Seduction by Song Page 8

  “Well, maybe you just haven’t found the right complication yet,” I say, smiling over the rim of my glass as I watch him across the table.

  It’s still surprising to me how easily we’re able to fall into such a companionable silence after such a friendly talk. I suppose that this is progress, that this is good. Romeo agrees, or at least I suspect he does with the way he smiles at me over a bite of his food. His smile isn’t too arrogant, isn’t too lecherous—it’s still Romeo, but in a way, it’s almost kind.

  I relax, a smile sticking to my face.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The rest of the meal is—well, it’s amazing. All of the food just melts in my mouth, each bite a little slice of heaven. I compliment Romeo on his cooking, trying not to feel self-conscious about it, until I’m practically blue in the face.

  We finish off the bottle of wine between the two of us as he puts some leftovers in a plastic container for me to take home with me, and I listen to him talk about the recipes and how his mother always added her own little thing to each of them. He wouldn’t tell me the secrets of the family recipes, of course, but it was truly a simple, nice conversation that we could have just standing in the kitchen of his suite.

  “Sometimes it was the only thing that could get my father to apologize to my mother,” he says as he finishes loading the dishes into the sink. “A hungry stomach and the thought of her good food.”

  I feel the smile on my face go a bit sad, because that’s—very similar to the relationship my parents had before their divorce. From what little Romeo said about his parents’ relationship, I could tell that their marriage lasted, though somewhat unhappily, until his mother passed away. I didn’t pry for details, not wanting to make Romeo feel uncomfortable.

  The thought of that makes me sigh internally. Since when was this about not wanting him to feel uncomfortable? He had made me feel plenty uncomfortable the first few times we met, but—but I suppose that’s no longer the case.

  The desire to keep this comfortable air around us consistent isn’t alone in my stomach, though. It’s paired with a growing curiosity of Romeo’s family life. He’s mentioned his mother a few times now and I’m dying to know about the woman that made this complicated man standing in front of me, rolling his sleeves up and washing his hands in the sink.

  “Your mother was—you miss her?” I ask. The words come out a bit stilted and awkward as I shift nervously, not wanting to overstep my boundaries.

  In my peripheral vision, I see Romeo smile. It isn’t one of his cocky grins or one of his kinder smiles, though, but rather an almost bitter twist of his lips.

  “Every day,” he says, with a startling amount of honesty in his voice. “I miss her every day. When she got sick—.”

  He pauses, turning off the tap. I hold my breath in anticipation, watching his closely.

  “Cancer,” he says, spitting the word out like it’s poison. “I was on my first tour, high on the fame and fortune. I was halfway across the world when they diagnosed her with it—stage four. She’d been having the symptoms for ages, but my father never took her to the hospital. Said it wasn’t necessary. Then—at the end—he didn’t even want her to get treatment. He said the chances of her recovery were too slim to waste the money on it.”

  “Christ,” I say, whispering the word fiercely, rage boiling in my stomach. “What kind of man—.”

  Romeo shakes his head, holding a hand up to stop me. “Please. Don’t let that come into this night. I’ve cut all ties with that man, and though I think about my mother every day, I don’t give him a second thought—ever.”

  I nod, slowly. I want to ask him how he can do that—not forgive, but forget. I would never forgive my mother if she did such a horrible thing to my dad, and all the times she cheated on him were bad, but not this bad. I do respect Romeo’s privacy, though, and simply settle against the counter again.

  The conversation dies out as Romeo loads up the dishwasher, and I shift my weight on my feet as I watch him out of the corner of my eye.

  It was strange how comfortable I felt in his space, with him in mine.

  I blink at that thought, startling when I realize just how much in my space he was. I had been leaning against the kitchen counters as he worked, refusing to even let me help clean up, and he was now standing no more than a foot or two in front of me, watching me like I’m something truly riveting.

  It was flattering, the heat of his gaze, but it was also—it was too much. I shift back against the counter, drawing myself in as much as possible.

