The Girl's Got Secrets (Forbidden Men 7)

“He slept with other women?” Asher tipped his head to the side in confusion.

Shit, I’d forgotten the gay thing again. Grr. Clearing my throat, I mumbled, “Yeah, he, uh, he’s bi.” And strangely, that lie felt really good to spew. Fisher would hate being called bi. Ha!

Nodding as if understanding, Asher winced in sympathy. “Well, that had to suck. What else were you going to say he did?”

“Oh. He, uh…I wrote him a couple songs and...he stole them, sang them in his band and claimed they were his own.”

“Shit,” Asher murmured, compassionately. “No wonder why you didn’t want me looking at your notebook.”

I shrugged and held up the pages of lyrics I’d created. “Sorry, I wasn’t accusing you of being a plagiarist. I just...you know what? I know you’re not like him. Here.”

I tossed the notebook across the beds and into his lap. He picked it up, hesitation glimmering in his green eyes. “Are you sure? I totally respect your privacy, man. And I get why you’re—”

“Just read,” I mumbled. “If you even think about stealing any of my lines, I’ll just cut off that huge cock of yours and force-feed it to Gally.”

He laughed. “Fair enough.” Before opening the pages though, he tossed me his booklet.

A knot formed in my throat at his return trust in me. When he flipped open my notebook, I did the same to his.

A second later, I gave a low whistle. “Damn, these are amazing.”

“Ditto,” he murmured distractedly, too busy reading my work to talk.

I flipped the pages, growing increasingly stunned that he hadn’t already turned some—okay, most—of them into songs.

“Seriously, Asher. You have some wicked, awesome talent.”

“Hmm?” Distracted, he glanced up and right back down. Chewing on the end of his pen—something I totally did when I was stuck on a line—he returned his attention to my notebook. “Thanks, but I’m not writing worth shit these past few days. I keep getting stuck on this one line.”

“Oh, yeah?” I flipped to the last page. “Let’s see what you got.”

“Wait!” Tossing down my lyrics, he leapt off his bed and snatched his own from my hands.

I blinked at his sudden reserve. Then I grinned. “Oh, come on. Don’t hold out on me now. Sing me what you have so far.”

He shook his head. “I’ve never...I usually can’t sing my stuff aloud until I have an entire song fleshed out. It feels...weird.”

“Then speak it in words, because seriously, how the hell am I supposed to help if I don’t know where you’re stuck?”

“You don’t have to...” He must’ve read something in my expression because he gave a long-suffering sigh before he flipped through pages and silently read through the words. Then he shook his head. “Yeah, I don’t think I can just read it either. I’d have to sing it.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “Then sing.” I knew the man wasn’t afraid to sing in front of an audience, but he suddenly looked uncertain.

He sent me an uncomfortable glance. “Don’t carp on me if it ends up sounding shitty, all right?”

I rolled my eyes. “Try trusting me a little more than that, will you? I know nothing’s perfect the first time though.”

“Okay, fine.”

And he started to sing.

In a cappella, his voice was beautiful. I wanted to crawl onto the bed with him, right into his lap and let him sing to me for the rest of the night...or my life.

But I was a good girl. I stayed back and merely bobbed my head to the beat, then reached out and tapped the rhythm with my bare hands against the top corner of the nightstand.

He grinned, obviously getting into the grove, and began to sway to the tune as he continued the song until he stopped suddenly and shook his head.

“And that’s all I got. That’s where I’m stuck.”