Page 95 of Sinful Desires

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I wrapped my fingers around the mic stand.

“Allow me to reintroduce myself tonight,” I said, my voice smooth. “I’m Scarlett Harper. And the song I’m about to sing hasn’t been released yet. I wrote it recently?…?for someone very,veryspecial to me.”

My fingers slid higher on the mic. My lips barely touched it.

“It’s called ‘Sinful Desires.’”

Applause rose again as I nodded to my pianist, signaling I was ready. The lights turned off, leaving only one on me.

I’d written this song the night we got home from the club. The night he had finally kissed me.

I closed my eyes, nails trailing softly over the mic, and let the music pull me under.

Then I sang.

Velvet lips, blood in the champagne

Kissed me slow just to forget my name

Touched like hunger, stitched in skin

Left bruises blooming under porcelain

Mirror cracked, lipstick smeared

Diamonds choke where truth appeared

He says I taste like the end of grace

So he keeps coming back to beg for a taste

Sinful desires, dressed in black

Velvet tongue and a gun in my back

The lights are mine, but the bruise is yours

You broke in quiet, but you kicked through doors

I opened my eyes slowly, lips still parted from the last note, letting the silence wrap around me.

All eyes were on me, but I only cared about his.

He was standing near the window now, half in shadow, thumb brushing across his lower lip.

And I kept singing like I wanted him to pull me offstage and make me moan the rest of the lyrics into his mouth.

I closed my eyes again.

He drinks my secrets from crystal glass

I come undone while the cameras flash

Sinful desires, red-lit fire

We don’t kiss, no, we conspire

We’re not soft, we’re not pure

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