Page 36 of Blind Devotion (Letters of Ruin #1)

A knock on the door stirred me awake. Now, granted, I only slept consciously in my bedroom eight nights, but I could’ve sworn the sheets didn’t smell like him before or feel like I was floating on silky clouds.

I definitely hadn’t been cocooned this comfortably on my medical bed either.

I stretched my arms and legs out wide. This mattress was at least twice the size, and there wasn’t a mechanical sideboard to adjust the backrest and footrest.

It took me a moment to realize last night hadn’t been a dream.

He’d been here. With me. In bed, touching me, but the sheets were cold where he’d been.

There wasn’t even a dip to prove he’d ever lain there.

All that was left was his cologne and that ache between my thighs demanding more of what he’d given me.

Did he regret it? Is that why he’d gone?

I was so focused on the bed, I didn’t realize someone was in the room until the curtain rings scraped along the rod, and the curtain swished open. I squinted through the blurry burst of light in my left eye.

“Good morning, mademoiselle,” Marie said.

Her soft-soled shoes swept across the room.

“Monsieur De Villier requests your presence downstairs when you are able. He’s also sent these for you.

Flowers, beautiful red roses, and a gift.

I’ll just leave them here on your nightstand.

” Two items clacked against the furniture.

Paper rustled. “Would you like help getting dressed?”

“No, thank you, Marie.”

The moment she left, I felt for the vase and pulled the flowers to my nose. Fresh, floral, soft, and sweet. I sighed in relief. He didn’t regret it.

Setting the flowers back down carefully, I reached for the second item Marie left. It was a length of metal folded in five with a leather loop. The paper beneath it was embossed in braille.

Slowly, I deciphered the letters. With only a few days’ worth of studying the alphabet under my belt, I only got one letter mixed up. In French, it read “mobility cane”. Further down the paper were more braille instructions, but I decided on a shower, getting dressed, and going down for breakfast.

From his walk-in closet, I picked one of his shirts that reached halfway down my thighs and paired it with some sweat shorts that I had to tie to keep them from slipping off.

When the doorknob turned without resistance, a buzzing tension made me fidget with nerves.

Last night, I was wrought with emotion and turmoil.

What would he think of me this morning after everything I’d told him?

I worked my way down the stairs slowly, thankful I’d left my new cane in the room. I needed both hands unoccupied for this and my full attention.

Halfway down, I started distinguishing voices coming from further within the house.

Some female. Some male. Deep. Nasal. Hoarse.

Honeyed. Each male voice sounded like one of the many that used and abused me.

I never remembered their faces. But their voices.

Their words. Their weight on me. Their touch.

It wasn’t them. I knew that. I knew Adrien wouldn’t allow them into his home.

Still, each one echoed over and over, louder than the one next to it, threatening to drag me back there. To that boat. To that room with ambient lighting flaring from yellow to red to blue. Oh god, I was going to be sick.

I sucked in several deep breaths. I was a survivor, not a victim. I was alive and out and never going back. This wasn’t real, I repeated over and over. I was safe. I was—

The most beautiful, lilting piano notes cut through the voices.

Tender and gentle with so much longing and love.

I recognized it: “Salut d’Amour” by Elgar.

The memory came quickly. It was a song I learned to play on both piano and violin, specifically for Adrien.

I made my brother videotape me playing each part of the duet, to then merge and superimpose them into one file to send to Adrien in France for his twentieth birthday.

It had been my way of expressing my love.

I followed the notes down the stairs, through a hall, and into a room with doors wide open. The music never stopped, playing on a loop once the song ended. A skip of a key here, an oversight in tempo there—this wasn’t a recording. I walked in transfixed, holding my breath.

The relief was immediate. It was him playing.

He didn’t make a sound or stop the melody, but I just knew.

He had that sort of presence that just sucked the air out of the room, robbing the essence of everything around him so that only he existed.

Nothing could compete with him, not even the basic molecules of life.

A note pitched too high, before the tune picked right back up.

“Close the door.” I loved that deep firmness to his voice, but this time, there was a brittleness to its normal cool composure. “I hoped you’d come.”

“You play beautifully.”

“Not as well as others.”

I drew closer until my hands rested on the piano lid.

“Why do you play this song?”

