“I wouldn’t miss it,” he said.
The door closed quietly behind him.
She just stood there, scared as hell she’d never look at him full in the face again.
• • •
He didn’t leave. He stayed, like he’d said he would. She sensed him out there during her performance. Or at least she thought she did. Maybe she hoped she did. Unlike last night, she couldn’t make out his solitary, formidable shadow sitting at a front table through the stage lights and crimson veil. But she felt him, somehow, to the left of the room and toward the back.
As the music flowed through her, and her entire body became a conduit for it, her awareness of Asher Gaites only amplified. It was like some invisible cord joined them. As her performance progressed, that thread grew tighter. It surged with some magical, unnamed energy, fueling her voice, expanding her heart . . . pulsing in her sex.
It wasn’t until the final note of her last number resounded and the audience exploded with thunderous applause that she really fully came back to herself. She’d been so lost in the electricity. She blinked in disorientation.
It was like waking up after years of being in a coma and realizing she was fevered with blinding hunger. She walked off the stage rapidly.
“Laila. Laila.”
She turned around. She was in the hallway outside her dressing room. A loud roar was emanating from above them.
“My God, you brought the house down,” Rafe said, his face lit with glee as he approached her. She glanced down at his expectant outstretched arms blankly. Confusion crossed his face. “What’s wrong? Are you still not feeling well? You’d never have guessed it,” he said, his smile returning full force. “You were fantastic. Lance Meyer is ecstatic. He wants to try to get a cover for you. I don’t blame him. I’ve never seen you so on fire. Listen to them up there. They’re going to tear the place down if you don’t get back up there, tout de suite.”
“I’m not doing an encore,” she said, turning and continuing her trip to her dressing room.
“Are you out of your mind?” Rafe shouted from behind her. “Laila, listen to them up there.”
She reached for her dressing room door. “I’m not doing an encore,” she repeated distractedly.
“Laila, you’ve got to—” His sudden sternness penetrated her single-minded focus. She spun around.
“I’m not going back up there. Not tonight,” she told him fiercely.
“But what about Lance Meyer?” Rafe asked incredulously.
“What about him?” Laila muttered before she entered her dressing room and slammed the door.
• • •
Thirty minutes later, she pressed her ear against her dressing room door. Several of the members of her band had come to check on her. Laila usually did several encores, so her behavior tonight was unusual enough to cause concern. She’d assured first her bass player through the door, and then her saxophone player, that she was fine and that she was just feeling a little under the weather.
Rafe had come back, of course. She’d managed to get rid of him by telling him she thought she had a fever and was coming down with something. He seemed mollified, although she half expected him back at her door any minute. He’d said something earlier about driving her home once she’d showered and dressed.
It sounded like the coast was clear. For now, anyway. She slipped out of the dressing room, slung her backpack over her shoulder and hastened down the hallway toward a distant door. Seconds later, she was racing down old cement steps in a dimly lit stairwell. When she reached another door, she jerked the hood on her sweatshirt up. She plunged into the tunnel, her breathing coming fast and erratic. Her pace escalated to a jog. A strange franticness had overcome her.
Up ahead, she spied the chipped white-painted column in the dimly lit tunnel. Even though she was half expecting it, not to mention full-on praying for it, she still halted and gasped when Asher stepped out from behind the column.
“I’m not sleeping with Rafe,” she said between erratic pants. “We just started dating a few weeks ago. It’s not serious—” She cut herself off when he stepped into her and she saw that familiar glint in his eyes.
“I don’t think it would have mattered if you’d told me you planned to marry him tomorrow,” Asher said. “Tonight, you’re mine.” He cupped her face in his hands. Air seemed to roar past her ears.
An intense emotional release rushed her at his hot, possessive kiss. She gripped his shoulders, feeling dizzy with relief. Fevered need.
Absolute joy.
Asher. She couldn’t believe he was in her arms.
“Come to my place,” he said next to her mouth a moment later.
“Yes.”