Page 70 of Not Another Love Song

She felt Xander go completely still next to her.

The older man wished them luck, and before they’d finished their goodbyes, she was leading them past a beaming Mei to the coat check, where the musicians were invited to check their instruments instead of returning to the Carnegie lockers after the party. Squeaky in hand, she dragged him to the curb to flag a cab.

She slid onto the seat, and it seemed he was still trying to figure out if he was joining her in the cab when she gave the driver the cross streets of his apartment building. He folded himself into the car stiffly, and they didn’t look at each other once during the drive.

They stood next to each other on the elevator up. Same positions as the last time they’d shared this elevator. And Gwen for some ungodly reason thought about Ronnie Schultz and Kevin Peters, her only other sexual partners. Neither of them had texted her later. How quick and unpleasant it had been.

But she knew this was going to be far from unpleasant. Xander already knew how to touch her. She shivered as she remembered that the only orgasm she’d ever had with another person had been on the eighth floor of this apartment building. The elevator dinged.

He held the door open for her, like last time, only now she knew which way to go. The keys turned in the lock, and he stepped aside to let her go in first. She went straight into the kitchen area and waited for him to lock up behind them. The Stradivarius case rested in the entryway.

She couldn’t meet his gaze. He stood across the kitchen island from her, and she looked compulsively at all of his appliances.

“Let’s go to your studio,” she said. She turned on her heel and moved confidently into the only room she’d become familiar with in this apartment.

She carried Squeaky with her and held him close as Xander brought his Stradivarius over to its home in the corner. She examined the instruments on the wall, like she’d never seen them before. Her fingers drifted over Ruby.

She turned to him. “You kept the recording.”

He stared at her from next to the window. He nodded.

“Why?”

A blush rose on his jaw, and he looked away from her and said, “It was…stunning. It was artistry. I didn’t want to lose it.”

She didn’t understand how that was true. She’d been… distracted.

“Let’s hear it.”

He blinked at her. Something darkened in his eyes before he moved to his computer screens. He shook the mouse, and the screen popped up with the violin music for Fugue No. 1. He clicked his way through his music program and said, “I cut it down. So, there’s a version with only the last take.”

She pressed her lips together, and she could maybe see the tops of his ears burning red. He shrugged off his tuxedo jacket, laying it across the back of his desk chair. He clicked play, and Gwen held her violin case in front of her like a shield.

The rumble of the electric cello started up the arpeggios. Gwen had forgotten how different Ruby’s tones were from his Stradivarius.

She stared at the floor, trying to listen for what it was he thought was so fascinating, and trying not to recall where his hands had been at this point. She sailed into the smooth section, breathing into the rhythms and slowing the tempo.

It sounded all right. Nothing truly remarkable. She still thought the more impressive thing was the composition.

The recording reached the fingerpicking section, and she swallowed, knowing for certain that this was the moment his hand had slipped into her leggings. She chanced a glance at him and found him staring at her, eyes dark.

She bit her lip and looked away.

There was something hauntingly beautiful about it, she would concede. Her intonation was better than she’d thought, and there was a type of movement—something that couldn’t always be accomplished while playing with other people. She made choices about vibrato and rallentandos that affected the mood of the piece.

The quick build to the end. And the tonic.

Gwen looked to him. He sat in his desk chair, leaning forward on his knees with his eyes closed. Listening. Feeling. And then:

“Will you really record with me?” His eyes opened, looking to her. “In a real studio? The arrangement we played tonight?”

He looked at her like his entire being hinged on her answer. And even though they were in his apartment, even though he had always been the one to pursue her, even though he already knew she was here to…bang it out, Gwen knew she held all the cards here.

And there was one thing that she desperately wanted. More than him.

“Yes,” she said. “On one condition.”

He looked at her, bracing for something treacherous.

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