SWNOVELS The Ruthless Note: Chapter 9
Before I can fade into the darkness, an arm binds around my waist, loops across my ribs and pulls me backward. I’m flying. Then I abruptly slam into a hard chest where, just beneath the muscle, a heart is beating frantically.
“What the hell, Cadey?” Dutch shakes me. His voice booms in my ear.
I want to tell him to shut up before he makes me go deaf, but I can’t speak. I can’t even breathe. Dutch’s abrupt hug kept me from passing out, but my body’s still locked up in that panicked state. I don’t know how to snap out of it.
My mouth opens wider as I struggle for air. I can hear myself gasping, but it’s only because I’m scared. What happens if I can’t breathe ever again?
“Dammit, Brahms!” Dutch lifts me like I weigh nothing, sits on the piano stool and then roughly drops me on top of his lap. Big, calloused hands frame my face as he wrenches my head around to look at him. “Breathe, dammit!”
I’m trying.
The words don’t make their way to my mouth. I can hear my gasping get louder in response.
Sweat pops over Dutch’s face. His panic is palpable. If I were in my right mind, it would surprise me. Doesn’t he hate my guts? Doesn’t he want me to die for what I did to his car?
Why does he look so distressed?
There’s genuine fear burning from his eyes as he searches for a way to help me.
I dig my fingers into his jacket, trying to anchor myself in him so I can at least catch a breath. Just one. Just one blasted hit to my lungs is all I need. Why is it so damn hard for me? Why am I so broken inside?
I just want to be normal.
I just want to pretend the past never happened.
Everyone else is handling their baggage perfectly. I’m the only one breaking down at the mere sight of an instrument. Why is it so difficult for me to be strong?
One second, I’m locked in my own head, certain that I’ll be imprisoned in this panic for the rest of my life.
The next, Dutch is tipping my head back, looking down at me with hazel eyes fierce and wild, and attacking my mouth.
It’s a kiss that knocks the soul right out of my body. Something in my chest loosens. I finally inhale, a loud, desperate sound. But it’s not air that I take in. It’s him. He’s the oxygen, and I suck in chaotic, desperate gulps like a girl who’d finally stumbled on water after days in the desert.
Dutch’s hands skim down my back and I can taste his relief.
The danger has passed, but he doesn’t stop kissing me. After a second, he pulls back, checks that I’m breathing and then kisses me again. It’s like he needs to be sure. Like he needs to know there won’t be a repeat if he sets me away from him.
I should ease off his lap. Tap his back. Tell him I’m fine now.
But I don’t.
My good sense is gone, stripped away by the horror of my panic attack. I’m sanded to the very essence of me, the bare bones of survival floating to the surface of my rattled mind. I’m alive.
Dammit.
I’m alive.
So I slide my hands over his broad chest and slip them around his neck. I close my eyes and open my mouth to a kiss that grabs my heart and squeezes it until it bursts.
Dutch leans forward and, as if he realizes this kiss is no longer about survival but about pure, animalistic need, he changes the speed of his onslaught.
I clutch at his jacket, my hands numb, my knees weak, my body melting like snow in the summer as his frantic slashes turn into sensual, slow strokes.
It’s like kissing raw electricity and hopelessly trying not to get electrocuted.
I can’t withstand it without moaning.
How could I be silent? Dutch freaking Cross is in-your-face sexy. He claims my mouth with a tenacity that makes it clear, without a shadow of a doubt, that I am his prey. And I always will be.
Normally, that would anger me. But, in this moment, I put the weapons down and allow myself to be caught.
He feels my surrender and snarls into my mouth, wild and insatiable, crashing me under a sweeping tide of my own restless wanting.
I’m being lifted and, a second later, I feel piano keys give under my hand. The discordant notes ring out, a thrilling soundtrack to the havoc of our sparring tongues. The lip of the piano digs into my back. I smell the instrument oil used to tune the inner strings.
I should protest. Should tell him we’re going to ruin this sacred piano with our savagery, but his hands skim down my body, delightfully greedy, and my mind goes blank.
It’s a new kind of crazy, a new kind of need.
If I wasn’t so delirious, the force of my desire would probably scare me. In my current state, it excites me. I dive into him, stroking my fingers over his jaw and digging them in his hair.
I’m panting as Dutch leaves one last bruising kiss on my mouth and sets his hands on the piano on either side of my legs. He unwittingly holds down a chord.
C E G
It sounds beautiful. Like a peaceful spring morning, wind rattling the trees and the scent of peaches heavy in the air.
Dutch looks anything but peaceful as he hangs his head, his shoulders hiked, his chest heaving violently as he makes—what looks like—a valiant effort not to touch me.
“What are you doing?” I croak.
