Beauty and the Baritone Read Free Page B

number of distractions but Carolyn couldn’t be distracted by them.
    There was only him.
    It was her damned nature to see things from the world of opera, the vestiges of large emotions and dramatic stories.
    He was a hero worthy of the stage.
    He couldn’t hide his discomfort and she cursed herself for not recognizing it. She should have had him sit or lay down. There were other ways to have done it and not left him standing on his bum leg.
    Damn David and his suggestion that she come here.
    She turned her tablet on and pulled up a page she had looked at numerous times: the Wikipedia page on Mateo Lopez. The picture at the top showed him before the accident; back when he was headlining the best houses. Back when he was the greatest living star in opera.
    He’d never look like that again. So much masculine attractiveness in the lines of his face, the depth of his eyes. The mouth was lush and without the sardonic twist that a windshield had carved into his face. Before his body was a roadmap of scars and puckers that would never fully heal.
    He still had the presence of the greatness in him. He was commanding, despite his body he was strong. She would have walked out but the way his shoulders were always held back, his chest forward was a draw to her.
    If he had been soft, the accident took it from him. He was the same as the carcass of the car he’d been in: twisted and destroyed. But where the car became scrap, the man became a recluse.
    She wanted him.
    It was an impossible situation. He would never take her as she wished to be taken. It would take a miracle.
    Thankfully she still had a few planned.

    *** *** ***
     
    He was going to send her away. There really weren’t other options. She was a reminder of a past he no longer knew, a future he couldn’t have.
    He turned in his bed, his body unable to find comfort. There was no possibility of sleep, less even of rest. He would start his day with exhaustion and pain. He hoped she wouldn’t cry.
    It was just like David to send this woman into his world. David was the devil, damn him, and always untouched by the destruction he wrought. Did he send this red-head knowing that she would create such chaos in his quiet life? Did he plan yet another way to bring the baritone down?
    A noise from the hallway froze him. He knew all the sounds of his house, from Simon’s footsteps to the creak of the roof in a hard rain. He knew when a tree limb brushed a window or when a shingle fell.
    He knew it was her.
    His door opened slowly and she appeared as if a vision. She wore something, he couldn’t see it clearly but it didn’t matter; once the door closed behind her she dropped it from her shoulder and down to the floor.
    Carolyn approached the bed and Mateo lay still, pretending to sleep.
    She was made of shadows and light. Her hair was black in the moonlight, framing a face he could only see glimpses of. The shape of her body, fluid as the dappled darkness, teased him.
    The bed sighed under her weight as she climbed in next to him. He tried to appear sleeping but knew that the quickness in him would be apparent to anyone. His breath was shallower, his heart was drumming, his pulse dancing in his throat.
    His cock stirred below the duvet. He could see the peak of a hard nipple as she bent over, on her hands and knees, doing something next to him that he couldn’t see. Only by letting her know that he was awake could he watch what she did.
    Instead through slit eyes he saw the nipple, the curve of her stomach, the shadow between her legs.
    She moved again so that she was turned onto her back, and she manipulated herself and he opened his eyes wider to see if she was doing what he figured she was. And indeed, she was.
    It might have been the tie from her wrapper or a tie abandoned by an ex-lover that she bound herself to his bed with. She had tied one hand and then looped a knot that she fastened by pulling her other hand through. She was naked and bound on his bed, her offer so