Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 109318 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109318 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
“Do you think Danielle wants us to turn them off right now?”
“I don’t care.”
“Right.” She reached back and pressed the button on the battery pack for the third time in under ten minutes. “It’s off.”
“Mine too.” He shook her a little, his attention straying to her breasts, before returning to her face resolutely, though . . . were his eyes slightly glazed? “Loosen up, Melody. I’ve got you.”
“Oh. Full name. He means business.” The raw kick of his cologne invaded her nose. She gave into the urge to memorize it. The masculine notes of charcoal and sage and black licorice. Darker than she would have imagined for Beat. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing. I swear, I’m not suffering from some delusion that you’re going to be my boyfriend. It’s just a holdover from my youth, I guess you could say?”
No. She was selling the whole thing short.
You’ve come this far, why not let the whole truth out?
And it wasn’t merely that being honest released the pressure she’d been housing in her chest for a decade and a half, but she trusted Beat. Trusting Beat was like a built-in mechanism she couldn’t remember being installed. For some reason, that faith in him had always been there. Maybe she’d been born with it.
“Okay, here’s the truth. I don’t date very often. Lately, not at all. You understand what it’s like to grow up with a famous parent, you never know if someone is in it for you. Or if they just want a good story. ‘I dated Trina Gallard’s daughter.’ You know?” They were moving, but not really. Swaying to the swelling of strings, without bothering to turn in a circle. Beat was staring at her mouth, as if concentrating hard on the words that were coming out—and she couldn’t have imagined a better reaction to what she was saying. Listening. He was listening. “When I met you a million years ago, I was right in the middle of a hard time. I was just this awkward presence bumbling around, being nothing like my badass mother. I was a disappointment. But you treated me like . . . a person. A real person who was going through the same thing as you. Or have I overblown the whole thing in my head?”
“No,” he said, voice rusted. “You haven’t.”
Relief grew like branches in her veins, straight into her fingertips where they rested on his broad shoulders. “Thank you.”
“Jesus, Mel. You have nothing to thank me for.”
“Okay.” They were being careful to keep their bodies a centimeter apart, but her nipples were slowly drawing into tight points, as if attempting to reach out and brush his chest. His firm hands gripped her waist, thumbs resting on the points of her hips. She had to bite her tongue to keep from requesting that he dig them in. Just once. Just so she could know what it felt like. But that wouldn’t be right. “Beat, my attraction to you isn’t your responsibility.”
When he made a frustrated sound and leaned down to speak against her ear, Mel could only hold her breath, the room pausing around her. “I’m grateful for the way you feel about me, Mel. It’s a beautiful thing. But . . . ah . . .” He seemed to search for the right words. “Now it’s my turn to point out how we were raised. To keep things quiet. Private. I was taught that trusting people, even friends, could ultimately hurt my family, so I’ve probably taken my privacy too far. My romantic life . . . my sex life, I should say . . .” He exhaled hard. “It’s something I keep separate from everything. Everyone.”
Melody’s world shrunk down into that moment, like she’d gone from his big, noisy ballroom to huddling under a blanket fort with him in the dark. What exactly did he mean? How did he keep his romantic life separate? “Beat—”
Trumpets.
So many trumpets blared at once.
They went off in every corner of the ballroom, making it impossible to talk. To hear.
Beat’s lips twisted wryly, mouthing a single word.
Octavia.
Mel quarter turned just in time to watch her mother’s former bandmate enter the ballroom to thunderous applause.
On a throne.
Being carried by four large men dressed as swans.
Chapter Eleven
Beat’s fucking heart was pumping in his throat.
He’d come so close to telling Melody everything. What would have been her reaction? He found himself craving it, even as he stuffed the information back down into its box, sealing the lid shut with a blowtorch. Every eye in the ballroom was on the spectacle taking place in front of them, but he couldn’t tear his gaze from Melody to save the world.
Beat, my attraction to you isn’t your responsibility.
Christ, his body disagreed. Vehemently.
His fingertips had no purpose because they hadn’t traced that collarbone. Or the soft swell of her tits. He wanted to drag a hand up her throat, bury it in her hair, and beg her . . .