing my chest through our clothes. “I think you have secrets, Mr. North.”
I’m not sure she’s even aware of it, the choice she’s giving me. I can kiss her. I can fuck this woman right now, and it will be enough to throw her off the scent. She may not realize it, but it’s there, shining in her eyes. She wants oblivion, and my body can give it to her.
Am I willing to do that to protect Samantha’s privacy? Hell yes.
Don’t be so fucking noble, North. You’re not protecting Samantha. You’re protecting yourself.
And it wouldn’t exactly be a hardship to have sex with a beautiful woman. Even if she’s not the one I want. Kimberly’s body sways toward me, sensing my deliberation. I catch her and keep her close, feeling her warmth. Why does she do nothing for me? No woman has done it for me. Maybe it’s more than a dry spell.
Maybe I’ve been fundamentally broken.
Except that seeing Samantha makes my blood run hot.
That’s when I decide to do it—I need to fuck this woman if only to prove that I can. If only to prove that Samantha is safe from my baser desires. I’ve always known I’m a fucked-up son of a bitch. That’s why I picked a profession that could get me killed any minute. Someone has to do the job. Might as well be me.
Then Samantha changed everything. For the first time I actually wanted to stay alive.
I never would have shackled a woman to me. Never would have had children of my own, but Samantha… she’s in a different category. The judge granted her custody to me, but from the moment he signed that piece of paper, I belonged to her.
My head lowers. I’m determined to exorcise my sexual demons with this woman who clearly wants this, who can handle it and walk away unscathed. Our lips meet. Every muscle in my body remains as hard and cold as marble. Desperation courses through my veins. How can I keep Samantha safe from this? From me?
An image of Samantha’s face flashes through my head, her eyes closed in ecstasy, a low sound of pleasure vibrating through her throat. My eyes are closed, too. That’s all I can see. I grasp the jaw of the woman I’m holding, then slide my hand to her neck. My other hand slides back to clench in her hair—something is wrong, this isn’t what her hair would feel like. I pull hard enough that she makes a soft sound of protest.
My eyes snap open. What the hell am I doing?
I take a step away from the woman. She deserves more than a man who’s imagining someone else. And Samantha deserves more than a guardian who thinks about her while fucking.
Kimberly’s breathing hard. Her hand goes to her throat, where the skin is still red from my grip. “I knew it would be intense with you. But that was—”
“A mistake,” I say, trying to soften my voice. Failing. I’m hard all over and nothing that happens in this room can fix that. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
In fact I really didn’t kiss her. Our lips were a millimeter apart before I stopped. That’s how close I came to finally finding relief, and all I feel is betrayal to Samantha.
The sensual haze slowly lifts from the reporter’s eyes, replaced with that shrewd journalistic instinct I should never have let into this house. “Because you’re seeing someone else?”
“Does it matter?”
“It might matter, if it’s something worth writing about.”
My eyes narrow. “You have an accusation? Come out and say it, Ms. Cox.”
“I’m a journalist. I only have questions.”
“I shouldn’t have kissed you because you’re here to do a story on Samantha Brooks, the prodigy, the soloist, who has incomparable talent and a hell of a bright future. You’re not here to take your clothes off for me. Unless that’s a perk that comes from Classical Notes Magazine now.”
She flinches, which makes me a true bastard. She’s done nothing wrong except be damn good at her job. It’s the only way I can get her to back off the damn story.
There is no story.
Nothing has ever happened between me and Samantha, and that can’t change. No matter how badly I want her. No matter how hard I ache for just one taste.
Chapter Four
String players, like violinists, tend to have larger brains. This is due in part to the complex motor skills and reasoning required to play the instrument.
SAMANTHA
The string vibrates on a C sharp, the note echoing in the chamber after my bow lifts.
Silence descends in slow degrees. I could be turning the page to my sheet music or tightening a string. I could be doing any number of things to continue practice, instead of sitting with my violin across my lap, the bow clutched artlessly in my fist. I have lived a thousand lives in the dramatic rise of a musical piece, feeling the intensity grow, the complexity develop. This moment in my life should have been marked by an entire orchestra, bodies moving in harmony, instruments an extension of bone and flesh.
Instead there’s only a curious quiet, so rare and therefore precious.
