Page 52 of Love & Notes

This time it is less of a command, and more of an invitation—the softer, more dangerous tone I have been hearing more from him lately and desperately trying to ignore. His long fingers hover over the keys, completely relaxed.

“Let the piano carry the bass this time, Vance. Just lean into it.”

“I’m not fighting it,” I reply, though my heart gives a frantic little flutter as I lift the violin back to my collarbone.

“Good.” He holds my gaze across the glossy lid of the Steinway. “Prove it.”

He drops his hands, and the Nocturne instantly fills the room.

Something is different. I feel it from the first phrase—in my body before my brain—the way the music tells you what is happening before the conscious part of your brain has caught up. I am not performing tonight. My violin bow moves and the sound that pours out is not the same cautious tone that I have been producing for weeks. I am technically correct, yes, I always am.

This version is something else entirely, and I don’t know how or why.

Yes you damn well do, the unhelpful, honest part of my brain says. You know exactly why.

My mind isn’t focused on the complexity of the score in front of me. I am thinking about his hands—not pressing down on the keys, but pressing into me, the way Nancy described them on the steps.

Bad boy with his hands.

I watch the fluid and powerful movement of his wrists and find myself picturing those large, capable hands sliding up my thighs, mapping the curve of my waist, caressing the burning skin of my face. My mind loops back to his tongue, licking his thumb after touching my mouth, as my pulse accelerates to a lethal speed.

Julian catches the immediate change in me, and something in his playing changes in direct response. The sound deepens, as if matching whatever feral thing that I am doing with my bow. He builds the volume with me, our instruments wrapping around each other, until it reaches an almighty climax and the final notes hang somewhere in the air.

I can feel the intense heat rising in my cheeks—a blush that I’ve grown to accept as the permanent failure of my skin. But this time, I’m unravelling from the inside out, totally consumed by dangerous thoughts of him.

My chest heaves. My bow arm trembles as I stare at him through the golden twilight of the practice room, and I don’t recognise the expression on his face. The usual sly and sarcastic smirk is completely gone.

“Wow,” Julian breathes, the word barely a whisper as it leaves his lips.

He slides off the leather bench slowly. He walks around the edge of the Steinway until he is close enough that I have to tilt my chin up to look at him.

“That sounded—” He stops, his jaw tightening as he searches my face. “You sounded so… free.”

Free.

“I didn’t—” I start, but my voice cracks. There is a vibrating tension between us. “I didn’t think about the notes this time.”

“I noticed,” he murmurs, his voice sending a shiver straight down my spine.

He reaches out, his hand hovering in the air between us for a fraction of a second—a rare hesitation from someone usually so arrogant and sure of his boundaries. His fingers gently brush against the edge of my violin bow, lowering it out of the way until it rests safely at my side.

“You weren't fighting me today, Vance,” he whispers. “Why?”

“Julian,” I breathe, though it sounds mortifyingly like a plea. A plea for him to either close the distance or run out the door like he did before. Can’t you see what you are doing to me?

He doesn’t back away. He leans in closer, his intense eyes dropping to my lips for a single second before snapping back to meet my longing stare.

“Tell me what changed.”

What changed is you.

“You.” The honesty tears out of me before my pride can stop it. “The pizza. The way you… you touched my face.” I pause, realising I sound a little unhinged. “You’re messing with my head, Julian.”

A breathless exhale escapes his lips, his chest rising and falling in time with mine. I can’t take my eyes off him. I don’t want to. He is mesmerising.

“Good,” he mumbles, his rough thumb catching the edge of my jaw. “Because you’ve been messing with mine for the last year, Ellise.”

“Julian—”