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“That’s it,” he said and he applied the pressure and I flexed my hips and I rode him. Used him.
This wasn’t even the first time he’d made me come out here like this. Ten years ago we couldn’t keep our hands off each other and watching him play piano would get me so hot, one touch out here on the dock, or behind the building and once in the dark hallways to the bathroom, one touch and I’d fall apart.
“Fuck,” he breathed and I could feel his cock but I wasn’t touching him. I made fists in his shirt, scratched his back. I tipped my head back and let it just roll over me.
I could feel the scream rising in my throat and I bit his arm, the hard round muscle of his shoulder to keep myself quiet. His soft grunt only made it sweeter.
When it was over and I was limp and dizzy, I stepped away. His touch, so perfect before was now nearly unbearable. I was wobbly and he reached for me but I pushed his hands away.
What should I say? I wondered. What did anyone say after that?
“There’s not been one day I have not thought of you,” he said and it took a moment for his words to register. To slide cool fingers down my spine, extinguishing the fire in my belly.
Tyler’s blue eyes were unreadable and I wanted to smack him again. “You can’t just say that, Tyler. You can’t—”
“Forget it, Juliette,” he said, and it was as if a light went out in him. “Forget about me. I was never worth what you gave me.”
He stepped past me, back up the pier and the party going on inside. The door opened and someone yelled his name and Tyler laughed, the sound like being blasted by glass and I gasped for breath.
“On my way!” he yelled, Tyler the piano man reborn, and then he was gone.
TYLER
A peanut shell, sandwiched between the piano bench and me, was digging its sharp little claws into my shoulder blade. It hurt. A lot, actually. But what did a guy expect trying to sleep on a piano bench?
With a peanut shell and a hangover the size of the Gulf for company.
I ignored the discomfort for as long as I could, trying to find a comfortable place on the hard bench while my head pounded and my back muscles burned.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened to my night. Even though the last thing I remembered was walking away from Juliette, my head told me I’d drowned the taste of that kiss in some bourbon and my back told me I’d pounded out my frustration on the piano.
Not that it had worked—I was still frustrated and the taste of that kiss remained on my tongue. The feel of her was burned against my leg.
Jesus, she was the same under the badge and the blazers. The same woman. Hot and mine.
Mine.
But there was something delicious happening in the air, and my stomach growled. Coffee. Bacon. Unfiltered Marlboros.
There were worse places to wake up hungover and sore than Remy’s.
“Wake up, Tyler.” Someone poked at my leg and I nearly lost my precarious bed.
Gingerly, I sat up, and peanut shells popped off my back like hard bog leeches.
“Morning, Priscilla,” I groaned. Blindly I held out my hand and a warm ceramic mug was pressed into it. The sweet smell of Remy’s chicory coffee made divine with about eight tablespoons of sugar was almost enough to coax my eyes open. Almost.
“You were a man on fire last night,” Priscilla said. “That last set.” She whistled long and low.
Priscilla’s whistles were a language of their own. This whistle was loaded and I knew she didn’t want to talk about music. This whistle had “let’s talk about your sad life” all over it.
I grunted.
“Sure brings back memories,” Priscilla went on, about as subtle as a water buffalo in a tutu. “’Course, you spending the night here reminds me of a few years ago, too.”
“If you have a point,” I muttered, “go ahead and get to it.”
“Not worth it if you’re gonna sit there half-dead.”
I blinked open my eyes.
It took a while, but I glanced around surprised at how clean it was. Spotless except for the little island of peanut shells and beer bottles around me.
“I didn’t know this place had windows,” I muttered.
Priscilla sat on a chair in front of the stage, wrapped in a subdued pale yellow robe. The wig gone, replaced by a bright purple head scarf. In the bright sunlight she almost looked her age—not that I could tell what that was.
“What are you doing back here?” she asked.
“A boy can’t visit his family?”
“The whole parish knows The Manor is sitting empty these days. There’s no family of yours to visit right now.”
