My lower belly tightened as I watched his long fingers strum the strings to test the tuning. For not the first time, I wondered how his fingers would feel strummingmelike a guitar string. Would his touch be as gentle as I imagined it to be? I shivered, my skin heating as images of Murray’s hands coasting over my body flashed across my mind.
Kelly looked back at me, and I wondered if I’d made some kind of noise to give me away.
My cheeks turned even hotter. I gave her a small smile and turned my attention to Murray. Our eyes met, his searching mine for a few long seconds. Finally, he broke the connection, and I had to hold back a shaky exhale.
Murray began to play and though the opening chords were familiar, I didn’t quite place them until he started to sing.
Pleasurable shock thrummed through me at the sound of his gravelly, low singing voice. As he sang and played Paul Simon’s “Father and Daughter” to Kelly, it took everything within not to react visibly.
Not to melt into a puddle on the music room floor.
Murray Shaw couldsing.
And everything that was happening in that room was designed to hit a woman in all her erogenous zones!
Hot Scottish man singing in a hot, growly voice a sweet song about a father/daughter relationship, meant for his recently traumatized daughter, so she’d know that no matter what, she had her dad to protect her.
I at once wanted to burst into tears and climb that man like a tree.
I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until the last strum of the guitar string, and Kelly and Fiona burst into applause. When their clapping died down, they looked to me. I stared at Murray as he waited for my reaction too.
As if he didn’t know how good he was. “You didn’t tell me you could sing like that.”
“Dad’s the best singer ever,” Kelly opined, and by her tone I knew she probably wanted to add the wordduhat the end.
“I agree.” I nodded, my attention returning to him.
There was something moving behind his expression as our eyes held.
I heard Fiona clear her throat. “Uh … are you a big music fan, London?”
“London can play the piano.” Murray’s lips twitched when I gave him a pointed shake of my head. “She loves music as much as we do.”
At my wide-eyed, silentI’m going to kill you, he grinned, and I felt that gorgeous smile between my freaking legs.
Oh boy.
“Really?” Kelly’s eyes narrowed like she was suspicious we were lying. “Will you play?”
It turned out, I couldn’t say no to this kid either.
“Sure.” I strode past Murray’s mom and daughter, sticking my tongue out at him where they couldn’t see. It just made him grin harder.
Sitting down at the piano bench, I considered the songs that might impress Kelly the most. I’d noted several Taylor Swiftvinyls in her room, and the last song I’d learned to play when I was sixteen was “All Too Well.” Closing my eyes, I visualized the chords, remembering far more quickly than I thought I would that it started in the key of C major. The C-G-C-E chords flashed across my mind like a key unlocking a door and muscle memory kicked in.
My nerves over impressing Kelly and Fiona, my exasperating hyperawareness of Murray, all of that melted away, and it was just me and the piano, enjoying the way I could make it produce beautiful music.
It kept surprising me how much I missed playing.
Before I knew it the song was over, and clapping pulled me out of my little bubble. I glanced up, blinking rapidly, remembering where I was.
Fiona and Murray were clapping.
Kelly was now standing by the couch, expression twisted with something like confusion and intrigue.
“Oh, London, you play beautifully,” Fiona said. “What was that song?”
“‘All Too Well’ by Taylor Swift,” Kelly answered instead, still staring at me like she’d never seen me before.
