One Night with Sole Regret 05 Tie Me by Olivia Cunning Read Free Book Online

right—but it wasn’t silence. Thank God, it wasn’t silence. Her eyes popped open, and she watched the long-fingered masculine hands move across the black and ivory keys. They went still suddenly, and she looked up at Kellen, wondering why he’d stopped.
    “Well, that sounded better in my head than in reality,” he said with a wince. “Did I offend you by messing with your song?”
    She supposed gawking at him like an idiot might make him think that she was offended, but she wasn’t. Surprised, yes. Grateful the sea had seen fit to wash him into her life, yes. Offended? Never.
    “That wasn’t quite right,” she said.
    “It was horrendous,” he said. “I follow your masterpiece with that load of crap? You must think I’m a talentless hack.”
    She shook her head and touched the back of his hand with her fingertips. Sparks danced along her nerve endings, and her belly fluttered with nerves or excitement or just plain silliness. When he drew his hand away and rested it on his thigh beneath the keyboard, she could have cried.
    It sucked to be attracted to a man who held no reciprocating interest.
    “Play it again,” he said. “I won’t interrupt this time, I promise.”
    “You didn’t interrupt. I always freeze at that exact spot. I’m afraid I’ll never get past it.”
    “So instead of stopping, just play something—any crap that comes out—until the right notes finally find you.”
    She laughed. “I don’t know how to play crap.”
    “Lucky you,” he said, his white smile flashing in his strong, handsome face. She wanted to prop her chin up on her hand and stare at him dreamily. She needed to get a grip.
    “Ninety percent of my work is crap,” he continued. “Another nine percent is mediocre, and then there are those rare gems that are actually useable.”
    “It’s not that I can’t play crap. I’m just afraid to.” She diverted her gaze to the keyboard. “I’m sort of a perfectionist.” And it wasn’t a trait she’d been born with. Her mother had ensured she’d paid for every mistake until the thought of making one crippled her. “What you played wasn’t bad,” she said.
    “Liar,” he said, still grinning, “but it was a little better than—”
    Blam! His hands slammed on the keyboard as hers had so many times over the past week.
    “Just a little better than—” She hit the keys with her fist. Blam!
    “Shit, even your”— Blam!— “sounds better than mine does.”
    “Maybe you should just give up on music writing.”
    “Ouch! My ego isn’t made of steel, you know?”
    “I’m just teasing.” Couldn’t he tell? If not, she was sorry to have damaged his pride. “Let’s try it again. Maybe something that comes out of you will complement something inside of me.”
    He groaned. “Don’t say things like that. I’ve been abstinent so long, I’m likely to take it the wrong way.”
    Why would he ever so selfishly resort to abstinence? Dawn wondered if he’d like to break that dry spell, because she had her own abstinence thing going on, not that she’d planned it that way, and maybe they could end the drought together. Of course, for a gorgeous, virile man like Kellen, perhaps a week was a long stint of abstinence.
    “Sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have brought that up. Please, continue.”
    But he had brought it up, so she had to ask. “Why have you been abstinent? Surely you have hundreds of women standing in line to get you into bed.” Having just met him, she might be at the end of the line, but she was definitely in it.
    “But not the one who matters.”
    She caught the anguish in his expression before he turned his face away and began to play a completely disjointed string of notes.
    She covered his hand with hers to stop his playing.
    “Are you being intentionally mysterious? Or does driving me insane with curiosity come naturally to you?”
    “It comes naturally.”
    They shared a laugh, and Kellen reached for one of her score sheets. He propped