Page 51 of Hard Rock Tease

He jerked his head up, staring at me as if he'd forgotten I was there.

"I don't know why you need my help if that's the kind of thing you're capable of composing on your own," I continued.

"It's okay, I guess." He shifted, looking uncomfortable.

"It was moving," I told him. "Soulful." I was beginning to think he should throw out everything we'd been working on and go with this one. "You made me feel something with that song. Something powerful and something heartbreaking at the same time."

His mouth trembled, expression open, with a hint of vulnerability. Then his face shuttered close.

"You getting emotional on me?"

"Isn't that what you want? Isn't that the whole point? To evoke emotions in your audience?"

His eyes burrowed into mine, as if he were digging deep into my soul and uncovering every single one of my secrets. If he only knew how many times I'd listened to his lyrics and imagined getting to know the man who wrote them. How many times I imagined spilling my own soul to him. I'd always thought someone who wrote such tortured, passionate lyrics could be someone who understood me.

I'd thought Noah Hart was the one person in the world who could understand what I'd gone through.

The scorching hot look in his eyes was causing me to throw all my reservations out the door. I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell him how much he meant to me.

"I've heard it all," he said abruptly.

"What?" I blinked.

"I changed your life. No one else understands your pain like me. That's what you think, right?"

"I—"

"I'm not your savior," he interrupted. "I'm not your god. I write songs. That's it. I don't understand your pain anymore than you understand m—" he cut himself off, looking away with clenched fists.

"How do you know?" I whispered.

He whipped his head up. "What?"

I swallowed hard and continued. "How do you know I can't understand your pain?"

He smirked, but his eyes were hollow. "You want to save me? You want to be the girl who saves me from myself?"

Yes. I did. I wanted to be that girl.

"You can't," he said flatly. "So don't even try."

"I wasn't planning on it," I bit out. "But you clearly need to talk to someone."

"There she goes again, thinking she knows everything."

"I don't know everything, but I do know some things. Carrying around all that unresolved guilt isn't doing you any good. Just because something happened to your sister—"

"Don't you talk about my sister. You have no idea."

"Why are you being like this? Last night you were so—"

"Drunk?" he shot back. "People say things they don't mean all the time when they're dunk."

"So you didn't mean anything you said last night?"

"No."

"What about when you said you trusted me?"