Page 72 of Between Never and Forever

“I don’t want anyone controlling me anymore, Dex.”

“I know, heartbreaker. We need you wild and reckless again. But not with me. I don’t think I can endure it again. It’s the one thing I can't do.”

His other hand went to my cheek, and he breathed in and out with me, like he could take my oxygen and I could take his. We’d gone so long without each other, yet I sat there with him between my legs on that stage like he’d never left.

Like I never wanted him to leave again.

Maybe it was what he wanted too. He kissed me then, his full lips pulling mine into his mouth and tasting me slowly and softly. He took his time relearning how I felt. We weren’t rushing at all.

I had the wood floor of the stage under my thighs, but I hung my knees from the edge and swung my legs back and forth. The audience’s seating was lower than the stage at just the right level that Dex could step between my knees easily. And maybe it was him being right there or the fact that I’d been holding metal inside me for over an hour, but I couldn’t stop from whimpering and wrapping my legs around him. His cock grazed against my panties, and I felt his length so solid, so close, and so big against me.

“I want you,” I admitted, pulling away so I could tell him, but he took the opportunity to step back.

He practically yanked himself away from me, out of my reach, while combing a hand through his thick dark hair before he shook his head and sat back down on the front-row chair to look up at me. “Sing me the song you want to sing the most on opening night, first.”

Everything was too sensitive. My body was too tuned in. “I don’t want to sing right now. I want—”

“Is that blush you’re sporting because you're mad I’m denying you, heartbreaker? Or because you don’t think you can sing right now?” He pointedly looked at me.

“Excuse me?”

He didn’t miss a beat as he responded, “Is it in you today? Your pussy holding it like it should be?”

“Honestly.” I knew the blush on my cheeks was deepening because the heat that traveled to my face was enough to burn through my skin. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Show me then.”

Jesus. Was he playing with me? While I was trying to connect with him? Fury made me stand up and scramble back fast. I straightened my dress and stomped to the middle of the stage in the sneakers I’d used to dress down my outfit, my body vibrating with a newfound emotion.

I saw each seat in the theater. There were only a thousand of them, empty but waiting to be filled with a person ready to feel what I felt. Even if Dex wouldn’t. Even if he was only playing games.

When I sang, I needed my audience to connect. I may not have had confidence in much else, but I knew I could do that. I’d grown up with this, felt it from when I was a freaking baby.

I tested the mic by humming a tune, and my voice traveled through the speakers, filling the theater. All I needed was that. All I needed was to be a part of the music. Closing my eyes, I let my heart take over as I let the words flow out. Each note was a memory, an escape back to where the lilacs grew and our love did too.

Did you want me then?

Didn’t you love me too?

I’d have bled for you in a field of flowers

I’d have waited for you in the dark

We weren’t too far from each other

How could we be when you already had my heart

I’d have bled for you in a field of flowers

And I did because you left me

Left my heart broken and torn apart.

I held the last note as I opened my eyes and caught his gaze staring back at me. I couldn’t read what he felt right then. Instead of running through the forest-green of his eyes, they were solid emerald, so cold and distant I wasn’t sure if they were ice.

My voice was my superpower. His superpower was closing me off to his emotions. My heart was bleeding out in front of him as I ended the note, but still my voice echoed around us both, ricocheting off the walls and into our bones.

Music was our journey, leading us down a path of thorns and obstacles to the darkest parts of our emotions. Standing there, letting him see me breathing heavily on that stage, was the most vulnerable I’d felt in years. He had to see the love I held for him in the past, the pain I felt in how we ended, how broken I was when he walked away.