  “I’d like to see you at my next concert,” he says, not shifting back, but not moving forward to crowd me even more, either. “I’ve set aside tickets for you and your friends.”

  “Thank you,” I say, reflexively, but flinch when I realize that I hadn’t meant to actually agree to that. “I mean—thank you for the thought, but I don’t think we’ll be going.”

  He raises one eyebrow, finally moving to lean against the counter next to me. “No?”

  “No,” I confirm, as firmly as I can manage. “I’d like to be involved with the music video, but I think that’ll be all. I don’t think we should spend too much time together, Romeo.”

  “You don’t, do you,” he says, a smile creeping back onto his face. I could tell that he wasn’t taking me very seriously, that he found all this hilarious. And maybe he was right to—I could feel my resolve shaking more with every passing second.

  “I don’t,” I say, as though I need to hear it myself. “I don’t think I should be there.”

  Romeo hums thoughtfully, reaching up to tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear. The smallest gesture that would have set me off days ago sends a pleasant shiver down my spine down.

  “I think you will be there,” he says. “I think you’re dying for another chance up on the stage with me, another chance to do it right.”

  I shiver again, just from the words this time. The thought of being up there with him again, maybe more receptive to his overtures, was—well, it wasn’t entirely a horrifying thought.

  No, I tell myself. Then, out loud, I say, “No.”

  Romeo still looks skeptical.

  “Look, Romeo,” I start, struggling to find the right words and hesitating in pushing them out.

  “It’s my last show in Florida for a while,” he says. “The first in a worldwide tour.”

  I freeze, then relax. Of course. I should have expected that. He was a famous rock star, after all. He couldn’t keep chasing me, couldn’t keep existing in this small bubble of comfort that I’ve developed around him. I smile, then, because it’s suddenly so much easier to make my decision.

  “Definitely no, then,” I say, voice more firm and steady. “Romeo, this has been nice. It really has. You’ve shared a side of yourself that I’m sure you don’t share with many people, and I’m flattered that it was to me. If you’d like to keep in touch, I think we can be friends, but—but I just don’t think we can be more. I said before that you’re just not the kind of guy I’m interested in, and that’s—.”

  I pause, hesitating. That’s not necessarily true anymore, really, because I do think I’d like to get to know him better and maybe even come to be interested in him, but even if I did want that, and even if I was ready to admit to myself that I wanted that, he was going away on his tour and we wouldn’t exactly have time to do that.

  “You’re still the same cocky rock star I met at that first concert,” I say, steeling my heart against any other feelings I might have. “Maybe if I got to know you—but there’s no time for that, now is there? I can’t do this unless I know you’ll be putting me first, and—.”

  “And I will,” Romeo interrupts. He shrugs, like it’s just that simple. “I’ll cancel the tour. Or reschedule it, whatever. You can’t possibly think it’s more important than you.”

  I feel my jaw dropping again as I stare at him, my eyes going wider and wider until I have to squeeze them shut and shake my head.

  “You’re
kidding,” I say, hearing my voice waver a little as I peek out at him. “Right?”

  The look on his face says wrong. The look on his face says he’s dead serious about this, about me, and I can’t help but just stare until the impact of that hits home.

  “Oh, God,” I say, breathing the words out under my breath. “You’re—you’re serious. You’d do that for me?”

  He nods, the barest tip of his head as he brings his hands up to curl his fingers at my cheeks, tilting my face up towards his.

  Warmth floods my chest as I’m guided to stare straight into his eyes, straight into the passion that’s there. Passion from him, to me—for me. I hear myself gasp, sharp and breathless like I’m a teenager and falling in love for the first time all over again.

  “Don’t,” I whisper, shaking my head as much as I can without shaking his hands loose. “You don’t have to do that for me. I’ll be at your show. I promise. I’ll—I’ll be there, for you.”

