Dark Notes

His eyes never leave mine as he wraps a hand around my throat. He squeezes, and I whimper against the blissful pressure.

I love the way he holds me. “Harder.”

His fingers tighten, and he drives his hips faster, ruthless in his urgency.

We strain toward each other, hands clutching, eyes locked as we soar, lost in our private world of notes and dreams.

Three years later.

People from all over the world come to the French Quarter for food, culture, and music. Bourbon Street is an endless party, day and night. Our dueling piano bar is smack at the center of it, booming with the overflow of enthusiastic tourists. Most nights, the line out the door snakes around two blocks.

The sound of laughter, clinking glasses, and scuffing shoes charges the atmosphere with excitement. We’re so crammed in tonight the combined body heat stifles the air, made hotter by the bright lights above me.

I shudder with happy nerves and take a long draw from my beer, returning it to the shelf on my piano.

Stogie sits behind the bar, as old as the ninety-year rafters, smiling a youthful smile. Laura and Frank Marceaux sip their drinks in the seating area, surrounded by their friends.

Sharing the bench beside me, Emeric faces the other way, the shift of his hips creating a pleasurable glide against mine.

Our pianos sit in opposite directions and slightly off-center to allow elbow room as we play side by side.

He leans back against the keyboard of my piano, his eyes sweeping over my fitted ivory dress. “You look good enough to eat tonight, Mrs. Marceaux.”

I take in his jeans, white t-shirt, and gray fedora, and damn near purr with appreciation. “Hope you’re hungry, Mr. Marceaux.”

“Endlessly.” He launches at me, gripping my hair and giving me a kiss so scandalous the crowd explodes in whistles and catcalls.

When he breaks the kiss, my body swims in his lingering heat.

I focus on his bright blue eyes. “What are we dueling first?”

Grinning, he poises his fingers on his keyboard and nudges his shoulder against mine. “Guns N’ Roses.”

I tilt my smile upward and shiver beneath the lights. “And Kodaline.”

Then the music begins…