Looking Inside

ing. “That was—”

“Incredible,” he finished for her. He kissed her lips softly. Did he realize they were a little sore? He hadn’t been harsh with her, but he was very demanding. She’d loved it. His kiss was so sweet in the aftermath of it all. She found herself straining for more of his taste. It was like drinking deeply after finishing the race of a lifetime. A moment later, he cupped the side of her head and backed up slightly, examining her face narrowly.

“You okay?” he asked, his deep, rough voice a delight to her prickling nerves.

“Better than okay.”

His gaze roved over her face. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“I could say the same of you,” she whispered.

A tiny smile twitched at his mouth. Her slowing heart hitched a beat. “Well, that’s something, at least.”

“What do you mean?” she murmured when he reached down and loosened his tie that she’d looped around her neck. He pulled the tie over her head and down her long hair before tossing it aside. Then he pulled the shirt down over her shoulders, and she helped him get it off her arms.

“It’s nice to know it’s not totally one-sided, that’s all,” he said, reclining fully on the pillows and closing his arms around her.

“It?” she asked breathlessly.

“The obsession,” he replied, stroking the side of her body. Her gaze darted up to his face to gauge his expression. She couldn’t locate a trace of humor.

“Is that what you’d call what’s happening between us?” she asked him softly.

He didn’t reply immediately, but his hand continued to caress her sensitive skin. Finally, he rose up partially over her and pressed her back onto the mattress. He looked so beautiful to her in that moment, his hair mussed and falling onto his forehead, his clear, cobalt blue eyes holding a banked flame. She stared up at him, her breath sticking in her lungs.

“I don’t know what else to call it. Do you?” he asked solemnly.

She shook her head, unable to speak because of the invisible balloon that had expanded inside her chest.

“It’s not like anything I’ve ever felt before, Eleanor.”

He leaned down and kissed her softly, and her breath broke on a desperate whimper.

SIXTEEN

They lay there, kissing and touching and talking quietly, until their bodies cooled. When his caress on the side of her ribs made her shiver, he roused her enough to get both of them under the covers.

“I heard you playing your guitar in the loft when I left your place earlier,” she said dreamily a while later as she stroked his chest. She loved the feeling of his thick, soft skin gloving dense muscle. “You’re incredible at it,” she said, remembering his rapid, complicated finger work. He really had gifted hands and fingers. How well she knew it. “What was that you were playing? I didn’t recognize it.”

“Just something I’ve been working on.”

She lifted her head. “I didn’t know you wrote your own music.”

He nodded distractedly as he cupped the side of her head, using his fingers to brush back her long hair from her face. “I haven’t been doing it as much as I used to, either composing or playing. That’s one of many things that got shoved to the wayside when I started BandBook and TalentNet. I’ve been trying to get back to it more regularly.”

“What you were playing . . . it sounded like both classical and rock guitar at once. It was melancholy one minute, exciting and wild the next. It was really good, Trey.”

His stroking fingers paused. “Thanks,” he said, looking a little taken aback and pleased by her praise. His brow creased suddenly. “How long were you listening?”

She lowered her head. “Five or ten minutes or so.”

He laughed gruffly and resumed stroking her. “And I was up there tearing at the bit to be with you the whole time.”

She started to speak, but halted herself.

“What?” he prodded her.

“Well, I don’t know if you’ll like this or not. But what you were playing was very . . .” She ducked her head to hide her embarrassment. “Romantic.”