Total pages in book: 767
Estimated words: 732023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 3660(@200wpm)___ 2928(@250wpm)___ 2440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 732023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 3660(@200wpm)___ 2928(@250wpm)___ 2440(@300wpm)
“It’s beautiful.” And haunting.
“I’m only playing around,” she says, her voice wavering.
“You’re composing?” That’s not something she’s ever told me about. To play with her skill is a form of composition. She lends her interpretation to every piece—her passion, her heart. There is no such thing as a rote recitation for a prodigy like her.
Even so, writing her own composition would be something new.
“It’s no big deal,” she says quickly, giving a little shrug that moves the ruffles that lie against her breast, drawing my attention to the gentle curve.
“Where’d you get this?” I ask, keeping my voice even.
She didn’t mean to kill me with this dress.
She doesn’t mean to torture me, I’m almost sure.
“A vintage shop,” she says, sounding shy. Maybe she does mean to torture me. “I thought I could wear it on the tour. What do you think? Should I?”
The thought of thousands of men seeing her in this dress makes me want to lock her away. She would be terrified if she knew everything I think about. I can imagine her tied down on my bed wearing this dress, unable to get away from me, unable to do anything but take me. Fuck.
“Perhaps,” I say, my tone noncommittal.
Disappointment flits across her pretty features. “Well, it’s not decided or anything. There’s still time to look. I just thought I’d try to play while I’m wearing it.”
Christ. She deserves more than a surly bastard more concerned about his unholy obsession than her feelings. “You look beautiful, Samantha. You look…” I swallow hard. “You look like the most perfect woman I’ve ever seen. But I don’t think it’s the dress. It’s you.”
I’ve knelt down in front of her a thousand times before, but she’s never been in a dress like this. And I’ve never been shirtless, my feet bare.
“Is that the only reason you’re up this late? To try on the dress?”
A blush creeps up her cheeks, the soft line of her neck. The tops of her breasts, plump and gently sloping above the black ruffles. “I couldn’t sleep, knowing that I turn eighteen soon.”
“In about five minutes.”
Emotions chase across her face, as clear as the notes she plays on her violin—excitement, apprehension, a tentative hope. “I guess you must be relieved. Your civic responsibility will be over soon.”
“Were you listening outside the door, Samantha?”
A soft laugh. “Guilty.”
How can I resist her? The girl was beautiful and strong. The woman is devastating. “I do feel responsibility for you, but it has nothing to do with civic duty.”
“Then why did you say that to the reporter?”
“I wanted her to leave it alone. And I didn’t want to tell the real reason.” I can’t resist the truth when she’s looking at me like that, her eyes liquid brown, full of desire. It makes me want to be the man she thinks I am—the one who could cherish and keep her. Have her and hold her. That man will never be me, but doesn’t she deserve to know?
Or maybe I want one night of truth.
“What was the real reason?”
“That I loved you as soon as I heard you play. That I saw the way your father left you to fend for yourself, well before he died. That I wanted to hide you away from the world that would hurt you and scare you and use you, and I was just selfish enough to actually do it.”
Her eyes widen. “You never said you loved me before.”
“Love isn’t something I ever wanted, Samantha. Especially parental love. That was the worst kind of all. It was dangerous. Cruel. I never wanted to do that to you.”
It’s more than I meant to give away, revealing what I think about parental love, how horrible it can be. She doesn’t miss the implication. Her brown eyes widen. “What did your parents do to you?”
Once a principal had called my father. This is incredible news, the woman had said. Your son is extremely gifted. I spent three days and three nights in the well because of those test scores. I learned to get the answer wrong enough times not to attract attention, after that.
I never really believed the devil lived inside me. If I believed in the devil, then I had to believe in God, and he had abandoned me too long ago for me to speak his name—even to myself. It wasn’t the devil, precisely. It was me. Simply me. As I’d traced my fingers along the moss-damp bottom of the well, I knew that I deserved to be down here. That every glimpse of sunlight was a gift I didn’t deserve.
That every sweet thing I’d ever have would have to be stolen.
“And then when that love started to change into something else, when it was spiked with desire, I didn’t know how to handle that. It was better and so much worse at the same time.”