“When you try to dictate to me, to tell me what I can and can’t do to advance my career, you ask me to choose. I want to please you more than anything, Rhyson, but I have to do this. I’m auditioning for Total Package and doing anything else I feel will give me a shot.”

This is a battle I can’t win.

Yet.

I know I’m right. John Malcolm is slimy and opportunistic, and the thought of him exploiting Kai makes me want to beat him like a piñata. But I have to be careful how I help her. If I push her on this, I’ll lose her. I know it, but everything in me wants to protect her from those who would hurt her, who would use her. I want to cut off those roads I know from experience have bridges that are out, but I can’t if she won’t let me. So for now, all I can do is love her, and show her in every way she’ll let me.

I pull her across the bench, settling her softly curved body onto my lap. She lays her head on my shoulder, pushing her fingers up into my hair. I kiss every part of her I can reach. Her cheeks, her chin, her neck. And she kisses me back, desperation in every touch between us. It’s taken all my life to find this, and there’s no way I’ll relinquish it. She grew up with unconditional love, but no fame. I grew up with fame, but no unconditional love. I don’t know when we’ll be in sync or when we’ll need the same things at the same time, but until we do, I’m determined nothing will separate us.

“I want to play something for you.” I intersperse the kisses I leave on her lips with my words.

She snuggles closer, pulling her knees up under her in my lap and running her nose along my neck.

“Let’s hear it, Beethoven.”

With my inspiration pressed against my heart, the song that’s been blocked all day flows out of me like I sliced a vein open and let it run out of my own body. My fingers find the notes that have eluded me. My lips find the words.

You’re hot like Pepper on my tongue

Baby, you’ve singed me

And everything that I’ve become

Is from this heat you feed me

You burn

You burn

You burn

A hole straight through my heart

And I yearn

I yearn

I yearn

For you to consume me

I keep playing the melody, oscillating from tender to sensual even when I run out of words. The notes speak for me, and I lift my eyes from the keys, waiting for her to hear. Hoping she hears.

“Pepper?” Kai pulls back, her eyes wide and awed. “Is that . . . is that song about me, Rhyson?”

How do I tell her my whole album is about her? That every song in my head, every lyric I conceive lately, grows out of the intimacy we share? The connection we have?

“Yeah, it’s about you.”

“I don’t know what to say.” Her lips tremble. She bites the bottom one, looking at me like she just saw her first sunrise. “Thank you.”

“Promise me something, Kai.”

“Anything.” She should be more careful with that smile because it makes my heart stop.

“No more secrets.” I brush a finger over her dark, straight silky brows. Over the high cheekbones. Over the lush line of her lips. “We choose to believe each other. To trust each other no matter what. Deal?”

Something flickers across her face before she shutters it. I don’t want to question it because questioning it would mean she may have more to hide. Questioning it may mean I have reason to doubt her when she nods yes. When she smiles before she finally speaks.

“Deal.”

I’ve never been a guy who fantasized much. By the time I fantasized about something or someone, I had it. I owned it. I fucked it. But this girl, her I didn’t even dream about because my subconscious didn’t think she was possible. What’s between us, I didn’t know was out there. And now it’s all I want.

I turn on the piano bench until my back is against the piano, ignoring the discomfort of the keys pressing into me. I reach for her, lifting her until she sits across me, one leg on either side, her chest pressed into mine. I push the small top with its built in sports bra over her head, leaving her breasts high and naked, the nipples tight and pink.

“That’s probably a platinum single I just wrote for you, young lady.” I bend my head to suck on one nipple and then the other, waiting for it to go hard in my mouth and for her to shudder against me. “I think you should thank me better than that.”

A wicked grin looks surprisingly right on her sweet mouth. She leans away from me, sliding off the bench and to her knees between my spread legs on the floor. She flicks my belt buckle open, eyes melded in a glance with mine.

“I think you’re right.” She slips her hand inside my jeans, squeezing and sliding me less-than-gently, the roughness of her touch exactly what I need. “I really want to thank you, and I have a lot to be grateful for.”

God, that feels good already. My voice scratches in my throat, but I manage to rasp out the last intelligible words I’ll say for a while.

“Well, Pep, you better get started.”

“YOU COMING OR WHAT?” RHYSON POKES his head into the music room.

I’m at his piano, even though I don’t play. This spot always seems to inspire him, and maybe it will help me by osmosis. I’m seated on the bench, head phones in my ears, phone in my lap. Song on repeat. I pull one earplug out, tilting my head.

“Coming where, babe?”

“Remember you said you wanted to roll with me down to Wood.” Rhyson pulls a navy blue beanie over his messy hair. “Marlon and I are working on his song. You still wanna listen in?”

“Oh, yeah.” I roll the headphone wires up. “I was just listening to my song for the Total Package audition next week.”

He doesn’t respond. He just drops his head and fixes his eyes on the floor. The audition has remained a point of contention between us. Dub confirmed the details for Tuesday. I’m singing Jessie J’s “Masterpiece.” Ironically, it was Rhyson’s suggestion. He heard me practicing Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” and in bed that night told me it was trite and predictable. This while my eyes were rolling in the back of my head from a third orgasm. I asked him—after, of course—what he’d suggest instead. I was shocked when he actually gave me his honest opinion. He’s kept his distance while I’ve rehearsed it, though, leaving me to Grady’s tutelage.

Which is fine by me. The more space between Rhyson and my career, the better.

“How did the production meeting go?” I’m eager to change the subject.

“It was okay.” He leans against the doorjamb, folding his arms across the Nike logo on his chest. “At this point, they have everything planned out. It’s me and a piano. Not a ton of stuff. But lights and video and all the other things they want to add will be cool.”

“Sounds exciting.”

“The shows Petra’s doing with us will be kind of fun.” Rhyson links his hands behind his head. “We’ll do just a few pieces together since my audience isn’t exactly into classical. Just enough to make them ooh and ahhh a little.”

Petra. Again. If my ugly insecurity were visible, I’d need a bag over my head.

“It’s so soon.” I chew on my bottom lip. “Two weeks, right?”

He walks over and sits beside me, pulling my legs across his lap.

“I’ve been thinking,” he says.

“Uh oh.” I smile at him, running my hand over the stubble on his chin and jaw.

“What do you think about coming on tour with me?”

My hand falls from his face and into my lap.

“And do what?”

“Be with me?”

Be his girlfriend. Leave all the opportunities popping off here for myself to watch him from the wings. I’m not sure what to say without starting an argument.