The four of them headed outside toward the studio, Raum depositing Thelonious on a chair on their way past. No one considered disturbing Eva and Asmodeus.
The way it always did when they played together, Eva and Ash’s music came to its natural conclusion and ended perfectly—as if they’d spent hours practicing when, of course, it was a total fluke.
They were so in sync when they played, it was like she could read his mind. She’d never experienced anything like it. “My Funny Valentine” was her new favorite song and playing it with him felt like speaking their own secret language, communicating in a way that only they understood.
She set the violin down on top of the grand piano and stared at Ash, who stared back at her. He was a master musician, a passionate lover, a mystery she was dying to solve. She was transfixed. Fascinated.
In love with him.
Damn it.
“The curse lifted again.” Ash studied his hands like he’d never seen them before and then closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “It smells so good here. The briny ocean. The cedars.” His eyes opened and fixed on her. “You.”
“Me?” Her heart started racing.
He stood and came toward her. “You’re so fucking beautiful.” His eyes roamed up and down her body like he was trying to consume her with his gaze. “Your brown skin, your black hair, your light gray eyes.” He stepped closer, and her heart beat faster. “There are flecks of blue in them. I didn’t notice before.” He inhaled again. “Fuck, you smell good.”
Oh god, he was turning her on.
No, no, no, she had to fight this. She wasn’t giving in until he opened up to her. “You do realize that if every time you play music your curse lifts, you can have sex with a thousand different women who find you attractive, right?”
That was the metaphorical equivalent to a bucket of ice water on her libido.
He shrugged. “Yeah.” He barely seemed to be paying attention to the conversation, too busy scanning up and down her body, and damn it, that libido sprang right back to life like a weed that wouldn’t die.
“So...” She tried to glare at him. “You don’t need me anymore. You can have all the women you want. So you can stop with this whole ‘pretending you’re into me’ thing.”
His eyes flashed to her face. “What?”
“You can stop pretending I’m special to you!” she snapped, the hurt from before finally rearing its ugly head again. “You can stop pretending there’s anything more between us. You can go sleep with all the women in the world and forget all about me.” Damn it, that sounded petty.
“I don’t want to sleep with all the women in the world.” His eyes narrowed.
She threw her hands up. “Well, just a select few then, I don’t know!”
He frowned. “Why are you acting like this?”
His cluelessness was cute before, but now it was pissing her off. “Hm, maybe because you blatantly admitted to using me for sex, and since I’m not a goddamned automaton, hearing that shit hurt more than a little!” She accidentally shouted the last part.
“I already told you it was more than that. I told you about my... feelings.” He grimaced at the word.
“That’s not enough, Ash. I’m interested in you for more than just sex, and if you don’t feel the same way about me, then I need to protect myself and end this now.”
23
Face the Music
“Idon’t want to end it,” Ash growled, and she couldn’t help but be charmed by his fierceness.
“Me neither,” Eva replied, her tone gentling despite her best efforts to remain pissed, “but I need more than that from you. Don’t you get it?”
“No.” And the look on his face said he really didn’t.
She sighed. Was she really going to do this? Bare her heart and soul only to get potentially trampled over? But he genuinely wasn’t going to understand if she wasn’t blunt about it, and honestly, she preferred the up-front method anyway even if it hurt worse in the moment. At least when it was over, she would know she’d given it everything she had.
“Look, you say you’re... attached to me in some way. Well, I feel attached to you too.” God, that was such an unhealthy way of putting it, but she figured attachment was probably the only form of caring he was familiar with.
He frowned. “You do?”
