Page 60 of His Greatest Muse

I furiously tug at the button on my jeans and jam down the zipper before shoving my hand past the band of my underwear. The tip of my finger slips over the hot, smooth skin of my pussy, finding it just as wet as I expected. Without breaking eye contact, I dip it lower and tease my opening before making a slow, long circle around my clit. I swallow back the pleasure that sparks from the soft touch, and Noah’s lip curls with distaste before he’s wrapping his fingers around my wrist and yanking my hand from my pants.

“I told you to show me, not get yourself off,” he chastises.

My eyelids droop as I watch him lift my middle and pointer fingers to his mouth and, with a deep, rough groan, push them between his lips. He sucks on them for one, two, three seconds, taking his time as his tongue strokes each finger. Fuck, if this is any hint at what he might do between my legs . . . I’m going to pass out.

“Noah, plea—” The words die on my tongue when a thunderous knocking noise sounds on the front door.

A bone-chilling rage slips over Noah. A possessive hand curls around my waist as he frees my fingers and presses them to my belly. With a blank expression, he buttons up my jeans. I wait for him to speak, to tell me that it was just the wind, but there’s not much more than a light breeze outside, and we both know it.

“What was that?” I whisper.

“Don’t know. I’ll be right back.”

A surprising rush of genuine fear ripples up my spine, cold and harsh. I curl my fingers in his T-shirt, tugging when he goes to leave. “Alone?”

He covers my hand with his and uncurls my fingers one by one. “Yes.”

“I’m the fighter. Let me come so you don’t get your ass beat.”

He scoffs loudly, not giving a shit about the potential creeper hanging around outside hearing him. “Not a fucking chance. You’re insulting my trainer if you don’t think I can protect myself.”

“I’m your trainer.”

“I know,” he deadpans.

Sighing, I pat his chest and say, “Fine. I’ll be listening for any sign of distress.”

I expect him to leave right away, but he lingers, rolling his jaw. Prepared to ask if he’s okay, I part my lips only to have him kiss me, sending my concern evaporating into thin air. My eyes flutter shut as I melt into him, moving my lips over his in a rhythm that comes as naturally as breathing. He pulls away too soon and, with a brief glance, leaves me in the bedroom alone. Arousal is still hot in my blood, but it’s beginning to cool, allowing me a moment to get a hold of myself.

I listen to his boots clunk on the floorboards before the door creaks, letting me know he’s opened it. I’m not sure why I’m so nervous all of a sudden, considering that I just ran through a dark alleyway and into an old, abandoned house by myself, but maybe this is different. I knew Noah wouldn’t have sent me into danger when he told me to run from him.

The door slams shut a beat later, and I grow stiff against the wall, straining my ears to pick up on any sign of him before those heavy boots begin to move across the floor again. I deflate like a balloon, my limbs loose again when I see him enter the room.

There’s something different about him as he comes into view this time, and it’s not just the bulging vein in his forehead or the promise of murder in his eyes. It’s the crumpled stack of papers in one of his fisted hands and the recognizable red drawing on the front of the CD in the other.

I’d have to be blind to not recognize that drawing. It’s mine. I drew it for Noah seven years ago in this very house.

24

NOAH

Someone wasin this house before us.

The stack of notepaper and the old CD that were left on the porch could have only come from one place—the upstairs bedroom. The last time I saw them, they were beneath the window Tinsley and I sat beside nearly every night she was in town. Song lyrics I can recite from memory are scrawled over both sides of the papers in my right hand, and the old CD with the rough sketch of the same album art that I demanded be on my most recent one is in my left.

Seven years is a long time. But not long enough to make me forget when Tinsley brought a blank CD to this house, sat beside me on the hard floor, and told me that I was going to be someone someday. That I was going to sell enough records to tour the world. Then, she drew a pathetic excuse of a Devil on the white slip in the front of the CD and titled itThe Devil Inside.

She didn’t know at the time that I was going to take both the name and drawing and make something real out of them. For her.

Nobody knew about the songs, the album, or the house. We made sure of that. Whoever wandered in here earlier and took our things to toy with us was either stupid or brave. Neither will fare well for them if I ever find out who it was. There was no sign of them outside, so they dumped the shit and ran. At least they had the smarts not to linger, their sick joke completed.

Tinsley looks uncomfortable, freaked out. Seeing her like that makes me want to punch something. Preferably the person who made her feel this way.

My want for her is still raging. The sudden surge of protectiveness I felt at the knock on the door has toned it down, but only slightly. Wanting her is a constant ache that I’ve learned to accept as normal.

“Where did those come from?” she asks, wide eyes darting back and forth between my hands.

“Outside.”

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