I shrugged, acutely conscious of how the movement caused our arms to brush. "When I need to think. When I need not to think. When words aren't enough."
"Like after talking about Gabriel." It wasn't a question.
"Yeah." I let my fingers rest on the keys without pressing down. "Sometimes playing his favorite pieces makes me feel closer to him. Sometimes it just reminds me that he's gone."
Eyes fixed on my hands, she nodded. "Which was it today?"
"Both."
She reached out tentatively, her finger hovering above a key before pressing down. "I never learned to play," she admitted. "Always wanted to, but dance took up all my time."
Without thinking, I covered her hand with mine. Her skin was soft, her fingers delicate beneath my larger ones. "Here," I said, guiding her hand. "Try this."
I positioned her fingers over the keys for a simple C major chord and pressed down gently. She smiled, a genuine smile that transformed her face and sent something warm unfurling in my chest.
"Again," she said, and I obliged, guiding her through the chord once more.
I should have been focusing on the music, on the simple lesson, but all I could register was her proximity. The way her shoulder pressed against mine. The damp tendrils of hair curling against her neck. The subtle shift of her body each time she leaned forward to reach the keys.
"Like this?" she asked, trying the chord on her own, her fingers pressing too lightly to produce much sound.
"Almost." I covered her hand again, applying more pressure. "You need to be firm."
Her gaze snapped to mine, and the air between us grew dense and heavy with possibility. I was acutely aware of how close our faces were, how I could count each individual eyelash still spiky from her shower, how her pupils dilated slightly as we held eye contact.
A drop of water fell from her hair onto her bare shoulder, trailing down her skin beneath the neckline of her shirt. My eyes tracked its path, and my throat went dry.
"You're still wet," I said, voice rough.
Her breath caught. "Just from the shower."
Without conscious decision, I reached up and brushed a damp strand of hair away from her face. My fingers grazed her cheek, then slid to the back of her neck to dig into her impossibly soft skin.
Suspended in that moment of contact, we both froze. Her pulse jumped beneath my fingertips, a frantic rhythm that matched my own. Her lips parted slightly, and her eyes darkened, and something inside me shattered.
I leaned in slowly, giving her time to pull away, to say no, to remind me that this wasn't part of our arrangement. But she didn't move, didn't speak, just watched me with those enormousgreen eyes that had haunted my dreams since the first time I saw her.
When our lips met, it was barely a touch, just a whisper of contact. She tasted like mint toothpaste and something sweeter underneath, something uniquely her. For a heartbeat, she remained deathly still, and I thought I'd misread everything.
Then she made a small sound in the back of her throat, and pressed forward.
The kiss deepened instantly, any pretense of hesitation burning away under the heat of contact. Her lips parted beneath mine, and I took the invitation, greedily sliding my tongue against hers. The taste of her, the warmth, the wet slick of her mouth against mine sent blood rushing south with dizzying speed.
My hand slipped into her hair, fingers tightening to angle her head to deepen the kiss further. Her hands found my shoulders, fingers digging in as if she needed an anchor. I wanted to consume her, to crawl inside her skin and live there.
Breaking the kiss, I trailed my mouth along her jaw, down to the pulse point at her throat where I could feel her heartbeat racing beneath my lips. "You have no idea," I murmured against her skin, "how long I've wanted to do this."
Shuddering, she whispered, "Show me."
Those two words snapped what remained of my restraint. In one smooth motion, I shifted and pulled her onto my lap. My mouth found hers again, hungrier now, more demanding. My hands slid down her back to her hips, fingers digging into the firm muscle there as I guided her into a slow rock against me.
"Fuck," I breathed against her mouth. "You taste so good."
Her head fell back as I trailed kisses down her neck, tongue tracing the hollow of her throat.
"Rafe," she gasped, her hips finding a rhythm against mine that made thinking nearly impossible.
I slid one hand beneath her shirt and smoothed it up her side until I reached the curve of her breast. Her skin was impossibly soft, like warm silk beneath my fingers. And when my thumb brushed across her nipple, she jerked in my lap as a broken sound escaped her.
