Too soon, the sun slants through the window and dips behind the horizon. I don’t want to leave the cocoon of her body, but it’s time to get ready.
Showered, shaved, and groomed, I stand at the dresser in my tux, fucking with the bow tie around my neck. The sound of her footsteps exiting the closet brings my head around.
The first glimpse stops my heart. As I absorb the view, my pulse restarts, ticking higher, faster, and striking the chime of complete and utter adoration.
Ushered in ivory lace, the Louis Vuitton gown sheathes her knockout figure from the bateau neckline to the crystal pumps on her feet. I bought the dress after the first time I heard her play, knowing without a doubt she would wear it for tonight’s performance in a sold-out theater.
“Turn—” My voice cracks. I cough behind my fist. “Turn around.”
A coy smile lifts her lips as she pivots. Her long dark hair wraps in an elegantly messy knot on the back of her head, with wayward tendrils trailing down her neck. Slim ivory straps loop around her shoulders, leaving the expanse of her back on gorgeous display.
Black curlicues of ink draw a graceful, meandering vine from her waist to her nape, swirling flourishes over her spine and around her shoulder blades. She’s so damn arresting, my chest burns with the reminder to breathe.
Crossing the room until I’m right up on her, I brush my lips along her shoulder. “So beautiful I’m shaking.”
I let her feel the tremors in my fingers as I trace the delicate artwork on her spine.
She hums softly, her head tipping. “The tat was my first arrangement.”
I freeze then resume my caress, my stomach twisting. “You were thirteen.”
“Yeah. I got it after my dad died.” Her hand reaches back and finds the one at my side, bringing it forward to rest on her hip. “Right after Lorenzo…”
Just the mention of his name makes me want to pound my fists into his face until he chokes on his blood.
Her shoulders tense, relax. “The tattoo artist refused me because of my age. Until I suggested a different kind of payment.”
I continue to trace the whorls of ink, letting the softness of her skin calm my rising anger. “You offered him sex.”
She nods. “I needed this tattoo.”
With her back to me, I can’t see her eyes, but the emotion in her voice squeezes my chest.
“My dad claimed he didn’t just hear the notes when he played. He could see them curling through the air like scrollwork. Every song was a graphical image in his mind, and he drew those embellishments in the margins of his music sheets.”
When I was thirteen, I played with my dick while daydreaming about a girl—any girl—touching it.
When she was thirteen, she sold her body to a tattoo artist for a permanent keepsake of her dead father.
I glance down the curve of her back, my finger following the curls of ink with new appreciation. “Which song is this one?”
She gives me a watery smile over her shoulder. “His favorite Herbie Hancock, ‘Someday My Prince Will Come.’”
I’m no prince, but when I’m buried inside Ivory, I will always come.
Stepping around her, I remove a platinum bracelet from my pocket and clasp it around her wrist.
She studies it with wide eyes, holding the tiny frog charm between her fingers. “Edvard Grieg kept a frog figurine in his pocket at all times.”
I curve a hand around her waist, fingers stroking her naked back. “And he would rub it before concerts for good luck.”
She nods and kisses me, breathing against my lips, “Thank you.”
That night, she plays with more passion and skill than all of her peers combined. Stogie watches from the audience, his face stretched in a huge smile. I watch from the stage wings, my heart beating in time with her fingers.
Everything is good.
Joanne, Shane, and Lorenzo are gone. Prescott and Ms. Augustin are contained. The dean has nothing on me, while I have enough blackmail to ruin her career. I’ve been so careful.
Everything is perfect.
Too perfect. Like life has handed me a song filled with soul-deep joy and told me to savor every note.
Because eventually, the song will end.
Christmas comes and goes in a blur of extravagant presents and warm smiles at his parents’ house. Emeric and I spend the rest of our two-week break at home, in bed, tucked in an indestructible bubble of whispering, touching, kissing bliss. Every second with him feels like a dream, like any moment, someone’s going to cruelly shake my shoulder and force me to wake up.
Since I moved in, our trips outside of the house have been limited to school, weekly visits to Stogie’s, and weekend dinners at the Marceaux’s. There are no date nights at the movies, romantic dinners in the French Quarter, or hand-holding strolls along the Mississippi River. We do normal in the privacy of our own world, such as binging on a TV series starring bearded pirates with perfect teeth.