Page 2 of Heart Beats

The crew has moved the grand piano into place on center stage, and that’s where I lead her. I squeeze her hand before releasing it, motion her onto the glossy black bench, then take my place beside her.

I smile at her while playing a few bars of a song nobody’s heard before, including me, because it didn’t exist until this minute. “What’s your name?”

“Maria.” Her brown eyes open wider as the microphone mounted on the piano broadcasts her voice to the crowd. “I didn’t expect it to pick me up,” she says, then she laughs. Light and effortless, but also a bit husky. The sexiest laugh I’ve ever heard.

I shift in place, making room for my expanding cock. Been a long time since I reacted to a woman this fast. Forever since I got hard just being near someone. My dick has become pretty jaded over the years, just like the rest of me.

“Maria’s a pretty name.” Yeah, I say that to every woman I bring up for the ballad. Sometimes I mean it, sometimes I don’t. It’s the God’s honest truth in this moment. “Are you from Toronto?”

She shakes her head, making her dark hair sway. “Hope Harbor.”

“Haven’t heard of it,” I say. “Is it nearby?”

“About ninety minutes southwest. My sister dragged me to the show.”

I stop playing long enough to cup my hands over my heart as if I’m wounded. “Not a fan?”

“I am. I like your music. Just not cities, crowds, and craziness in general.” Another sexy laugh leaves her full, rosy lips. “I’m just a boring, small-town girl.”

Still playing the new music she’s brought to life inside me, I turn my face toward the audience and lock eyes with the woman who must be her sister, the one who pushed her to come onstage. “Is that the truth? Is Maria a boring, small-town girl?”

“She’s lying to you, Jagger! Maria’s not boring at all,” the woman calls, snapping her fingers above her head. “Ask her if she likes to sing!”

“On it…” I lift one hand long enough to point at the woman bearing a strong resemblance to Maria, yet whose appearance does nothing for me. “What’s your name?”

“Mya! If you’re ever in Hope Harbor, make sure you stop by my t-shirt shop, Mya’s Art In Fact, and I’ll hook you up with some excellent stuff!”

“Y’all hear that?” I point out at the tens of thousands of other fans. “Road trip to Hope Harbor tomorrow, so we can buy every t-shirt in Mya’s store. Deal?”

The crowd roars, and my gut-deep laughter booms through the sound system. “All right, I better see a lineup down—” I look to Mya again and ask, “What street’s your shop on?”

“Main Street!” Mya jumps up and down, shaking her curvy form as if she’s a game-show contestant who just won a prize. If even a small percentage of tonight’s audience shows up tomorrow, she’s definitely going to win.

Pretty sure I can make that happen, and maybe catch a win for myself in the process. “Make some noise if you’re going to meet me at Mya’s t-shirt shop tomorrow at two o’clock.”

The audience sounds like thunder. My manager’s going to sound the same way when he finds out I’ve just scheduled myself for a public appearance that’ll fuck with our travel plan. That’s tomorrow’s argument. As for tonight, I’ve completely derailed the show and I don’t give a fuck. Beside me, Maria is laughing, and I know right now I’ll do anything to hear more of that perfect sound.

I abandon the audience to face her, awareness rocketing through me when our gazes meet and lock. “Do you like to sing, Maria?”

“When I’m alone. I sound great in the shower.”

“I bet you do.” I smile widely, hoping the comment comes across generically instead of pervy. Because it’s definitely pervy in my head. The thought of water rolling down her naked body while I fuck all kinds of great sounds from her has my cock straining like a battering ram against my fly. “No shower here and you’re not alone, but you’re welcome to sing along.”

I switch to the tune I’m supposed to be playing, my bandmates following me intoTomorrowas my fingers move over the ivory keys. The notes and words come as automatically as breathing. The song is exactly the same as the thousands of times I’ve performed it, but each line that leaves my mouth feels different. I wrote this love song for nobody. Singing it while looking into Maria’s eyes, I feel like I wrote it for her. I just didn’t know it at the time.

Her gorgeous eyes don’t leave mine for a second. She smiles through the first verse, but her lips remain closed in a beautiful smile. Until I reach the chorus. Then she sings. Only one line, but it’s fucking magical. The tiniest tease of her siren’s voice. That’s all she gives me, but it’s enough to make me feel as we’re alone in this moment of minutes, instead of the focus of fifty thousand people.

By the time the song ends, she’s leaning in, her body turned toward me, her shoulder pressed to mine. Her eyes have the glassy sheen of barely restrained emotion, and it takes everything in me not to cup her face and claim her parted, rosy lips.

I’ve kissed women onstage before, but it’s always calculated. A cue to my crew to make sure the woman is waiting for me backstage at the end of the show.

My need for Maria is different. She’s not someone I’ll fuck and forget by the next show. I don’t know how I know—I just do.

Instead of marking her as my pick of the night, I take her hand and bring it to my mouth. Soft and gentle isn’t my thing. I don’t have time to woo a woman or take it slow. Everything in my world moves fast, then moves on. Only, I don’t want to use her and lose her. I want to know her. Really know her.

No idea how I can realistically make that happen, but it doesn’t start with me banging her in my dressing room.

Luke must be a mind reader, because he moves to the front of the stage and launches into a guitar solo to cleanse any rocker’s palette of the heartfelt ballad I just performed, buying me time to escort Maria offstage.

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