Page 52 of My Heart Before You

Emilie watched the elderly man’s wispy white head disappear before turning to him. “I didn’t know you could play like that.”

He quietly folded his hands in his lap humming with satisfaction. Twice this week, he’d snuck into the hospital lobby to practice before his morning surgery just so he could have this effect on her today. Once a crabby security guard had even kicked him off halfway through.

“That was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard.” Her gaze was transfixed on the piano keys while her chest heaved slightly. Soft brown eyes flitted to his. “Do you know many other songs by heart?”

“Yes.” His lips curved high at her surprised face.

Out of nowhere, she punched him in the arm.Hard.

“You sneak! You’ve done this before. I’m sure the ladies love a man who plays piano.”

“You’rethe one that brought us here, not me,” he reminded her.

She let out an exasperated huff of air. “I thought you would just play ‘Let It Be’ or something.”

As he turned his body back to the piano and lifted his hands over the keys, she grabbed for his forearm. “Don’t you dare.”

His pulse quickened under her grip, while his gaze fixed on her hand on his arm. Her body froze, seemingly understanding the closeness she’d created in holding him back from the piano. Buzzing energy surged through his body as his focus shifted to how her lips were parted while she took short, shallow breaths. Whether intentional or not, she wet them and he could no longer resist the driving hunger that vibrated through his body since she’d opened the door hours ago.

Placing the hand she gripped on the bench between them, he weaved the other through her hair, kissing her soundly on her freshly moistened lips. Emilie didn’t tense or pull back but melted into the hand behind her head while her grip tightened on his forearm. She parted her lips with a delicious sigh, and he deepened the kiss.

The blinding pleasure of kissing her made him forget any knowledge of the world beside where her body touched his. The space between them lit up like an electrical storm, and he had a powerful urge to decrease it as fast as possible, wishing he wasn’t balancing them with his other hand, so he could pull her closer.

As her tongue played lightly with his, she leaned slightly forward and finally released his arm. Reaching behind her hip, he pulled her flush to him on the bench. She bounced down a fraction of an inch, as her bench was slightly higher, with an amused sound before weaving her arm around his back. A low groan escaped his throat as she pressed her chest to his.

He was a man of action and no control as she licked the edges of his mouth. Pulling one of her legs over his until she was firmly straddling his lap, he repositioned his hands, exploring her waist. Slender fingers wove carelessly through the hair at the back of his neck as her forearms pressed down on either side of his neck.

Her mouth never left his, and he let his hands float higher, gently fingering the sides of her ribs. When his thumbs barely grazed below her bra line, her breath caught, and he knew in an instant he’d gone too far. Internally, he called himself every word for idiot he knew. She rested her forehead on his, eyes closed, as her breaths heaved.

“We are in a piano store,” she said, her voice raspy.

“Yes.” He exhaled, trying to catch his own breath while watching her.

“I am on your lap.” She pulled her face away, and her glossy eyes focused his own.

“Yes.” He was exquisitely aware of her body on top of his.

Emilie slowly moved to stand, swinging her legs off of him while keeping her eyes on his. “This is not slow.”

Never taking his gaze off her gorgeous eyes he repeated, “This is not slow.”

Breaking their eye contact, she gazed back at the black bench before sitting. With every fiber in his being, he resisted the urge to touch her. Sitting, staring ahead, she blew out a large breath then started to chuckle. The pearlescent sound of her earnest laughter always made him feel light and strangely satisfied.

“What?”

“I think you have to buy that piano now. It’s been used.”

He thought of the many different ways that it could be used before he dragged his mind back to reality to respond. “I suppose so.”

Her eyes and voice were serious when she looked at him. “Will you, though? Buy it, I mean?”

He shrugged. “No, probably not.”

“But it makes you so happy.”

He wanted to argue that kissing her made him happier than a piano, but she was right. Music was a part of who he was. It connected him to his past, what he’d been through, and his newly forming dreams of the future. An image of a swollen bellied Emilie sitting on the bench next to him while he played flashed through his mind, followed quickly by teaching little fingers beginning scales.

She broke through his vision. “Not to be rude, but don’t you have enough disposable income for a piano? You’re a heart surgeon, and you drive a Subaru.”

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