BETWEEN FIRE🔥🔥AND FROST❄️❄️

Chapter Five: Crescendo

Leo’s POV

The applause had long since faded.

The trio’s final note still echoed in Leo’s ears like a heartbeat, and yet it wasn’t the performance that haunted him—it was Isla. The way she had played like she was splitting in two. Like she was saying goodbye with every key she touched.

She was already halfway out the back door when he followed.

“Isla.”

She stopped.

The corridor was dim, quiet, the stone walls lined with old portraits of composers who’d died loveless and brilliant. Fitting, Leo thought.

He walked up behind her, close enough to feel the tension humming in her body.

“You’re not running again,” he said.

She turned slowly. “I wasn’t going to.”

He stared into her eyes, and for once, she didn’t look away.

“I meant what I said,” he told her, voice low. “I loved you. I still do.”

“I know,” she whispered.

Then, finally, she leaned into him—not like surrender, but like fire needing air. Her lips found his, desperate, rough. It wasn’t gentle, wasn’t polite. It was months—years—of silence and longing and rage crashing into each other like a storm.

Leo pushed her back against the wall, hands gripping her waist like he was afraid she’d vanish again. She wrapped her arms around his neck, tugging him closer, deepening the kiss until it stole the breath from both of them.

Their bodies moved like instruments—fluid, practiced, familiar and new all at once.

Isla gasped as his hand slid under her sweater, fingers grazing the bare skin of her back. She arched into him, mouth finding his again, hungry. He kissed down her neck, slow and possessive, tasting the skin just beneath her collarbone.

She grabbed his shirt and pulled, buttons flying. He lifted her onto the practice room piano bench with a thud, their breaths ragged, mingling in the space between.

“Still sure you don’t want to choose?” he murmured against her throat.

Isla shivered. “I didn’t say that.”

Her fingers traced the line of his jaw, then lower, slipping beneath his waistband. His breath hitched as she touched him, stroked him—slow, teasing, in control now.

Leo growled softly, grabbing her hips and sliding her closer. Her skirt rode up, legs parted around him, and he dragged his hand between her thighs, finding her wet and ready.

“God, Isla…”

She silenced him with another kiss, grinding against him until he was trembling.

When he pushed inside her, it wasn’t careful. It was raw, aching need. She gasped, head falling back as he filled her, and he gripped her tighter, moving with rhythm and hunger. The piano creaked beneath them as they moved in sync—body to body, pain to pleasure.

Every thrust was a note unsaid. Every moan, a confession.

She came first, sharp and breathless, biting down on his shoulder to muffle the sound. He followed moments later, clutching her like he could hold the whole world in his hands if he just held her tight enough.

And when it was over, they collapsed into silence.

But it wasn’t peace.

Because when Isla opened her eyes, she wasn’t smiling.

And Leo knew, even before she said it, that he didn’t have all of her.