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“It’s like music starts playing, and only I can hear it.”

Her eyes darkened.

She looked at me like she was reading every line I hadn’t written yet.

“You’re serious,” she murmured.

I nodded.

“Dead.”

She traced her finger around the rim of her glass, slow.

“You know… I don’t usually feel seen this early.”

“You ever beenstudiedthough?” I asked.

That made her smile. The kind that curled at one side and sent a ripple through my bloodstream.

“Is that what you’re doing?”

“I’m trying not to. But you make it hard.”

She leaned in too now, and the space between us thinned. Her thigh brushed mine under the table. Her gaze flicked to my mouth for a second before meeting my eyes again.

“Keep talking like that,” she said, “and I’m gonna start thinking this isn’t just about music.”

I let my smile show then. All of it.

“Maybe it never was.”

It wasn’t just about the muse or marketing. She was something I was already writing into the marrow of my next verse.

Sienna

We pulled up to the hotel just before midnight.

The street had quieted, but the city’s hum never truly stopped—it just slid underground. Like craving. Like curiosity. Like everything I hadn’t dared to name.

The car door opened, and cool air kissed my legs. My heels clicked against the wet concrete, the sound sharp, feminine, and assured.

Taraj moved beside me. Still not touching. Still too close.

The doorman nodded, but I barely registered it. All I could feel washim.His steps beside mine.

His energy trailing like heat down my back.

His voice from earlier curling in my ear…You ever been studied though?

Inside, the elevator was all mirrors and low, golden light. The doors closed behind us, and silence folded around our bodies like silk.

He stood behind me—close enough that I felt the warmth of him radiating between us. His breath ghosted the back of my neck. My pulse jumped.

The air changed. I felt his gaze climbing the back of my thighs, reading the tension in my spine, imagining things I couldn’t let myself say out loud.

When the elevator chimed, I stepped forward. Slowly. Not because I was uncertain. But because I didn’t want to lose the way his presence followed me.

His suite was just two doors down. Every step carried the weight of what hadn’t happened yet.