I feel the answering stillness in the room next door. He could be shifting pieces of paper, noiseless and precise. He could be examining numbers and tactical formation
s on the flat privacy screen, but I know he’s noticing the lack of music. We’re connected enough that I can tell he’s wondering what I’m doing.
I’m wondering the same thing.
Booted footsteps cross the gleaming parquet floor. Every aspect of this room has been designed to enhance sound, and it turns his approach into a military drum. He appears in the archway. The doors remain open every afternoon, even though my practice must disturb his work. Liam North takes his responsibilities seriously.
And I’m his responsibility.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, crouching in front of me, taking in every aspect of my body with an impersonal evergreen glance. This is the way he corrects my position—no slouching, no leaning. He treats violin practice like a drill, and I am his soldier. I must do it right, must do it again, do you want to give up? No, sir.
Mostly, mostly, I love this about him. Today I don’t.
What’s wrong? This crush on him. It’s wrong and taboo and completely unstoppable. “I don’t feel good,” I say, which isn’t entirely a lie. I don’t feel good, but I don’t feel bad either. Instead I feel… enervated. There hasn’t been room in my life for feelings before. Only music.
He studies me with the same impassive expression he would give a map. Around this corner and aha, there, through that mountain pass. Something he must traverse. “Since when?”
Since Kimberly Cox came to the house.
Since he kissed her in his office while I watched through a crack in the door. Though it would be more accurate to say she kissed him.
She stalked him through the house like a tiger over the plains.
And I followed her like a house cat, clumsy, copying.
She pressed her body against his. I heard his surprised inhale of breath, so quiet, so quiet. Heard the sound that came low in her throat. Her whole body moved in some purely feminine way, like water, so fluid. And he was a rock, solid and hard. Her hand reached between them, and he became somehow more still.
Until he grasped her wrist and pushed her away.
Something became warm inside me. Warm and new. Seventeen years old means I know what sex is about but I’ve never seen it, not that close, not with a man I looked up to like a father. Well, not exactly a father.
He may have legal custody of me, but I’ve never quite seen him as a father.
Something flashes through Liam’s dark eyes. Worry? “Is it the tour?”
“No, of course not. I’m ready for the tour.” Though ready isn’t exactly the word I would use to describe myself. Terrified and breathless, maybe. The interview also drove home how soon I’ll leave for the tour. Three months from now I’ll walk out these doors.
Three months from now everything will change.
Liam puts his hand on my forehead, the contact so sudden I make a squeak of surprise. “No fever,” he mutters, more to himself than to me. “Should I call Dr. Foster?”
“It’s probably nothing,” I say quickly, besieged by an image of the doctor making a house call. Wet, he would announce after an examination. And flushed. And clenching her thighs every time you look at her. It’s an acute case of lust, I’m afraid. Only one thing can cure it.
I can understand Liam’s surprise. When’s the last time I caught a cold?
Maybe never.
In this household bodies are treated like one of the well-oiled guns in his cabinet. Organic vegetables and grass-fed beef. We sleep on a schedule designed for optimum performance. There’s no entry in the procedure for Samantha has a crush on Liam North, the man who’s taken care of her for the last six years.
“Rest,” he says, nodding his head, decisive. “You’ll take the rest of the day off.”
“I’m sure I’ll feel better tomorrow.” Maybe once I’ve hidden under the covers, touching myself and pretending it’s him, making myself come about a thousand times.
His brows draw together. It’s a strange look on him. It takes me a minute to place it—uncertainty. He’s never looked uncertain before. “Maybe I should call the doctor.”
“God. No. Please.”
That only makes his expression more severe. “Samantha. Are you sure?”
He doesn’t wait for an answer. Two fingers tilt my chin up. His other hand holds my face up for his focus. His thumb brushes my eyebrow. My cheek. My jaw. All entirely ordinary places on a body, somehow lit by a thousand lights. There’s no reason a man can’t touch a young woman he considers his daughter, when he’s worried that she’s sick. It doesn’t mean he wants to have sex with her, never that.
Except he looks a little shaken when he’s done with his perusal, his eyes blinking as if surprised to find himself touching me, his throat working as he swallows. “You would tell me if something were wrong.”
