Backstage Pass by PJ Adams

Author:PJ Adams [Adams, PJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: James Grieve Press
Published: 2014-11-05T05:00:00+00:00

8

Nothing was going to happen. He was walking her to the Underground, that was all. Technically, going via the park was a bit of a detour but it was such a beautiful evening she could justify that. Technically.

“See?” he said, as they passed along an avenue of slender trees, their leaves dappling the evening sunlight into a dancing, ever-changing mosaic on the ground.

She just looked at him, waited for him to go on.

“I’ve been good. I said I would. We talked. I’ve had a lovely time. It’s been cool. I’ve been good.”

“You’ve been good.”

“I didn’t even say how beautiful you look this evening.”

“You didn’t.”

“See? I can do this thing. I can behave.”

And all the time, that playful smile tugging at his features.

When had Emily last felt so chilled? So flattered by an attractive man’s attention? When had she last laughed as much as she had in the last hour?

“I finished that song.”

He didn’t need to say any more. The song he’d written for Emily when he left the stage last night. ‘Let’s Make This Thing Happen.’

“When?”

“Just now,” he said. “In between leaving Caffè and now. In my head.”

She looked at him, eyebrows raised. “Really?”

He nodded, then tapped the side of his head. “It’s all in here.”

“I’m impressed.”

“You want to hear?”

She nodded, expecting him to launch straight in, a cappella. Instead, he raised a hand to indicate a row of houses backing onto the park. “My place,” he said, and then she wondered just how much of this had been a carefully-spun web of seduction.

“Hold on a minute,” she said. “I–”

“You’re married, I know,” he said, laughing. “It’s fine. I just want to play you a song and that’s the nearest guitar. We’re cool. I’ll be good. You want to hear it?”

§

There was a door set into the high wall that separated his small back yard from the park. How many private houses have direct access to parks in the city?

He let her through, and then leaned back on the door to close it.

The Yale lock on the door clicked shut, and suddenly Emily knew.

How far back had this become inevitable? When she’d agreed for him to walk her to the station? When she’d sat for longer than a mere apology? Even agreeing to meet him?

Earlier than that? Had this been inevitable from the moment Marcia called to say There’s this guy...?

Inevitable that, now, he would step away from the door and Emily would feel as if her feet had grown roots so that she couldn’t back away when he came to stand before her, head inclined a little to gaze down into her eyes.

He raised a hand, and one knuckle came to rest under her chin, slight pressure tilting her head up to meet his kiss.

It was no more than a brushing of lips across hers. The fleetingness making it so much more intense a thing.

His hand moved up, a thumb trailing along her jaw until he cupped the side of her head, fingers deep in her hair.

His lips pressed again, more firmly this time, more lingering.

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