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Shrugging, I use my free hand to lift my weight up onto the abandoned stage but stay crouched when she stays several feet below me.
“C’mon. I’ll give you a private show.”
Cedar plants a booted foot on the floor of the stage and lets me lift her the rest of the way up onto the platform by our hands that I’ve managed to keep intertwined.
I can’t lie to myself, though. I keep my grip on her because I like the way she feels in it. Like the way she gives me little tingles that feed up my arm and fuck me right in the heart.
And then I catch her eyes on me?
Hot damn, I am done for.
“Seriously, Fin, I gotta get back.”
“To where?” I shrug and tug her across the platform to stage left where the drawn curtain creates the perfect hiding spot I found earlier. “You got a curfew or somethin’, princess?”
“Oh, fuck you, Fin.” Cedar rolls her bloodshot eyes, but puts up no resistance to my lead.
“Um, yeah, that’d be nice.”
“No.”
“Maybe later then.” I smirk at the woman. “Before you turn into a punkin’.”
“Shut up.” She slaps my bicep, but grins softly—which was the whole damn point—as I reach back behind the heavy fabric of the unused stage curtain and wrap my fingers around the neck of the guitar I stashed there during Rex’s writing session early this morning.
Jesus, it feels like it’s been a week since then.
With both hands occupied, I use the fingers wrapped around Cedar’s grip to pull her close enough that I smell that woodsy scent fresh from her instead of what still clings to my skin. The heat of her penetrates the shirt I wear as she easily steps into me, then stands still against my chest. Her normally vicious eyes are set to intrigued, and I don’t miss the way her breath catches when I dip closer.
Her forehead reaches my chin when she leans in, releasing our hands so that she can wrap an arm around my waist and tuck her head into my chest.
What the … fuck …?
I sigh at her warmth there in my side, from my toes up to my damn nose that I rest against the top of her head and inhale deep. She smells of the forest on a damp morning, just before the sun rises and breaks up the dewy fog the night has left behind.
Fresh, crisp, and on the horizon of something that I hope isn’t going to hurt.
Pressing my lips to her hair, I feel the way she melts into me with tightened arms and releases a breath when I wrap an arm around her ribs.
“Cedar,” I whisper as best as my deep voice will allow. “You trust me, yeah?”
Sighing, she gives a slight shrug that moves her body against my torso and stirs my cock. “Not one single bit.”
Stilled, I let her rest against me knowing that she’s full of shit or else I would’ve lost an eye by now.
Seeing how that fucker made her twitchy makes me even angrier.
“If this is you putting on a show, it’s the worst one yet.” Momentarily stunned, stuck in the way this woman drives me mad in all the ways, it takes a moment for her humor and slight shifting shoulders to sink in.
She’s fucking chuckling at herself.
Shaking my head and hiding the way she plants a smirk on my lips, I spin away and release her for the first time in over an hour to fist my guitar. I feed my torso through the strap, tweaking the tuning pegs as I give soft plucks over each string to make sure the pitch is right. I keep the volume low, just for us.
Once the instrument is ready, I pull over a stool left abandoned on its side and plant the wood right in front of the woman I’m pretty sure I’m falling in love with.
“Let’s play a game, sweetness.” I strum as I talk, creating a soft melody without taking my eyes off the goddess in front of me. She pokes her tongue out and licks her lip as her eyes dart down to where my fingers work the strings and back up to the grin stretching across my face. “For each groove you don’t recognize, you have to take something off.”
She’s shaking her head before the words are off my lips, but her grin is telling another story. “You want me to strip to you playing.”