Not a question. It’s a statement. “Yes.”
I manage not to add sir, but only barely.
When I first moved here, I called him sir like the young recruits he trained. Yes, sir. No, sir. He inspires that kind of respect. The people from his company would raise their eyebrows when they heard me say it. You run a tight ship, they would say, sounding impressed and a little intimidated.
He told me not to, but it still slips out when I’m nervous.
You’re not under my command, he muttered in a rare show of impatience, even though it feels like I am. Who else would I be under?
He’s the one who gives me orders. I’m the one who obeys. We both know who’s in charge.
It’s like he can hear the unspoken sir anyway. His jaw tightens. “Go,” he says.
He doesn’t take a step back. Instead he watches while I bend to place my violin and bow in the case and close it. I stand up, but there’s no room to stand or walk or breathe. He’s filling every square inch of the room with his broad chest and dark eyes. Logically I know that I can walk around him, that he’s waiting for me to do that, but somehow I’m standing here, one inch away from him, my small breasts almost brushing his chest when I breathe in and out.
There are foreign mercenaries and five-star generals who walk through these hallways. Large men. Muscled men, but none of them compare to Liam. There are a few sets of weights in the gym downstairs, but he doesn’t use them. You practice the way you perform. That’s what he taught me about the violin. It’s the way he approaches his work, spending hours a day in the obstacle course that takes up a few acres in back.
Soldiers ten years younger than him can’t keep up.
I know he’s a large man, but it still feels impossible to look up far enough. When I meet his gaze, awareness sparks from him to me, every place on my body that’s an inch away from his.
“Tomorrow,” he says, his voice somehow lower. “You’ll be yourself again tomorrow.”
God, I want that to be true. I’m not sure who that is anymore. The obedient girl who practices her violin for hours every afternoon? Not exactly. No matter how much he wants that to be true. Something is going to happen tonight. I’m not sure whether I’ll become more myself—or less.
His scent suffuses my lungs, my mouth. There’s hard, sterile soap and something earthy from working outside and the elusive musk that is Liam North. My lips part, as if to draw in more of him. His eyes darken to deep sage, though I’m not sure what it means.
My heart pounds in my chest, and I skip around him in a frantic bid for safety, a rabbit scampering away from a fox. The only reason I reach the door is because he lets me.
I race up the stairs even though no one’s following.
Inside my room I lean against the door, eyes closed, panting like I ran a million miles to get here. I need to fix whatever’s happening inside me. No more stopping in the middle of practice. No more imagining Liam losing control.
Whatever I do for the rest of the afternoon, it has to be the end.
Chapter Five
Bach and Handel were both blinded by the same ocular surgeon
LIAM
I watch Samantha flee up the stairs, looking scared enough to make me uncomfortable, lithe enough
to make me ache. What the hell’s going on with her today? You’ll be yourself again tomorrow. I know that’s not true. She won’t ever be the timid little prodigy who landed on my doorstep, eyes wide behind her glasses, fingers impossibly nimble across the violin strings. She’s still a genius with the instrument, but it’s no longer a little girl who plays. It’s a young woman, and I’m the one who can’t go back to the way things were. I can’t unsee the flush of arousal on her cheeks. Fucking hell.
I return to my desk and try to focus on the field reports from my agent.
After reading the same sentence five times, I have to push the reports aside.
Footsteps approach the office, and I tense, fighting the impulse to stand up and close the door. Josh is second-in-command for North Security. He also happens to be my brother. He’s whistling and stomping and generally being a pain in my ass. The man can cross a South American jungle without disturbing a single tree frog, but he makes enough noise now to wake the dead. It’s a harsh contrast to the sweet violin that usually fills the air.
“Problem?” I ask, raising a brow.
He pauses with an exaggerated tilt of his head. “Why is it so quiet?”
I glare at him, but it doesn’t shut him up. “You’re fired.”
A hand to his heart, the dramatic bastard. “Where’s our beautiful Disney princess making music and drawing all the little woodland creatures to the window?”
“It was one squirrel.” One squirrel who pressed its little hands against the window every day for almost two months, listening to the music as if he could soak in its beauty.
Strange, feeling a kinship with a rodent, but there it was.
Falling for the Forbidden: 10 Full-Length Novels Page 39