“Not as well as others.”
I drew closer until my hands rested on the piano lid.
“Why do you play this song?”
“It’s meaningful to me. Do you remember it?”
“I do.” He played a wrong note, the pitch too low. “When did you start playing?”
“When I was a teenager, I knew someone once who loved duets. I started learning for her.”
I scratched along the side of my neck, not sure I wanted to find out if he meant me or someone else.
“What about this song? When did you start playing this one?”
He sighed loudly. “A little over three years ago.”
He was twenty-five and a half now. Why only three years ago when I gifted him that video five and a half years ago?
Eight bars of music went by. I visualized the notes as he played them. My fingers danced in the air along with them, wishing to participate, trapped in the music.
“Is there a violin here?”
He rasped in a heavy inhale.
“There’s a—” He cleared his throat and stopped playing. “A case on the bench three steps to your right.”
I felt for it. The clasps snapped open easily. Inside the velvet lining was a beauty of craftsmanship with a slightly bowed top plate varnished to perfection. My fingers slid over the strings, just to get a taste of the rich sound this instrument offered.
I couldn’t resist pulling it from the case, then placing it on my left shoulder with my chin in place. The instant the bow touched the strings, the song exuded out of me. I was lost to it. The melody, the warmth, the romanticism.
I was thrust back to that day, bouncing up and down in front of Renzo, after a perfect recording of my playing. Then to the day of Adrien’s twentieth birthday, on a humid spring day whenI sent him the video clip. I couldn’t believe I’d ever been able to forget the delight on his face as he watched it. He’d never been more handsome to me than that day. The hard lines of his cheeks curving around rare-sighted dimples. The crease of his scar around the fold of his smile. The shine in his normally brooding sapphire eyes. The way he towered over me, his dress shirt just tight enough to show off his well-defined chest, the heat from his hand wrapped around mine.
Nothing mattered but the song. He picked up where I started, and the harmony drew us onward. I felt every note in my soul, and when the piece ended, when the final notes drew out of us, tears built up within my eye shields.
The bench scratched against the tile. Next thing I knew, the violin was out of my hands. The case closed. The snaps clapped into place. Then his hands were on my face, his forehead on mine.
“It’s you. It’s really you.”
“It’s me.”
I knew exactly what we were saying. He was my Adrien. I was his Persetta. Reunited. Together. He kissed my temple. My nose. My cheeks. My chin.
“I should’ve known,” he said between kisses. Every press flamed my skin hotter.
“Why didn’t you?” From the start. Why hadn’t he recognized me and avoided all the threats to begin with?
“I was a fool.” The way he said that made it seem as if he were talking about more than just the last week.
His lips fell on mine. It was slow and tentative, as if he were giving me a small window to pull back, but I trusted him. I cared for him. There was no hiding I was attracted to the man I’d grown to know, not just the girlhood crush I’d had.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and forced his head closer. Our lips melded together, dancing and weaving. Our tongues clashed and fought for their chance in the spotlight.
His arms pulled me to him as his hands slipped under my shirt, stroking up the bare skin along my spine. I arched into him for more, and there it was. The hard outline of his cock pressed against my belly, demanding attention.
There was this compulsion to touch it, and I did. To make him feel good. Not for me, not because it was the natural progression, but because the rules demanded it. Rules that were beaten into me. Rules that were as murky as the voices that yelled them while slapping my face for not following them.
Adrien pulled my hand off him, then placed both hands on my face. “You’re shivering.”
