Taking without asking.
Grown men tend to be different toward me. Careful, if not curious.
The dark hallway of the first floor greets me, as I step out of the elevator and make my way to the dining room. En route, I pause at the atrium, and look inside where the last few weeks of contractors and construction workers have turned what was once unkempt and neglected into a vision of wonder and fascination. Healthy vines spill down the gilded iron bars, braided in small white lights. Newly painted walls and lush greenery give a splash of spectacular color. Lanterns hang from the ceiling like stars in the night sky, while the floors, polished and shining, reflect the glow above.
Breathtaking.
I step inside the room, empty of workers who must be on their lunchbreak, and take a seat at the piano. A device sits propped against the music rack. Small and clunky, it reminds me of a walkie-talkie.
A large, round button in the center of it carries the symbol for play, and out of sheer nosiness, I press it. Music drifts from its speakers like black ribbons flitting around me. Haunting and darkly beautiful.
It’s a piece I’ve not heard before, I close my eyes, taking in every stroke of the keys, letting it wind around my senses.
The sadness. The longing.
The notes take shape inside my head like a living, breathing entity. A vision of Lucian’s hands dancing over white keys, and up over my arms, his fingertips dragging across my skin. I breathe in through my nose, and exhale through parted lips, while the music takes me back to my most recent dream of him. I reach up to touch my lips, recalling the night he kissed me on the rooftop, my eyes still shuttered to everything but the scene playing behind my lids.
“What are you doing?”
At the sharp, menacing tone, I jolt from my musings and scramble to turn off the device, pressing the first button that stops the music. Muscles vibrating, I turn to find Lucian standing across from me, with a notepad clutched at his hip.
“Tell me you didn’t mess anything up.”
“I … I didn’t.”
Scowl plastered to his face, he strides toward me and swipes up the device.
“I saw the recorder sitting there, and …”
“It’s a Tascam,” he says, examining the equipment.
“A what?”
“A Tascam. Used to record tracks.”
“It’s your music, then?” I can’t help the wonder in my voice, imagining such a beautiful piece originating inside his head. “I swear I only listened to it.”
Shoulders sagging, he tips his head back, eyes screwed shut, as he presses the play button.
“Tell me you didn’t mess anything up.”
“I … I didn’t. I saw the recorder sitting there, and …”
“It’s a Tascam.”
The playback is our conversation. I must’ve accidentally recorded over the music.
I slap a hand to my face, the needling pangs of shock stabbing my gut. “Oh, no.”
“Hours, I tried to get that piece right. Now, it’s gone.” He waves his notebook in the air. “Ran to get something to jot down the notes.” Jaw hard, he chucks the book across the piano strings beneath the lid.
“Lucian, I’m so sorry.” Remorse hammers through me, crushing my chest like a heavy fist. “I didn’t mean to touch it.”
“You just can’t keep your hands off anything, can you?” The growl in his tone likely only represents a fraction of his anger. He tosses the Tascam onto the music stand, and when it falls to the keys, slamming out a hard note, I flinch. “I’ll never remember it.”
Lowering my gaze, I stare down at the keys, and while echoes of the song linger in my head, my eyes scan over every placement of my fingers. I see them. I know them. “I can.”
Still turned away from me, he doesn’t bother to acknowledge my response.
Exhaling a shaky breath, I set my fingers to the keys and close my eyes. At the first note, I feel the black ribbons dance around me as I play the song from memory. The soft caress of his hands on my skin. The warmth of his breath at my neck. Every moment of the song permanently seared by his imagined seduction that winds around each keystroke. The dream plays exactly as before, every look, every touch. Up until the point when it ends, and I open my eyes to Lucian’s incredulous stare.
“How did you do that?” Disbelief blazes in his eyes while riding the tone of his voice.
“I played it from memory.”
“I literally wrote that minutes before. How could you possibly know the notes?”
“I didn’t know the notes. I can’t read music.”
Frown deepening, he crosses his arms. “How? I’ve heard you play Chopin. Liszt. Bach.”
“All from memory. But I’ve never learned notes.” The awe in his stare is too much, and I shift on the bench. “So … are you going to stand there? Or are we going to figure out these notes?”
He reaches beneath the piano lid for his notebook, and I set my hands to the keys once more. For the next hour, he has me play small segments of the song, while he furiously jots down the notes, capturing every single one. Each time I play, the same images come to mind, making it almost impossible to look at him, for fear he’ll see the desire burning in my eyes. By the time we’re finished, I’ve mentally made love to Lucian over and over again.
He sits beside me on the bench, a partial smile playing on his lips as he stares down at the last page of music. For a man so serious, so focused on business and his work, there is a vulnerability to him in the pride he exudes right now. This is it. His soft spot, where the steel bends around the notes, and the shadows that always seem to follow him dance across the walls. Beneath the leathery skin and hardened bones, this is where his happiness hides.
I finally found it.
“Thank you for this.”
Tucking my hands into my lap, I nod. “It’s a beautiful piece. Would’ve been a shame to lose it.”
“It would’ve.”
“What will you do with it?” I try not to stare at his magnificent hands, the long fingers and perfectly trimmed nails, his skin slightly weathered with age.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” This must be what my high school teacher felt like when I told him I had no plans to follow through with music. I can’t fathom that Lucian would let such a beautiful piece collect dust.
“I didn’t write it to do anything with it. I wrote it to get it out of my head.”
What a wondrous place it must be inside his mind. A dark and wicked place, brimming with the bizarre and peculiar, just like the song.
His eyes finally fall on me, the soft amber glow of his irises eclipsed by shadows. “It reminds me of you.”
The dryness of my throat becomes apparent when I attempt to swallow. “How so?”
“The way it’s haunting. Delicate. Perilous, yet somehow alluring.” Precisely the words I’d use to describe the song. “Annoying as fuck.”
At a burst of laughter through my nose, I cover my face. “I annoy you?”
“Incessantly.”
My laughter wilts to a sigh as his lips snare my attention, lulling me into the memory of being on the rooftop, lying beneath him. The many times I’ve thought about his kiss since that night, tasted the whiskey on my tongue, and have longed to feel the butterflies in my stomach again. The right and wrong waging war inside my head. The lure of it all, so intoxicating, I don’t even realize I’m leaning into him until my lips brush his.