Page 39 of A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

“And you’re speaking in riddles, sir.”

“When I first saw you, everything went still.” He met her gaze. And what she saw in his eyes was pure, raw yearning. It knocked the wind out of her, and it was completely at odds with what he was saying.

“Still and calm,” he continued in his deep, rolling drawl, not breaking eye contact. “Like a tornado, before it completely decimates you.”

Ricki’s mouth dropped open. “But… but I’m not a natural disaster! I’m a poised, respectable woman! I’m from Buckhead, for fuck’s sake!”

The corner of his mouth curled upward. “Mm-hmm. You’re the picture of poise.”

She glowered with frustration.

“I’m not scared of you,” he said. “I’m scared of us.”

Ricki’s confusion was growing by the second. “But there is no us.”

“Right. And let’s keep it that way.”

“More riddles.” Ricki rolled her eyes. “Listen, don’t flatter yourself. What makes you think that I even want there to be an us? Do you really think I find you that irresistible?”

Ezra’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes flashed with heat and mischief. Wordlessly, his gaze slowly went from her eyes to her mouth and farther down to the deep plunge of her scandalously clingy crimson gown. Her body, as if absorbing the electric charge of their conversation, was practically draped on the piano, the soft swell of her breasts overflowing, the curve of her hip popped in lusty flirtation. She oozed sex. Blatant, lascivious, fuck-me sex.

“Your thoughts are loud,” he noted wryly.

She felt searing mortification.This is the second time tonight I’ve heard that my emotions are transparent, she thought. Quickly, she stepped back from the piano, smoothing her hair and adjusting her dress. Her cheeks were on fire. She didn’t remember the last time a man had so utterly thrown her off her game. Actually—had a maneverthrown her off her game?

“God,” she muttered through clenched teeth.

Ezra couldn’t have hidden the smirk if he’d tried (and he hadn’t tried). “You a believer?”

“In God?” Disarmed and flustered by the abrupt conversation shift, she said, “Oh. I… I don’t know. I was raised in fire-and-brimstone Catholicism, which doesn’t appeal to me at all. I don’t believe in the traditional, male-ego-centered God. But there’s a force larger than us out there. I don’t know what to call it. It’s just… an Energy. With a capitalE.”

“So when extraordinary things happen to you, you don’t thank God, you thank Energy?”

She huffed out a small laugh. Just like in the garden, Ricki noticed that she and Ezra got deep, fast. This was unexplored terrain: sharing philosophical musings with a man.

“When I’m in nature, especially the woods, I feel protected by something ‘other.’ Something old, before humans, before religion. One time, I wandered a bit too deep into the forest behind my parents’ home, and there were no people anywhere. Just trees, flowers, endless sky. It could’ve been that day or a thousand years ago. And I felt a presence so weighty, I panicked. I wanted to run. It’s a natural human response, you know, the panic you feel when you’re alone in overwhelming nature. The word comes from Pan, the Greek god of the wild.”

The Greek god of the wild?she thought.STOP. TALKING.

Meanwhile, Ezra was taking this in, obviously delighted.

“Your brain,” he said, “must be a fascinating place to visit.”

“Actually, it’s a bottomless well of useless trivia.” How was Ezra able to break down her guard so easily? “If you’ve got time, I could expound upon early Black vaudevillians, fictional languages, the Kennedy curse, and Alice Walker and Tracy Chapman’s secret romance.”

A slow burn of a smile brightened Ezra’s face. “Useless trivia? Useless to who? Clearly you just never found the right audience.”

Ricki didn’t know what to say. She felt exposed and silly but also sweetly validated in a way she never had. She busied herself adjusting her cocktail ring.

“The Kennedy curse isn’t an urban legend, by the way. Old man Joe made a deal with the devil,” he said. “And I know a lot about Black vaudevillians. Coupla Ezra Walkers before me were music men, too.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. I come from a long line of troubadours. And in terms of fictional languages, I know Klingon and High Valyrian. A little Huttese. Some Elvish.”

“You’re a fantasy bro?” She gasped. “How’d I miss that? I can usually tell by the shoes.”

“But I didn’t know about Alice and Tracy. Feels right, though.” He paused, seeming to wrestle with something internally. Then, almost shyly, he asked, “Would you like to sit down?”

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