Between Now and Heartbreak - Dylan Allen Page 0,40
of tension.” I stroke them one more time. And here.” I touch the corner of his mouth and then run my finger underneath his stubbled jaw up to where it hinges. The knot of muscle there flexes under my finger.
“I’ve got lines there, too?”
“All of these places are tense, tight. All of the time.”
“No they’re not,” he balks.
“Yes, they are. But, I saw you behind the piano and when you started to sing, all of them disappeared. You look like yourself, but relaxed. And I knew…it was your thing. I mean, clearly the piano is your thing, but singing…is your thing.”
He looks unconvinced.
“It’s how I felt when I started to draw again. It’s the only time my mind ever slowed down. The only time I could be completely honest. The only time I can just be. It’s how I worked out my pain. I’ve been using your YouTube Channel as my background music and I thought maybe, I could hear the real thing.”
I walk over to the drafting table I brought into the room and sit down behind it.
“So you really invited me here just to play?”
I look over my shoulder at the seat where I left my sketch pad and then back to him.
I grin at the surprise in his voice.
“What? Did you think I was making it up?”
“Yeah. No. I thought… I don’t know.” His fingers drum against the side of his thigh and something about the nervous gesture makes me want to giggle.
“Pretend I’m not here. I won’t say a word. In fact, you never have to speak—.”
His eyes narrow and then in a quick move, he wraps an arm around my waist and drags me to him. My pulse leaps in reaction to the sudden movement, but my heart feels like it’s flying and I close my eyes for a second and savor how good it feels to have his arms around me.
I’m above average height for a woman, but, he’s above average height for a man and my eyes are level with his collarbone when I open them. I slowly drag my eyes up the smooth, tan column of his throat, past his square, lightly bearded chin, over the twin mounds of perfection that are his lips, up the tiny bump in the ridge of his strong nose and then into his eyes.
Lord help me, he makes me so weak.
My breath catches in my throat. He’s so close. And he’s looking at me like he’s just seen all my sketches of him and he knows that with just a flick of his wrist, he can have me any way he wants.
“Pretend you’re not here? You’re the only thing I can see, Beth,” he says.
His voice is soft and deep and vibrates between us. He runs a finger along my temple and traces my hairline before he scoops the back of my head with his hand. Gooseflesh ripples across my neck and runs up my scalp.
“I thought my memories of you were inflated, but they weren’t even close,” he says in a gruff voice. His fingers sink into my hair.
“In—” I have to clear my throat. “In what way?”
“Your skin is so soft. I’ve missed touching it. Seeing it,” he says and his grip around my waist tightens.
“I see.” My body is one big pulse point and I know that with every breath, he feels it beating in a strange back and forth with his.
God, why did I put on that stupid underwear? The devil on my shoulder grabs my collar and shakes me.
Because I knew this was going to happen and that it would be wrong. The angel wrestles me invisible web I stuck in.
I disentangle myself from the sweet cradle of his arms and step away. His eyes are full of frustration, but he smiles and nods before he walks back to the piano. I stare longingly at the broad muscles of his back for a beat before I sit down.
“You draw, I’ll play,” he recites it like a mantra.
He circles the piano, he runs the flat of his hand over the top in a stroke that’s reverent. He smiles to himself and skims his fingers along the keys before he sits down on the bench. As he observes the instrument he’s about to breathe life into, I observe the expression I want to capture in my painting. It’s a picture of a man in love…with his piano.
My eyes hungrily make a note of the way the left side of his face lifts a