Never Let Me Go (44 page)

Besides that, I don’t want to go back to the times where he looks at me like
I’m
the one who’s crazy, like
I’m
the one who’s seeing Madilyn as something she’s not. I don’t want to go back to feeling like a stranger in my own home.

But I do want to go back. I want to go back to how things were before Mr. Westwick died, to how in love we were before Madilyn showed up, to how happy we were, spending our mornings in my girl cave before it became Madilyn’s seemingly permanent residence.

I reach over and graze my hand across his face and push his shaggy hair out of his forehead. God, it’s been so long since he’s let me do this. We sleep in the same bed, live in the same house, go to the same school. And yet, we’ve never been farther apart than we are right now.

His eyes squeeze tight as I run my thumb along his lower lip with a feather-light touch. I try to recall the last time that I kissed him.

He grasps my hip and pulls me close. His green eyes regard me with a fire so intense I have to suck in a sharp breath before I can even tell him
good morning
. He reaches over and takes my chin between his thumb and forefinger, then he pulls my face toward him at the same time as he inches forward, luscious pink lips at the ready. I don’t tell him no, and I don’t pull away, because this is what I’ve wanted, what I’ve craved since the moment that everything changed. This is what I’ve
needed
from the boy I love: pure, unadulterated affection.

When our lips touch, it’s a rush of hunger, need, and love all at the same time. I forget that I don’t feel well, that my stomach is uneasy, that my head feels like it’s been pounded by a hammer a million times, that this is the closest I’ve felt to him in what feels like forever. I lose myself in his touch and in his kiss, letting myself take advantage of the fact that this time, he’s
not
pulling away. This time, he
wants
me, and oh, I want him more than I’ve ever wanted anything. God, I don’t even know how to feel right now except absolutely elated.

I’m the one to break the kiss, knowing that no matter how good this feels
now
, it’s not going to change all that’s happened recently. It’s a fleeting moment, and as badly as I want to cherish every single second of it, I can’t. I have to put my foot down, and it’s killing me to have to do it at
this exact moment
.

“Colin.” I grab both sides of his face to hold him at bay, and I lower my eyes so that they’re gazing longingly at his lips. “We need to talk.”

His eyes close and his breathing labors as he leans his face into my touch. He nods slowly once, and then his eyes jerk open. “I know. Those are the four most hated words in the English language, but God, I know.” He sighs, leaning forward and resting his forehead against mine. “I just…I had to kiss you first, Nickayla. I had to feel your lips against mine just once, because after all that I’ve done lately, how I’ve acted and how I’ve neglected you and your feelings, I’ve no way of telling whether this time kissing you will be my
last
time kissing you.”

I’m stunned by the honesty behind his words, because I was just thinking the same thing. There’s no way that I can allow myself to blame all of our problems on him. Both of us have had a part in the slow deterioration of our relationship, and now, both of us have to decide whether what we have is still there anymore.

Both of us have to decide if we’re reaching too far for something that’s disappeared.

Play For Me

Coming December 2014

Book one in a new duet of novels

Music was her first language…
Melody Conway had it all. As one of the heirs to the Conway fortune, the daughter of Cranbrook classically trained musicians, and a musical prodigy herself, it seems as though life has been handed to her on a silver platter. But when her best friend passes away in a tragic accident that she believes is all her fault, Melody vows never to play or sing again. Now, it’s one year later, and for her last year of high school, she has one rule: music can
never
be part of her life again.

Music is his one way ticket out of Hell…
Phoenix Sexton isn’t the typical guy from the “other side of the tracks”. He has girls throwing themselves at him with the blink of an eye, both his parents are still together, and he’s one of the coolest kids in school, but he attends Harlow Academy for the Performing Arts on a scholarship that he works his ass off for every semester. Even though he’s the lead singer of his town’s biggest rock band, Silence of Sound, he still doesn’t have it easy. He has one rule: never fall in love with another musician.

Then fate steps in.

And rules start to get broken.

Despite the rules, their first love is the reason they’re forced to see each other—and life in a whole new light.

They’ll find out soon enough that music isn’t the problem—it’s the solution.

…

Phoenix sits across from me in the school’s music room, perched on a three-legged stool with one leg kicked up. His guitar is in his lap and he tightens the strings, then grabs his pick and starts strumming a few chords. His dark hair falls over his eyebrow and one of his hazel eyes looks up to gaze at me.

“The piano’s not going to bite you, you know.” He breaks out in a playful grin, but I can’t return it.

I’m sitting at the grand piano, my arms crossed in front of me. I cross my legs and turn away, ready to face Phoenix.

“I know I agreed to help you, Phoenix, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to play.”

He looks up at me, a small grin forming on his face. “Come on. One note, please?”

