Her eyes are closed, her head bowed as one hand moves swiftly and fluidly up the long neck of the instrument while the other gracefully drags the bow along the strings. Carefully, I keep to the shadows along the doors, angling for a better position to watch her. She hasn’t heard me yet and though I feel as though I should know her, that I’ve seen her before somewhere, I’m coming up at a loss.
Another step and then I stop, standing here like a creeper as she plays the cello in a way I’ve never heard or seen any instrument played before. The way she draws each note from it, coaxing its exquisite moans like a lover, has me entranced.
Or maybe that’s the woman.
Because just looking at her has my dick hard as steel when it hasn’t shown interest in anything or anyone in over a month. Calling her simply beautiful is practically an insult. Words haven’t yet been invented to describe her and she hasn’t even opened her eyes yet.
Or looked up.
But I need her to. The urge to see her face and what she looks like when she discovers me here is oddly compelling. Then I might need to fuck her. Work whatever bizarre magic she’s weaving out of my body. Unless she’s Rina’s friend or something. Shit. She is at my parents’ estate and judging by the way she’s dressed and her comfort playing cello here, she belongs.
I clear my throat, but she doesn’t catch it. In fact, she’s so lost in her music she doesn’t notice me until I grab a random old deck chair and drag it over to sit beside her. Then she starts. Almost violently, she practically falls off her chair as her head flies up and her gaze snaps over to me.
Startling blue-green eyes land on mine and something strange and foreign stirs in my chest, squeezing ever so slightly. She blinks rapidly—her eyelashes a thick, black fan across her creamy cheeks—as she adjusts herself on her chair and licks her pillowy lips nervously.
“Luca.”
Now it’s my turn to blink. “You know me?”
A flush of crimson creeps up from the top of her cleavage to the roots of her hair. “Well, yes, sir. I mean, it’s been a while, but I… of course. That is to say, I knew you weren’t Dr. Landon.” She shakes her head, flustered. Clears her throat. “Did I wake you with my playing?”
Sir. She called me sir. And Dr. Landon? The fuck?
I study her closer. Raven hair. Caribbean ocean eyes. Knock-out body.
Shit. Raven hair. Raven. How could I have not recognized our house manager’s daughter? Double shit. Morgan Fairchild has been with our family since around the time Kaplan was born. He and his wife both, but she died shortly after Raven was born. If he knew the thoughts I was just having about his daughter, he’d kill me. Literally since the man is former MI6.
“Raven.”
If possible, her blush deepens.
“It’s been…”
A long time. I swear, she was all braces and big glasses and looked nothing like this the last time I saw her. She was also—
“Four years,” she answers for me, gently setting her large black cello down along with her bow into an open case beside her chair. “Since you and Mister Landon graduated medical school. At least, that was the last time we spoke.” Embarrassment consumes her features, and she looks down. But I’m caught on that four years ago thing.
“Raven, how old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
Her answer rocks something inside me and I lean forward, my elbows hitting my thighs as I pin her with a stare I can’t explain.
“And how long have you been eighteen?”
Her head tilts at my odd question, but I wait her out, needing to know just what level of depraved son of a bitch I’m hitting.
“Three months.”
My gut sinks.
“I turn twenty-nine in two weeks.”
Why am I telling her that? I’m nearly eleven years older than her. She’s a teenager. Essentially part of our staff, who are more like extended family. I shouldn’t feel this sort of… disappointment? Is that what that is?
“I know when your birthday is, Luca, and I know how old you are.”
A smirk hits my lips at the ‘duh’ way she says that. “Is that right?”
She stares innocently at me, but there is something else there. A glimmer in her eyes. Something that tells me she likes how thrown off I am by our age difference. Almost as if she can see my ill-placed desire for her and wants to play with it, twirl it around her fingers.
I’m Luca, but Landon is Dr. Landon. I lean back in my chair, rubbing a hand over my mouth as I consider her. If she’s at all embarrassed about her blatant lack of clothing, she’s not showing it as she cautiously waits for my next move while not removing her gaze from mine.
Such a gorgeous contradiction—shy and brave—I find my smirk growing against my better judgment.
“You’re a lot younger than I am. Does our age difference bother you?” The way it bothers me.
She laughs now, the sound a sexy rasp. Her voice is like those sea salt caramels Rina made me eat earlier with her. Smooth and creamy, yet with a zinging coarseness on the end.
“Should it?” She laughs harder at my expression. “I’ve been told being eighteen is considered a legal adult. I can vote and fight for our country and…” She leans forward, cupping her hand around her mouth as if she’s about to tell me a secret. “I don’t even have to ask my daddy’s permission before I want to go do something I shouldn’t.”
My dick jumps excitedly at that proposition, but I tamp it down. She’s bold. Beautiful. And impossible. The first woman to get my dick stirring in over a month is as forbidden to me in just about every way a woman can be. Gotta love that irony, but that doesn’t mean I’m getting up and walking away either. She’s a winless game I can’t help but want to continue playing.
“Is that what has you out here? You no longer need permission to be up past midnight?”
A shrug of her shoulder, her hands twining up in her hair, lifting the heavy strands off her dewy neck. It also lifts the bottom of her crop top and I catch the hint of the heavy undersides of her breasts. Holy damn, that’s insanely fucking sexy.
“Are you flirting with me?” I tease when she doesn’t answer.
“Possibly. Does that bother you?” she asks, throwing my question back at me.
I chuckle under my breath. It fucking should. “Not even a bit. I’m just glad you’ve stopped calling me sir and haven’t referred to me as Dr. Luca. But you never answered my initial question.”
She tosses her hands up, the strands of her hair falling around her. “I couldn’t sleep. What’s your excuse?”
My eyes snap back up to hers. “I decided I was done for the night and didn’t feel like going to one of the parties my siblings were headed for.”
“No woman for Luca Abbot-Fritz to end the night with? Has such a thing ever occurred before?” She gives an exaggerated gasp, covering her mouth as her eyes widen.
“You mock me, Little Bird, thinking you know me so well. You knew it was me and not Landon as well as my birthday, age, and evidently my fuck habits. What else do you know?”
Aqua eyes sparkle, lit with challenge as she matches my position, crossing her legs at the knee, her arms across her breasts forcing them up just a bit and revealing a hint of more cleavage. Cleavage I have absolutely no business looking at, but her rare and exquisite form of beauty makes it impossible not to notice.