  The as yours goes unspoken, but I think he might know it because he smiles, warm and genuine.

  His lips part as he slowly bridges the distance before us, our lips moving closer and closer.

  “Your last chance to push me away before it’s too late,’ he whispers.

  Mesmerized, I stay in a trance until his lips meet mine.

  And he does make me melt right into, just like that.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The moment his lips touch mine, I feel my breath catch in my throat. For one perfect second it’s hard to remember why I resisted this long, why we haven’t been doing this for days—because perfect is exactly what it is. His mouth is warm and his lips are ever so slightly chapped, giving the kiss just the right amount of friction as he tilts his head to lick at my mouth.

  I let him in with a breathy moan, which makes him growl low in the back of his throat. The sound sends shivers shooting straight down my spine and I’m suddenly aching to be closer. He wraps his arms around me and drags me in closer, licking at my mouth again, more demanding this time.

  He sweeps his tongue into my mouth as soon as I part my lips, and I find myself bringing my hands up to cling to his shoulders as he practically devours my mouth in the most passionate kiss I’ve ever had.

  He kisses just like he sings, smooth and fluid and hot.

  I’m gasping for breath by the time we part. One of his hands has slipped under the hem of my blouse, and I shiver at the touch of his fingers to my skin.

  “Wait,” I say.

  He growls again, louder this time now that it’s not muffled against my mouth. “Wait?”

  I swallow thickly and nod even though waiting is the last thing I want to do. The kiss was a promise of so much more, and it was a sort of more that I wanted. But I knew that I couldn’t rush into things right now. I had to think, had to think about whether or not this was really—well, real.

  Romeo fixes his heated gaze on me for one fierce moment and I almost think he’s going to lean in again, take me into his arms and refuse to wait. I hold my breath, something similar to anticipation coursing through my veins.

  He stops, though, and takes a step back as he nods. “Fine. If waiting’s what you need—.”

  I nod, too, and smile, still feeling a bit shaky from that kiss that turned my knees to jelly. “Yeah, it’s—I just need some time. I won’t make you wait for long. Just a few days. Let me think?”

  “I understand. But please remember – we’ve got a series of concerts coming up, they are right here in Miami but I’ll be in rehearsals all day. Don’t make me wait,” he says in confirmation. “Not for long.”

  “I won’t,” I tell him like it’s a promise, and believe it, too.

  I leave that night after a few more kisses, each hotter than the one before until I can feel my resolve to wait slipping. I force myself to say goodnight, then, and sit in the back of the town car Romeo calls to take me home in complete silence with a huge grin on my face.

  It wasn’t that I forgot about all the ways Romeo felt wrong for me just days before, but he seemed to prove me wrong about everything. He is famous, he is rich, and he’s probably just as cocky as I thought he was when we first met—but he’s not malicious about any of these things, and that’s becoming less and less surprising and easier and easier to believe.

  April takes one look at me when I get inside our apartment and bursts out laughing.

  “Oh my god, Erin,” she says, grinning as she offers me a cup of the tea she’s just made. “You look positively ravished, darling. What’d you get up to tonight?”

  I blush, heat rising to my cheeks as I kick off my shoes before joining her on the couch. “You don’t want to know.”

  She raises an eyebrow.

  “Okay, okay. I’m pretty sure you do want to know, but—.”

  I struggle to find the right words for a moment before just deciding on the truth. I tell her everything, from the dinner to the talk we had afterwards. I don’t tell her about Romeo’s mother, of course, because that seemed like such a personal thing that I wouldn’t share it with anyone.

  April’s smiling at the end of it, all fond like my mother would once in a while before she started drinking and sleeping around.

  “What?” I ask, smiling, too, but feeling a bit self-conscious nonetheless.

  “Just—you,” she says as though that explains anything. “You look happy. It’s not that you used to look sad, but—I’m glad you have someone.”