I shake my head.

I don’t expect him to understand my reasoning behind not wanting to play anymore. He’s Phoenix Sexton. He’s used to everyone—namely girls—doing whatever he asks whenever he asks, and I’m probably the first person to refuse him.

It doesn’t matter that he has an absolute panty-dropping smile, or smoldering eyes, or a heart-stopping singing voice. It doesn’t even matter that when he plays the guitar, my stomach and my heart drop to my feet, and I can’t help but be hypnotized by his charisma.

None of that matters because no matter who he is, no matter what he does to me, he’ll never get me to play.

“Melody. One note. It won’t kill you,” he says.

Just to piss him off, I lift my feet off the ground and spin around until my front is to the piano once more. I lift both my hands and give him a huge grin before I slam both of my hands down on the piano keys. He winces, then closes his eyes.

I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but I know that he’s pissed, because his jaw is working and his left hand suddenly clenches around the neck of the guitar. When his eyes snap open, he sets his guitar against the stool he was just sitting in, and he storms over to the piano. He grabs the bench I’m sitting on by the legs and drags me away from the piano, then turns it slightly so that I’m right in front of him. He kneels down in front of me, his torso nestled between my legs.

“Do you think this is funny?” he asks.

I shake my head frantically, because to be quite honest, he’s scaring the shit out of me.

“I need you to fucking take this seriously, Melody.” His voice is rough, and I gulp involuntarily.

“I am taking this seriously.”

He shakes his head and lets go of one of the legs of the bench. His hand reaches up to rake through his dark hair and he glares daggers at me. He’s silent for a long time and I can’t even force my mind to imagine what he’s possibly thinking about, so I just sit there, about ready to piss my pants as he steams over what I’ve done.

“Listen to me, princess. I know you’re used to having everything handed to you on a silver platter, but that’s not my life. You can afford to come to this school. I can’t. You wanna know what my life is like when I walk out of these doors at the end of each day?” I only blink in response. “I go home and change out of my school clothes. I get ready for a job that I have to work at TGI Friday’s because it’s the only place that would be flexible about school. I work from five p.m. until about two in the morning. Then, I get home at two-thirty and I get exactly three hours of sleep before I have to get up and come to school, and I repeat it all over again. Oh! But except on Friday. On Friday after work, I get picked up by your brother and we head out of town for the entire weekend to play gigs. In between all of that, I get straight A’s in school, I’ve gotten Employee of the Month four months in a row, I write all of the songs for the band, and perform every weekend. And every semester, I’ve
still
got to perform at this
fucking
showcase just to keep my
fucking
scholarship. And this semester,
fucking
Dean Lambert decides I’ve got to
fucking
work with you, or he’ll rescind my scholarship.” He licks his lips, and even though I’m shared shitless at his excessive use of the word ‘fuck’ and the fact that his face is like two inches from mine, I can’t help but find this movement sexy. “So unless you wanna dip into your trust fund to pay for me to continue to go to school here, I suggest you
fucking
take this seriously. Because it’s serious as a
fucking
heart attack.”

I nod, but I can’t help it when tears spring to my eyes. I start nodding so much and so quickly that I can’t stop myself. Tears are streaming down my face now, and Phoenix blanches. He mutters a curse word, but I’m too far gone to figure out which one it is. He pulls me into his arms and I start to sob. As scared as I was of him 0.2 seconds ago, I can’t help but melt into his embrace and ugly cry into his Sleeping with Sirens t-shirt.

When I pull away from him, he reaches up and wipes my tears away with the pads of his thumbs. “I’m sorry, Melody. I’m sorry I was hard on you. I’m sorry I said
fuck
so many times. I’m sorry I grabbed your bench. I just—God. You make me
fu
—freaking crazy. I can’t see straight when I’m around you.”

I gulp again, because his words now startle me more than his angry rant did. What does he mean that
I
make him crazy? Didn’t he just say no more than three weeks ago that he didn’t want to be with me?

“Why? Why can’t you see straight? It’s not like you want to be with me anyway. I’m ‘much better than that’,” I say through my hiccups.

He lets out a breathy laugh.

“That’s because you are.”

Again, I feel a bit insulted.

“Just because my family has money doesn’t make me better than you, Phoenix.”

“But you are, though. You
are
better than me. I could have all the money in the world, play the cello instead of the guitar, own a membership at the country club, and I
still
wouldn’t be good enough for you, Melody. And while I’m being honest, I can’t think of a single person in the world who is.” He leans forward, licking his lips again. I’d be lying if I said that movement doesn’t affect me at all. It
totally
does. “Yeah, I said you’re ‘much better than that’. But that only meant that I
shouldn’t
be with you. Not that I didn’t want to.”