Read Online The Girl On The Half Shell by Susan Ward - Free Book Online Page B

talk.
    “ That was mediocre. It’s my audition piece for Juilliard, but I’m waffling and I think I should play Kodaly’s Sonata for Solo Cello Opus Eight. Bach seems just a little too predictable. What do you think?”
    OK, that was rotten. This guy probably doesn’t know Bach from Bon Jovi.
    “The Bach. It suits you. The Kodaly I think too dark, too dramatic, too aggressive for you. Stay with the Bach.”
    Jeez, it’s a sexy voice. British and raspy. I don’t recognize the voice. Who is this guy? I struggle to pick out more detail of my companion. He rises, and I can see that he tall, muscled, and graceful of movement. I wish I could see his face.
    “Close your eyes,” says the voice on the intercom.
    “Why?”
    “Just do it.”
    I close my eyes. There is something so imperative about his manner that disobeying doesn’t seem an option. The studio door opens. There is the sound of bare feet against floor. The warm presence of a body moves into me.
    “Don’t open your eyes. I’m not going to hurt you and if you open your eyes this will do you no good.”
    “It won’t?”
    My fingers tighten around the neck of the cello.
    “No.” I feel the displacement of air that follows movement and then the heat of him even closer. “You are a very beautiful girl.”
    “What?” I don’t know what to say to that.
    I start to ease back but he stops me. “You are a very talented girl,” he whispers. “You are going to be remarkable at your audition. And you should most definitely play the Bach. It was flawless.”
    I try to speak. His fingers touch across my lips to silence me. He leans forward and I am paralyzed just feeling his body near me. I haven’t even seen his face and I’m wondering what it would be like to be kissed by him. His voice is a seduction. His words. The way he turns them on his lips.
    He takes a deep breath. On my cheek there is the whispering touch of a fingertip. The skin is rough and hardened. The kind of harshness you get from years of working the metal strings of a guitar. But somehow he knows how to touch with them so they are like a velvet seduction. Like his voice. A little raspy. A little rough. A velvet seduction. His touch moves down my face to trace my lower lip. The play of him leaves me frantic and weak. He puts a light kiss on my forehead and then I feel him moving away.
    NO! That’s wrong. All that just to kiss me on the forehead?
    “Open your eyes. Don’t hit me. It was a kiss for luck.”
    “I wasn’t going to hit you. It was a peck, not a kiss. Downright…”
    Oh my god! He is crouched down in front of me and only inches from me is a face I’ve seen a thousand times from a poster hanging on my wall in my dorm room. He doesn’t look at all like he does in his music videos, and stepping out of the TV definitely improves him. I like him better this way: simple jeans, a loose fitting t-shirt and what is surely one of Jack’s worn long-sleeve flannels. Even if I didn’t own every scrap of music he’s ever recorded, even if I hadn’t seen every video, I would have been blown away just looking at his face.
    Alan Manzone is beautiful. He has lustrous black, unkempt shoulder length hair. I don’t really like long hair on guys, but oh, on this guy it is perfect. It frames his face and softens the features that would have been too strongly carved without it, especially with those dangerously intense black eyes. God, they are true black. I’ve never seen such a thing before, and they’ve got giant iridescent irises flecked with shimmers.
    He doesn’t move. I don’t move. He doesn’t speak. I don’t speak. OK, whatever game this is it is working very well.
    I fight to recover from the shock of finding him, and realize he’s watching me and expecting some kind of reaction. He knows exactly what he is doing to me with his little drama and he’s enjoying it. His smugness reminds me of Neil and that makes my temper flare. Oh no, Mr. Sexy British Rocker, I am not going to