  “Well, maybe,” I say, slumping back against the couch. I groan, though I still can’t quite wipe the stupid smile off of my face. “I can’t believe I made him wait, after all that. You think he will?”

  “I know he will,” she says. “He’s obviously into you, and who wouldn’t be? You’re a catch, girl!”

  I laugh, grinning at her again as I grab the cup of tea to sip at it. “Thanks. You always know just the right thing to say, you know? Here, I’ve got something for you—.”

  I set my mug down again to reach for my purse, pulling out the concert tickets that Romeo slipped into my hands before I left. I wave them in front of April’s face before dropping them into her hands.

  She blinks at them a few times before laughing and gathering them up. “Oh my god, seriously? This is awesome. The perks of having a rock star boyfriend, huh?”

  “Guess so,” I say as I settle back again. “Think the girls will be excited?”

  “Are you kidding me? They’re going to freak.”

  They do, indeed, freak. Juliet and Maddie scream for a good five minutes in excitement after April and I present them with the tickets. They hug us both for another five minutes before deciding that we needed to go to our closets right then and there to pick our outfits.

  “I can’t believe it’s in two days,” Maddie says as she makes me try on a third dress. “Just two days! And—and you! Dating Romeo! That is so fucking amazing!”

  I laugh, spinning around in the dress that she chose for me. “Well, I don’t know if we’re calling it dating just yet. It’s—it’s something, though, isn’t it?”

  “It’s everything,” Maddie says earnestly. “Isn’t it everything you could have dreamed of?”

  I blink at the question, caught off-guard by the suddenness of it. She says it like it’s truly something she believes, and when I think about it, I find that I couldn’t disagree. Romeo was certainly a charmer, and he did know how to spoil a girl. Fancy dinners and pretty jewelry weren’t everything to me in a relationship, but they sure didn’t hurt on top of a romantic guy.

  I feel my cheeks heating up again as I step out of my dress to try on the next one Maddie laid out. “Maybe it is. I guess we’re about to find out.”

  “Damn right we are,” Maddie says, clapping her hands together excitedly. “And this time, I’m bringing my good camera. I’m not missing another chance of seeing you up on that stage.”

  I laugh and reenter my closet. It would certainly be a moment to remember.

  Just like the first time, the stadium is absolute
ly packed when we get there. The crowd is already screaming by the time we take our seats, excited energy flowing through them. Instead of the annoyance I felt at the stimulants coursing through the crowd the last time we were here, I feel the excitement and anticipation flood into my own body as I join in their cheering.

  The lights are dimming before long and the girls clutch at my arms, eager for the show to start. The cheers get louder as everyone gets to their feet, clapping and roaring for the band.

  The first strains of a now familiar song (I had spent quite a bit of time listening to Romeo’s discography the past few days; it wouldn’t do to be unfamiliar with it now, after all) begin to flow through the speakers as the show begins.

  As soon as the spotlight floods the stage with Romeo at its center, his eyes move across the front row until they find mine. I smile instantly and feel warmth coil in my stomach as he returns the smile before opening his mouth to start singing.

  The energy of the crowd is positively alive tonight as Romeo moves across the stage. His eyes rarely leave mine with him turning away only when he absolutely has to. I stare at him, mesmerized as he performs.

  Then, suddenly, he’s standing at the center of the stage and holding a hand out to me.

  “You know what time it is, ladies,” he says, speaking loud enough into his mic that the whole crowd hears, but staring at me so heatedly that he’s obviously speaking straight to me. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  My heart pounds in my throat as one of the stagehands, a nice boy I remember from the music video shoot, leads me up the stairs and onto the stage. I shiver in anticipation as I move forward, each step bringing me closer to Romeo. He stands with his hand held out to me and I take it without hesitation.

  “Welcome back, beautiful eyes,” he says, smiling warmly at me with his teeth peeking out over his bottom lip seductively. Now that I know what it’s like to kiss that mouth, I can barely resist the urge to lean in and kiss him again right that very instant.