Page 73 of Lyric & the Heartbeats

His head was bowed, and a single curl fallen in front of his face as his fingers floated over the guitar. It was like magic, the effortless way he played.

She drifted her fingers over the tops of his shoulders as she circled him, over the soft fabric of his button-up, across the pad of the guitar strap. When he felt the pressure of her touch, his head turned toward her and a half smile curled his lips. His gaze dipped halfway down her body before making its way north again, and a rush of heat bloomed under her skin.

One that had nothing to do with the stage lights beaming down on them.

When she stopped in front of him again, she fixed his collar and brushed her pointer finger over his bow tie.

The sparkles in Nohen’s bow tie reflected the lights from the stage, but they were dim compared to the amusement gleaming in his golden eyes. She narrowed her gaze, barely resisting the urge to let her gaze dip and trace the way the fitted shirt hugged his lean frame and the pants hugged his thighs and ass. She couldn’t stop from admiring the way he held the guitar, his palm stretched around the neck, his fingers flying over the strings with perfect precision.

Her gaze returned to his, and buried underneath the humor was a knowing that made Lyric’s skin itch.

She danced away, retreating to her microphone stand. She knew better than to play with Emerson, and Adra was just as tempting.

Don’t overthink it.

Too late.

She couldn’t very well ignore half the stage the entire night.

At least, that was what she told herself as they transitioned into the next song.

As the music swelled around them, she spoke to the crowd. “I wrote this song because I was lonely. But that was a while ago. I have all of you now,” she said with a grin, and gestured to the venue.

The screams would’ve deafened her if not for the monitors.

Lyric sang the first note on cue, her voice blending with the music in the exact way she’d envisioned it so long ago.

As it picked up pace, became a little more energetic, a little more electric—thanks to Nohen—Lyric danced around and made her circuit around the stage.

Her heart pounded, but she focused on the notes, on her breathing, on singing the right words.

Emerson’s gaze shot up, almost stopping her in her tracks. Heat kindled in his gaze, aimed in her direction, and she was drawn to it, to him, in the same way she knew she should turn her back.

Don’t play with fire.

Lyric had never been one to listen to common sense.

She didn’t slowly tease her palm back and forth over the candle flame, letting her adjust to its warmth. She didn’t hold the sparkler back from her skin, letting the bright flashes of sparks dance and disappear across her flesh without a mark.

Lyric approached Emerson with a confidence she shouldn’t have felt. Not with the easy way she knew he affected her.

Even with the stage lights slightly dimmed on his side of the stage, with his body mostly hidden from the crowd by one of the stained glass panels, and his face eclipsed by the flat brim of his hat, Lyric knew it was a mistake.

But she did it anyway.

She stepped close, her lips singing words about loneliness and late nights, but her mind stuck on the way his fingers played the strings, the same fingers that had been inside her. The same ones that had covered her mouth and muffled her cries.

It didn’t get easier the closer she got. In fact, his scent, of all the ones surrounding her in the venue, stuck out. Thankfully still dulled, but damn, it had the power to wipe her mind of everything but the way he’d felt inside her.

The crowd sang along, helping keep her in the present—barely—and they screamed louder when she got closer to Emerson.

Feeding off their energy, her own excitement, and the tiny little voice in the back of her head that urged her for more, she stepped so close to Emerson that his fingers playing the bass brushed against her pants.

She tilted her head, singing up at him, and he mouthed the words back at her.

Without thinking, she reached up, wrapped her hand around the back of his neck, and brought him down to her. The mic separated their lips, and amongst the screams of the crowd, their voices mixed into the perfect harmony.

“How can I be lonely