“You’re dangerous for my heart, Beaumont.”
“I know.”
HUTTON
Inhaling a deep breath, my eyes flutter open. Looking around, I freeze when I realize I’m not at home and in my bed. Instead, I’m on a sofa, in the middle of a dark room.
Sitting up, I collect my bearings and once I look to the left of me, I see the gigantic monstrosity that is Beaumont’s television, then everything comes flooding back to me.
We were cuddled on the sofa together, we talked about the future, about us. He basically told me that he wanted to start something with me, but he didn’t really clarify what that meant and I was too scared to even ask. In fact, after the comment about lying naked in his arms, everything else is pretty much a blur.
Reaching for my abandoned purse on the floor, I fish my phone out and glance at the time. It’s two in the morning. Frowning, I glance around in search of Beaumont, but the entire living and dining area are eerily silent.
Pushing off of the sofa, I slip my feet back into my sandals and start to walk around the large empty house. I shouldn’t snoop around his home, but beyond wondering where he is, I’m curious about the life that he lives.
He was fairly open with me last night, but it wasn’t like we talked about a ton of inner personal things. He’s still kind of a stranger and I am to him as well. He doesn’t know the woman that I am now, just like I don’t know much about the man that he has become.
Venturing down a dark hall, I pause when I see a light shining through the crack beneath a closed door at the end. Biting the inside of my cheek, I wonder if I should continue on toward the door, and knock, or go back to the sofa and try to sleep.
Shaking my head, I know that there will be no sleep for me until I find out what’s happening on the other side of that closed door. My feet carry me closer until I’m right in front of it. I know that pressing my ear against it is wrong, but I do it anyway.
Unfortunately, I can’t hear anything. Closing my eyes, I knock on the door and wait for a moment. When everything is still silent, I reach for the knob and gently twist it as I push the door open.
I stand in shock and awe at what’s in front of me.
It’s a recording studio.
Not just a little room with buttons and knobs, but a full-on recording studio. I’m standing in the lounge area, looking over a bunch of buttons and slides and through a glass window, I see him. He’s sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, his guitar in his hands and his head dipped down.
There’s smoke lifting into the air from where his head is bent. I frown, wondering when he started smoking. Then all thoughts of smoke and cigarettes disappear when I hear him strum the guitar strings.
A haunting melody fills the room. It’s breathtakingly beautiful, and it makes my heart ache just hearing it. He doesn’t lift his eyes as his fingers continue to move over the strings of his guitar. I don’t move, frozen in my spot as I listen to him.
The music, it’s telling a story and I can only imagine what that story will sound like once he adds lyrics. When he’s finished, he lifts his head and his gaze immediately meets mine. He leans over, setting his guitar in a stand and stubs out his cigarette in an ashtray that’s sitting next to him on a small table.
“C’mon in here,” he calls, lifting his hand and motioning for me.
My body jerks and my feet become unstuck from the floor as I force myself toward him. The door separating the control room from the main area, where he is, is open and I hurry through and stop just a few feet away from him.
He dips his chin between his spread thighs and I bite the corner of my lip as I slowly approach him. When I’m within reaching distance, his hands wrap around my hips and he tugs me closer toward him, my thighs nestled between his spread ones.
Beaumont tips his head back, looking into my eyes as I tuck my chin down and look into his dark gaze.
“I wake you?” he asks with a frown.
Shaking my head, I lift a trembling hand up to cup his stubbled cheek. “Woke up on the sofa, didn’t remember where I was,” I admit.
His lips twitch. “You wouldn’t have woken up if you’d have let me exhaust you.” He grins.
“Beau,” I warn.
His grin turns into a soft chuckle as his fingers squeeze my hips. “Just sayin’.”
“I should go home,” I breathe.
He hums, one of his hands sliding up the center of my back before his fingers wrap around the back of my neck. His palm is warm, his fingers firm yet tender in their grasp.
“No, you shouldn’t,” he says. I don’t know if he means this morning, or ever. The way he’s staring at me, I think it could be the latter. “Did you hear me play?” he asks.
There is a hopeful gleam in his eyes when he asks and he looks about twenty years younger. He looks like a kid that is proud of what he’s done and he’s waiting for praise.
“It was beautiful, haunting,” I admit. “Does it have lyrics?”
Beaumont shakes his head, his eyes staying completely focused on me. “Not yet. Wrote it in about fifteen minutes. Fuck, you could be my muse.”
Smiling, I shift my hand from his cheek to slide my fingers through his hair. “I highly doubt that,” I say as I feel the soft strands of his hair against my fingertips.
My breath hitches when I feel his other hand leave my hip and dance up my side. His fingers stop just beneath my breast. I expect his gaze to shift to where his fingers lightly dance, but they don’t, they continue to stay locked in on mine.
“I don’t. You’re special, Hutton. I knew you were the night we met and I’ve been regretting my behavior for almost a decade. If you weren’t special, I wouldn’t even remember your face.”
“Sounds as though you’ve tested that theory,” I say, my nose wrinkling, not wishing to think about all of the women that I have no doubt he’s slept with through the years.
He tilts his head to the side, his fingers sliding down to the hem of my shirt, before slipping beneath and making their way up my side again, this time touching my bare skin along the way up.
My entire body breaks out in goosebumps with each move of his hand against my body. I want more, I want it all, and I don’t know if I like myself for being so easy when it comes to him or not.
“Do you want an honest answer?” he asks.
“You’d tell me?”
He nods once. “I’m working on my honesty along with my sobriety. It’s my downfall. I don’t lie, never have. I have, however, omitted so much in my life, that it has felt like lying more times than not.”
I press my lips together thinking about his offer. Do I want to know the truth? I’m not sure that I do, and yet, I’m not sure that I can not know either. I can understand how he feels about omissions feeling like lies. I’ve been lying too, for far too long, to myself.
Inhaling a deep breath, I release my own hold on my lips and finally speak. “I want to know. I also want to know what this means. You and me. I know that I’m not supposed to ask, it’s been one night, but I’m asking anyway.”
He laughs, his teeth showing and looking perfectly beautiful. “I’ve tested the theory with dozens of women, Hutton. I’m not proud, but I was in my early twenties and rising to fame. Women come with the territory. Sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll, I guess. Truth?”