His Unwilling Muse

Chapter 18: Green-eyed Monster

"Either you tell me or I'll kiss you. Your choice."

I try my best to keep my expression unchanged, but it's too much. My lips twitch into a slow smile and a small giggle escapes me.

"You call that a threat?" I shake my head at Nate.

He still has his hands braced on either side of the chair I'm sitting on, while his face is a hair's breath away from mine. My heart is doing cartwheels inside my body, but my brain is still busy chuckling at his threat to kiss me if I don't tell him what he wants to know.

My giggle, however, is cut short when he diminishes the last breath of distance between us. Despite the surprise, this time I don't hesitate. I move my lips against his and take in his taste. His hands remain firmly plastered to the chair, while I sneak mine up to his face. Just once I want to give into the urge to trace my fingers across his cheeks.

Too quickly for my liking, he pulls away and straightens back up. His eyes are darker than normally, and I can still feel my lips tingling with the feel of his brushing against mine. I want to grab his shirt and pull him back to me, but I fight the urge.

One kiss was bad enough, but a second one would be close to catastrophic. Especially since I have decided to remain with him only until his big performance with the city's orchestra and then part ways with him. In the meantime though, I promised I have only one job.

To once and for all move on from the crush.

"I'm sorry." Nate clears his throat. "That was uncalled-for."

I dig my nails into my thighs to keep myself from doing or saying something I will regret later. At the same time, I tell myself I shouldn't have expected anything else from him. Of course, he regrets the kiss. It was, after all, nothing but a moment's impulse on his side; a moment he would be able to quickly forget.

"Yeah." I force my voice to come out steadier than I feel right now. "Let's just start with the practice."

I feel his eyes on me, but I keep mine on the stack of chairs at the other end of the hall behind him. Anything to avoid saying or doing something stupid, like tell him to kiss me again.

With an exhalation loud enough for me to hear Nate makes his way to the stage where he opens the violin case and pulls the instrument out. After the initial warming strokes, he moves onto a familiar melody.

Monti's Czardas fills my ears and I can't stop the memories from flooding my mind. It is, after all, one of the pieces I learned how to play during my childhood piano lessons.

To keep myself from spending the rest of the practice staring at him, I pull my phone out of the backpack and busy myself with scrolling through my social media. I try to focus on the photos and the inscriptions in front of my face, but all I can think about is Nate's intoxicating smell and how warm I felt when he was so close to me.

An hour later, I can't remember a single photo I saw. But what pulls my eyes away from the phone is the fact that I can't hear the sound of Nate's playing anymore.

"I think that's enough for today." He lays the violin and the bow back inside the case and then makes his way off the stage.

I'm a little caught off guard at how quickly he decided to finish the practice, considering that he usually takes at least two hours. At the same time, I'm happy I'll finally be able to get away from him. Especially since I can still feel the lingering touch of his lips, while he looks completely composed. He probably already forgot about the kiss.

This is why instead of bombarding him with questions, I stuff my phone into my backpack. I stand up and stretch my stiff muscles. All I need to do is hang in there until his much anticipated performance, and then I can once and for all part ways with him.