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1003 Words
There is an orchestral timbre to the double-stop trills and pizzicati, to the haunting and brilliant czardas.
When played well, it is like hearing the voice of God.
The cellist in front of the jewelry boutique was playing it well.
With a choked sob, Ember turned and ran blindly away, shoving though the crowds, her left hand shaking so badly it felt palsied. She heard Christian behind her, calling her name, but she didn’t look back because she didn’t want him to see her face. She didn’t want him to see what she knew was looking out of her eyes, the thing like a hunted animal that would be staring back at him. She’d seen it for too many years in her own face in the mirror; she knew how wretched, how ugly a thing it was.
She ducked into a side street, and then into an alley, hoping she’d lost him in the crowd, and collapsed against the rear wall of a restaurant, trembling and gulping air. But he was on her in an instant, his voice as worried as his eyes.
“What is it? What happened? Are you all right?”
Not all right not all right dying dying dying dying. Trembling, feeling panic and pain wrapped around her with the clammy dark finality of a shroud, Ember squeezed her eyes shut and gasped for air. He took her in his arms and rocked her gently back and forth, murmuring into her ear. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, it’s okay. Just breathe, Ember. Just breathe.”
She curled her hands around his jacket and buried her face in his shirt. Inhaling deeply, she fought the panic, willing her heartbeat to slow and her body to stop shaking, drawing his smell into her nose, that wild, night-scented spice so unique to Christian.
“Easy, little firecracker,” he whispered, sliding one hand beneath her hair to cup the nape of her neck. “I’m right here. I’m not going to let you fall apart on me.”
Too late, she thought, tears slipping from beneath her closed lids.
Still with one strong arm wrapped around her, Christian took his hand from the back of her neck and tipped her face up to his with his fingers under her chin. “Hey,” he said softly when he saw the tears on her cheeks. “I know you didn’t like the foie gras, but you don’t have to cry about it. My feelings weren’t that hurt.”
His gently teasing tone brought a weak smile to her face. “You could tell, huh?” she whispered.
He wiped her wet cheeks with his thumb then threaded his fingers into her hair. “You’re not exactly what I would call poker-faced, Miss Jones.” He lowered his forehead to hers. “Prime example: the woman with the cello.”
She bit down hard on her lower lip and squeezed her eyes shut again.
“I meant what I said before; we don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to talk about. But I’m here if you change your mind. Okay?”
She nodded silently and put her face against his chest again. He held her like that for a while, the night music of the city sparkling bright in the air all around them. A bark of faint laughter, the bickering of car horns in traffic, a covey of crooning pigeons sent into shrieking flight by a child, squealing in glee. In her nose the scent of the man who held her and the sweet, pungent bite of caramelized onions from the restaurant kitchen, on her face, cool air that soothed the flushed skin like a balm.
In her heart of hearts, Ember was quaking apart. She was very good at smothering her feelings, even better at keeping anything resembling happiness away, because she didn’t deserve it. Day after week after month after year, she had chosen to stay alive when she knew it would be the right thing to do to kill herself, to take a knife to her wrists or swallow a bottle of Asher’s prescription anxiety medication.
It was an abomination she should be alive after what had happened, after all the c*****e she’d left in her wake.
The one thing that stopped her, over and over again, was the belief that to go on living was a far greater punishment than death, which would have relieved the relentless guilt eating away at her soul like acid. Life had become an opus of pain, silent and unacknowledged by anyone but her, pain that was lessened a little bit every time she’d thought of Christian. It lessened even more as she stood trembling and stripped emotionally bare in his arms.
No one had held her in years.
How alive do you want to be?
After all this time—especially after meeting Dante’s granddaughter Clare, so brave, so unafraid of anything—Ember realized she very much wanted to be alive, even if she didn’t deserve to be. She wanted to feel something other than guilt and pain, even if only for a moment.
Into Christian’s shirt, she whispered, “Christian?”
“Hmmm?” He stroked a hand over her hair.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
She tipped her head back and looked up at him. In a raw, shaking voice she said, “Will you please kiss me?”
Even in the dark alleyway she saw it, the way his eyes flared, the way his expression changed from soft to ardent, faster than she could blink. Tender, Gentle Christian was gone, replaced in an instant with Hungry, Dangerous Christian, the Bedroom Eyes Assassin she’d first seen when he walked into the bookstore, and into her life.
She thought he would devour her, so rapacious was that look, but he merely took her face in his hands, pressed his body against hers and pressed them both back against the wall.
- Writer
