Burn Me Once

‘You do that in a recording studio?’

‘Sometimes.’ He shrugs.

My hand feels the ripple of his muscles and my gut clenches correspondingly.

‘And you snuck an extra question in there. Don’t think I didn’t notice.’

‘Uh-huh. I’m very sneaky.’

‘I like sneaky.’

His head dips closer. My breath is burning through me.

‘Alena?’

When I shake my head this time it brings me closer. Our lips are barely an inch apart and my hand is still on his chest, my fingertips teasing the soft fabric of his shirt. Up close, his scent is intoxicating.

‘What’s your question?’

My brain is thick and woolly. I want to kiss him. I want to kiss him so badly that I can phantom-feel his lips on mine already.

What if he’s a terrible kisser?

My eyes drop to his lips, assessing the possibility of that.

No.

He won’t be.

I’m sure of it.

‘Don’t have one, huh?’ he teases.

A noise cracks us apart. I blink, like I’m waking from a dream. The waitress has placed our drinks on the tabletop and then a basket of onion rings. It’s surprisingly sweet that he ordered something so pedestrian. Had I expected he’d ask for caviar-dressed lobster?

‘What’s it like? Being famous?’

His expression shows surprise. He wasn’t expecting that.

‘You’re the first person to ask me that,’ he muses, drawing the foam top off his beer in a way that is so absolutely masculine my knees knock with feminine heat.

‘Really?’ I sound normal. That’s good. ‘You weren’t born famous. It must be a bit weird.’

‘Weird’s a good word for it.’ He shrugs. ‘I don’t notice so much now. But at first...’

‘You were...how old? When your first record came out?’

‘I didn’t release a record at first. I was big on YouTube before any of the labels came knocking.’

‘So you’ve been doing this a really long time?’

He reaches for an onion ring, crunches it. ‘I was sixteen when I topped the UK charts.’

I’m impressed—obviously. All the more so because he says it without a hint of arrogance. It’s just a fact, one he’s accepted as a part of the fabric of his story, so that he says it without realising what a huge deal it is.

‘Do you like it?’

‘Music?’

‘Fame,’ I correct, sipping my drink.

‘Nah. It’s shit.’

I laugh—it’s not what I was expecting him to say at all. ‘Really?’

‘Really.’ He grins. ‘You get used to it, but at first it’s like being on a different planet. I’ll never forget the first time I opened my front door to a throng of paparazzi. It was madness. I was still living at home—we had to move to a gated community with security fences and cameras. I can’t get over how fascinated people are by the minutiae of my life. Of anyone else’s life. I once had a busboy sell the cutlery I’d used for lunch on eBay.’

I pull a face, barely able to imagine the invasiveness of that.

‘But the music...’

He grins and my heart flops.

‘I live for it, you know? Always have.’

And he begins to hum, something low and deep, and he moves closer to me again, propping an elbow on the table to form a sort of cage around me. He is big and I’m not. I’ve always been little, but in the circle created by his arms I feel something I’ve never felt before. I feel safe.

Safe?

From what?

It’s a stupid, errant thought. After all, whatever’s happening between us is possibly the most danger I’ve been in. Even with the guys I was with before Jeremy it was never like this. I was in control. Always.

Ethan when-is-he-going-to-kiss-me? Ash is definitely not eating out of the palm of my hands. Yet.

A need to grasp control out of his hands spins through me. I reach up and curl my fingers around his shirt, so that I can pull him closer still, and then I brush my lips to his so that I feel the notes rather than just hear them. If possible, his voice tastes even better than it sounds.

‘Alison?’ he says against my lips.

I shake my head.

‘Do you have a question for me?’

I’m at a crossroad. Past, future and present swirl around me. Need, want, right and wrong. These are all voices and forces throbbing in my head. But one voice is loudest of all.

Desire shouts through me.

‘Can we go yet?’