“It’s meaningful to me. Do you remember it?”

“I do.” He played a wrong note, the pitch too low. “When did you start playing?”

“When I was a teenager, I knew someone once who loved duets. I started learning for her.”

I scratched along the side of my neck, not sure I wanted to find out if he meant me or someone else.

“What about this song? When did you start playing this one?”

He sighed loudly. “A little over three years ago.”

He was twenty-five and a half now. Why only three years ago when I gifted him that video five and a half years ago?

Eight bars of music went by. I visualized the notes as he played them. My fingers danced in the air along with them, wishing to participate, trapped in the music.

“Is there a violin here?”

He rasped in a heavy inhale.

“There’s a—” He cleared his throat and stopped playing. “A case on the bench three steps to your right.”

I felt for it. The clasps snapped open easily. Inside the velvet lining was a beauty of craftsmanship with a slightly bowed top plate varnished to perfection. My fingers slid over the strings, just to get a taste of the rich sound this instrument offered.

I couldn’t resist pulling it from the case, then placing it on my left shoulder with my chin in place. The instant the bow touched the strings, the song exuded out of me. I was lost to it. The melody, the warmth, the romanticism.

I was thrust back to that day, bouncing up and down in front of Renzo, after a perfect recording of my playing.

Then to the day of Adrien’s twentieth birthday, on a humid spring day when I sent him the video clip.

I couldn’t believe I’d ever been able to forget the delight on his face as he watched it.

He’d never been more handsome to me than that day.

The hard lines of his cheeks curving around rare-sighted dimples.

The crease of his scar around the fold of his smile.

The shine in his normally brooding sapphire eyes.

The way he towered over me, his dress shirt just tight enough to show off his well-defined chest, the heat from his hand wrapped around mine.

Nothing mattered but the song. He picked up where I started, and the harmony drew us onward. I felt every note in my soul, and when the piece ended, when the final notes drew out of us, tears built up within my eye shields.

The bench scratched against the tile. Next thing I knew, the violin was out of my hands. The case closed. The snaps clapped into place. Then his hands were on my face, his forehead on mine.

“It’s you. It’s really you.”

“It’s me.”

I knew exactly what we were saying. He was my Adrien. I was his Persetta. Reunited. Together. He kissed my temple. My nose. My cheeks. My chin.

“I should’ve known,” he said between kisses. Every press flamed my skin hotter.

“Why didn’t you?” From the start. Why hadn’t he recognized me and avoided all the threats to begin with?

“I was a fool.” The way he said that made it seem as if he were talking about more than just the last week.

His lips fell on mine. It was slow and tentative, as if he were giving me a small window to pull back, but I trusted him. I cared for him. There was no hiding I was attracted to the man I’d grown to know, not just the girlhood crush I’d had.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and forced his head closer. Our lips melded together, dancing and weaving. Our tongues clashed and fought for their chance in the spotlight.

His arms pulled me to him as his hands slipped under my shirt, stroking up the bare skin along my spine. I arched into him for more, and there it was. The hard outline of his cock pressed against my belly, demanding attention.

There was this compulsion to touch it, and I did. To make him feel good. Not for me, not because it was the natural progression, but because the rules demanded it. Rules that were beaten into me. Rules that were as murky as the voices that yelled them while slapping my face for not following them.

Adrien pulled my hand off him, then placed both hands on my face. “You’re shivering.”

“I’m sorry.”

“ Mon papillon .” His head pressed to mine. “ Ma tigresse. Ma rescapée. We don’t have to do anything.”

“The doctor cleared me.”

“I know.”

I shook my head. Because, of course, he already knew that, but didn’t know me , not this new me. “Don’t treat me like glass. You haven’t done that this entire week and a half. Don’t start now.”

“You went through a horrible—”

“No.” I silenced him with a finger to his lips. “I’m lucky.” I kissed one of his cheeks. “I survived it all.” I kissed his other cheek. “I erased the worst of it when I needed that most.” Now a kiss to his neck. I loved the way his throat vibrated as he groaned.

“I’m so sorry you lived through that.” I could hear his anguish.

“Then help me replace the bad with good. Make me feel so good that it can’t haunt me. So that it’ll be nothing in comparison to this. To us. Can you do that?”