“Dammit, Cadey.” Dutch lifts his head and gives me a look so fraught with lust, it’s almost nightmarish. “Dammit.”
“Don’t stop.” I blink rapidly, sucking in another blessed breath.
Dutch groans.
I arch against his hard chest, and he moves in like a storm. Wildly, he presses a kiss to the corner of my mouth. Then he draws a line of stinging-sweet kisses down my neck, stopping at my throat, sucking the heat out of my crazily fluttering pulse.
I turn my face to his and his tongue plunges into my mouth, nearly ripping a scream from my soul.
I’m a shivering mess of wicked delight as he obsessively nips, sucks, and caresses my lips until they tingle.
“Dutch,” I whimper under him.
Confusing.
Disarming.
I hate him with every breath, but I need him closer with every bone in my body.
My hands slide over his pants. I freeze for a second, stunned and a little overwhelmed.
Holy crap.
The piano makes garbled, protesting sounds as Dutch drags my legs toward him so I’m tipping back on the key bed. The notes sustain, crying out in pain as my elbows balance on the black and white keys.
My eyes pop. My heart pounds. And my entire body lights up with fire when he slides his hands up my skirt and hooks his fingers in my panties.
I look up at him. Dutch freaking Cross. This frightening, mass of chaos and desire looming over me. And I feel… insane.
My pulse doubles.
I wait on pins and needles, ready for him to unleash the white-hot fire trapped in my body, ready to feel the kind of heat that could eradicate the sun.
But he stops suddenly.
I blink, my hands restless over his chest, my body tuned like a piano string that’s about to pop.
“Dammit,” he says again, more angrily this time. He squeezes his eyes closed, shakes his head, digs his fingers so hard into my thighs they’ll leave indents.
Instinct makes me hesitate.
But I don’t want this to end yet.
The moment my pulse returns to normal, it’ll be an embarrassing mistake. A line crossed between enemies. A painful reminder of how foolish I become when I’m caught in his spell.
I lean up, wrap my fingers around Dutch’s shirt collar and drag him down to me. His body sinks against mine, his weight crushing me into the piano.
I twist my hips, seeking out his hand. His knuckles, still under my skirt, brush against a sensitive bundle of nerves. That light graze alone is enough to send an earthquake rocking through my body.
I moan and it draws him in again. His mouth smothers mine as he explores me through my underwear and I jerk on the keyboard, beating another distressed chord. The piano twines with the sound of my low, tortured gasps creating a sensual, earthy harmony that screams through the empty room.
I’m a thunder-snap of need, boiling want, and throbbing chaos. Just feeling him through my clothes isn’t enough any more.
I ease back and reach down to unsnap his jeans when Dutch goes still. Something shifts in the air and I watch a cold, apathetic emotion rip through his eyes. It’s like watching a monster turn into something much worse.
His hand retreats from under my skirt like I’m poison.
“Get out of my sight,” he snarls.
I stop, my head tilted back, my eyes widening. My brain is still fuzzy and it takes a while for me to process both his retreat and his command.
Dutch abruptly pushes off the piano and the discordant notes make a sad, pitiful mewl.
He turns and gives me his back.
I scramble up, pushing my skirt down my thighs. The piano keys are moist and my hands slide against them when I try to hop off.
I’m getting whiplash. Just a second ago, he was groping me, playing under my skirt like a pianist in the throes of a climax. Now, he’s shut all the way down, leaving me breathless and wanting more.
The fact that I fell for him, fell for this beast once again, sends a surge of anger through me. “Dutch, what the hell are you doing?”
“Do you not understand English, Brahms?”
“You can’t just kiss me like that and then…”
“And then what?” He whirls around. Cold as ice. All hard lines and dark shadows.
My body quivers.
“You think that meant something?” His eyes slide down my body. “Don’t even dream about it. A guy like me has high standards.” He pauses. “Even when he chooses a whore.”
My nostrils flare. Anger burns to life in my chest.
I stalk right up to Dutch Cross and his beautifully wicked face and I slap him.
Jinx: Make Love Not Music
For all those who were looking forward with eagerness to the unveiling of the culprit behind Prince Charming’s rotten ride, I have good news and bad news.
The good news is that the perpetrator has been found. The bad news is that revenge is the last thing on Prince Charming’s mind when it comes to her. Sadly, we won’t get to see our Crowned Prince flex his dastardly claws and rain hell on his enemies, but here’s a tidy little consolation prize.
A little birdie hiding out in the theatre’s costume section heard quite the soundtrack on stage today. Apparently, the Crown Prince and his Cinderella found a creative way to fight out their differences.
Question: how do you clean body fluids from piano keys? Asking for a friend.
Until the next post, keep your enemies close and your secrets even closer.
– Jinx