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Kingston
“Kingston… Kingston, wait. Please.” Her breath was heavy against my face, her eyes meeting mind almost guiltily as she pulled away.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered, pushing one side of her hair back behind her ear.
“We shouldn’t.”
“I know. But we’re going to. This has been inevitable almost since the first time I saw you.”
This wasn’t how I’d thought tonight would end.
Of course, I hadn’t thought it would end with her in my bed either.
Hell, I’d been fully prepared to find a groupie to spend the night with.
No one else appealed to me, though, and after seeing Devyn perform, I felt like a teenager with a crush on a celebrity. I was a much bigger celebrity than she was, yet she made me feel like a kid in that regard. She was breathtaking on stage, and it took a lot to impress me professionally. I’d already known she was special—why else would we have hired her?—but seeing the crowd’s reaction had brought everything full circle.
As far as I was concerned, we’d found the perfect replacement for Carter, and while that should have made me feel incredible, all I felt right now was frustrated.
“Tell me what you want to do, babe.”
She sighed, dropping her head to my shoulder, as if she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders. “I want you.”
“Thank god,” I whispered, kissing the side of her face. “Because I don’t know how much longer I could have continued resisting.”
“I’ve been trying… but I’m obviously not strong enough to say no.”
“You and me both.” I wrapped one arm around her waist and pulled her closer as I called to Grim. “Take us to my place.”
“You got it.” He made a right, and I gently adjusted Devyn’s clothes. I didn’t often get hassled at home, but tonight was the kind of night the paparazzi might be lying in wait. And Devyn didn’t need to be seen getting out of the vehicle half-dressed.
Having made the decision, the urgency was suddenly gone, and she nestled against me, her body molding to mine. There were a dozen things I could have, and should have, said. Instead, I just stroked her back and pressed light kisses on different places along her head, her hair, the side of her face. I didn’t know what was going on, how we were going to work this out, but I suddenly didn’t give a shit.
It was easy to say we’d remain friends or could continue the professional relationship if the personal one fell apart, but that was so much harder in practice than in theory. Anyone with half a brain knew that. Yet here we were. Pulling up in front of my building and Grim walking us to the door before taking off.
I took her hand, lacing my fingers with hers as we took the elevator up to my floor. I unlocked the door and let her walk in ahead of me. The lights were out, but the room was illuminated by the streetlights outside.
To my surprise, she walked right to the piano and sat down, tapping out a melody I didn’t recognize.
“What is that?” I asked, sitting beside her.
“Something I wrote called ‘Symphony of the Broken.’ And no, I don’t necessarily think I’m broken, but we’ve all had moments where we felt that way. At that moment when the melody came to me, it was how I felt.”
“Absolutely.”
The melody was haunting but gritty, even on a piano, and I closed my eyes, letting the music fill me. Imagining myself singing it even though it didn’t have lyrics. Not yet.
“Something’s broken, you’re not talkin’ ’bout me,” I murmured, running a hand up her back. “We gotta find the answers, no matter what you see…”
I hummed along with her, my hands never leaving her body.
The indentation of her waist.
Her arms.
The side of her neck.
“Maybe it’s a nightmare, maybe it’s a dream,” she sang softly. “Or maybe nothing at all is ever what it seems.”
