He leaned his forehead against hers. “I almost wish you were,” he murmured. “Maybe then I could let you go.”
She took a chance –now or never –and moved her hands to lay flat on his chest. He inhaled sharply, as if her touch burned his skin. “You said we couldn’t do this,” she said, bunching his shirt in her hands. She gripped the fabric so hard her fingers ached.
“I know what I said.” He dragged the tip of his nose along the line of her jaw and took her hand in his, releasing its death grip on his shirt and pressing it to his chest. His heart beat wildly against her palm in a rhythm echoed within her own chest.
“Pretending not to want you is exhausting,” she blurted out. “Aren’t you tired?”
He looked at her with haunted eyes, and she tightened her grip on his shirt. She would not let him walk away again. She would not let that fear in his eyes win again.
“Careful, contessa,” he warned.
But she didn’t want to be careful, and she didn’t want him to be either. She wanted him unrestrained – every messy part of him. But still, she could see in his eyes, he was holding back, even as relief washed over her at his use of the endearment.
“I can’t keep doing this,” she said, swallowing down the stinging in her nose. “I can’t keep getting so close only to lose you again. It’s too hard.”
His breathing faltered and his eyes narrowed. “Just now,” he said, “when you were singing, you meant it...” He searched her eyes.
“Of course, I meant it. I was singing with you! I was singingforyou.”
∞∞∞
She was singing for me?Liam’s mind raced.She was singing for me.
Warmth bloomed in his chest, even as he stumbled a step away from Min and her hands fell to her sides. Warmth born of pride and possessiveness and something that felt alarmingly like love.
He could hear Noah’s voice reverberating through his mind, telling him to walk away, but he just couldn’t bring himself to listen. Why had he spent so long listening when he could have been creating? And what if he didn’t need to create alone? What if he could build something extraordinary with this goddess in front of him?
This wasn’t what he had intended when he arrived at rehearsal that afternoon. He hadn’t intended to do anything except get through the pieces and get the hell out of there. But then she sang and it damn near broke him. It had never been more abundantly clear to him than hearing that aria pour from her in that rehearsal room: she was just as twisted up as he was. And that realization quieted Noah’s voice, replacing it with Min’s.
I can’t keep getting so close only to lose you again.
She’d been singing for him, telling him goodbye like he’d practically demanded her to. A better man would let her. A better man would turn and walk out of that dressing room and never look back. But he wasn’t a better man.
“I’ve been reading Fitzgerald,” Liam said, apropos of nothing, his thoughts flying ahead.What if it’s too late?
Min searched his face, confused by the turn in the conversation. “And what do you think?” she asked, her voice small and her eyes wide.
He stepped closer, so close he could breathe in the botanical scent of her hair, so close her breasts brushed his chest with each inhalation. “I think you read a hell of a lot of books where people treat each other poorly and call it love,” he growled.
He could see the wheels turning in her head, see her choosing her words carefully. She didn’t trust the promise of his proximity, and while that stung, he understood. He had given her no reason to trust that he’d follow through. He was going to change that.
“In my experience, that’s true of most people, not just the characters in books,” she said, tilting her chin up bravely.
And he was so goddamn proud of her, of her poise and of the way she protected her heart. He would spend forever proving that she could trust her heart with him, if only she’d let him. He didn’t know how, but he’d goddamn figure it out.
He dropped his forehead against hers, and rested a hand on her hip, his other hand stroking her cheek. “I don’t want to be one of those people.”
She inhaled sharply. He pressed against her fully, as if the pressure of his body against hers could prove the truth of his words. Min slid her hands up his abdomen, his chest. His eyes fluttered as her hands skated over him.It felt too good, and he’d wanted her for so long.
Her breathing was ragged, but fuck if that wasn’t hope kindling in her eyes.
“Contessa...”
Her hands were everywhere, as if she needed to touch him as much as he needed to be touched. He let his own hands wander over her curves, drinking in the way she arched into him. Her hands ghosted over his cheek and he turned his face to brush his lips against her palm.
“You need to be sure. You need to beinthis,” she said, her body trembling in his arms. Then softer, “I won’t survive it, Liam.”
She scanned his eyes, hunting for any hint of doubt, any indication that he would change his mind again. But he wouldn’t. He let her see every aching, broken part of himself, every whisper of hope that they still had a chance, every bit of surrender to this thing between them that was too big to contain. She slid her hand around the back of his neck, her fingers playing with the short hairs there, testing the feel of him beneath her touch. He exhaled, closing his eyes as her fingers twined in his hair.
