“Aidan is an alum.”
Liam knew the boy was a recent graduate, but the way Min spoke made something twist in his stomach. “You know him,” he said.
She nodded. “Haven’t seen him in a while. But I doubt the Dietrichs have changed much in the last eight months.” Min forced a smile.
Eight months. Liam’s mind raced through every interaction he’d had with Min, racing back in time like flipping the pages of a book.
Eight months ago would have been December. He hissed in recognition. Eight months ago he had held her hand and told her to breathe while she suffered a panic attack on his stage. Just like the one she’d had the day before.
What had they done to her?
“Promise Mr. Dietrich Puccini or Verdi. And tons of press around the naming of the theater. He cares a great deal about his family’s reputation.”
“What aren’t you saying?” His voice was pure steel, gruff and hard, but he couldn’t help it, not with the sick feeling in his stomach. The Dietrichs had done something to her. They hadhurther – he was sure of it.
Christ, how he wanted her to talk to him. He wanted her to tell him what they’d done and then he wanted to go destroy everyone who had a hand in turning her into this shrinking, shaking girl. Behind the resolve and the regal dignity she usually cloaked herself in, there was fear. Shame. It hadn’t been there when he’d met her. He’d watched it slowly seep into the way she carried herself, the way she no longer trusted herself to say what she was thinking. And just then, when he’d mentioned the Dietrich boy, the woman who had entranced him with her honesty and boldness that first night disappeared before his eyes. He wanted to hold her until everything was alright. He wanted to make sure nothing and no one could ever hurt her again.
Min shook her head with a soft smile, and he knew she wasn’t going to say anything more. At least not then.
With a frustrated grunt, he ran his fingers through his hair. She might not be ready to tell him, but he trusted his gut, and his gut was screaming that someone had hurt her. So, fine, if she didn’t want to tell him – he could wait. He’d wait forever if he needed to. And in the meantime, he’d comfort her until that dead look in her eyes disappeared.
“Tell me more about your grandmother,” he said, steering them back to a safer topic, even as his fingers stroked the bare skin of her arm. There was nothing safe about talking with Min like this, but he couldn’t help himself.
“She was a painter,” Min began, haltingly. “Mostly still life. She had this one painting of an orange half peeled that looked so real it was practically begging to be eaten,” she said, biting her bottom lip. “She used to paint these intricate scenes in icing on the tops of sugar cookies at Christmas.”
He chuckled. “She sounds wonderful.”
“She was.”
“I never knew my grandmother,” he said.Why am I telling her this?“But my mother used to bake for this little restaurant around the corner from where I grew up. She was an artist with flour and sugar.”
What am I doing? I don’t talk about mam…
“Cooking is love,” Min smiled. “That’s what my grandmother always said.”
“Cooking is love,” he agreed.
“Just like music.”
There was that now-familiar itchy sensation, begging him to kiss her, to touch her, to comfort her with his body– if he didn’t get out of there right that goddamn minute, he was going to cross lines he couldn’t uncross.
He was just about to get up – he really was – when she bit her bottom lip again and looked at him with those big eyes and his heart cracked open a fraction of an inch. He looked away, afraid to make full eye contact when she was looking like that, so vulnerable and so goddamn gorgeous.
He could feel the air shift around them, morphing into something he couldn’t define. Something big and messy. Something that felt a hell of a lot like she was looking at him the way he tried so hard not to look at her. Like maybe all the reasons he’d held himself back from her all this time didn’t really matter for shit.
I’m so fucked.
∞∞∞
Min wanted to tell Dr. Jacobs everything – things she’d never talked to anyone about. She wanted him to know about Aidan, about how one awful night had fundamentally altered the way she saw herself until she wasn’t sure she even knew who she was anymore. But with Dr. Jacobs she felt more like herself than she ever had. With him, she finally understood what her grandmother had meant – because making music with him was like making love. He should know that, right?
She allowed her eyes to linger longer than they should have over the man beside her. The impressive muscles of his forearms were highlighted by the lines of ink on his skin, disappearing into the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt. She remembered what it felt like to have those arms around her. Her tongue flicked across her lips, an involuntary movement born of her need to taste that ink, to recreate its path with her tongue. His eyes tracked the movement and darkened. Heat rushed between her thighs. She was so undone by this man.
Dr. Jacobs shifted on the bench, seeming to reach for her and then catch himself. With a shake of his head, he muttered, “Fuck it,” before wrapping his arms around her and pulling her head to his shoulder, nestling her against his chest. He pressed his face into her hair and murmured something in Dutch – or maybe it was French? – that she couldn’t understand.
A shiver ran through her, and she was no longer thinking about the little parts of herself she’d given away. She wasn’t thinking about anything except the feel of him against her, the way her softness fit against his hard planes. She breathed in his lemongrass and cedar scent.God, how I’ve missed that smell.
This desire to show him every part of herself and to know every part of him in return, it was like nothing she’d ever known. She ached with how badly she wanted him. Her nipples furled into hard peaks beneath her camisole, so tight with longing they stung, and she was sure he could feel them pressed against his chest. She turned her face into his neck and breathed deeply. If this was the last time she got to be with him like this, she wanted to savor it. Her nose brushed the exposed skin at his throat and he exhaled a shaky breath.
